Hypnosis as a method of treating mental illnesses

Hypnotherapy is a method of treating addicted people. It is suitable for patients with mental disorders and people with low self-esteem. A psychologist-hypnologist is a doctor who helps to cope not only with a psychological problem, but also to get rid of its root cause.

A hypnologist-psychologist is a doctor who helps to cope with a psychological problem and its root cause.

Causes

1. Genetic predisposition. These are innate fears. Human DNA contains genes that are responsible for any phobia. There are people who do not have a fear of heights, while others inherited it from their parents. This makes life very difficult, because your work may involve constant flying, and you are terrified of flying.
2. Another group of phobias are acquired fears. They arose as a result of some negative events in life: illness or death of loved ones, divorce of parents, loss of work or housing - all this causes severe nervous stress, which leads to the appearance of phobias. Very often, the cause of phobias can be childhood trauma that occurred at an early age. In this case, the hypnologist returns the patient to the past, looking for the cause of the phobia.

Do phobias need to be treated?

Regular uncontrollable paralyzing fears are a clear sign of the development of an anxiety-phobic disorder. It occurs against the background of disturbances in the exchange of hormones and neurotransmitters. This leads to constant stress and the emergence of functional problems in the work of various organs. A collision with the object of a phobia leads to an exacerbation of existing disorders. But even in a calm state, sick people experience constant anxiety, which causes problems with sleep, appetite, communication, and basic cognitive functions.

Regular attacks of horror with vivid vegetative manifestations often lead to the emergence of secondary phobias. Progressive symptoms of the disease force a person to avoid any situations that he regards as potentially traumatic. And the development of cardio- or cancerophobia (fear of getting cancer or cardiovascular disease) forces a person to constantly visit various specialists and undergo diagnostic examinations. This state of affairs can provoke a depressive disorder, which will be accompanied by a number of psychosomatic diseases.

Hypnosis for the treatment of childhood enuresis

With enuresis in children, involuntary urination occurs at night when the child is fast asleep. Symptoms of enuresis often appear against the background of neurosis. It is necessary to solve the problem in a state of sleep, using hypnotic techniques. The hypnologist's job is to change perception and understanding.

Before starting treatment for a mental illness, the doctor explains to the child how his genitourinary system works. The next stage is checking the information. The doctor must make sure that the baby was able to understand everything. During communication, the hypnologist adopts the manner and characteristics of a child’s conversation.

Therapy is carried out in the presence of parents. The hypnologist tells you what manipulations he will do so that the child does not resist treatment. Individual conversation helps to maximize the effectiveness of hypnosis. Children under 8 years old are told that they will have a healing sleep that will cure all diseases.

Features of the procedure

To cure enuresis in a child, the hypnologist instills in the patient the idea that during the urge to urinate, he needs to wake up. 2 hours before the start of the session, you need to drink a glass of water to stimulate the urge. The doctor must monitor the patient's sensations. A sequence of stages of hypnotic treatment can be distinguished:

• falling into deep sleep;
• transition from hypnotic sleep to natural sleep;
• instilling a new thought that when the urge arises, you need to wake up and go to the toilet on your own.

Thanks to this sequence, you can achieve sustainable results. The child will form the correct reaction to quickly awakening if the urge arises.

The most common phobias

The development of cancer and cardiophobia forces the patient to constantly undergo examinations and examinations by a doctor. Such disorders can provoke the appearance of depression, accompanied by various psychosomatic pathologies.

Some of the most common phobias with which patients come to me include:

• Fear of driving a car;
• Panic at the sight of dogs, cats, snakes, bees;
• Fear of making an irreparable mistake;
• Fear of dentists;
• Fear of flying on an airplane;
• Fear of vomiting, heights;
• Panic before upcoming public appearances;
• Fear of cramped spaces, elevators;
• Panic while traveling on public transport.

Patients may realize that their fears have no basis, but they cannot cope with them on their own. You can sometimes calmly talk about them, but it is difficult for you to control your emotions.

How does hypnosis treatment work?

A typical hypnosis treatment session takes place with the patient sitting comfortably, feet on the floor and hands on knees. Of course, the patient may lie down if this option is available and if it meets the patient's expectations from hypnosis. The therapist may even prepare the patient to make a choice by asking questions such as, “Would you rather undergo hypnosis in this chair or on the sofa?” Once the patient makes a choice, they are essentially agreeing to be hypnotized. Depending on the approach used by the therapist, the events that follow may vary, but usually involve some form of relaxation for the patient. Suggestions will lead the patient to an increasingly relaxed state.

The therapist can confirm the depth of trance by performing certain tests on the patient. For example, the therapist may make a suggestion so that when the eyes are closed, it will be impossible to open them. The therapist then tests this by having patients try to open their eyes. After successfully completing the test showing the patient's inability to open the eyes, the therapist can then relax them further using deepening techniques.

Deepening techniques may vary for each patient and depend largely on whether the patient's preferred channel is auditory, visual, or kinesthetic. If the patient is more influenced by auditory information, the therapist will use words such as “You can hear the light patter of rain on the roof”; or “The sound of the ocean waves makes you feel more and more relaxed.” For a visual person, the therapist may use expressions such as: “You see a beautiful, calm lake with the trees bending slightly in the wind.” Finally, with a kinesthetic person, you can use phrases such as “You feel the warm sun and gentle breeze on your skin.”

It is important for the hypnotherapist to know whether the patient has, for example, a fear of water or heights, because these are sometimes used to deepen the patient's trance. However, if the patient has a fear of heights or becomes anxious at the thought of going down or going deeper and deeper, suggestions that imply an undesirable or dangerous event for the patient will not be accepted and may derail the session.

Anxiety-phobic disorder: symptoms

In phobic anxiety personality disorder, the symptoms are usually the following:

• uncontrollable fear that occurs in a specific situation or when interacting with a specific object;
• irrationality of fear (in fact, the cause of fear is not dangerous);
• avoiding a situation or object that causes panic attacks;
• fear of anticipation (with this neurosis, a phobia may begin at the thought of an upcoming situation);
• vegetative reaction - symptoms that occur during phobic neurosis (palpitations, dizziness, nausea, sweating, weakness), characteristic of any attack of fear and provided by the hormonal reaction of the body.

The reasons that caused the development of phobic neurosis can be primarily organic (increased work of the body's sympathoadrenal system and deterioration in the functions of its antagonists) or psychological (an unpleasant situation in the past, especially in childhood). One way or another, with phobic neurosis there is always a so-called constitutional background - a special type of personality (after all, not everyone has unpleasant situations from childhood that cause a subsequent phobia). There is also a certain hereditary predisposition to the development of anxiety disorders.

Psychological factors in the appearance of phobias

Psychological factors for the appearance of phobic anxiety include:

• negative thinking (fixation on the negative manifestations of life and the shortcomings of one’s own personality);
• low self-esteem, rejection of oneself as a unique individual (inferiority complex);
• tendency to see the past, present and future in “black” color;
• “unhealthy” family environment, where excessive criticism prevails and conflicts are frequent;
• the prevalence of stressful events in your personal life: divorce, long-term illness, death of a loved one, alcoholism of a partner (reactive depression);
• social isolation, lack of sources of emotional support, trusting contacts (social phobia);
• childhood psychological trauma; improper upbringing, lack of attention and love from parents (teenage depression);
• some personality traits that have reached accentuation. Among them: anxiety, suspiciousness, caution, increased demands on oneself, excessive responsibility, a tendency to introspection, pedantry.

Hypnotherapy Basics

Hypnosis is also called the “psychologist’s scalpel”; it is a tool that is capable of opening the depths of the human consciousness.

It makes it possible to open access to the unconscious, its depths and resources. Thanks to it, it is possible to unlock your health potential, change your emotional regime and behavioral motivation.

What is hypnotherapy? With its help, consciousness and many of its spheres are corrected, and resources are activated. This allows you to cope with stress and illness, reveal and activate mental capabilities. During hypnosis, a person is simultaneously in a relaxed position and in the process of concentration. This is not a dream, but a state close to it. At the same time, contact with the hypnotherapist is maintained.

How does hypnosis work?

Treatment of phobias using hypnosis is a highly effective and quite promising method of correcting neuropsychiatric disorders, approved by official medicine. It involves introducing the patient into a trance state and therapeutic suggestion. At the moment of trance, a person is able to perceive it as useful and encouraging action. The therapeutic effect of hypnosis is based on this feature of the human psyche.

The sequence of stages that a hypnotherapist uses to treat phobias and fears with hypnosis:

• impact on the subconscious with an object of fear;
• a detailed review by the person himself of his own feelings;
• learning to respond to stress with relaxation rather than tension.

As a result of treating fears and phobias with hypnosis:

• old negative behavior patterns easily give way to positive views;
• self-confidence returns;
• the ability to control oneself even in critical situations;
• pathological fear goes away.

After hypnosis sessions, a person’s dependence on unwanted, negatively colored thoughts, feelings and images decreases. Gradually, the ability to calmly and willingly face situations that previously caused attacks of panic or anxiety appears.

The work of a hypnologist

A hypnologist is a doctor who puts a patient into a trance and instills the necessary attitudes. Each session is carefully prepared. It is important that the patient is committed to working together. How does a hypnologist conduct treatment:

• During the initial consultation, the main problem is determined;
• there are additional problems (phobias, fears, complexes that arose on the basis of the primary one);
• the treatment is determined - the number of hypnotherapy sessions, the type of influence methods; the correct image for suggestion is found: words, phrases, events that should influence the patient’s behavior; the patient is put into a trance;
• After leaving the trance, the psychologist conducts additional conversations with the patient so that the received attitudes are correctly assimilated.

The psychologist should conduct additional conversations with the patient after leaving the trance

The hypnologist does not influence the instincts or character of the individual. If incorrect attitudes were established in early childhood, changes will affect habits and outlook on life, but they are necessary to correct the patient’s behavior.

The hypnologist guides the patient throughout the treatment. For diagnosis, simple suggestion techniques are used, and during the rehabilitation period, the patient can be prescribed home exercises - self-hypnosis and self-hypnosis.

Benefits of Hypnosis Therapy

Today there are over 500–600 types of this mental disorder. Can be classified into six categories:

• fears and fears of specific cases;
• fear of animals or various insects;
• fear of objects;
• states and actions;
• fear of physical health problems;
• natural influences.

Often, disturbing mental deviations are caused by low levels of self-esteem, negative thinking, constant conflicts in the family, a predisposition to a negative assessment of what is happening, stress, isolation from society, and psychological trauma received in childhood.

Why hypnosis?

Hypnotherapy is invaluable when accessing emotional memory is required. In addition, the field of hypnotherapy is scientifically based, unlike many other areas (for example, psychoanalysis or fashionable NLP). Most often we are talking about childhood or youth psychotrauma, which influenced the formation of behavioral stereotypes of an adult. In order for the patient to permanently get rid of the discomfort that false behavior patterns entail, the hypnotherapist must eliminate the source itself—psychotrauma. To do this, the patient must be ready to cooperate in a state of altered consciousness with the hypnotherapist. He preliminarily assimilates goals and objectives in order to act according to plan during the session. If the interaction between the hypnotherapist and the patient is satisfactory, success is guaranteed in several sessions; if it is excellent, success is guaranteed in one session.

Neuro-linguistic programming

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is the name given to a number of models and techniques used to enhance the hypnotherapist's effectiveness in hypnosis treatment.

NLP consists of models with a number of techniques based on these models. One model is based on the premise that a person's mental processes change his physiological state. People experience such physiological changes, for example, when they are afraid. The body receives a large dose of adrenaline, the heart beats faster, panic may be expressed by screaming, and the frightened person may sweat. Being attuned to changes in another person enhances communication with the person in ways that go beyond mere verbal communication and therefore makes the therapist more effective.

The second NLP model deals with representational systems. The idea behind this model is that different people perceive information better in different sensory systems. In other words, a person's language reveals that person's most preferred method. There are three main ways of presentation. These are auditory, visual and kinesthetic. The same information will be expressed differently by everyone. For example, a listener might say, “That sounds good”; a visual person may say, “I see it the same way”; and a kinesthetic person would say: “This is convenient for me too.”

Modern concept of hypnotherapy

Hypnosis treatment of mental illness is a modern, highly effective way of influencing the mental aspects of a person at the subconscious level. This is exactly the only and unique opportunity of its kind to abandon pharmacological effects in favor of more progressive, safe and high-precision techniques.

The modern concept of hypnology in a classical medical format is based on the fact that:

• The hypnotherapist sends an installation or command to the person’s consciousness;
• The brain reacts to figurative information. It could be a thought, an emotional change, a sequence of actions;
• While the patient's attention is distracted, the hypnologist performs the necessary manipulations at a deep subconscious level, correcting the necessary aspects of the personality.

Hypnosis treatment of mental disorders allows you to work with extremely subtle and delicate matters.

What is hypnosis

It is much easier to describe what hypnosis is not than to describe what it is. For example, no one person can control the mind of another. The patient is not unconscious and does not lose control of himself. People will not do things under hypnosis that they would not want to do without hypnosis. A hypnotized person is always under his own control. The hypnotized person decides how deep the trance will be, what suggestions will be accepted and when to leave this state. A hypnotized person cannot remain in this state forever if the therapist dies suddenly while inducing hypnosis or while the patient is in a very deep trance.

Hypnosis is primarily a voluntary journey away from the reality of the current moment. Although the trance state is often referred to as if the patient is asleep, this is far from being the case. The patient is constantly awake. The hypnotic subject is simply in a heightened, more receptive state of mind. This fact is confirmed by an induction called the open eyes technique, where the patient keeps his eyes open during hypnosis treatment. Full and deep trance is still achievable.

Trance is common. People fall into it many times without even realizing it happened. Examples of this include: the morning commute when you are not paying attention to familiar landmarks; dreams when you are sitting in a school classroom; or that state of calm that is achieved just before sleep. The difference between these altered states and those used clinically in hypnosis treatment is that a professionally trained person assists the patient in achieving trance, which can be done in a variety of ways.

Other treatments

Additional methods used in the treatment of phobias include:

• extreme training method,
• art therapy,
• sand therapy,
• teaching patients the basics of meditation and self-hypnosis,
• lifestyle change,
• physical activity,
• special diet.

There are other approaches that are widely used by different specialists and developed specifically for different age groups.

Cognitive behavioral psychotherapy

Such psychotherapy is aimed at identifying and eliminating destructive thoughts and harmful attitudes. The therapist teaches the client techniques for managing their emotional states and ways to gain control over their thought processes. The effectiveness of cognitive behavioral psychotherapy has been proven by numerous studies. However, a CBT therapist works purely through logic. While the cause of a phobia is always outside of consciousness, which makes it inaccessible to logical comprehension.

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Hypnosis treatment in Moscow. Center for psychological assistance.

The term “hypnosis” itself was introduced in the mid-19th century. English physician James Braydon, thanks to whom the scientific concept of hypnosis began to flourish. This issue was dealt with by such foreign scientists as A. Bonn, A. Forel, A. Liebeau, J. Charcot, I. Bernheim. Domestic scientists who contributed to the development of hypnosis are V. M. Bekhterev, I. P. Pavlov, V. Ya. Danilevsky, V. E. Rozhnov, A. L. Groysman, K. I. Platonov.

What is hypnosis from the point of view of human physiology?

Hypnosis in hypnotherapy is a state of the cerebral cortex in which diffuse inhibition of nerve cells of the brain covers most of the cerebral hemispheres, dissociation appears, against the general background of which a stable focus of excitation of nerve cells of the brain is created, subordinating all areas of the cerebral cortex and focused on the timbre of the hypnologist's voice.

What is hypnotherapy in psychology?

Hypnotherapy is a method of psychological assistance to a person that is characterized by a special, inspired psychological state of the patient, in which it becomes possible to establish a stable connection between the hypnologist and those areas of the patient’s unconscious in which they are formed, replenished, consolidated, stored, and also destroyed, changed, our ideas, associations, patterns of behavior, habits, motives formed as a result of reinforcement with positive or negative emotions, as well as due to the psychosomatic state of the body, are adapted, forgotten.

Currently, hypnosis treatment in Moscow is widespread. People turn to hypnologists for a variety of reasons. The most common situations for the use of hypnosis are various phobias, fears, panic attacks, depression, digestive, sexual disorders, weight correction, alcoholism, as well as gaming, computer, drug and nicotine addictions . The successful use of hypnosis in the treatment of such a wide range of diseases is due to the fact that the point of application of hypnosis is the cerebral hemispheres of the human brain, which control all organs and systems of our body.

Professional influence using proprietary methods is one of the most effective services at present.

We have developed our own methods - “There is no more fear” to overcome obsessive illogical fear, “There is no more depression” to overcome an obsessive state, as well as other author’s methods - “Stop drinking”, “How to quit smoking”, etc. in just one to three sessions. The author’s methodology “No to Drugs!” has been developed, which helps to return to a normal, fulfilling life. An original restorative and therapeutic course of hypnotherapy - relaxation - has also been developed.

Is hypnosis harmful?

According to experts, to date no such cases have been identified. Research at different times was carried out by such prominent and authoritative scientists as: V.M. Bekhterev, I.P. Pavlov, S.S. Liebig (1974), A.I. Zakharov (1982), A.A. Tokarsky (1989), M.S. Lebedinsky, A.T. Pshonik (1952), L.L. Vasiliev, I.P. Bryazgunov (1970) L. Chertok (1972), V.I. Sukhorukova (1977), P.K. Anokhin, S.L. Rubinstein, V.Ya. Danilevsky, A.M. Svyadosch (1982), K.I. Platonov, A.P. Slobodyanik, V.E. Rozhnov, A.A. Ukhtomsky, I.M. Sechenov, etc. Scientists have proven that the human psyche self-regulates during a therapeutic trance, mobilizes its internal reserves, activates the body’s defenses (compensatory), and therefore there is no danger to the mental and physiological health of the patient. … Read more