Real Hypnosis | Interesting articles on the benefits of hypnosis 01

MYTHS:

Hypnotic subjects relinquish control. (Hypnotists say no hypnotist can control a subject's free will.)
Hypnosis renders a person unconscious. (People remain conscious and aware during hypnosis. "It's an active mental state. It's not like sleeping," says Marc Oster of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis.)
Hypnotists use a swinging watch to "mesmerize" their subjects. (Not anymore. They usually direct a subject to close the eyes, breathe deeply and visualize certain relaxing scenarios.)

Every January she resolved to do better, but somehow the weight followed her around and jumped right back on.

This New Year's Day, Nelson made no such resolution. She doesn't have to promise to become a new person because, she says, it's already happened.

Nelson credits hypnosis, a technique that is fast capturing a share of the $40 billion weight loss industry. Long accepted as a way to quit cigarettes, hypnosis also is being used for weight control, pain management, postoperative recovery, test anxiety and athletic performance.

Nelson, a marketing development officer with Fleet Capital, tried Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers and other programs, but her results never lasted.

Last May, the 54-year-old Brookhaven resident began visiting the Positive Changes center in Sandy Springs, which uses hypnosis, nutrition classes and exercise consultants to help their clients, most of whom are looking to trim down. Customers are lulled into trance with pulsing lights and sounds and listen daily to compact discs to reinforce the lessons given during class.

Nelson has lost 25 pounds since May but is confident that the rest will come off eventually. "It's just a matter of time," she says. "It will just happen."

Her assurance contrasts sharply with the feeble hopefulness that characterizes the month of January -- a season of questionable promises.

It's a peak time for health club membership sales and subscriptions to weight loss programs. And, lately, for trips to the hypnotist.

Patrick Porter, co-owner of Positive Changes, which has 74 centers around North America, says his company does 70 percent of its business between January and June.

"Starting in the third week of January, people realize they can't do it on their own," he says.

Marc Oster, president of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis, has noticed the same pattern. This time of year, "business explodes."

Hypnosis itself is also entering a boom period, says Oster, whose organization represents 2,500 health professionals. Some nurses now put patients in a light trance to help them remain calm during claustrophobia-inducing MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging, exams, reducing the error rate to near zero. Physical therapists can even use posthypnotic suggestion to improve compliance when they, for example, teach a client how to avoid aggravating a back injury.

Not so long ago, hypnotism survived only as a trick for performers in nightclubs. For many Americans, it retains the bogus scent of the stage "mentalist."

Nance Joiner, a Douglasville mortgage broker who used hypnosis to help moderate the pain and anxiety of a hysterectomy, was at first skeptical. The reputation of hypnotists, she had heard, was they put you under and made you "squawk like a chicken."

Instead, hypnotism helped her stay calm, use less pain medication and reduce her recovery time from six weeks to seven days.

The first modern hypnotist, 18th century German psychiatrist Franz Anton Mesmer, gave us "mesmerism," but he also cast doubt on its validity with his other rather strange notions. (He used magnets to cure his patients during "magnetic seances," which he held wearing a long purple robe and wielding a white wand.)

Scottish surgeon James Braid (1795-1860) saw a demonstration of mesmerism and soon put it to work, performing open-heart surgery without anesthesia on patients who had been "hypnotized." He coined the term, using "hypnos," the Greek word for sleep.

In 1894, novelist George du Maurier dreamed up the evil hypnotist Svengali, a controlling monster who continues to generate bad press for the discipline.

For this and other reasons, doctors have been slow to embrace hypnosis -- even though it has gained a stamp of approval from several factions of the established medical community.

In 1958, the American Medical Association certified hypnosis as a legitimate tool for treatment, though few doctors used it. And in the past decade, a handful of studies have demonstrated its efficacy.

For example, a study published four years ago in the British medical journal Lancet concluded that subjects using self-hypnosis required less analgesia during recovery from renal and vascular surgery and experienced less pain and anxiety.

Yet hypnosis still evokes negative stereotypes, including the fear of relinquishing control to a Svengali figure.

While hypnosis is powerful, the Svengali-like power of the hypnotist is overrated, say adherents.

"When someone goes to you and says 'Make me stop smoking,' no one can make you anything," says Flip Orley, a Lafayette, La.-based comedian who gets laughs hypnotizing customers at comedy clubs.

His job isn't easy. "It takes cooperation on the part of the volunteer," Orley says. "They're not asleep, they're not unconscious, they don't lose control and any suggestion you make, they might decide not to do it."

If he's going to suggest that they are fluent in the language of space aliens, a bit that he uses in his routine, they must be both verbal and creative.

"It's not a magic wand," says Dwight Damon, president of the 7,000-member National Guild of Hypnotists. "It's a way to help you use the ability that you already have."

In October, Atlanta Falcons offensive lineman Bob Whitfield decided that a hypnotist might help his game -- and also draw listeners to his weekly radio show, "What Up, Bob," on Z93. He underwent an on-air session with Dr. Wesley Anderson, who made suggestions about using certain "trigger points" to keep him focused on his game.

Whitfield was impressed, even though the team was clobbered by the Rams 36-0 in the very next game.

"I had a much better game," Whitfield insists. "We didn't win, we still got our [rear-ends] whooped, but, hell, not everybody got hypnotized, not everybody was concentrating as much as me."

There are few reliable figures on the number of Americans using hypnosis. Damon estimates there may be 10,000 to 15,000 professionals trained in hypnotism working in this country, but many see only a few clients a year. Positive Changes centers average about 130 visits a day, or 48,000 client-sessions a year.

However, some hypnotists caution that the weight loss sought by clients of Positive Changes is a tricky goal.

"Obesity is a multidimensional problem," says Oster. "We can't go in and remove the overeating thing. We can't go in and make you an exercise fanatic."

Sessions with a hypnotherapist might cost $150, costs that are usually not covered by insurance programs. Visitors to the Sandy Springs Positive Changes center pay about $40 a week, says owner Mitch Hight, though subscribers usually return for multiple visits each week over the course of a year.

The end result, says Nelson, is she has learned new eating and exercising habits. She is driven to eat protein in the morning, not high-carb foods. She feels the strong urge to exercise every day. And she handles the challenges of her job much more intelligently.

"The most dramatic thing is how I manage stress in my life," she says, "being so positive and having so much energy."

Journey into the Imagination

Interesting articles on the benefits of hypnosis..