Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Hypnotherapy for medical conditions essay
Describe the psychological aspect of hypnosis
What are the psychological aspects of hypnosis
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Hypnotherapy for medical conditions essay
Ahlaam Delange
Instructor Diane Sullivan
English 1302
15 May 2014
Hypnotherapy for the Cure
The concept of hypnosis produces an enigmatic figure rhythmical swaying a pocket watch to control a subject. Ominous hypnotists and surreal perceptions of hypnotism are fanciful ideas constructed by television, movies, and comics. Hypnotism has become widely popular in mainstream culture because of absurd renditions that bear no resemblance to actual hypnotism; in consequence the therapeutic effects of hypnotism are questioned by a great deal of psychologists and doctors. Hypnotherapy, hypnosis as a medical intervention, should be an acceptable and extensively used treatment of subjective symptoms because it is proven to be effective and does not encompass severe side effects.
Hypnotic phenomenon is one of the most fascinating enigmas of the human psyche. All throughout history ancient peoples and shamans have induced trance-like hypnotic states in rituals and religious ceremonies. Modern hypnotism was first associated with an Austrian physician named Franz Anton Mesmer in the 18th century. He used magnets and other hypnotic techniques to treat patients. The medical community remained largely skeptical of Mesmer’s techniques and hypnotism was soon discredited as fraudulent.
Hypnosis as a therapeutic technique has evolved. Countless of studies have verified the potential of hypnosis as a treatment for subjective symptoms of a variety of conditions. Hypnotherapy has been largely investigated in a scientific manner in the centuries following Mesmer’s hypnotic techniques- and yet no common accepted classification of the phenomenon exists. Fortunately, there is an accepted idea among professionals and analysts about what occurs during the hy...
... middle of paper ...
...eatment and live-altering relief for many people that suffer from irritable bowel syndrome is hindered because of the lack of understanding and acceptance of hypnotherapy as a plausible therapeutic solution. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has recognized hypnotherapy as a possible treatment for IBS, but like other medical organizations and associations it is only seen as a possibility and isn’t immediately offered to regular IBS patients. There are no immediate effective treatments for IBS, yet a clinically proven solution is bluntly dismissed by a majority of the professional medical community because the full effectiveness of hypnotherapy is not understood. The lack of understanding may hinder further implementation of hypnotherapy in other fields, but it does not counter-effect the clinically proven usefulness of the treatment.
The ancient Romans were the first to use electricity to treat disease several thousand years ago; however, “electrical medicine” has improved and has been utilized in the forms predating ECT in a relatively short amount of time. In the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, doctors began to notice that giving people camphor could “cure lunacy” (Abrams, 2002). The doctors noticed that when administering camphor orally, it caused seizures, and upon waking up, were “in a rational state” (Abrams, 2002). In fact, in 1798, a German scientist reported that 80% of manic patients that were treated with camphor and had seizures, were cured (Abrams, 2002). As medical and technological advances occurred, so did the use of inducing a seizure to cure mental illness. In 1934, a scientist was able to bring a schizophrenic patient, who had been on a hunger strike and had not moved in four years, to recovery through a seizure that had been brought on by camphor (Abrams, 2002). And, “thus, convulsive therapy was born” (Abrams, 2002). By the end of the year, this scientist published results of the same action given to twenty-six schizophrenics, ten patients were cured, thirteen had no re...
Boyer, B., Boyer, R., & Basehart, H. 1973. Hallucinogens and Shamanism M. Hamer, Ed.. England: Oxford University Press.
Gould’s attempt at explaining how this type of hypnosis occurs began at first comparing two sides of a certain word. He started by using the word ‘Certainty; one definition is that certainty is warm, provides peace, and security. The other definition is that certainty is also threat; “ certainty is also a great danger...how
Everyone is in a consumer’s hypnosis, even if you think you are not. When you go to a store and pick one brand over the other, you are now under their spell. Spell/hypnosis is how companies get you to buy things over other companies and keep you hooked. Either through commercials or offering something that you think will make your life better by what they tell you. For example, you go to the store and you need to buy water, once you get to the lane and look, there are 10 different types of water you can buy.
Hypnosis has been used for a wide range of problems from, opting to remove some symptoms of certain mental diseases, reducing stress and psychological traumas, and treating phobias, to aiming to cause weight loss and cure one from illness and diseases (Keller, 2008). Although hypnosis in general, is considered to be safe and totally harmless when controlled by a physician, the present era has attached danger to it, in that it creates delusions through other people’s lives. According to MacKenzie (2011), “Hypnosis has been perceived as clouding people’s imaginations while they undergo relaxation, both internally and externally. While under hypnosis we experience a heightened sense of imagination and are open to suggestions and changes.” Coker (2010) found Pseudoscience to encourage people to believe anything they want. “It supplies specious "arguments" for fooling yourself into thinking that any and all beliefs are equally valid...
...hin hypnotherapeutic practice. Freud’s regression technique is usefully employed within hypnosis in order to gain insight or to recognise the source of a problem e.g. inner child work, counting back. Furthermore, Freud’s concept regarding trauma fixation which concerns psychosexual stages may be used to indicate the root cause of habitual behaviours e.g. oral re: eating, oral aggressive re: nail biting, anal-retentive re: OCD. Having said this it is important to recognise the flaws within Freud’s research. Firstly, his sample group are not universally representative. Secondly, the culture and era make theories less relevant to today. Furthermore, research comes from a personal perspective and therefore is not empirically sound. It could also be argued that too much emphasis is put on sexuality being at the root of psychological and behavioural problems throughout.
Danielle wakes up in the morning and doesn’t want to get out of bed. She is wide awake but didn’t get much sleep; and has no motivation to start her day. Reluctantly she gets up, showers, and gets ready for work. She skips breakfast as she has no appetite and heads into work. On the way to her job she has trouble concentrating on her driving; instead she contemplates how useless she feels at work and how helpless she is to change the situation. Once at work she can’t remember what meetings she needed to attend, and forgets about an important appointment with the general manager. To most, this sounds like a bad day. But to her this is just the norm of her everyday life. Danielle is displaying many of the symptoms associated with clinical depression. She is diagnosed with the mental illness and prescribed pharmaceuticals, but when she does remember to take her medicine it seems to cause more problems than it fixes with the multitude of side effects. She wants a different solution or approach to manage her problem. Here is where hypnosis may come into play as a viable option.
Other methods for deepening a trance, suggested by Hypnotica, involve the feeling of descending from a higher place, such as free falling to earth or being in an elevator. When a deep trance has been established, the next step is to apply the suggestions that the person has created and memorized beforehand. Hypnotica reminds its customers to use the pronoun "I" rather than "you" when formulating suggestions. Finally, to end the hypnosis it is suggested that the person make a clean break between the hypnotic and aware states. A suggested termination is "think to yourself that you are going to be fully awake after you count up to, say, three."
Kirsch, Irving, Antonio Capafons, Etzel Cardeña-Buelna, Salvador Amigó. Clinical Hypnosis and Self-Regulation. Washington D.C.: American Psychological Association, 1999.
Most doctors at the time treated hysteria as a physical illness, except Breuer and Freud. Freud and Breuer had a patient named “Anna O.” who they used hypnosis to treat. They published their findings in Studies in Hysteria, which talked about hypnosis to treat hysteria. In the case of Anna O., her symptoms were relieved after her hypnosis sessions. After disclosing information about her father’s death during hypnosis, Anna O. was able to feel her arm again and speak, which she wasn’t able to do previously. Freud’s work using hypnosis helped him understand the power of unconscious influences on behavior (Burger
Renner, T., Feldman, R., Majors, M., Morrissey, J., & Mae, L. (2011). States of Consciousness. Psychsmart (pp. 99-107). New York: McGraw-Hill.
This paper will discuss the mind-body connection and it's relevance to health care professionals and to the public. It will explore the history of the mind-body connection, as well as state research that has been done on the subject. The reader will gain an understanding of the various techniques used in mind-body therapy, as well as their effectiveness.
“Consciousness is defined as everything of which we are aware at any given time - our thoughts, feelings, sensations, and perceptions of the external environment. Physiological researchers have returned to the study of consciousness, in examining physiological rhythms, sleep, and altered states of consciousness (changes in awareness produced by sleep, meditation, hypnosis, and drugs)” (Wood, 2011, 169). There are five levels of consciousness; Conscious (sensing, perceiving, and choosing), Preconscious (memories that we can access), Unconscious ( memories that we can not access), Non-conscious ( bodily functions without sensation), and Subconscious ( “inner child,” self image formed in early childhood).
Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 2014. Web. 20 May 2014.