Say you had a habit you wanted to break. Is hypnosis (a) real and (b) effective? If you are under hypnosis how do you prevent the therapist from inducing some other suggestion that is not what you asked for?

My Dad was a smoker and got hypnotized about 30 years ago. Hasn't smoked since. I can't speak to the process, but he hasn't so much as looked a cigarette, and is pretty much disgusted by them.

Other than the quacking like duck every time I snap my fingers, it worked perfectly.

I know a couple of guys that got hypno for smoking.

They still smoke 1-2 pks a day...one of them while he's on his oxygen cannula.

quote:

Originally posted by 4MUL8R:
Say you had a habit you wanted to break. Is hypnosis (a) real and (b) effective?

It can. Depends upon the habit and how badly you want to break/retain it. E.g.: Ravens1775's dad was cured of his smoking habit. A friend of mine was not.

quote:

Originally posted by 4MUL8R:
If you are under hypnosis how do you prevent the therapist from inducing some other suggestion that is not what you asked for?

That's like asking how do you prevent a doctor from sexually abusing you while you're under general anaesthesia?

Btw: Therapeutic hypnosis does not necessarily involve you "losing consciousness."

My father in law was a pack a day smoker for his whole life. Tried quitting, nothing worked.

Went to a group hypnosis at a Marriot Hotel he heard advertised on the radio.

Hasn't smoked since and has no desire to.


It didn't work for his buddy that went with him.

Hypnosis only works on those that want it to.

Before getting to any outcome, a better question is:

"Can a normal person be put into a semi-conscious state, where their thoughts and actions can be controlled by another person, against their own will, without the use of drugs."

That "against their own will" part is key. If you want to quit smoking and use a hypnotist to do something you want to do, what is it they are doing?

Personally, I place hypnotism on the same pseudoscience trash pile as séance, astrology, Feng shui, and acupuncture. All can have a placebo effect but practitioners are generally scam artists.

After I got brain cancer, I had to control my eating, because the combination of the chemo drugs and the post chemo drugs plus the large amounts of food I was eating was making me really fat. So, I underwent 3 sessions of "hypnosis". Twice, nothing happened, and once I fell asleep during the sessions. The Nurse told me that my personality made hypnosis impossible. So, I guess hypnosis was a failure as far as I was concerned. But, I decided to control my eating and stopped eating like a pig, and I came down from 309 lbs to 180lbs.

There is a textbook titled Trancework on the subject of clinical hypnosis.

There is a growing body of controlled studies detailing what occurs when a person undergoes hypnotic therapy. Brain scans using PET and similar technology are a significant part of this body of work.

Before you relegate hypnosis to "pseudoscience " I recommend reading it.

And no, I am neither a clinical hypnotist, a friend of the author. or a Holiday Inn Express patron.

I don't know much about hypnosis.

My personal uninformed perspective is that there are other ways to break a habit and that hypnosis is an attempt at getting results without the hard work. I think there is benefit in the hard work of understanding how habits form and how they can be changed.

Ultimately, the hard work will benefit you beyond breaking that one habit. I've never smoked but have struggled with food and weight all my life. I've never really been that overweight, but it's a constant effort.

You might look into a book on motivation and change by a Stanford Psychologist, Dr. Kelly McGonigal. It is based on neuroscience studies all of which she cites and documents. It's based on a course she has taught at Stanford for their continuing education program teaching "real people" how to affect change.

She has added and distilled the class based on feedback from the people taking the class on what works and what doesn't. It's not as easy as hypnosis, but probably much better in the long run.

Personally, I also don't like the idea of someone making suggestions which might affect my behavior, of which I'm unaware. Then again, all kinds of unconscious influences affect our behavior all the time.

I highly recommend the book

https://www.amazon.com/Willpow...ords=kelly+mcgonigal

quote:

Originally posted by SIG4EVA:
Hypnosis only works on those that want it to.

^^^This^^^

Someone who doesn't want to change won't change with hypnosis, for example - a beautiful young lady who's morals set a high bar because she believes those morals to her core, will not become a slut through hypnosis (unless it's a secret desire)

Ya gotta wanna!

I'm not a good hypnosis subject. Some are.

I have broken habits, smoking, for example, when I decided I was going to do so. I wanted to take up running and triathlon. No more smoking. That did it!

quote:

Originally posted by Sig2340:
Before you relegate hypnosis to "pseudoscience " I recommend reading it.

I was going to respond to that, but, decided it was probably a waste of time.

Among the many varied things in which I've taken an interest over the years has been hypnosis. At one time I was fairly adept at self-hypnosis. Good enough, at one time, that, when, in failing to duck far enough, I split my head open on the inside bits of a garage door handle/lock thing such that stitches were required, I declined anaesthesia and simply "numbed" the area, myself.

The doc that stitched me up and the nurse were incredulous. Everything they "knew" told them that should have hurt like hell. I could see them watching me closely to see if they'd have to stop and administer an anaesthetic, after all.

The mind is a remarkable thing. All pain is is your mind's reaction to what nerves are telling it. All you have to do is convince your mind to ignore the nerves in question and you have "numbed" the area.

As a sort of "party trick" I used to "move" heat from one hand to the other. People were, likewise, amazed. All it really was was my body doing my mind's bidding. My mind was telling my body to "move" heat from one hand to the other. In response my mind told my body to constrict the blood vessels in one hand and expand them in the other. One hand cooled, the other warmed. Viola! Heat "transfer."

I'm way, way out of practice. I can't do those things any more. But, I can still relax pretty much at will to the point of lowering my heart rate to sub-50 BPM. (That is partly a result of physical conditioning, as well.)

It works if you trust the person doing it. I quit smoking in one treatment! They usually give you a tape. You use "self hypnosis" to reinforce it for a week.

To attempt to quote one of my favorite psych professors who taught research methodology: "recent surveys show that 50% of practicing psychologists believe in hypnosis. That is, HALF of the people that will be your prefessional contemporaries believe in it. What does this tell you? [blank stares from class] That half of the people you will work with are freaking quacks!"

My girlfriend is a therapist in the mental health field. According to her it is evidence based for many things. There certainly has been many outcomes that will tell the story that it works. She says those who practice or experience change are very convincing. The problem is it is a very vulnerable state to be in. Where the positive stories are abundant there are many stories where the patient client relationship have been violated and the client is hurt, as with many professions where one has power over the other. The hardest stories to hear about hypnosis is where the professional "plants" memories that are real. Then the client lives there life in distress believing the memory is true. So short answer is yes, it has evidence to say it works. Long answer is, find a practicitioner you trust 100% you are totally emotionally naked in a session!

quote:

Originally posted by Kravashera:
To attempt to quote one of my favorite psych professors who taught research methodology: "recent surveys show that 50% of practicing psychologists believe in hypnosis. That is, HALF of the people that will be your prefessional contemporaries believe in it. What does this tell you? [blank stares from class] That half of the people you will work with are freaking quacks!"

Which half?

Btw: The man who taught me self-hypnosis was a degreed clinical psychologist.

I don't believe for a second that I can be hypnotized, at least nothing even remotely resembling anything I've ever seen portrayed as such. Pure nonsensical quackery, IMO.

As one of my rotations as I was completing my Ph.D. in Counseling Psych I worked 6 months at the pain clinic at a VA medical center.

I learned hypnosis while I was there and used it in both group and individual sessions.

Hypnosis can be very effective - but there are buts. The ability to be hypnotized varies quite a bit by person. Some people will never be good subjects, some people are really good subjects.

One of the most amazing things I have seen was a patient who, by choice, had a full hip replacement with no pain medication and no anesthesia. Only hypnotic suggestion. It was crazy to watch.

You can't be hypnotized to do something you wouldn't otherwise do. You can't be hypnotized to go and kill someone for example.

Hypnosis is a voluntary process in the sense that you (the subject) choose to go into the trance/hypnotic state. Hypnosis isn't something that is done to you, it is something that you participate in.

For the quote about psychologists not believing in hypnosis. Well it is a big field. If you haven't encountered it you might not have any idea about its efficacy. But during my time in graduate school I never encountered and evidence to suggest it didn't work and/or wasn't a real phenomena. And I went to a very empirically focused program.

Long story short, in my opinion, it can be an effective tool. Some people are much better at applying that tool, and it tends to only work for some people.

At the pain clinic I would say somewhere around 50% of the folks received benefit from hypnosis. Some profound, some minor. For some there was no positive effect. But, these were also people for whom other treatments had not worked. You end up in the pain clinic when everything else ash been ineffective.