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Hypnosis is a human condition involving focused attention, reduced peripheral awareness, and an enhanced capacity to respond to suggestion.
Some see hypnosis as an altered state of mind or trance, marked by a level of awareness different from the ordinary state of consciousness.
It is not known whether hypnosis is a qualitatively unique state with some physiological and conditioned response components or only a form of suggestion induced by high motivation and a positive relationship between hypnotist and subject.
Hypnosis impacts perception, symptoms and habits.
MRI changes during hypnosis include reduced activity in the dorsal portion of the anterior cingulate cortex, which is a key component of the salient network, and connectivity between the prefrontal cortex and the insula, a pathway for mind-body control.
Hypnotizability, is the ability to enter into hypnosis, is a trait possessed by most people and can be entered into or terminated by the patient.
Others suggest it is a type of placebo effect, or form of role enactment.
Hypnosis usually begins with a hypnotic induction: using a series of preliminary instructions and suggestions.
Hypnosis is not effective in the presence of conditions such as stroke or schizophrenia, or impaired focus attention disorder, or language processing.
Has demonstrated advocacy for migraine headaches, irritable bowel syndrome, anxiety, procedural pain and emotional distress and reduced medication consumption but up to 40%.
It outperforms current care measures by safety and efficacy, as in the case of opioids and sedatives.
Formal training is offered by national societies, such as the American Society of clinical Hypnosis and Society for Clinical in experimental Hypnosis.
When hypnotism is used for therapeutic purposes is referred to as hypnotherapy.
Hypnotherapy for pain management is likely to decrease acute and chronic pain in most individuals.
Its use for smoking cessation has mixed results.
Hypnosis does not help people recall events more accurately.
Patients in a state of hypnosis have been focused attention, and has increased suggestibility.
A hypnotized individual heeds only the communications of the hypnotist.
A hypnotized individual usually responds in an uncritical, automatic fashion while ignoring all aspects of the environment other than those pointed out by the hypnotist.
Under hypnosis individuals see, feel, smell, and otherwise perceive in accordance with the hypnotist’s suggestions.
These suggestions may be in apparent contradiction to the actual stimuli present in the environment.
The effects of hypnosis: sensory change, memory and awareness of self may be altered by suggestion, and the effects of the suggestions may be extended post-hypnotically into the subject’s subsequent waking activity.
The hypnotic suggestion is explicitly intended to make use of the placebo effect.
20 separate characteristics that hypnotized subjects might display: dissociation, detachment, suggestibility, ideosensory activity, catalepsy, ideomotor responsiveness, age regression, revivification, hyperamnesia. automatic or suggested] amnesia, posthypnotic responses, hypnotic analgesia and anesthesia, glove anesthesia, somnambulism, automatic writing, time distortion. release of inhibitions, change in capacity for volitional activity, trance logic, and effortless imagination.
The essence of the hypnotic condition, is the induction of mental concentration, in which the powers of the mind are so much engrossed with a single idea or train of thought, as to render the individual unconscious of, or indifferently conscious to, all other ideas, impressions, or trains of thought.
The hypnotic sleep is the opposite mental and physical condition to that which precedes and accompanies common sleep.
Hypnotism often leads to a form of progressive relaxation.
The hypnotic induction is an extended initial suggestion for using one’s imagination,
Hypnosis is used to encourage and evaluate responses to suggestions.
The hypnotic subject one person is guided by the hypnotist to respond to suggestions for changes in subjective experience, alterations in perception, sensation, emotion, thought or behavior.
Individuals can learn self-hypnosis, which is the act of administering hypnotic procedures on one’s own.
Hypnotism is a form of influence by one person exerted on another through the medium of suggestion.
It is an inner-directed, altered state of functioning.
It may be an artificial way of accessing the REM state.
Hypnosis is normally preceded by a hypnotic induction technique.
Several different induction techniques exist.
The eye fixation method(s) are the most common.
A bright object is held it from about eight to fifteen inches from the eyes, above the forehead to produce the greatest possible strain upon the eyes and eyelids, and enable the patient to maintain a steady fixed stare at the object.
The eyes are steadily fixed on the object, and the mind focused on the idea of that one object.
The pupils transiently contract, then dilate.
When the hypnotist moves his fingers holding the object towards the eyes, the eyelids probably will close involuntarily, with a vibratory motion that develops.
Variations and alterations to the original hypnotic induction techniques have been developed, most of which call for reclining posture, muscular relaxation, and optical fixation followed by eye closure.
Hypnotism increases the susceptibility to suggestion.
Hypnotism uses a number of suggestion forms including direct verbal suggestions, requests, insinuations, metaphors and non-verbal suggestion in the form of mental imagery, voice tonality, and physical manipulation.
Hypnotherapeutic suggestions are usually post-hypnotic ones. intended to trigger responses affecting behavior for periods ranging from days to a lifetime in duration.
Hypnotherapeutic suggestion did are often repeated in multiple sessions before they achieve peak effectiveness.
Some hypnotists view suggestion as a form of communication that is directed primarily to the subject’s conscious mind, whereas others view it as a means of communicating with the subconscious mind.
A wide variety of bodily responses besides muscular movement can be thus affected by hypnosis.
A person’s susceptibility to hypnosis can be estimated as high, medium, or
low: Hypnosability scores.
Approximately 80% of the population are medium, 10% are high, and 10% are low.
There are two distinct types of highly susceptible subjects:
fantasisers and dissociaters.
Fantasisers score find it easy to block out real-world stimuli without hypnosis, spend much time daydreaming, report imaginary companions as a child, and grew up with parents who encouraged imaginary play.
Dissociaters often have a history of childhood abuse or other trauma, learned to escape into numbness, and to forget unpleasant events.
Both score equally high on scales of hypnotic susceptibility.
Individuals with dissociative identity disorder have the highest ability to be hypnotized of any clinical group, followed by those with posttraumatic stress disorder.
The therapeutic practices of hypnotherapy and various forms of cognitive behavioral therapy overlap and influence each other.
There are numerous applications for hypnosis: medical/psychotherapeutic uses, military uses, self-improvement, and entertainment.
The American Medical Association has no official stance on the medical use of hypnosis.
It is used as an additional approach to cognitive behavioral therapy.
Hypnotism is used in forensics, sports, education, physical therapy, rehabilitation, to augment creativity, to experience drug/ mystical experiences,
to quit smoking, improve stress, anxiety, depression, promote weight loss, induce sleep, affect eating and sleeping disorders, for compulsive gambling, and posttraumatic stress disorder
It is viewed as a helpful addition when treating psychological disorders, with scientifically proven cognitive therapies.
Hypnotherapy is not useful for repairing or refreshing memory because hypnosis results in memory hardening, which increases the confidence in false memories.
The effectiveness of hypnotherapy has not yet been accurately assessed
There is a lack of evidence indicating any level of efficiency, and is regarded as a type of alternative medicine.
Hypnotherapy has been used, with varying success:
Addictions
Age regression hypnotherapy
An aid or alternative to chemical anesthesia
Cognitive-behavioral hypnotherapy
Fears and phobia
Habit control
Pain management
Psychotherapy
Relaxation
Reduce adverse patient behavior
Soothing anxious surgical patients
Sports performance
Weight loss
Irritable bowel syndrome
A hypnotic trance is not therapeutic, but specific suggestions and images fed can profoundly alter behavior.
Hypnosis decreases the fear of cancer treatment, reducing pain from and coping with cancer and other chronic conditions.
Nausea may also be managed with hypnosis.
Symptoms related to incurable diseases may be managed with hypnosis.
There is no evidence that hypnosis can influence the development or progression of cancer.
Hypnosis has been used as a pain relieving technique during dental surgery.
Hypnosis can help even those patients who have acute to severe orodental pain, and for alleviating anxiety in patients suffering from severe dental phobia.
The pain relief in response to hypnosis is said to be the result of the brain’s dual-processing functionality: selective attention or dissociation, involving the presence of activity in pain receptive regions of the brain, and a difference in the processing of the stimuli by the hypnotised subject.
Highly suggestible individuals experienced a greater reduction in pain from hypnosis compared with placebo, whereas less suggestible subjects experienced no pain reduction from hypnosis when compared with placebo.
Ordinary non-hypnotic suggestion also causes reduction in pain compared to placebo.
It primarily a subject’s responsiveness to suggestion, whether within the context of hypnosis or not, that is the main determinant of causing reduction in pain.
A meta-study researching hypnosis as a quit-smoking tool found it had a 20 to 30 percent success rate.
A study of patients hospitalized for cardiac and pulmonary ailments found that smokers who used hypnosis to quit smoking doubled their chances of success.
A Cochrane review was unable to find evidence of benefit of hypnosis in smoking cessation, and suggested if there is, it is small at best.
Hypnosis may be useful as an adjunct therapy for weight loss.
In a meta-analysis studying hypnosis combined with cognitive behavioral therapy found that people using both treatments lost more weight than people using cognitive behavioural therapy alone.
Caution against recovered-memory therapy in cases of alleged childhood trauma, it is impossible, to distinguish a true memory from a false one.
Psychiatric nurses, in most medical facilities, are allowed to administer hypnosis to patients in order to relieve symptoms.
Self-hypnosis occurs when a person hypnotises oneself, commonly involving the use of autosuggestion: used to increase motivation for a diet, to quit smoking, or to reduce stress.
Self-hypnosis is claimed to help with stage fright, relaxation, and physical well-being.
The effects of stage hypnosis are probably due to a combination of psychological factors, participant selection, suggestibility, physical manipulation, stagecraft, and trickery.
If a hypnotic trance does exist, it only accounts for a small proportion of the effects attributed to hypnotic suggestion, most of which can be replicated without hypnotic induction.
Hypnosis is probably a state of heightened suggestibility induced by expectation and focused attention,
a conditioned reflex response in human beings to learned associations triggered by the words used.
Brain activity alterations have been found in some studies of highly responsive hypnotic subjects: alpha waves appear, however the significance of this is unknown.
Hypnotic color hallucination suggestion activated color-processing regions of the occipital cortex.
Hypnosis shows different patterns of EEG activity depending upon the task.
Enhanced theta is seen during hypnosis when there is task performance or concentrative hypnosis,
When highly hypnotizable individuals are passively relaxed, somewhat sleepy and/or more diffuse in their attention.
There is an association of hypnosis with stronger theta-frequency activity as well as with changes to the gamma-frequency activity.
There is more brain activity in the anterior cingulate gyrus in highly susceptible subjects.
The highly hypnosis susceptible show greater brain activity on the left side of the prefrontal cortex than a weakly susceptible group.
Some believe that hypnosis is an example of dissociation, whereby areas of an individual’s behavioral control is separated from ordinary awareness.
Some believe that hypnosis is actually a form of learned social behavior, a complex hybrid of social compliance, relaxation, and suggestibility that can account for many esoteric behavioural manifestations.