13/04/2023
The following article is from the Institute of Applied Psychology,
www.iap.edu.au
'Often, it is fuelled by misconception and ironically by the very quality that makes Hypnotherapy an important therapeutic tool, and that is its extraordinary capacity to influence and create positive change.
Is hypnosis or hypnotherapy safe as a therapeutic tool?
The first premise of all therapy including talk therapy is to do no harm. At the very least, if you go to see a therapist, a doctor or any kind of health care professional, you should be in a better position than before you went. When you don’t, this is called iatrogenesis.
Hypnosis is a safe and effective method, arguably the most effective method of helping people get unstuck. There are no drugs. There are no risks of overdoses or side effects as marked on the label. Most concerns revolve around the idea that hypnosis is so powerful that it can send a person off the edge. Without a doubt, there are some people that you don’t want to use hypnosis with.
Is hypnotherapy safe with mental illness?
People with diagnosed mental illnesses like psychosis are not great candidates for hypnosis. If people have low functioning schizophrenia or other mental health issues, most hypnotherapists won’t use these methods for them. But for the average person on the street, hypnosis is a very safe and effective method of facilitating change. In fact, even for mid range and low range depression, hypnosis is now seen as one of the best tools for dealing with it.
Hypnotherapy delivers positive therapeutic messages effectively
There is, however, this idea that hypnosis is more powerful and more invasive than other forms of talk therapy. The truth is that the strength of clinical hypnotherapy is in the power of suggestion. What hypnosis does very well is provide a wonderful vehicle for delivering a positive therapeutic message because once in hypnosis, the client’s constant “yes, but..” (the bane of most therapists’ existence) simply doesn’t come up as often. The same statement uttered by counsellors, psychologists and alike on a daily basis with relatively little effect can be transformed into an effective message when stated in hypnosis.
Put simply, once in hypnosis the client is more able to accept possible solutions and alternative perspectives than they would be in a normal conscious state. Why is this? Right now we don’t know. Neuroscience is only now developing the tools to measure brain activity with detail that might explain this phenomenon, but we are some years off a full explanation yet.
Hypnotherapy cannot be forced
However, Hypnosis is not so powerful that it forces the client to accept all and any suggestion made but the hypnotherapist. Nor will it make a client do something that they don’t want to do, or would go against their values. A Clinical Hypnotherapist is a navigator, not the Captain. We never have control of the wheel. We rely on the power of the client’s mind. Their resourcefulness, experience and abilities. We are mostly concerned with eliciting those dissociated, hidden, or otherwise inaccessible resources.
You’re always in control
The idea that hypnosis is a form of mind control is a longstanding myth. The truth is you never lose control in hypnosis. You’re always in control. You can take on board what’s offered to you or not. Even with the stage shows it should be noted that all stage participants are volunteers. They don’t just walk up to the stage, they run up to the stage. Fifty or more people might run up onto the stage and the hypnotist will cull people down using a series of “susceptibility tests” (these assess your willingness to comply) until the titles the group down to the top ten most compliant people. These people will give the hypnotist the best chance of an entertaining show because they are more willing to do just about anything he suggests for the entertainment of the crowd. The idea that you volunteer for a stage show thinking that the hypnotist won’t make me do anything silly is ludicrous. That is the whole point of the show.
Clinical Hypnotherapist can’t “make” you do anything. I can’t even make my 5-year-old eat vegetables. I can offer you suggestions and build a case for you to take a much more positive approach to life, I can help you build the skills to leave old habits and behaviours behind. But I’ve got to build a case for that. I’ve got to help you recognise the benefits and the costs of that change and help you make your own decisions.
But we need the client’s cooperation to facilitate the change. Hypnotherapy is not a spectator sport. The client has to engage and choose to come for the journey or it just doesn’t work. At the end of the day, I can’t make any of my clients do anything, but I can help them use their own power to change what they are doing, and give them more choice in their lives. That’s what I do.
A hypnotherapist is a navigator. They are not the captain of the ship. They never get to take hold of the wheel. As a navigator, I can plot you a course through the coral, but if you don’t choose to follow the path I offer there is not a lot I can do about that.
