What is hypnosis?

There are many ways in which hypnosis has been misunderstood in the past, but it has now been widely accepted as the extremely powerful therapeutic tool that it actually is.

Hypnosis is not, though, a magic 'instant cure' - although sometimes the results can seem like magic. It is not, either, a means whereby anyone can gain control of your mind against your will. Neither do you go to sleep (although even if you did, you would just wake up naturally the way you always do).

It is an entirely natural state that you have experienced many times. Any time that you find yourself mentally chilling out and drifting off into that dreamy place that we all have inside - then you are in hypnosis. When lost in a good book or film, or playing with the notion of what you would do if you won the lottery, you are there again. In fact, any time when you are not fully in the 'here and now', that is the altered state of awareness called hypnosis. So, it is nothing new to you.

The actual experience of hypnosis can be likened to that of daydreaming. In this peaceful state you are able to identify fully with what is happening in your imagination - it seems, at the time, all to be real. This is precisely what happens in hypnosis - the critical conscious mind is bypassed, enabling your subconscious mind to accept the 'suggestions', as they are called, that are planted there by the therapist.

The difference between daydreaming and hypnosis, however, is that when you are daydreaming, you know that it is all 'make believe', and the game ends when you return to the here and now. When hypnosis is induced deliberately in a therapeutic environment, though, the intention is to bring about permanent changes. Therefore, the game does not end - your subconscious mind accepts the suggestions as true, and immediately begins to act on them.

From this, it would seem that, under hypnosis, anyone could 'take over' your mind and control it. This is not true, though. Even in the deepest state of hypnosis, nobody can make you say or do anything you don't want to, or that is against your moral principles and values. In hypnosis you are still in complete control - you can hear everything, converse with the therapist and afterwards remember all that took place.

So, hypnosis is a completely natural state that can be used in therapy, and is there only for your benefit