How Does Hypnotherapy Work?
Hypnotherapy is usually considered an aid to psychotherapy (counselling), rather than a treatment in itself. It helps with psychotherapy because the hypnotic state allows people to enter a deep state of relaxation that can better allow them to explore painful thoughts, feelings, and memories they might have hidden from their conscious minds. In addition, hypnosis enables people to perceive some things differently, such as blocking an awareness of pain. Hypnotherapy can be used in two ways, as suggestion therapy or for patient analysis. 1. Suggestion therapy The hypnotic state makes the person better able to respond to suggestions. Therefore, hypnotherapy can help some people stop certain behaviours, such as smoking or nail-biting. 2. Analysis This approach was historically used to induce a relaxed and uninhibited state to find suspected unconscious causes of a disorder or symptom, such as a traumatic past event that a person has hidden in their unconscious memory.