Thursday, December 31, 2009

Hypnosis - Unraveling The Mysteries Behind It

By Winnie Cox

Myths have always chased hypnosis and its therapeutic offshoot, hypnotherapy. People either believe them to be falling in the domain of the occult, or don't regard them to be serious scientific endeavours. Following are some of the well known misconceptions about hypnosis and the reality behind them.

There is no practice of occult involved in hypnosis. It hinges more on the science of the human mind and is very easy to practice for anyone who is prepared to learn it. The authenticity of hypnosis is suspected even by people who have watched it casting its spell on subjects. They hold that those who can be hypnotized are somehow weak mentally. But nothing could be farther from the truth. Even mentally strong people can fall under the charms of an expert hypnosis practitioner.

Another notion about hypnosis that people have invented arbitrarily is that it is an alternate state of consciousness. A hypnotized individual is totally aware of his environment. That person is just in a relaxed state where the concentration levels are very high and the person can accept suggestions easily.

Some researchers have concluded that hypnosis works on just 5% of the world's population, and this is another common myth. Researchers have come up with this low percentage because they have used the identical hypnosis procedure on all subjects without considering their individual natures. Hypnosis can't be oversimplified like that and works only if there are different approaches for different personality styles.

Many people take hypnosis to be a form of meditation. But while hypnosis is an interaction technique, meditation is all about a state of mind and generally has no communication involved in the process. Similarly, a period of trance is also sometimes confused with hypnosis, which is not correct. Just like meditation, trance is a state of mind, and it is not associated with communication in any manner, on the other hand the very crux of the hypnosis method is communication.

It is commonly thought that hypnosis training or hypnotherapy cannot cause changes in physique or in behavioural patterns of a person. Hypnosis is obviously not wizardry that it can change the physical appearance of a person just like that. But by mentally conditioning an individual to abandon addictive behaviour like eating too much and constant smoking, and by heightening one's motivation levels, hypnosis can bring about significant physical changes in a person and ensure a healthier body.

Undergoing hypnotherapy is a good way to lead a happy and fulfilling life, and thus one must not pay heed to the misconceptions, and go for hypnotic sittings with an open mind.

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