# Hypnotherapy demystified by a mental health professional



## kadootanbal (Sep 12, 2013)

There are a lot of opinions here and a lot of misinformation about hypnosis. Hypnosis by itself does not cure anything. Also, it is not a relaxation therapy! Hypnosis is a tool used by a therapist (read:hypnotherapist) to help a person enter an altered state of mind called hypnosis, whereby we can access our subconscious mind (which has all of emotions, habits, memories stored). When we are in trance (hypnosis) our minds are multiple times more focused and attentive (of course relaxation is also a side product). It is only then that a COMPETENT hypnotherapist goes to work. A comparison would be anesthesia and surgery. Well, before the surgeon operates, the anesthetist needs to put us into body/mind anesthesia. So hypnosis itself is just a tool like anesthesia; what the surgeon does specifically is what a hypnotherapist would do such as regression therapy. Social anxiety often times has a root cause in childhood (stored away in our subconscious mind's memories) which has been suppressed by our ego defenses. Once we enter trance, the therapist then facilitates (a good therapist does not lead or direct) the recovery of these subconscious memories and integrates them with our conscious mind. Then, making sense of it all consciously, we are able to let go of the root cause. Be sure to ask a person claiming to know how to treat SAD where they got their training in hypnosis and whether they actually know how to do regression therapy or not. Most lay hypnotists don't have a clue about how to treat people with SAD. At best they know how to put someone in trance and relax them (which is not a bad thing if you are anxious), but at worst they take your money without resolving the cause. If you are wondering about my credentials, I am a psychiatry resident with an established hypnotherapy practice.


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## Focus123 (Aug 30, 2013)

http://www.socialanxietysupport.com/forum/f43/hypnotism-58388/#post1066734145


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## Dylan2 (Jun 3, 2012)

Is there any scientific evidence (rather than case studies) suggesting hypnotherapy could be effective for social anxiety disorder? Are treatment gains maintained over the long run? If so, does this evidence point towards hypnotherapy being a better option than treatment as usual (CBT, SSRIs, SNRIs)?


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## TeenyBeany (Sep 3, 2008)

Dylan2 said:


> Is there any scientific evidence (rather than case studies) suggesting hypnotherapy could be effective for social anxiety disorder? Are treatment gains maintained over the long run? If so, does this evidence point towards hypnotherapy being a better option than treatment as usual (CBT, SSRIs, SNRIs)?


good questions! I will be waiting patiently for the response  I am very interested in trying hypnotherapy since I know the root cause of my anxiety and am having trouble coming to some sort of "conclusion" or "restitution" with all of it via "regular" therapy


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## Focus123 (Aug 30, 2013)

*First what has been proven to work with anxiety disorders?*​From APA

CBT And medication
Are there effective treatments available for anxiety disorders?Absolutely. Most cases of anxiety disorder can be treated successfully by appropriately trained mental health professionals such as licensed psychologists. Research has demonstrated that a form of psychotherapy known as "cognitive-behavioral therapy" (CBT) can be highly effective in treating anxiety disorders. Psychologists use CBT to help people identify and learn to manage the factors that contribute to their anxiety.

Behavioral therapy involves using techniques to reduce or stop the undesired behaviors associated with these disorders. For example, one approach involves training patients in relaxation and deep breathing techniques to counteract the agitation and rapid, shallow breathing that accompany certain anxiety disorders.

Through cognitive therapy, patients learn to understand how their thoughts contribute to the symptoms of anxiety disorders, and how to change those thought patterns to reduce the likelihood of occurrence and the intensity of reaction. The patient's increased cognitive awareness is often combined with behavioral techniques to help the individual gradually confront and tolerate fearful situations in a controlled, safe environment.

Along with psychotherapy, appropriate medications may have a role in treatment. In cases where medications are used, the patient's care may be managed collaboratively by more than one provider of treatment. It is important for patients to realize that there are side effects to any drugs, which must be monitored closely by the provider who prescribed the medication.
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*Hypnosis functions as as Placebo*
Your brain is the most powerful organ in your body. Placebo trials in which patients drastically improve without medication due to a belief that their bodies will heal is proof of this. Going to a hypnotist is an attempt to use the power of your beliefs to change your life for the better. In a way, hypnotism is about purposefully using the placebo effect to your advantage.

Unfortunately, according to most research, hypnosis does not really have any effect on long term mental health. There are very few studies that confirm hypnosis has any noticeable effect on the mind. However, there is some evidence that some people may be more easily influenced by hypnosis, so perhaps there are some people that are affected by hypnosis an some that are not.

Regardless, hypnosis is one of those gray areas where there may be something to it for some people, and it is completely safe to do. So if you're looking for some type of alternative treatment and you want to try anxiety hypnosis, it may be worth your time - as long as you know that if it doesn't work for you, you need to try something else.

http://www.calmclinic.com/anxiety/treatment/hypnosis
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What are the drawbacks of hypnotherapy?*
Hypnotherapy might not be appropriate for a person who has psychotic symptoms, such as hallucinations and delusions, or for someone who is using drugs or alcohol. It should only be used for pain control after a doctor has assessed the person for any physical disorder that might require medical or surgical treatment.

Some therapists use hypnotherapy to recover repressed memories they believe are linked to the person's mental health disorder. However, hypnosis also poses a risk of creating false memories -- usually as a result of unintended suggestions by the therapist. For this reason, the use of hypnosis for certain mental health disorders, such as dissociative disorders, remains controversial.
http://www.webmd.boots.com/anxiety-p...h-hypnotherapy
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*HYNPSOSIS IS NO CURE ALL*
People vary widely in their ability to respond to hypnotic suggestions, a trait which can be measured by standardized scales. But it isn't well understood what causes the varying levels of "hypnotizability" or their significance.

Yapko says few clinicians use hypnotizability scales because responses to a structured test don't predict how a patient will respond to hypnosis in treatment. He served as guest editor for a recent special issue of the International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis (Vol. 58, No. 2) that examined research on hypnosis and depression. In an editorial, Yapko urged more research and a rejection of outdated views that hypnosis can precipitate suicide or psychosis in depressed patients. Other articles examined how hypnosis can be integrated with cognitive-behavioral therapy or used with depressed patients and their families.

Willmarth says he doesn't always use hypnotizibility scales with his patients, but will try a hypnosis session and measure the patient's response to see if it is effective. "You have to be a little bit willing to fail in order to do it often enough to succeed," he says.

Hypnosis may not succeed in all cases and can actually be detrimental in some instances, especially in the realm of retrieving memories.

Joseph P. Green, PhD, a psychology professor at Ohio State University at Lima, has researched how hypnotic suggestions can produce distorted or false memories. He also found that people may believe hypnotically induced memories are more reliable, mirroring a mistaken cultural belief that hypnosis acts like a truth serum. Hypnosis is "on thin ice" when used to recover memories, as is the case with most other memory retrieval techniques, Green says.

Hypnosis got a bad name in the 1990s when some therapists convinced patients they had been molested or abused as children because of hypnotically induced memories, which often had no evidence to support them. As a result, many innocent people were wrongly accused of abuse in hundreds of court cases, Yapko says.

"People didn't really understand the suggestibility of memory," he says. "That whole issue has pretty much fallen by the wayside now" because of advances in research.

In a 2007 decision, the Supreme Court of Canada established a precedent that post-hypnosis evidence is inadmissible in court because of its unreliability. In R. v. Trochym, the court overturned a murder conviction after a witness changed her timeline of events following a hypnosis session that was requested by detectives. The jury wasn't told that the witness had been hypnotized or that she had changed her recollection.

"In sum, while it is not generally accepted that hypnosis always produces unreliable memories, neither is it clear when hypnosis results in pseudo-memories or how 
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*LEGAL ISSUES WITH HYPNOSIS being practiced by therapists, who are being sued by their clients.*
In Ramona v. Isabella, George Ramona sued his daughter's therapist for implanting false memories of his abuse of her. In the first case putting recovered memory therapy, itself, on trial, he eventually was awarded $500,000 in 1994.[31]

Discussing RMT in parliament in 1995, an Australian state Minister for Health, Dr Andrew Refshauge - a former medical practitioner - stated that the general issue of admissibility of evidence based on recovered memories was one for the Attorney General.[12] In 2004 Australian Counseling Association issued a draft position statement regarding recovered memories in which they informed their membership of possible legal difficulties if they affirm accusations as true based solely upon discussion of a patient's recovered memories without adequate corroborating evidence.[13]

A degree of controversy does remain within legal circles, with some holding the view that therapists and courts should consider repressed memories the same as they consider regular memories. Three relevant studies state that repressed memories are "no more and no less accurate than continuous memories." [32][33]

Recovered memory therapy was an issue in the criminal trials of some Catholic priests accused of fondling or sexually assaulting juvenile-turned-adult parishioners.[34][35]

Several court cases awarded multi-million dollar verdicts against Minnesota psychiatrist Diane Bay Humenansky, who used hypnosis and other suggestive techniques associated with RMT, resulting in accusations by several patients against family members, that were later found to be false.[36][37][38]

In the UK, a woman who said she had falsely accused her father of rape successfully sued the hospital and psychologist who had treated her with what she described as a form of RMT and was awarded a large out-of-court settlement.[39]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recovered-memory_therapy


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