Can Everyone Be Hypnotized?

Excerpt: Gerald Kein, director of the Omni Hypnosis Training Center, Deland Florida, readily acknowledges that a small percentage of subjects simply refuse to go into trance. (He just sends them home.)

Leading hypnotics scientific researcher Dr. Charles Tart lucidly summarizes the core facts about hypnotizability in his fascinating work Waking Up (Shambhala Publications, 1987):

"Contrary to popular stereotypes, a person's degree of hypnotizability does not show any strong correlations with obvious personality characteristics. A deeply hypnotizable person is not necessarily smarter or dumber than average, more or less gullible, male or female, extroverted or introverted, healthy or neurotic. The idea that a superior hypnotist uses
his will to master a dumb, subservient, or gullible person doesn't fit reality very well."

We occasionally encounter a very hard skeptic -- one who believes that all hypnotic subjects are faking it. This conclusion is demonstrably wrong. And this kind of attitude, one perhaps even worse than credulity, has done (and does) humanity enormous damage.

Consider this:

"For example, a British physician stationed in India, James Esdaile, discovered that hypnosis could be used to anesthetize many patients for surgery. Chemical anesthesia had not been discovered yet. Ninety-five percent of patients who had surgery died from it, as well as suffering terribly. Esdaile reported that not only did his Indian patients feel no pain,
but 95 percent survived the operation.

The British medical journals refused to publish his papers. When he returned to Britain, he put on a demonstration for his colleagues of the British College of Physicians and Surgeons. After hypnotizing a man with a gangrenous leg, he amputated
it in front of them while the man lay there calmly smiling. The conclusion of his skeptical colleagues? Esdaile was fooling them. He had hired a hardened rogue for a gold piece to lie there and pretend he was feeling no pain.

They must have had very hard rogues in those days."
(Tart, Awakening, pp. 79-80)

Hypnosis Articles & Video Clips

Hypnosis Articles

Hypnosis in Contemporary Medicine

James H. Stewart, MD

From the Department of Internal Medicine and Division of Cardiovascular Diseases, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Jacksonville, Florida - 2005

Abstract: “Hypnosis became popular as a treatment for medical conditions in the late 1700s when effective pharmaceutical and surgical treatment options were limited. To determine whether hypnosis has a role in contemporary medicine, relevant trials and a few case reports are reviewed. Despite substantial variation in techniques among the numerous reports, patients treated with hypnosis experienced substantial benefits for many different medical conditions. An expanded role for hypnosis and a larger study of techniques appear to be indicated.”

Fetuses may have Memories, Study Suggests

MSNBC.com Health - July 2009

July/August Issue of the journal Child Development

Excerpt: “A new study suggests that short-term memory may be present in fetuses at 30 weeks of age.”

Placebo Effect: A Cure in the Mind

Scientific American - February, 2009

Excerpt: “Placebos can help not only to alleviate illnesses with an obvious psychological component, such as pain, depression and anxiety, but also to lessen the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and inflammatory disorders. The latest research has shown that the placebo effect does not always arise from a conscious belief in a drug. Alternatively, it may grow out of subconscious associations between recovery and the experience of being treated, from the pinch of a shot to a doctor’s white coat. Such subliminal conditioning can control bodily processes, including immune responses and the release of hormones.”

Hypnosis Helped Stanford/Packard Physicians Pinpoint Cause of Children's Seizures

Earthtimes Press Release - February 2008

Excerpts: “Many children who seem to be having epileptic seizures are actually having an involuntary physical reaction to psychological stress in their lives. These events require a vastly different treatment than do true epileptic seizures.” “(Hypnosis) is an important tool that can speed proper diagnosis and treatment for children suffering from seizurelike events.

Hypnosis Soothes Indigestion

WebMD - December 2002

Excerpt: “Researchers found hypnotherapy provided both immediate and long-term relief to people with persistent indigestion and eliminated the need for anti-indigestion medications as long as a year after treatment.”

Hypnosis in Cancer Care

Contemporary Hypnosis - 2006

Published online in Wiley InterScience

Abstract: “Despite conclusive evidence for the efficacy of clinical hypnosis in the management ofmany cancer related symptoms and particularly acute and chronic pain, hypnosis is currentlyunder-utilized in these applications. This paper gives a brief overview of the contemporaryuses of hypnosis in paediatric and adult oncology and shows how hypnosis can be integrated into a total therapeutic process based on the needs and goals of thepatient and the health care team treating them.”

The Mind Prepared: Hypnosis in Surgery

David Spiegel

Stanford University School of Medicine

Excerpt: “...there is good neurophysiologic reason to believe that hypnosis is potentially a powerful tool to alter perception of pain and associated anxiety. You have to pay attention to pain for it to hurt, and it is entirely possible to substantially alter pain perception during surgical procedures by inducing hypnotic relaxation, transforming perception in parts of the body, or directing attention elsewhere. The key concept is that this psychological procedure actually changes pain experience as much as many analgesic medications and far more than placebos."

This is Your Brain under Hypnosis

The New York Times Company - 2005

Excerpt: "...hypnosis has been used in medicine since the 1950's to treat pain and, more recently, as a treatment for anxiety, depression, trauma, irritable bowel syndrome and eating disorders.

Hypnosis for Dental Phobia

Contemporary Hypnosis - 2006

Published online in Wiley InterScience

Abstract: “Female, 31, (with) dental phobia prevented extraction. ...hypnotic intervention facilitated the removal of the troublesome tooth. Successful outcome of this treatment and new learned self-hypnosis techniques allowed patient to feel more confident about accepting future dental treatment without need for pharmacological intervention.”

Hypnosis Session before Breast Cancer Surgery Aids Recovery HealthDay News - 2007

Excerpt: “...women who received hypnosis before breast cancer surgery needed less anesthesia during the procedure, reported less pain afterward, needed less time in the operating room and had reduced costs. ...this helps women at a time when they could use help, and it has no side effects. It really only has side benefits," said Guy Montgomery, lead author of the report and associate professor in the department of oncological sciences at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City.”

Altered States: Hypnosis can Help with Problems from Anxiety to Pain

MSNBC.com Newsweek – 2007

Excerpt: "One of the interesting ironies about hypnosis is that old fantasy that it takes away control," says Dr. David Spiegel, professor and associate chair of psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine and a leading expert on the practice. "It's actually a way of enhancing people's control, of teaching them how to control aspects of their body's function and sensation that they thought they couldn't."

Altered States: Hypnosis In Mainstream Medicine - Major Hospitals Use Trances for Fractures, Cancer, Burns; Speeding Surgery Recoveries

The Wall Street Journal - 2003

Excerpt: "Carol Ginandes, a Harvard psychologist at McLean Hospital in Boston, is trying to prove that "through hypnosis, the mind can have a potent effect not only on mental well-being but also on the acceleration of bodily healing itself." She has co-written a study showing ankle fractures among patients receiving a hypnotic protocol healed weeks faster than usual and another study showing wound-healing benefits for hypnotized breast-cancer surgery patients. Though these studies were preliminary, Dr. Ginandes believes that hypnosis enabled her subjects to stimulate the body's own healing mechanism to work more efficiently.”

Break Your Bad Habit: Studies show hypnotherapy can help you conquer your troubling obsessions

MSNBC.com Health – 2008

Excerpt: "Hypnosis has a long and checkered history. But there's a growing body of quality research showing that it can help with everything from behavioral problems and bad habits to anxiety and irritable bowel syndrome."

Hypnotic and Self Hypnotic Approaches to Comprehensive Cancer Care

European Journal of Clinical Hypnosis

Gerard V. Sunnen, M.D.

Introduction: “Medical hypnosis is a science increasingly recognized for its therapeutic applications. Applied to the comprehensive treatment of cancer, medical hypnosis offers unique possibilities due to its capacity for enhancing mind to body communication. This article describes how hypnosis is clinically utilized to address the spectrum of cancer's physical and psychological dimensions.”

Early Childhood Emotional Trauma: An Important Factor in the Aetiology of Cancer and other Diseases

European Journal of Clinical Hypnosis - 2006

Gerald A. Harris, MNRHP, DHP(NC), MCA(HYP), UKCP

Abstract: “The purpose of this article is to view the evidence to support a connection between early childhood trauma and subsequent cancer. This trauma has a critical period and must occur within the first 7 to 8 years of life and its long latency period will await the necessary trigger, in later life, which will activate the cancer. The important part played by repressed emotions will be explored, in this early age group, which would appear to be the significant missing link connecting early trauma to later emotional and physical diseases, including cancer. However, this trauma does not have to proceed to its inevitable conclusion, but, with the right intervention, this process can be successfully treated and the "time bomb" awaiting the activating trigger can be successfully defused.”

Hypnosis Helps Healing: Surgical Wounds Mend Faster

Harvard Gazette Archives - 2003

Excerpt: “...Ginandes (of Harvard Medical School) and Daniel Rosenthal, professor of radiology at the Harvard Medical School, published a report on their study of hypnosis to speed up the mending of broken bones. The result stood out like a sore ankle. Those who were hypnotized healed faster than those who were not. Six weeks after the fracture, those in the hypnosis group showed the equivalent of eight and a half weeks of healing.”

Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) Concurrent with Fibromyalgia - Surprisingly Frequent

ImmuneSupport.com – 2007

Excerpt: “A wide range of psychological treatments has been tested, but cognitive-behavioral therapy and hypnosis are currently the two types best supported by research as effective in a large proportion of patients.”

Replacing Pain Killers with Hypnosis

Ursula Sautter

Ode Magazine - December, 2008 issue

Excerpt: “Increasingly, dentists, physicians and surgeons are using hypnosis to replace, or at least reduce, the use of painkillers as well as general and local anesthetics. Hypnosis may not be the method of choice for major operations, but for a growing number of procedures ranging from kidney stone fragmentation to minor surgery to childbirth it has proved an effective alternative to conventional sedatives and analgesics. Hypnosis is real, says psychiatrist David Spiegel, a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine. It's no less palpable an analgesic than medication.”

Video Clips

Bruce Lipton, Ph.D. - New Biology: Where Mind and Matter Meet

The New Biology - Where Mind and Matter Meet - 1 of 2

The New Biology - Where Mind and Matter Meet - 2 of 2

Cellular biologists now recognize that the environment, the external universe and our internal physiology, and more importantly, our perception of the environment, directly controls the activity of our genes. This video will broadly review the molecular mechanisms by which environmental awareness interfaces genetic regulation and guides organismal evolution.

HypnoSurgery Live

Excerpt: "A live television broadcast in Britain (April 2006) demonstrates the latent power and potential of the human mind. A man has a tumour surgically removed from his stomach without the use of any pain removing drugs whatsoever. To accomplish this task, physical sensation is muted in the body via the use of hypnosis."

Disease and Mental Illness

Listen to Dr. Jeffrey Schaler speak about psychiatry and the diagnosis of mental illness.

Is ADHD a Disease?

Listen to the renown Dr. Thomas Szasz lecture about psychiatry and the diagnosis of mental illness.

Jill Bolte Taylor: My Stroke of Insight

Brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor had the research opportunity of a lifetime when she witnessed her own massive stroke. As those first moments unfolded and her stroke damage progressed, she received a first-hand account of the amazing yet separate workings of the left verses the right hemisphere of her own brain. An incredible revelation of the beauty of our creative side. Something that is available to us all.

Inner Harmony Hypnosis

Southview Commons

300 White Spruce Blvd. Suite 018

Rochester, New York 14623

585.662.9665

Fax: 585.654.9323

helga@innerharmonyhypnosis.com

www.InnerHarmonyHypnosis.com

Rebalancing Your Mind into Health allows You to Break Free