The use of clinical hypnotherapy and principles from the field of clinical hypnotherapy are becoming increasingly widely used in health care and psychology.
This is due to a number of reasons including an increasing recognition of the need for alternative treatment options when people have exhausted all avenues traditional models have to offer them, the speed at which hypnosis allows someone to experience change, the ability of hypnosis to grant a profound understanding of our mental processes and endow greater control over our thoughts, feelings, actions and therefore life course and outcomes and the ability for this change to last and become the new norm “almost as if it has always been so” to the point where rather than having to try to sustain the change it would actually feel strange and be an effort to go back to the old way of doing the initial “problem”. Or in other words what we would classify as a transformational change.
In a nutshell, hypnosis is a means through which we can make transformational change not just possible but likely.
And in a world where many of us have “problems” such as addictions and unwanted habits we do not wish to have but are finding hard (impossible) to change that is useful, to say the least.
How Does Hypnosis Do All This?
I have written previous blog posts with more in-depth information on the workings of hypnotherapy and if this is what you are after I encourage you to click the following links and check them out (including Beyond the Chicken: How Clinical Hypnotherapy Can Help You Make Fast Change, What Can Hypnosis Do for Me? 3 Common Myths About Hypnosis and What’s It Really Like to Be Hypnotised?)
Here I only wish to provide a very simplified overview of how hypnosis functions and that is that hypnosis works because it actively seeks to engage the resources and skills stored within what in hypnosis terms we refer to as the unconscious mind or if we’re being more science-y the autonomic nervous system (and this is different to the Freudian term unconscious).
Given that it is at this level form which all our “problems” we do not wish to have operate it seems ludicrous to waste time anywhere else or at least to not have hypnosis or unconscious work as part of therapy…
Features of the Conscious and Unconscious Mind1
Conscious Mind
Able to pay attention to 7±2 bits of information at any one time.
Logical
Thinking
Directs outcome
Verbal
Deliberate
Aware of now
Waking
Limited focus
Cognitive learnings
Asks “why”
Sequential
Volitional
Past and future focused
17% brain mass
Impulse 120-140mph
Processess 2000 bits per second
Memory horizon – up to 20 seconds
2-4% control of perception and behaviour
Unconscious Mind
Able to pay attention to everything at once
Intuitive/associational
Feeling
Expatiates Outcome
Non-verbal
Automatic
Sotre house of all memories
Sleeping/dreaming
Unlimited/expansive
Experiential lernings
Knows “how”
Simultaneous
Servile
Present
83% brain mass
Impulse 100 000+mph
Processess 400 billion bits per second
Memory horizon – forever
96-98% of perception and behaviour
What This Means
With even this little snippet of understanding into the different strengths and features of the unconscious and conscious mind, it’s easy to see why employing the deep knowledge and ability of the unconscious mind becomes profound. It simply has access to so much more information than our limited conscious mind.
Access to this additional information is a game changer when we are attempting to make a change in our life that we haven’t otherwise been able to make through knowledge, motivation or willpower alone. Because when we are “trying” and “trying” consciously to stop ourselves doing something or start ourselves doing something else we are using such a minutely small part of our minds. It’s an uphill battle which in some instances can work but this depends on many things including our mental capacity, how well fed and slept we are, our level of stress and how financially stable and socially supported we are and so on. Which as you can appreciate if you’ve made it to adult hood it’s not always an easy task to keep all of these at their peak…
The Missing Link
To me the two overlapping fields of hypnotherapy and neurolinguistic programming (NLP) provide the missing link between wanting to do and actually doing.
A link that is so often unintentionally left out of traditional therapies due to the over emphasis our modern-day culture tends to place on intelligence and the logical mind over emotion or intuition which we also all have within us.
It has been my own, my clients and the experience other clinical hypnotherapist professionals I know that when done correctly the engagement and utilisation of the unconscious mind almost guarantees success because it makes the desired change inevitable.
7 Real-Life Examples of Hypnosis in Action
If you’ve never yourself had much to do with clinical hypnotherapy, the use of your unconscious mind, are curious to know what sorts of things it can help with or to understand a little of how it works the following short video (9 minutes) does a nice job of explaining things simply and clearly.
If you are interested to watch this video segment featured on Current Affair recently in which a clinical hypnotherapist assists 7 people to overcome various at what would at first glance be considered bizarre “problems” then click this link and enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2KB6v0x_BI&ab_channel=ACurrentAffair
With my whole heart I hope you found this information useful and inspiring.
Become Great. Live Great.
Bonnie.
Reference
- The Mind Trainer Home Study Course Booklet. For more information on the conscious and unconscious mind see: https://www.themindacademy.com.au/
