Hypnosis and hypnotherapy have the unfortunate reputation as being forms of mind control. This is partly due to the history of modern hypnosis, which began with a man named Anton Mesmer, who moved magnets through people's energy fields and achieved great success in healing people of all sorts of maladies. Mesmer, who went from being one of the most celebrated figures of Paris to being  an outcast. He was investigated by a panel of Scientists and Academics who decreed his animal magnetism theory to be bogus. He died poor and ruined.

Investigations into Mesmer concluded that people were being healed by his odd therapies, but it was not because of his manipulation of their "animal magnetism" but in the belief of the patients that they were being healed. From this point, hypnosis and the subsequent field of hypnotherapy evolved slowly from a practice that rested on the power to change mental states by the hypnotist to a practice of changing from within that rested on the abilities of the hypnotized to utilize the suggestions being given to him or her while in a state of trance.

Along with the other modern misconceptions of hypnosis is that the average hypnotic subject is a gullible, unquestioning fool looking for someone to control his or her mind. Actually, both from research of others' work and experience from my own, I'd have to say that the best hypnotic subject is intelligent, imaginative, and self-aware. Furthermore, these people have far more success in making permanent transformations in themselves, from quitting smoking and losing weight ,to releasing deep anger and sadness, to utilizing past life information to take positive actions in this life.

This is because all hypnosis is self-hypnosis. You see, when you come into my office for hypnotherapy, after filling out an intake form that gives me some information on how you learn, what kind of problem you're here to tackle, and the types of visual, audio and kinesthetic imagery you best relate to, I sit you down and explain how hypnosis works. I explain that for the purposes of this therapy we can conceptualize our brain as existing in two parts: the conscious and subconscious mind. The conscious mind regulates decision making, linear processing of information, and direct perception through the five senses. The subconscious mind regulates memory, imagination, dreaming, non-linear thinking, instinct, and it relays information back to the conscious (ever had an "aha!" moment?) They are separated by what is called the critical factor, which, in short, allows you to tell the difference between imagination and reality. The critical factor is important, it is the part of you that allows yourself to remember that you are indeed attending a college history lecture and not in fact zooming around in a spaceship with the cute person you have a crush on. But it's not always right. It is that irritating "internal censor" that artists talk about all the time-the voice that says, "you can't possibly do that. You aren't good enough."

In the hypnotherapy session we proceed to banish the critical factor by taking you through step after step designed to relax you very deeply. This does a lot of positive things. First and foremost, it makes the internal censor quiet down, so that your subconscious can engage in accepting all sorts of positive realities, like a reality where you are a non smoker, your ideal weight, and free of deep anger and sadness. Plus, it allows you to experience these realities as if they were actually happening, because your subconscious mind can't tell the difference between objective reality and a vivid imagining. The critical factor, the one that would be able to tell you that you are in fact sitting in a chair in some woman's office, would be quieted by the steps leading you to deep relaxation.

These steps are most likely not new to you. They may include but are not exclusively counting down backwards, imagining yourself on a beach with warm sun on your body, breathing deeply, and relaxing your body, muscle by muscle. In short, they are employed by many wholistic practitioners and therapists and teachers of meditation. And the state you end up in is similar to the states reached by meditation, deep artistic or work-related concentration, being in the athletic "zone" or any time you are focused and relaxed at the same time.

And the truth is, you are more in control than me. You must agree to sit in that chair, you must allow yourself to visualize the things I suggest, you must allow yourself to relax. If you aren't going to do this, you may as well go home. And a bigger truth of all this is; not only is all hypnosis self hypnosis, but all healing is self healing. Even in medical situations, we can keep ourselves from healing if there is some hidden payoff. You can waste years and years of psychotherapy if you are not interested in healing, ready to examine yourself and then take action, and willing to trust first and foremost your relationship with yourself and then your relationship with the therapist and the exercises he or she has chosen to do with you in order that you may know thyself and change.

The funny thing about the myths that surround the field of hypnotherapy is this: we are constantly receiving impressions into our subconscious that affect our beliefs and behaviors. A hypnotherapist is not the only trance induction expert out there; far from it, the TV producer, trusted parent, advertiser, writer, used car salesman, politician, and girl scout selling cookies all know how to expertly catch our attention, put us into a trance, and get us to behave how they want us to. All these people and more successfully program our minds every day. The difference between this kind of programming and the kind you will receive in my or another hypnotists' office is that with me you are in control of your programming. You come in, explain yourself, your beliefs and your problem, you decide what beliefs and habits you'd prefer to have, and then we work together to put you into trance and suggest these new beliefs and behaviors to your subconscious mind. Your ability to accept these suggestions (which come in many forms, from energy work, to color therapy, to visualizations, to straight verbal suggestions) is directly proportional to your desire to change and your belief that it will work. Anybody who says that hypnosis and therapy in general is "all in your mind" is right. But you've got to be willing to dust off your mind and use it.

____________________
  
Lia M. Salciccia and Jason Newcomb operate Center of Changes. They are located at 32 Powdermill Road, Maynard MA and can be reached at 978 266 1795 and on the web at www.divineinfidel.com, and by email at liamaria@mindspring.com.