What is Hypnotherapy and Hypnosis

The power exists within you to live your dreams and heal your mind and body.

Hypnotherapy is a powerful therapy utilizing the wisdom of your subconscious mind to heal and transform physical as well as emotional issues. Your subconscious mind controls your beliefs, your patterns, your emotions, your immune system and your body. It is also the home of your higher mind, and connects you with a wellspring of inner resources. 

Through hypnosis you gain access to this incredibly powerful part of your mind to make positive changes as well as tap into the tremendous gifts your mind has to offer. Accessing your subconscious mind allows you to discover the underlying causes of a problem, and understand them in a new way so you can release their control over your life. 

Hypnotherapy allows you to heal limiting beliefs and transform negative patterns into positive ones. It is a proven tool for reawakening the creative forces within you to allow you to finally live your dreams. 

How Does Hypnosis Work?

Hypnosis works by learning the rhythms and patterns between your conscious, subconscious and unconscious mind. The application of hypnosis and hypnotherapy is based solely on the relationship between the conscious and subconscious mind. It is important to understand the function of each of these so you can understand how hypnosis works. 

Your conscious mind is your present awareness. For instance, in reading this, you are aware of the words on the page. What you may not be aware of is the sound of birds outside, the hum of your computer, or even the color of the chair you are sitting in. The conscious mind can only hold the information you are currently focusing on. It is only able to retain, at most, 7 pieces of information at a time. The conscious mind analyzes and solves problems. It evaluates whatever concern, situation or issue that has its attention at any given moment. It is the part of your mind that makes decisions and exercises willpower. The conscious mind is the place of temporary memory, the memory we use everyday to function. 

The subconscious mind, on the other hand, accounts for the rest of your mind. It can be compared to a computer or a memory bank. It takes in everything we hear, see, feel, and experience and stores it in your memory banks. It has been estimated that the subconscious mind receives two billion pieces of information per second. The subconscious mind controls all of your bodily functions; breathing, circulation, eyes blinking, the immune system, organs, muscles, bones, and tissues. 

The subconscious mind is the seat of your emotions, habits, core beliefs, and your permanent memory. Just like a computer, your subconscious mind operates only on it's programming, which has been created by life experiences. Through hypnosis we are able to reprogram your subconscious mind to bring about the positive changes you desire. 

There is a part of your conscious mind called the "critical factor." It is the gatekeeper between the conscious and subconscious mind. It has the power to accept or reject new programming. Its job is to protect you. Because change, even positive change, is viewed as a threat to the nervous system, most new programming gets rejected. This is why you may wake up in the morning and say, "today I am going to exercise and eat only healthy foods," and by noon you are searching for chocolate and have created brilliant excuses as to why you can't exercise. The only way to make real change is to get the new programming into your subconscious mind. 

During hypnosis your critical factor becomes a passive observer for awhile and the new information goes directly into your subconscious mind allowing you to make lasting, powerful and positive changes. 

Hypnotherapy is a two-way process, a professional partnership, between the therapist and the client. Trust and respect are essential to allow that "critical factor' to become that passive observer. 

During a typical hypnotherapy session, the hypnotherapist takes all the time necessary to completely answer the client’s questions about hypnotherapy, explaining the entire process. After determining whether or not hypnotherapy is the most effective way to address the client’s needs, and before proceeding, a strategy and specific suggestions are agreed upon. Only after complete agreement is the hypnotic state induced and the suggestions offered to the subconscious. 

Imagination and Hypnosis

Imagination is used to induce hypnosis but imagination during hypnosis is quite different as has been shown in Neuroscience investigations of brain activity use PET scans. Scientists found the brain activity during a suggested experience in hypnosis to be very similar to the conscioius experience of the actual experience whereas the brain activity during conscious imagination of the experience was quite different.