The professional hypnotist/hypnotherapist

The PsychoBiology is opening some promising therapeutical horizons. The PsychoNeuroImmunology is studying some mind-body relationships. There is scientific evidence that hypnosis influences even tumors. Such discoveries call for special techniques and hypnosis experts. The hypnotist is the only expert who knows how to use hypnosis. The expert must be able to communicate ideas to the nervous system. In the USA, the doctor prescribes often the hypnosis, even in hospital. The hypnotherapist can train you to control better the body physiology. Whether you are doctor or patient, always use a professional hypnotist. Is (s)he member of a world-wide recognized hypnosis organization? Copyright (C) Alberto Torelli.

What does the hypnotist / hypnotherapist do?

The sole fact of reading the word 'therapy' maybe has put in alarm some health-care professionals, here, so I think it's better to immediately clarify the meaning of the words. Now, the term hypnotist indicates an expert in hypnosis, an operator that is able to use self-hypnosis and to also teach it to other people for their self-improvement. However, in the United States and in United Kingdom (for example), physicians often refer their patients to a professional and certified hypnotist, i.e. they write a true prescription for hypnotic treatment for clinical and medical purposes. So, in this case, the hypnotist should be considered more correctly as a hypnotherapist, because he operates in a clinical sphere following the orders of the doctor; in other words, he becomes a sort of 'drug' to be used only under medical prescription. For this reason, the terms 'hypnotist' and 'hypnotherapist' indicate the same operator who works in different contexts. Other terms are often used, depending on the circumstances: 'hypno-counselor', 'clinical hypnotherapist', 'medical hypnotist', 'stage hypnotist', and so on. For convenience, I will use indifferently the terms of 'hypnotist' or 'hypnotherapist', in the meaning just specified above. Copyright (C) Alberto Torelli.

If you are a physician, please read here

As said before, the professional and certified hypnotist is often used by doctors in the clinical, medical, and therapeutical environment, i.e. on the patients, so it is more convenient and realistic to use the term 'hypnotherapy' and not only the term 'hypnosis'. In fact, for every possible therapeutical intervention within the clinical scope, the hypnotist wants to have a written prescription from the physician (think about what may occur if, for example, an intense intractable headache (caused by a cancer) is removed: in that case the symptom removal subtracts the patient away from the necessary examinations, and this would prevent the administration of the vital medical treatments, with very serious consequences against the life of the patient; on the other hand, if the physician, after clinical examinations, is sure that there are no organic lesions but nonetheless the pain is drug-resistant, then he can refer this patient to a good hypnotist, who will teach to that patient how to develop the ability to control the pain and/or to become indifferent to it very rapidly and with lasting results). So, the hypnotist becomes a new, very effective 'drug', which is a multipurpose drug for the physician, available in the medical field only after a written prescription by the professional. Fortunately, all the serious, skilled, and professional hypnotists are members of important hypnosis associations, and strictly adhere to an ethical code that supports this wonderful doctor-hypnotist cooperation, very useful for the patients. For this reason, it is important to rely only on professional and certified hypnotists. Hypnosis usage in medicine. With hypnoanesthesia it is possible to lower the use of anesthetic drugs by 1/2 or even to 1/4 for the delivery, and hypnoanesthesia can be a substitute for preanesthesia (this one depresses the respiration) and can control posthypnotically the vomit reflex and the cough reflex, besides dramatically accelerating healing of surgical wounds. Burn patients can receive less opiates and keep their appetite. Every anesthesiologist should have some basic notions about psychiatry and hypnosis. In obstetrics, hypnosis can reduce drugs, efforts, and fetal anoxia. Moreover, it is easier to control nausea, vomiting, or panic attacks. Haemorrhage is very limited, as in dental extractions, and even with a light trance it is possible to use less anesthetic in 95% of the cases. In pediatrics the hypnotic induction is easy, and the results are often very rapid, but it is necessary to obtain the trust of the children, and tell them simply what to do, without any technique. Here it's sufficient to understand the child and to exploit the symptoms in a useful way, speaking in a simple and serious manner, teaching self-respect, so that it is possible to free the child from enuresis, from childish fears, from stuttering, and from bad habits (nail biting, thumb sucking, bruxism, tongue thrust, and so on). Generally speaking, in medicine hypnosis should not be aimed at symptom removal, but at symptom relief, and often the results are excellent. A mild hypnoanalgesia is enough for little sutures and for vaginal inspections, but for injuries and arthritis it is necessary to reach a good anesthesia. Great improvements are possible on illnesses like colds, multiple sclerosis, tics, constipation. Self-hypnosis is very useful for the treatment of insomnia, and also (at least partially) for smoking, obesity, allergy, asthma, food urticaria (often emotionally-driven), dermatitis, ulcer (healing within 6 weeks), migraine, tinnitus, dizziness (vertigo), angina, emotional hypertension, polio, and cerebral palsy. Finally, hypnosis is very useful for phantom limb syndrome in mutilated patients. In dentistry, hypnosis makes every intervention easier, and can control fears, nausea, and troubles or distress. The patients can be trained to react more positively, and often it is possible to immediately resolve the gag reflex problem. Of course, the patient can always benefit by a reduced perception of the pain. Copyright (C) Alberto Torelli.

If you are a psychotherapist, please read here

First of all, psychotherapy pertains to the sick and to the patient, so it is an exclusive competence of the psychotherapist. A totally different thing is, of course, the correction of certain bad (or undesired) mental or physical habits typical of healthy and normal people: here the intervention is not 'therapeutical', because it is merely reduced to a 'push' towards the self-improvement, and so it has no clinical meaning, because the person is already clinically healthy. For example, if one is worried more than necessary, or is stressed, or smokes too much, or has some excess weight, but for the rest is perfectly normal, s/he can safely receive support from the hypnotist, who teaches her/him how to relax and how to behave in a more useful way. The hypnotist, therefore, acts as a counselor or hypnologist. However, due to the frequent request of the hypnotist's service from physicians for the treatment of some psychosomatic pathologies (asthma, peptic ulcer, colitis, dermatitis..), the activity of the hypnotist in its entirety is more correctly and completely defined as 'hypnotherapy'. Hypnotherapy (an approach to the body-mind junction) and psychotherapy (an approach to the mind) are very different. For example, let's consider irritable bowel syndrome, which is a serious and chronic pathology, almost incurable, and of quite unknown etiology. Well, with hypnotherapy the bowel behaviour changes dramatically, with long-lasting results, with no relapses nor symptom substitution. On the contrary, psychotherapy and the placebo are a lot less effective, and the difference is statistically highly significant (Lancet 1984 Dec 1;2(8414):1232-4). With regard to mental health, the problem doesn't even exist, because the hypnotist works in an independent manner only on clinically healthy people. Said in more formal terms: (1) hypnotherapy is the usage of hypnotic trance and suggestions on NORMAL people (clients), with the simple aim to teach them how to CORRECT BY THEMSELVES their 'bad habits' FOUND BY THEMSELVES within their intellectual, emotional, sexual, working, relational, and behavioral life. (2) psychotherapy, on the contrary, is nosographical DIAGNOSIS and suitable TREATMENT (of conversative and verbal type) for SICK persons (patients), afflicted with MENTAL ILLNESSES, and therefore in need of mental-health assistance. The hypnotist / hypnotherapist, then, is NOT a psychotherapist, and he never does any psychotherapy. For the same reason the pet shop cannot be accused of doing 'pet therapy' only because of the business of selling pets (which are very effective in the therapy of depression caused by loneliness), and the single volunteer cannot be accused of abusive social working, and the tibetan singer cannot be sued for his 'illegal' relaxing music-therapy, and the yoga teacher, regularly paid, cannot be accused of removeing fears and phobias and anxiety and stress being not a licensed psychotherapist, and the same applies for aromatherapy, flower therapy, stone therapy.. because here we have normal people involved. This is why shops can sell anti-caries chewing-gum even though not licensed by dental associations. Healthy people cannot be confused with sick people, common human bad habits are NOT mental diseases, and hypnotherapy is NOT psychotherapy. But a psychotherapist can benefit from hypnosis, as we as we indicate hereafter. Hypnosis usage in psychiatry. Aggressiveness can be hypnotically redirected towards more useful directions. In front of a serious injury, the patient can be guided in trance and becomes able to better handle the painful context. Very bad habits can be made too unpleasant, so that they will be abandoned soon. Hypnosis is a very powerful tool for any uncovering procedure; regression should be used to recall some past and forgotten memories, and revivification is useful to help the patient reinterpret past experiences, or to remove a posthypnotic block. All the respectable hypnosis associations strictly forbid the 'hypnotic seal', sometimes used by some therapists who have no ethical principle. Hypnosis is very powerful for visualizations and for pseudo-orienting in the future, that often result in a very quick and effective psychiatric therapy. Even automatic writing, a typical and classical hypnotic phenomenon, can be used to uncover some fears or conflicts. Finally, there is posthypnotic suggestion, that, if administered in the precise moment of happiness of the patient, can make psychotherapy a lot more lasting. Another useful hypnotic technique for the psychiatrist is hypnotic reorienting, where the patient pretends/believes to be healthy and healed, and so he can discuss the problem without overwhelming emotions. Sometimes it is useful having the patient to dream the same things many times, because slowly changing the characters, the patient goes rapidly towards an insight which is less covered step after step. Hypnosis usage in psychology. Hypnosis can reinforce the reasons for good common sense, can rapidly resolve every little or modest disorder, and can help (but not much) with some psychopathologies, even serious or very serious ones. The psychologist can use hypnotic reeducation techniques by means of confusion, with the advantage of an after-effect that, for some time, keeps the patient susceptible to other hypnotic phenomena. Copyright (C) Alberto Torelli.

Deep hypnosis should be used only by expert hypnotists

Normally, hypnotherapy is done in a mild trance, because this is the state that almost every normal person can easily achieve, and here it is possible to do a lot of work. To be sincere, deep hypnosis has only two applications: surgical anesthesia (using hypnosis as the sole anesthetic), and regression (where the client goes back in time to a childhood period of life, or to other times, in order to recall some traumatic or repressed memories, so that they can be discharged from the emotional disturbing load). The deep hypnotic state is still a natural state of the mind, but for the most time it has a protective meaning, like an immediate anesthesia (shock) during some traumatic accident, or some painful and distressing experience kept unavailable. For this reason, it can be dangerous to remove without care this protective shield. Here the hypnotist must be a caring hypnotist, one that knows what (s)he is doing. Removing hypnotically an intense pain without any protective support, for example, can cause disorientation and panic to the person. Regression to a traumatic event can easily produce a heart attack even lethal. So, in dealing with deep induced phenomena, it is important to have an expert and trained hypnotist, in order to handle correctly the abreactions (mind-body reactions, sometimes extremely violent, at the sudden recall of the repressed material), and to safeguard the risk of installing a false memory into the mind of the patient. This problem, the false-memory syndrome, is caused by the hypnotic incompetence of the operator, who tries regression without the necessary knowledge. Sad to say, the main professionals most guilty of this problem are psychologists, because nobody controls the quality of their hypnotic ability and work (on the contrary, the members (for example) of the National Guild of Hypnotists are well known, proven, and certified in their abilities and their hypnotic training, especially towards regression techniques and forensic hypnosis). Fortunately, even in this case the damages are very limited, because, even if sometimes it is possible to install some ideas in the past, in any case they cannot be forced to be carried out in the future, and, moreover, the presence of a false memory doesn't influence the subject more than a repressed experience. But the point here is another one: that there are too many professionals that are using hypnosis having insufficient knowledge. The user of hypnosis must know hypnosis thoroughly, and it is not a degree in medicine or in psychology that makes someone able to use hypnosis in the right way. But hypnosis alone is not enough in the medical field; personally, I support the opinion of Pavlov, Erickson, and Granone (three true giants in clinical hypnosis): only he/she who is cultured in physiology can be skilled in the use of the deep hypnosis, because here what it is promoted is a strong PHYSIOLOGICAL change, of which the psychological one is only a mere reflection. Copyright (C) Alberto Torelli.