Modern hypnosis - psychosomatic healing

The psychosomatic medicine comes from the new scientific knowledge. Only today we are discovering the biochemical bases of the psychology. The abstract study of the mind is becoming a sort of molecular biology. Today we can describe objectively the psychophysiological alteration. The (self)hypnosis enables us to alter beneficially the whole organism. In short, it is like having a multipurpose drug without side effects! Active principle: auto-therapy (acts on the Central Nervous System). Indications: pain/stress/asthma/fears/esteem/habits/smoking/fat.. Warnings: accept to be trained only by a certified hypnotherapist. Contraindications: without medical advice, don't remove symptoms! Copyright (C) Alberto Torelli.

With self-hypnosis it is possible to auto-heal!

At last, today we are beginning to spread some light on the powers of the human brain. One of those powers, misunderstood and neglected, is the ABILITY TO AUTO-HEAL, and it can be stimulated through hypnosis. The nervous system is able to heal both the mind and the body. The fact that a tooth can be extracted using hypnosis as the only anesthetic, and having a very little loss of blood, is quite reproducible and well proven. The same is true for some warts, that hypnosis alone can literally force to disappear, with the same results as the surgical removal. Moreover, it is also possible to hypnotically cancel the warts only on one side of the body! (Sinclair-Gieben et al, 1959, cited by Hogan). These facts must be explained in one way or another. A third example is the clinical case of a girl with primitive breasts. Her father, a good physician, tried every sort of therapy, with no results. One day he asked Erickson (the famous psychiatrist and hypnotist) to use hypnosis, and the breasts grew in a very short time. These are real clinical facts, witnessing the powers of the nervous system, which controls the circulatory tree (as in the example of the tooth extraction), but also the immune system (as in the example of the warts), and the endocrine system (as in the example of the girl). This control is mediated by a cascade of many biochemical messengers and neuro-hormons that we are beginning to know only now. So, hypnosis can use the powers of the nervous system. But there is another gigantic benefit about the hypnosis, and that is the fact that hypnosis is always a self-hypnosis, because the subject is the only leader and owner of the subjective hypnotic experience. In other words, hypnosis CAN BE LEARNED AND USED PERSONALLY, so that the benefits are avaliable FOR THE ENTIRE LIFE, permanently, in every field of the human behavior and existence. Copyright (C) Alberto Torelli.

What can and cannot be done with hypnosis

Erickson said: "hypnosis should be used to study the pain, the stress, and the human communication". At least, it is always possible to help the client to improve the type of personal reaction to the situation. Well, in the hypnotic state the nervous system is more open and agreeable to receive ideas, so that it becomes possible to command to the body to reduce the blood flow, or to decrease the heart rate; also, the mind can accept the request to release a negative emotion, or to abandon a reaction of fear. In other words, in the trance it is possible to remodel the organism at every level: intellectual-emotional, sensorial, or motor, altering also the biochemical and physiological parameters. As you have probably noticed, I have said 'remodel the organism': infact, we cannot add or subtract anything with the hypnotic approach, because the hypnotic state is an exclusive property of the subject. For example, a disassembled car is only a useless pile of pieces, and an assembled car (from those same pieces) is obviously a very different thing. But if the pieces are those of a 'fiat 500' (a very small car), there is no way to assemble the pieces and get a 'mercedes'. So we can teach to the mind and to the body how to do the normal things much better, how to learn much better, how to act much better, and sometimes the improvements (or the new performances) are so impressive that we have to redefine what is normal and what is not normal for the human being. And we really have many opportunities to realize that our resources are normally a lot more powerful than what we can imagine. Now, it's true that we have many heavy self-limiting beliefs, but it's also true that the potentiality of the human being is objectively limited: so you cannot force anybody to do something against his/her will or which is in contrast with his/her beliefs and personal values. The manipulation is quite limited. A serious damage to the body cannot be repaired, a very subnormal mind cannot be helped, and so on. Finally, a central rule of the physiology says: "the structure determines the function". What does it mean? We know the structure of every organ, and so we know its functions, but the brain.. hmm.. this thing still remains an organ with an unknown structure, and this is why, even today, we can continue to be astonished about its functions.. because few data on the structure means bad understanding of the function. So, speaking about hypnosis (one of the natural states of the nervous system), there is no magic here.. only scientific ignorance. The following paragraphs contain some rather technical material (the lay reader may skip them). Copyright (C) Alberto Torelli.

New frontiers for biologists, researchers, and physiologists

Today we are realizing that the nervous system has some real powers almost unknown and unused, and at last we are rapidly developing the scientific bases of new belief systems. Not only the auto-healing process is possible, but also the self-hypnosis is probably going to become one of the most powerful (self)therapeutical approaches in order to control the body physiology, with great advantages in the psychosomatic field. The mind-body relationship is now under study from many points of view: the PsychoNeuroImmunology has already proved that hypnosis can influence even cancer, because it is able to increase the number of the natural killer lymphocytes, and the PsychoPhysiology, which studies basically the physiological modifications induced through psychological stimuli, is now defining the physiological indicators of the human behaviour. The physiology is the true hinge of the entire scientific construction around the hypnotic phenomenon. Hypnosis can literally scatter synapses (functionally) in such a way that to feel the pain it is needed a very heavy train of algogenic impulses. The hypnotic suggestion alters dramatically the biochemical properties of the neurotransmitters and of the endocrine system. The genial intuition (by Erickson), saying that "the mental diseases follow the same rules of the muscular and sensorial disorders", is now finding its confirmations. But already Ivan Petrovic Pavlov (1849-1936) said that "hypnosis, internal inhibition, and sleep are similar PHYSIOLOGICAL processes". Physiological, not psychological. This is the right way, if we want to succeed in the understanding. After the death of Erickson (1980), it was his strict collaborator, Ernest Rossi, the man who continued the research in the PsychoBiology, which studies dissociations, hypnosis, and the state-dependent learnings, memories, and behaviours (SDLMB). The adaptive behaviour is central, the physiology is central, the holistic approach is central.. so the biologists and the physiologists are the most indicated professionals for the study of compared hypnosis and also animal hypnosis. Rossi has found (Psychobiology of Mind Body healing, 1993) three groups of disorders susceptible even to the placebo effect: 1) autonomic nervous system - hypertension, stress, cardiac pain, blood cell counts, headache, and pupillary dilation; 2) endocrine system - adrenal gland secretion, diabetes, ulcers, gastric activity, colitis, menstrual pain, and thyroid activity; 3) immune system - cold, fever, asthma, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and warts. Fielding (1983) reports that some gastric cancer patients were cured temporarily with a placebo, and 1/3 of them developed nausea, 1/5 had vomit, and 1/3 had a hair loss. How to explain this last finding (the hair loss)? The mind-body reality must be acknowledged. Copyright (C) Alberto Torelli.

New frontiers for psychologists and psychotherapists

Paul Watzlawick, John H. Weakland, e Richard Fisch, are psychotherapists well known all over the world. Their names are linked to the MRI, Mental Research Institute (Palo Alto, CA, USA). They said that paradoxically the common sense and the logical behaviour often fail, but some illogical and irrational actions can succeed and produce the desired change. The psychotherapy, in their opinion, is ambiguous and contradictory, and they found themselves very frustrated because of the uncertainty of methods, the length of the treatments, and the scarcity of the results. "At the same time", they said, "we were curious" about the unexpected and inexplicable success of some interventions that were essentially mere tricks. They said: "we are indebted to Erickson" for his so innovative and surprising techniques, and they started to have remarkable results without knowing why. Someone accused them of insincere manipulation, but at the MRI their idea was that it is impossible not to influence, so it is better to know how to do it in a useful way. Erickson lamented (during his life) the fact that the therapeutical approaches were too rigid: "you can't use the same procedure for everyone, but this is what you are trying to do". The therapy should adapt to the patient, and not viceversa. The psychotherapy is definitely experimental, because every patient is unique, and the psychotherapy is NOT the ordered process of anamnesis, and then diagnosis, and then intervention. Using hypnosis, many patients can be treated without them knowing it, and the therapist doesn't have to even know the problem. This reality is based on two NEW scientific concepts: the neural self-healing powers and the state-dependent nature of its functionality. Sometimes an insignificant event can change the entire life of a person, and the strenght of the therapy comes more from the practical empathy than from the theory. The psychoanalysis has only one point of view, and cannot investigate well the dissociated, multiple, and hypnoid personalities. Finally, many therapeutical reliefs will never be conscious insights, but dreams, arts, humor, and so on. After the world wars, hypnosis proved to be the only rapid approach available for the veterans. I hope that also in Italy hypnosis will have much more diffusion than now, but it is not easy. Remember that Milton H. Erickson (1901-1980), MD, was forced by the AMA to avoid the use of hypnosis, and even the psychiatric world fought against Erickson for years. But some time ago, that same AMA has finally accepted the hypnosis in the medical practice. Thursday 27 March 1980, at the funeral of Erickson, dr Pearson said: "this man has faced alone the psychiatric establishment, and has defeated it. But they didn't know it yet..". Copyright (C) Alberto Torelli.