Saturday, November 1, 2008

Hypnotic Help

How hypnotherapy might be the answer you need

By Vanessa Anthony

Anxious over the elections? Feeling the stress of the economic crunch? Maybe your fears are a bit closer to home and you’re already dreading the 2009 smoking ban or the looming New Year and its resolutions? Hypnotherapy may be able to help ease your stress, overcome your fears and a make a fresh start out of those old bad habits.

What is hypnotherapy?

“It’s about dissolving patterns that aren’t serving you,” says Sharon Burt a Certified Hypnotherapist who teaches a form of self-hypnosis to expectant parents at Hypnobirthing Northwest in Milwaukie (3701 SE Milwaukie Ste A, 289-6329, hypnobirthingnorthwest.com). “It’s like a record player that’s going so it’s all about interrupting it.” Hypnotherapy has been purported to help with a wide range of health issues from anxiety and stress to smoking cessation or less painful childbirth delivery.

Certified Hypnotherapist, Geoffrey Knight (246-7300, geoffrey-knight.com), helps treat things like IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) through use of hypnosis, even lecturing on the topic to gastrointestinal surgeons at St Vincent’s Hospital four years ago, “Certainly you can treat all sorts of things with hypnosis: smoking, weight loss, anxiety, panic attacks, low self-confidence even things like bed wetting and Crohns Disease.”

Why does it work?

“Most people, overweight for example, just have a belief system that needs to be changed- emotional problems or how they were treated as a child,” explains Knight.

In hypnosis, these self-defeating belief systems are changed through a series of suggestions made directly to the unconscious mind while in a state of deep relaxation. These suggestions, says Knight, come in three forms: reframing, story telling with embedded commands and direct suggestion.

Who is it for?

“Hypnotherapy is for the person who is ready to make changes in their life,” says Burt. Knight agrees, “There’s only been one person in the history of my practice that I was unable to put under. That’s because the subject has to want to change their behavior and be willing to undergo hypnosis. Sometimes a wife will send her husband but he has no intention of changing.”

Burt, who has been practicing hypnotherapy for the past 13 years, the last nine specializing in hypnobirthing, also treats things like insomnia, anxiety and confidence issues. “Recently, (with the economic crisis) I treated a man who manages hedge funds. This man makes all of his money for the year usually in one month but he never knows which month it will be. There’s a lot of anxiety there,” says Burt.

How effective is it?

According to the American College of Chest Physicians (citing a 2007 study done by North Shore Medical Center and Massachusetts General Hospital), “Hospitalized patients who smoke may be more likely to quit smoking through the use of hypnotherapy than patients using other smoking cessation methods.”

That same study also found that, “patients who participated in one hypnotherapy session were more likely to be nonsmokers at 6 months compared with patients using nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) alone or patients who quit “cold turkey”.”

But that’s not all. According to the Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine Journal (2004) Dr. Sebastian Schulz-Stübner of the University of Iowa used heat-producing thermodes to measure pain thresholds in 12 volunteers (all registering 8 or higher on the pain scale). Participants were then hypnotized and the thermodes were reactivated. All 12 volunteers reported significantly reduced pain (with ratings of 3 or lower) - some experiencing no pain at all.”

A first time mom, Shandy Welch-Moller, a nurse practitioner who birthed her child last year using the hypnobirthing techniques learned in Burt’s workshops, explains it, “It’s about surrendering yourself to the process. What was ingrained in me (from hypnobirthing) was to relax and trust.”

Welch-Moller’s husband, Hans Moller, is an Orthopedic surgeon that utilizes hypnotherapy’s sister modalities (relaxation techniques and guided imagery) to help ease his patients anxiety surrounding their surgical procedures. “The more relaxed you are, the more elasticity and blood flow your tissues have, the easier it all is,” says Welch-Moller, “It (the birthing process with hypnobirthing techniques) was just so calm. It was exactly how I wanted it.”

Explains Burt, “with hypnobirthing it’s about being in that totally relaxed state so the body can do what comes naturally- trusting that intuition.”

That quiet contemplation paid off for Welch-Moller who had her baby within an 1 1⁄2 after entering the hospital (no medication, no episiotomy, no tearing) and delivered her daughter, Finley, on September 15 in about seven pushes. “Hypnobirthing just gets you so excited for the process. I wasn’t scared going into it just open to the wonderful experience. So excited and relaxed,” says Welch-Moller.

What to look for in a hypnotherapist

Interested in curbing those undesirable habits? Knight, who trained at the Institute of Clinical Hypnosis in London and also trains other hypnotherapists (including Burt) through his Knightsbridge Institute here in Portland, suggests visiting three practitioners before settling on one and to get referrals from the Oregon Hypnotherapy Association and/or the National Guild of Hypnotists.

Hypnotherapy is even safe and effective for children, according to King maybe even more so. In his practice, King works with children for bed wetting, anger management, weight loss and obsessive behaviors. “It can be easier with children especially up to the age of 7 because by definition they are bypassing critical judgment at that age,” says Knight, which means they are much more open to the experience of hypnosis than some of their adult counterparts.

No matter your life stage, hypnosis is moving into the mainstream with more new studies supporting its benefits coming out all the time. “Hypnotherapy is a very effective way to deal with emotional issues, anxiety, fears and phobias,” says Burt.

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