HYPNOSIS

What is Hypnosis? How do we recognise it? What are it’s special properties? and most importantly How is Hypnosis used to help?

HYPNOSIS

We can define Hypnosis as:

An ALTERED STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS or AWARENESS IN WHICH PERCEPTION AND MEMORY  CAN  BE  ALTERED IN RESPONSE TO SUGGESTION.

To understand this we need to look at; How we take in the world around and within us. How we make sense of it, respond to it and store it for future recall.

We know this is the responsibility of the BRAIN, and until recent times we had to interpret the function of different areas from the effects of trauma, surgery or disease. MRI scanners now allow us to to observe areas in the Brain working in real time on a variety of tasks. This has revolutionised our understanding in many areas, not the least our understanding of HYPNOSIS.

Sensory receptors, concentrated in areas throughout the body convert incoming energy from the outside world (and inside) into impulses conducted by nerves to the Brain. eg Retina in eye, touch receptors in fingers, taste buds in tongue etc.

Although special areas of the brain receive specific impulses, many areas network together to construct the final sensation. The brain is not just a passive receiver, it has an active role in selecting, responding and controlling input below the level of consciousness.

Your understanding (your reality) of your sensory input will determine how you then respond.

Perceiving a situation as threatening  initiates the ‘anxiety response’.

Perceiving it as ‘ calming or safe’ initiates the ‘ relaxation response’. The perception of a situation determines your body response. It also feeds back the consequences of any action to the memory to influence your next encounter.

BUT what determines if a ‘situation’ is perceived as ‘safe’ or ‘threatening’?

You need to understand from birth every interaction with the world is stored. A body of background knowledge is built up.

The structure ‘created’ is the schema. The individual schemata contain the whole information applying to an event/situation and coherently link individual aspects. When sensory information is received the brain preferentially accesses the schemata most relevant to that event and responds appropriately to that perception.

If the event is positive,pleasurable – life enhancing – it initiates a calm, relaxation response (and wants to repeat it).

If the event is traumatic, painful -life threatening it initiates the anxiety response leading to fear (and wants to avoid it)

The process of interpreting incoming information ordinarily is below the level of consciousness.

In the hypnotic state in effect this process is able to be directed (or misdirected ) by verbal suggestion. Verbal direction preferentially selects schemata and can alter the perception of  ALL sensory information as well that of pain. It can also access stored  MEMORY events not previously directly accessible to consciousness.

This hypnotic process gives rise to the behaviour exhibited as Hypnotic Phenomena.