Tuesday 1 June 2010

Hypnosis and Brainwashing

Question
do you think "Hypnosis" is used to "Brain wash" people mainly? when ,where, and how developed this "technique"?
and why so many say that it "helps" a person to remember vividly past memories that were painful that they have bottled up emotions about and why on earth would basically "RETRAUMATISING" them about this again be helping them ? how long they are suppose to refeel these emotions again before thinking normal and better again and is this a one time thing or how "Hypnotherapy" is said to work?

and gain, when, why and how became popular today? and where?

My Answer:
Interesting question.

As a clinical hypnotist I flinch at the association with brain-washing as it has such negative, non-consensual connotations. But I suppose it depends what you mean by brain-washing. If someone comes to me with a phobia and goes away without it because I hypnotised them and took it away, is that brain-washing? Maybe it is but, if so, it is benign and consensual brain-washing.

As for 'retraumatising' patients, I don't think many therapists believe that's either necessary or desirable these days. It may be appropriate to look back at events that lie at the root of a patient's present-day neuroses but most therapists would do this in a way that was not traumatic. Making people re-experience difficult emotions might be done some some hypnotherapists just as it is done by a few psychotherapists of all sorts of different flavours of psychotherapy that AREN'T hypnotic. any therapist who is going to use that as a tool ought to warn the patient about it beforehand and let the patient opt out if they choose.

Others have pointed you to Google, for a history of hypnosis and hypnotherapy. I think it's become popular since the advent of television. Whilst there are plenty of eminent and reputable therapeutic hypnotists in the history of hypnosis, none of them are well known to the general public.

People come to me, and others like me, not because of Erickson, or Spiegler, or Braid, but because of Svengali and Paul McKenna. They see a stage hypnotist make a volunteer fall in love with a mop and conclude that I can make them fall out of love with their cigarettes. They see a stage hypnotist make a volunteer shed their inhibitions and believe I can make them shed their anxieties. And they are right. I can.

Hypnotherapists can get very sniffy about stage hypnotists but (speaking as a clinical hypnotist who does quite a lot of work in mainstream hospitals) I think it is the stage hypnotists who have popularised hypnotism over the last 40 years.

Best wishes

Barry Thain
Clinical Hypnotist
Source(s):
http://www.mindsci-clinic.com
http://www.downloadtherapy.com

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