Quitting smoking, help with emotional problems, sleep disturbances, fears and phobias and other problems that have been treated with hypnotherapy, was the focus of a presentation sponsored by Dr. Stephen Hearne on March 21.
Susan Bishop founded her practice, Mind over Matter in 1998, using hypnotherapy to help her clients regain self control of their lives.
“A lot of who we are comes from our subconscious mind,” Bishop said as she spoke about hypnosis and its ability to help with such things as smoking, weight, self esteem issues, phobia, irritable bowel syndrome, and much more.
Bishop explained that the subconscious mind is in the “driver seat,” therefore when people are hypnotized or put into a trance it is that person’s decision to be hypnotized.
Hypnosis helps improvements in life, medically or physically, by going into a peaceful, relaxed and concentrated state of mind.
“The subconscious mind is more open to new ideas than the conscious mind,” Bishop said when she explained why hypnosis works.
After talking about the procedure of hypnosis, Bishop made the audience close their eyes as she started them into a light trance, telling them to focus on their deep breathing as she slowly talked with her calm and tranquil voice luring them into what looks like a light slumber as some of the audiences head bobbed from side to side.
Bishop ended the trance as she counted to ten, luring them back into a conscious state.
“My hands felt kind of heavy,” psychology student, Johnny Xie described after the trance. Although hypnosis has had a 100 percent success rate for Bishop dealing with insomniacs and in quitting smoking, a lot of hospitals do not highly suggest hypnotherapy as a source of cure for medical problems, because of its non-traditional methods.
Dr. Hearne, a past client of Bishop’s, said that, “hypnotherapy is a non-traditional approach.”
Negative sides of hypnosis or mind control can come from drugs, sleep deprivation, isolation and other factors.
One myth that is believed about hypnotherapy is that some medical problems can not be helped by the mind to heal the body.
“Everybody approaches trance in a different way,” Bishop said. “The hardest part of hypnosis is coming out of it.”