I am pleased to report that Hypnotherapy has come a long way since I began my practice in 1999. Thank goodness images of swinging watches and Freudian looking men are primarily gone.

Generally, the most common requests for hypnotherapy are these: weight loss, smoking cessation, fear, and anxiety reduction. It is certainly not limited to these. In my practice the issues I am presented with range from fear of public speaking to fear of poultry, from chronic illness to addictions and beyond.

What is hypnosis?

Hypnosis is a relaxed state, not unlike meditation but with a focused awareness.

The hypnotized person will converse normally and have a recollection of the session. There’s a sense of timelessness, and often a sense of detachment from the body. It is reported that we actually go in and out of hypnosis 15-50 times a day (Brent Baum). Whenever we go within, day dream, or become emotional, we are in a state of hypnosis. One cannot be hypnotized against their will nor can they be made to do anything they do not want to.

We each have a conscious mind, an unconscious mind, and a subconscious mind. The formal definition of hypnosis is: the bypass of the critical faculty and the establishment of selective thinking. In hypnosis we bypass the conscious part of the mind – the thinking part of the mind, and work primarily with the subconscious mind – which is the feeling part of the mind. For example, a phobia is often irrational and emotional. If it could be changed by using the intellectual part of the mind, it could easily be eradicated.

Stage hypnosis has little to do with therapeutic hypnosis. I cannot tap someone on the forehead and permanently remove a long held problem, no matter how much I’d like to. And neither can anyone else! Stage hypnosis is simply a form of entertainment and the participants’ willingness to perform makes for a good show.

What is hypnotherapy?

Hypnotherapy is an interactive dialogue while under hypnosis to get to the root of the problem.

It’s interesting that there often isn’t a direct correlation between the problem and the presenting issue. A fear of flying could suddenly present itself seemingly out of the blue, but may actually have begun as a lack of safety as a child. Likewise, a man who had a fear of vistas (a view) nearly experienced a car accident as a young boy. He noticed his mother falling asleep at the wheel and pulled the car to safety, at that very moment there was a vista. The fear had become cemented with the view – hence the long held fear of vistas.

When the event is revisited in regression, emotions are released, and as perceptions change, often the problem disappears. Please keep in mind, these brief examples are an over simplification of the process.

There are many hypnotic techniques I regularly use to address the personal difficulties my clients face in life.

Hypnotherapy is an amazing art form when done correctly. I have personally experienced some amazing results, and witness miracles occur nearly everyday. I feel blessed to have found my calling and to help people to overcome their challenges. What more could I ask for?

This article is by Hannah Seo and was originally published in the NYT on 2/8/23.

In the 1770s, a German physician named Franz Mesmer made a splash when he said he could cure physical and mental ailments by putting people in a trance to realign their magnetic fields. “Mesmerism” was popular for about a decade until it was publicly discredited in 1784, but some elements of the practice persisted.

In 1841, the Scottish surgeon James Braid started using a similar technique of fixed attention to cure headaches, alleviate pain and anesthetize patients. He called it “hypnosis,” after Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep.

Today, hypnosis, also called hypnotherapy, has a lot more data to back up its use for mental health conditions like anxiety and depression. It can also be an effective treatment for sleep problems, pain, irritable bowel syndrome and quitting smoking, studies show. And it’s still occasionally used as a way to sedate patients for surgery with little (or no) medication.

Despite all of these varied applications, hypnosis can’t seem to shake its reputation as a stage gag — in which you might stare at a pocket watch and then cluck like a chicken — or a way to retrieve lost memories and probe “past lives.” (The former can be misleading and the latter is pseudoscience.)

Experts say it is a technique that requires diligence and focus, akin to mindfulness and meditation. Here’s what to know.

What is hypnosis?

The simplest way to describe hypnosis is as a state of both deep relaxation and focused attention, where your mind is more receptive to making subtle changes in feelings and behaviors.

The intense concentration and focus of hypnosis may sound foreign, but it’s not unlike “being absorbed in a good book or movie, getting lost on the internet or scrolling on your phone,” said Dr. Elvira Lang, a radiologist and founder of Comfort Talk, a service that trains medical staff to reduce anxiety and pain in hospital patients using hypnotic language (named that way since people are often afraid of what she calls “the H word”). You are absorbed, less aware of your physical or sensory surroundings, rapt and yet at ease.

Formal therapeutic hypnosis has a few more steps. First a hypnotist will try to induce a hypnotic state by getting you to relax and focus on their words. Once you are induced, they will talk you through suggestions based on your goals for the session. If you’re trying to get over a fear of flying, they might tell you that the plane is an extension of your body and get you to imagine floating with the plane through the sky.

The patient should become so focused on the hypnotist’s words that everything else falls away, said Dr. David Spiegel, a psychiatrist at Stanford University and a leading hypnosis researcher. The aim is for the suggestions you hear in that trance-like state to shift your perspective, feelings and eventually behaviors.

In addition to traditional in-person hypnosis, there are hypnosis sessions online and a crop of apps with prerecorded video and audio; some will also connect you with hypnotists remotely. Those are usually generic and work on common issues like insomnia and smoking.

Who can benefit from hypnosis?

Tonja Langis, 47, was diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder, which, for her, is accompanied by chronic pain, anxiety and a loss of self-confidence. She’s been in individual and group therapy for trauma for the past 11 years and has tried a range of therapies. Ms. Langis started small-group hypnosis therapy sessions almost a year ago, and now does one-on-one sessions once a week with her psychologist in Nashville, Tennessee.

During sessions, Ms. Langis said there’s a “detachment from the pain sensations” that she normally feels, and that she feels “really comfortable” in her body. “It feels like a deeper state of relaxation than meditation,” she said.

Everyone’s pain is individual, with different causes and reactions to treatment. But “it’s very clear by now” that hypnosis can be effective for pain, said Afik Faerman, a postdoctoral researcher in clinical neuropsychology who has done work with hypnosis. Pain management is one of the most-studied applications of hypnosis, he said, with research suggesting that it’s effective for helping people deal with both acute and chronic pain.

Ms. Langis said that hypnosis has helped her with irritable bowel syndrome. Since starting, “I’ve only had two flares, which is a huge reduction for me.”

The conditions Ms. Langis deals with — chronic pain, inflammatory bowel syndrome, stress and anxiety — are some of the ones hypnosis is most commonly used for. It’s also frequently used for insomnia and addiction. But it won’t work for everyone.

People with extreme mental illness, schizophrenia and other forms of psychosis are not good candidates for hypnosis, Dr. Lang said, in part because they tend not to be hypnotizable, and also because the treatment can be emotionally difficult for people with these conditions.

Hypnotizability itself is another limitation. One person might go under immediately and readily take suggestions, while another will never feel themselves slip into a hypnotic state.

The ability to be hypnotized lies on a bell-shaped curve, Dr. Spiegel said. Research suggests that 10 to 15 percent of people are incredibly hypnotizable, while another 10 to 15 percent either struggle to be hypnotized or can’t experience it at all. The rest, the majority of us, are somewhere in between — mildly to moderately hypnotizable.

It’s hard to tell how hypnotizable you are without a formal screening. Dr. Lang said she has seen extremely skeptical people turn out to be very hypnotizable, and people who are excited to try hypnosis discover it doesn’t work for them.

“I view hypnosis as a talent or an ability,” like a good ear for music, said Mark P. Jensen, a health psychologist at the University of Washington School of Medicine. “Some people are Mozarts, but most of us aren’t.”

Hypnosis is best used when combined with different types of therapy, like cognitive behavioral therapy, Dr. Faerman said. “Hypnosis plus C.B.T. is more effective than either of them individually,” he said, as evidenced by research on its effectiveness for treating obesity, pain and distress in people with fibromyalgia and acute stress disorder.

For Lindsey C. McKernan, a clinical psychologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center who uses hypnosis in her practice, training in the practice came with her training as a clinical psychologist. But not every clinical psychologist will necessarily have such training.

As a hypnotist, Dr. Spiegel said, “my job is to identify your ability to be hypnotized, and stimulate and teach you how to use this ability to solve a problem.” Like with other therapies, seeing results with hypnosis will take time and practice. If you’re dealing with a chronic condition, that will require regular treatment.

Rachael Howe, 32, has been dealing with chronic pain in her back since she herniated three disks between 2013 and 2016. Both her physical pain and mental distress prevented her from getting restful sleep. Ms. Howe, who lives in Auburn, Wash., tried years of physical and talk therapy in addition to medication, but they didn’t help very much, she said.

About a year and a half ago she tried a remote hypnosis session after a referral through a previous therapist. In an early session for relaxation and sleep, her psychologist took her on an imagined walk through the Cascade Mountains, where she had gotten married. He described arrows on the ground that would each lead her to deeper levels of relaxation.

As she walked, Ms. Howe recalled, she felt her pain fade away as her body loosened its tension. “I actually ended up falling asleep,” she said — her therapist ended the session and they rescheduled. “I can’t believe I actually got a couple of hours.”

Ms. Howe has done many sessions since, focusing on increasing calm, managing pain and reframing negative thoughts. “The ideal scenario is for patients to work with a hypnotist and learn the skills to go through these sessions themselves,” said David Patterson, a pain specialist and clinical psychologist at the University of Washington School of Medicine who is Ms. Howe’s clinician. Practicing this way is especially important for conditions “like chronic pain, where you need relief over a long period of time.”

Ms. Langis noticed that the immediate relief from pain and fatigue she gets through hypnosis wanes after a few days. She regularly re-ups, going through recordings of her previous sessions. She said she feels herself going deeper into the hypnotic state over time. “As I practice more, I’m seeing more and more benefit, and so I’m becoming more encouraged to practice more,” she said.

After re-listening to sessions and practicing staying in a hypnotic state, Ms. Howe said she feels she now has the discipline and skill to calm her body and mind when pain flares.

“It’s not like it works 100 percent of the time,” she said, but “the more you do it, the more you get out of it.”

Would you like to make profound changes in your life and or experience healing? YOU CAN!

The 7th Path System is a mind-body-spirit approach to self-hypnosis. This system combines the benefits of meditation with the power of self-hypnosis to help you make good positive changes in your life.

Practitioners of this new system will benefit in many ways because it is a holistic approach. This means that as you work on a particular issue such as improving motivation, concentration, breaking a bad habit, or whatever, the positive effects of using this system will affect many other areas of your life.

The 7th Path System does this by first removing old negative programming from your past first, such as limiting beliefs and habits. Then, you begin to work on any specific issue that you care to focus on.

7th Path Self-Hypnosis is a wonderfully effective and powerful vehicle for change using your subconscious mind to:

• Get in touch with your spiritual self and maintain a healthy emotional state
• Overcome a negative habit such as smoking, over eating or procrastinating
• Create a new habit such as exercising regularly
• Increase your confidence in situations such social gatherings
• Reduce stress, sleep better, improve mood
• Overcome fears and insecurities, and past negative conditioning

You probably have experienced the frustration of trying to use “will” power or “think” power to make the changes we want to make, only to find these changes short lived. You won’t make much progress until you move through the fears, limiting beliefs or emotional baggage that keeps you stuck. That is why reading many self-help books often produces few lasting results. This class uses a mind-body-spirit approach to gently and efficiently remove the old programming that blocks your success.

You will experience and learn how to go into hypnosis and break unwanted patterns and beliefs. One student equated it to “gentle dynamite”. Then you will learn how to craft and use your own suggestions to create new healthy beliefs and behaviors.

Blue Moon Hypnotherapy is a firmly established business and has been since 1999.

Contact me today for your confidential, free 20 minute phone consultation so that we may begin the process of helping you to achieve the health and lifestyle you really want.

* Results may vary

Would you like to make profound changes in your life and experience healing?

7th Path Self-Hypnosis is a body-mind-spiritual approach to a meditative style of self-hypnosis. 10:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. Held on the 3rd Saturday of each month. Please call for the actual dates of our scheduled workshops.

7th Path Self-Hypnosis is a wonderfully effective and powerful vehicle for change using your subconscious mind to:

• Get in touch with your spiritual self on a daily basis
• Overcome a negative habit such as smoking, over eating or procrastinating
• Create a new habit such as exercising regularly
• Increase your confidence in situations such social gatherings
• Reduce stress, anxiety, sleep better, improve mood
• Overcome fears and insecurities, and past negative conditioning

You probably have experienced the frustration of trying to use “will” power or “think” power to make the changes we want to make, only to find these changes short lived. You won’t make much progress until you move through the fears, limiting beliefs or emotional baggage that keeps you stuck. That is why reading many self-help books often produces few lasting results. This class uses a mind-body-spirit approach to gently and efficiently remove the old programming that blocks your success.

You will experience and learn how to go into hypnosis and break unwanted patterns and beliefs. One student equated it to “gentle dynamite”. Then we will teach you how to craft and use your own suggestions to create new healthy beliefs and behaviors.

Call to reserve your place one week before deadline!

Tel: 413 774-7171
Class cost: Prepaid $125 – includes manual & meditation cd

Space is limited – please call early!

Place: Blue Moon Hypnotherapy
11 Plum Tree Lane Greenfield, MA.

Instructor: Jean Conway, Advanced Certified Hypnotherapist

7th Path Way Self-Hypnosis Testimonials

Life is not easy. It can bring you down. Maybe there’s one reason for your sadness. Most likely there are many. Perhaps consciously, you don’t even know why you are sad.

I will lead you into and through the process of hypnotherapy and together we will help you chase your blues away.

Together we will tap into the power of your sub-conscious mind to heal your pain with a professional process that will help you rediscover the person you were meant to be.

We will use the power of hypnotherapy to neutralize any erroneous beliefs or emotions that may be standing in your way of success. Together we will transform your blues into achieving the life and the health you really want.

On average two to five sessions should have you feeling much better about yourself.

Take the next step and call to find out more.

[hr]Serving Franklin, Hampshire, Hampden counties in western Massachusetts, the Pioneer Valley, southern Vermont, New Hampshire, the Berkshires and northern Connecticut.

Blue Moon Hypnotherapy is a firmly established business and has been since 1999.

Contact me today for your confidential, free 20 minute phone consultation so that we may begin the process of helping you to achieve the health and lifestyle you really want.

Published in Many Hands Magazine, Fall 2004

There are many myths and misconceptions about hypnosis. First of all, hypnosis is not a silver bullet nor is it magic. In the five years I have been practicing hypnotherapy I have seen remarkable results, which is, of course, why I love my job! I have witnessed the transformation of clients being prisoners of their own limiting beliefs to those who believe in a world filled with possibilities, only after a few sessions.

We all go in and out of hypnosis at least twice a day: right after you wake up and before you fall sleep. Hypnosis is not sleep; in fact, you are relaxed but focused and alert. It is similar to meditative or daydream states. You simply relax your conscious mind and that allows your subconscious mind to come to the forefront. You are under hypnosis when you are reading a really good novel, watching a good movie, or suddenly become hungry while watching a food commercial. Have you ever driven in your car, arrived at your destination safely, but forgot how you got there? Your subconscious mind was in control of the driving, while your conscious mind was thinking about something else.

While in this natural state of being, you are always in control. The hypnotherapist is a facilitator to help you get from one place to another. You always know where you are and what you’re doing and you will remember the session. Your subconscious mind will not give you anything you can’t handle remember, it is a part of you. One would not do anything under hypnosis or after they emerge from hypnosis which goes against their moral values or good judgment. In order to go under hypnosis, one must be somewhat intelligent, be a willing volunteer, be able to follow instruction and must have the desire for change.

What is the clinical definition of hypnosis? Hypnosis is the bypass of the critical faculty of the conscious mind and the establishment of selective thinking. You see, the critical faculty of our mind exists to protect the vulnerable nature of our subconscious mind. It takes all incoming information and compares it with the information already being held. If it’s not in harmony with the current perception, it rejects it. The hypnotherapist’s job is to bypass the critical faculty of the mind so that’s its uninvolved with the flow of data into the subconscious mind. It is in the subconscious mind that all learning behavior change takes place. It was in the subconscious state when the mind first accepted those negative emotions and limiting beliefs, so it’s there we must go to release them.

But most of the time we are in a conscious state of being that is logical, judgmental and thinking. The subconscious mind has no logic, judgment or thinking, it is childlike.

Is there a difference between Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy?

Yes, there is a difference. Simplified, hypnosis is great at modifying one’s behavior, getting rid of symptoms. It is relaxing and tranquil. Hypnotherapy deals with the cause. For example: if you have a migraine headache, an aspirin may rid you of the symptoms of the migraine, but the cause is still there. This could be any number of things, such as unresolved anger, grief, resentment, or any other repressed emotion. Your subconscious mind is a perfect memory bank and holds everything that you’ve ever thought, done, felt, dreamed, said or fantasized about. Sometimes it represses traumatic memories for our protection. One can get to the root cause with regression by going back to the memory of the event that initially caused the problem. Once this event or memory is desensitized or transformed, the negative emotion or limiting belief will most likely disappear. A successful hypnosis intervention usually leaves the client feeling as though they have seamlessly moved on to a happier chapter of life.

If you’re serious about your personal development, want to make significant changes to your physical, mental and/or emotional state, in a relatively short amount of time, hypnotherapy is the tool of choice. Hypnosis is safe, natural and effective. And that’s why I love it!

Jean Conway has been Certified Hypnotherapist by the National Guild of Hypnotists, is certified in advanced hypnotherapy techniques and lives and works in Greenfield, MA. She has been practicing hypnotherapy for nearly six years. She can be reached at Blue Moon Hypnotherapy, 413 774 7171, or jcblue@comcast.net.