The Mind-Body Connection
By June Milligan, M.Ed., CCHt |
While conventional medicine saves lives daily, using medical hypnotherapy can relieve suffering even more, help regain health from disease, speed recovery from injury and prevent illness.
This is because therapeutic hypnosis mobilizes the inner healing resources lying dormant in every person. These resources are activated and harnessed through hypnosis.
We know that trance has been used for healing throughout history. It is perhaps the oldest form of healing. When shamans held rituals and ceremonies with their colorful dress, magical potions made from secret ingredients and mysterious chants designed to harness the power of the unknown, what were they actually doing? They were inducing an altered state of consciousness, and delivering therapeutic suggestions, thereby freeing the body to heal itself. As hypnotherapists, our work is to empower people to help themselves.
Dave Elman, one of the pioneering teachers of medical hypnosis, would sometimes refer to therapeutic hypnosis as a form of “medical relaxation” that helps with healing and pain control. He understood that hypnosis is a team effort in which the client is the “co-operator” because when the client becomes fully involved with the hypnotic instructions, the body responds. Just think of biting into a lemon and notice the responses in your body. So by engaging the imagination, establishing belief and creating positive expectancy, the subconscious mind is prepped to make the desired changes in the body.
By getting the conscious mind out of the way and allowing the subconscious to focus powerfully on healing, amazing things can happen. The mistake is in thinking that either the hypnotherapist or the hypnosis will be doing the healing work. Medical hypnotherapy emphasizes self-empowerment. So while we refer to this as medical hypnosis, it is not the practice of medicine. These carefully worded and masterfully crafted techniques are completely “self-help,” and they activate the inherent healing intelligence present within each and every person.
We were designed for health and wellness. Stress and/or lifestyle is the cause of 85% of all visits to the doctor. One of the essential rules of the mind is that we get what we focus on. So when we engage in chronic worry or negative thinking, we “make it real” for ourselves. The negative pictures in your mind make a clear impression, and every impression made on your mind has its physical expression. This is known as the Law of Impressed Thought.
For instance if we mess up the punch line while telling a joke, we may feel embarrassed and start to blush. The thought of being made fun of causes an immediate increase in blood flow to the surface of the face, and may cause an increased heart rate and shallow breathing. That’s the Law of
Impressed Thought in action. The nervous system simply reacted to a thought. If we think of the subconscious mind as the software and the body as the hardware, we realize that the hardware always does just what the software tells it to do. Suggestion therapy (medical hypnosis) can be thought of as reprogramming the subconscious software to get the brain-body hardware to do something new or to do it differently.
Imagery is often very effective during hypnosis. A trained effective hypnotist knows how to create personalized imagery that heals. This healing imagery causes the conscious mind to communicate information to the subconscious intelligence about what to heal and even how to heal it. In medical hypnosis, the use of suggestions, innovative techniques and healing imagery support the immune system, to overcome road blocks to healing and to assist in pain relief.
We may have become more sophisticated in our techniques during the last few thousand years because of what we know about the mind-body connection, but we’re still utilizing suggestions for healing, just like the ancient shamans. However, our suggestions today are much more specific and to the point. Each day we gain more knowledge as to how we can assist our bodies toward regaining that health and wellness that we were originally programmed to enjoy.
References:
1. Hypnosis: Medicine of the Mind by Dr. Michael D. Preston
2. Medical Hypnosis VI: The Principles of Hypnotherapy by Lewis R. Wolberg
3. Hartland’s Medical & Dental Hypnosis by Michael Heap
For more info, contact June Milligan, specializing in personal empowerment, medical hypnosis and eliminating emotional blocks to success at (775)786-9111 or june@joyfulchanges.com.
