43. Paranormal, Placebo or Psychology? The Fascinating Truth about Hypnosis

Michelle Walters 1:29

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So I want to share a little bit more about hypnosis, what it is and what it isn't, and why it might be an effective process for you or someone you care about to shift thinking and behavior. I'm going to go through each of these potential explanations, paranormal placebo and psychology. So the first question is, is hypnosis paranormal

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ll talk more about later from: 2016

So the next question, can hypnosis be explained by the placebo effect? Well, what's a placebo? Here's the definition. A harmless pill, medicine or procedure prescribed more for the psychological benefit to the patient than for any physiological effect. It's also defined as a measure designed merely to calm or please someone. An important element of the definition of placebo is the word more. The word more makes the definition of a placebo include that there is an element of deception included. Like placebos, hypnosis produces therapeutic effects by changing the client's expectancies. But unlike placebos, hypnosis does not require deception in order to be effective. Clients who experience hypnotherapy know at the level of their conscious mind that they are using the technique of hypnosis to delve into their subconscious and to make changes in their thinking and behavior patterns. There's no deception involved

An interesting example of this is a popular method for weight management that uses hypnosis. Hypnotic gastric band is a technique where a hypnotherapist guides a client through a weight loss surgery in hypnosis. The result of this surgery in real life or in hypnosis is that the client either has or believes he or she has had eye surgery so that there is a smaller stomach pouch, and the client can no longer eat large amounts of food. While clients who undergo this process and hypnosis, no, they didn't have a real physical surgery. They act like they did. At one level, they know they didn't have the surgery, and yet at another level, they behave as if it's so there's no deception in this procedure, as there would be with a placebo

brain. A study at Stanford in: 2016

The combination addition of these three factors, or physiological evidence for the effect of hypnosis. It's also worth mentioning that while meditation and hypnosis feel very similar evidence from the brain scanners has shown that they are different. Meditation and hypnosis work on different parts of the brain. So for an individual, both might be effective one or the other might be effective or neither might be effective. Meditation and hypnosis are physiological experiences, and they are distinct

So is there evidence of science behind hypnosis? Yes. While the media hasn't exactly cut up on the science headlines, we have showed that hypnosis makes changes in the way one's brain and therefore one's mind operate.

I hope this has gone a little further to persuade you that there is scientific evidence for hypnosis, which makes sense to me because I'm really a science geek at the end of the day, and I love that now we have repeatable scientific evidence that hypnosis has a real way of working in the brain

What I know is that when I work with my clients, I can see their changes, I can see how the suggestions help them to do whatever it is that they're looking to do, whether that's weight loss, or stop a bad habit, or understand maybe why they're stuck or repeating a certain process over and over again in their lives. The power of suggestion in hypnosis, because of this physiological changes in the way the brain is working, during hypnosis, is so effective and very, very helpful for my clients. I would love to talk with you about how hypnosis might help you. And so if you would like to get in touch with me, you can use the link in the show notes to go to my website and book a 30 minute consult. Thanks so much. Bye bye.