Hypnosis Fanclub Headquarters

Imagine yourself in a quiet, secure setting with someone you have learned to trust. You are focused on your breathing, allowing your body to experience a deep state of physical relaxation and comfort as you consciously follow the lead of your facilitator. Later, you may visit a serene meadow or travel deep into the structure of your own body, exploring the operation of your immune system. In a few moments, you will open your eyes felling relaxed, alert and at ease.

Hypnosis is defined as a state of heightened awareness coupled with a deep sense of physical relaxation while remaining focused on a single idea or series of related ideas. It is not unlike the experience of becoming engrossed in a movie or a good novel and losing track of what is going on around you. Hypnosis is not a surrender of control or a deep unconscious sleep. While hypnotized, you will never do what you would not normally do in your regular conscious state. In fact, hypnosis is the most natural of mental states; it is a state that allows access to your deepest subconscious patterns of behavior and response.

When someone is confronted by the specter of a cancer diagnosis, the fear of the unknown begins to take over, both for the patient and the family. This alone can contribute to an enormous level of anxiety and worry on top of the normal stresses of day-to-day life. Many times, someone facing the prospect of aggressive medical treatment protocols will feel a sense of helplessness and a loss of control over his or her own life. Hypnosis is a powerful tool for creating new, more effective coping mechanisms to manage these stresses with a sense of control while in the healing process. Regaining that all-important sense of control and reducing the associated stress and anxiety of coping with cancer allows the perspective of hopelessness to become one of hopefulness.

From the pain of surgical recovery to the resulting nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and loss of appetite from chemotherapy, modern medical research is beginning to uncover the advantages and effectiveness of hypnosis as a tool in managing these issues.

Serious research into end-stage cancer treatments and hypnosis was first conducted in 1978 and noted in the best-selling classic, Getting Well Again. While using a variety of hypnotic techniques, many of the symptoms of nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and pain were reduced or eliminated. More recently, in eight separate studies published in the International journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis regarding pain management using hypnosis, 75 percent of the people experienced pain relief, compared to the control group that did not have access to hypnosis. In another controlled study published in the Journal of the International Anesthesia Research Society, patients who received hypnotherapy before surgical procedures experienced less anxiety, reduced pain, less blood loss and a lower incidence of post-operative nausea and vomiting.

Even though hypnosis has been used as an adjunct to medicine since the 1950's, there was little understanding about how it worked. For years, positive results were observed in areas from pain management to treatment of anxiety, trauma, IBS, and depression. With the advent of the modern technology, Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanning of the brain during hypnosis, we are now beginning to unravel the mystery of how hypnosis works.

We experience our world through our five senses. Information we receive stimulates certain areas of the brain, is processed and is then sent to the areas that control higher functions. When someone is hypnotized and given suggestions of imagery while their brain is being scanned, areas of the brain are stimulated as if they were actually experiencing the events of the guided imagery. In other words, the mind does not seem to know the difference between what is perceived by our senses and what our imagination can experience in the deeply relaxed trance states of hypnosis. Our physiology will respond in the same way as if we were truly experiencing the changes in the environment.