Most people associate hypnosis with magic tricks and stage magicians. Even those who believe it works often see it as a trick which can be fun but which isn’t useful or practical.
In fact, hypnosis is a form of psychotherapy which is growing in popularity among clinicians because of its wide range of uses. Under hypnosis, the brain itself can be used to treat and even heal some medical and psychiatric conditions, safely and painlessly.
Hypnosis As a Science
Even though there are many mental health professionals working in the field that take advantage of techniques which incorporate hypnosis, there has been little to no effort to seriously study hypnosis itself. Because of this, there has been minimal growth in its use as a tool.
David Spiegel is a medical doctor and a professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He is one of a group of researchers at the school seeking to physically quantify the effects of hypnosis on the brain. He recognizes the reasons hypnosis has not been taken seriously and wants to help make it a legitimate option as the powerful tool that it is for making changes.
Hypnosis At the Physiological Level
In the past, there were studies on hypnosis which used brain scans to measure how it affected pain, vision and other effects. There were no studies which simply tried to look at the physical changes occurring during a hypnotic state.
Researchers at Stanford planned to use functional magnetic resonance imaging, which measures brain activity by detecting changes in blood flow.
The Study
Most people are not highly susceptible to hypnotism, so the first step was finding people who were more and less easy to hypnotize. Out of the 545 potential subjects, 36 were chosen who were more prone to being hypnotized and 21 were chosen because they were resistant.
These 57 subjects then received scans while resting, while recalling a memory, and during two different hypnotism sessions. Those who weren’t susceptible to hypnotism were the control group, to make sure the observers didn’t mistakenly attribute the responses inaccurately.
The Results
Dr. Spiegel and his colleagues found some unique results in the subjects who were susceptible to hypnotism, while they were in a state of hypnosis. The first was a decrease in activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate, a central processing station because of its position.
The second change was an increase between the insula and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a brain-body connection. The third and final difference was that there were fewer connections between the default mode network and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, making it easier to explain the disconnect under hypnosis between the subject’s actions and thoughts.
Conclusions And Uses
Hopefully, this is only the first study because it points to important potential uses of hypnotism. Researchers believe they may be able to change how receptive people are to hypnotism by stimulating certain areas of the brain.
This means that patients could use hypnotism instead of pills for anxiety, pain management, smoking cessation and in many other areas vital to health. It could also strengthen the effects, making hypnotism a better tool than ever. This could be a great help in the fight against addiction.
References
https://inlpcenter.org/hypnotherapy-training-learn-hypnosis/
https://www.healthline.com/health/is-hypnosis-real
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Very good article … I hope “they” find more!!