What’s really happening once you’re taken away by a swinging pocket watch has been quite a mystery. You might have heard about the growing clinical treatment made possible under hypnosis, like some disorders, post-traumatic stress or simply as a form of ‘pain management’. 

It all starts with a patient and therapist discussing goals. In a relaxed state of focus the patient is then once again retold his or her goals in order to imagine and visualize them. For some patients, mostly ones that can easily be hypnotized, such sessions are effective in reducing chronic pain or quitting bad habits.

So far so good, but nobody really knows what’s happening in the bizarre realm associated with hypnosis. You cannot even draw conclusions for all patients, because some people are highly hypnotizable and others almost impossible to put under. Simply put, the state of the brain wasn’t clear yet.

Wouldn’t it be truly fascinating then to simply know which brain regions and connections switch on or off during hypnosis? Scientists did just that and uncovered that a brain put under a hypnotic trance changes in (at least) three ways. Continue reading.

Originally posted on Pionic.

Imagine a scenario where your mind had the power to cure debilitating anxiety, eliminate chronic pain or kick an addiction. Adriana Barton reports on the growing scientific support for hypnosis, the mind-body therapy bypassing hucksters for hospital wards. 

Last summer, at age 14, Sue Jones suffered from stabbing pains in her abdomen that got so intense, “I couldn’t walk.”
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She spent three weeks in a wheelchair while doctors ruled out everything from digestive problems to appendicitis. Finally, after a four-night stay at BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver, she got a diagnosis: acute anxiety.
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An honour student, Sue is thin, dark-haired and lily pale. (Her parents requested a pseudonym to protect her privacy.) When a doctor recommended hypnosis, she balked at first. “I thought of it as black magic, like witchcraft,” she says. But neither breathing exercises, nor anti-depressants, had taken away the pain. Continue reading.

Originally posted on Globe Life, Health.
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