Self Hypnosis
What is self-hypnosis and why should we use it, or practice it?
- We should use it because it’s a resource that all humans have built right into us.
- Hypnotic brain states are natural states that we go through multiple times every day.
- Self-Hypnosis is a way to use more resources of your brain(s), nervous system, and body.
- Self-Hypnosis is a Method and Practice that can help us to change more effectively and more quickly.
Self-Hypnosis is a state of increased openness and increased access to brain/nervous-system activity that is different than normal conscious thinking and acting states. It is a state of increased access to non-conscious, subconscious brain function. It is a state of increased suggestibility where you are more open to positive learning and new ways of perceiving, thinking, and feeling about things. Self-hypnosis is usually associated with deeper relaxation states and less intentional, controlled conscious thinking. Brain wave states in self-hypnosis are those associated with being between deep sleep and being fully awake and alert. They are usually a mixture of alpha (deep relaxation) and theta (meditation) brain wave states, along with wave states both associated with sleep and full awakeness.
Has Self-Hypnosis been Scientifically Proven to Work?
Self-Hypnosis, as presented by Dr. David Illig, uses many techniques that have been proven by multiple research studies over the years to be effective in change programs. In some ways, self-hypnosis is an effective “delivery system” for approaches and techniques that are well studied and have been proven over the years. When some professionals say that hypnosis hasn’t been proven effective, they are ignoring the components of hypnosis that have been proven even to very doubtful researchers. There are also a variety of scientific studies that have proven effectiveness with a wide range of issues in both adults and children. (See published studies at this link.) Here are some of the research-proven components that make up hypnosis:
Physical and mental relaxation; For over thirty years relaxation training has been established by research to be an important treatment approach.
Dr. Illig is a very effective delivery system for deep relaxation of mind and body. With repeated use users become more and more skilled at entering a relaxed state upon demand. Users are more and more able to enter a more relaxed state even while experiencing typically stressful situations. This has been proven to be valuable and helpful to many people.
Body awareness—awareness of tension and relaxation in the body has been a long time researched component of many therapy approaches. Practice in body awareness and body control has been found to have many benefits in dealing with many issues.
Cognitive Restructuring: The SW approach is a very effective delivery system of what is called cognitive restructuring, or cognitive behavior therapy. This simply means that what we say to ourselves, silently within our mind, impacts both how we feel and how we act. Systematically, speaking certain types of self-talk can cause serious psychological and behavior problems. Systematically changing how we talk to ourselves with self-talk can help us move out of even serious problems and has vast clinical research support over the last 30 years .The self-hypnosis approach of SuccessWorld addresses both reducing unhealthy self-talk and also plants seeds of more healthy and healing self talk. Repetition is an important component.
Creative visualization: is another component of hypnosis that has been proven by clinical research to have wide application in therapy, behavioral and emotional change. Both removing destructive images and visualizations as well as inserting healthy images and visualizations has been found to be important in PTSD treatment, phobia, among others as well as increasing the speed and degree of physical healing. Self-hypnosis is a great delivery system of imagery and visualization.
Mindfulness: Self-hypnosis is also a delivery system for mindfulness-based approaches that are one of the largest recent breakthroughs in clinical research of the last ten years. Research is showing that problems from depression to anxiety/stress, phobias to addictions can often benefit from people experiencing frequent sessions of non-thinking, non-linear thinking, non-cognitive problem processing which is learned in meditation practice. Allowing yourself to experience without judgment is often the solution to solving problems that have been immovable.
Altered brain-waves: Altered brain-wave states have been shown to have a variety of therapeutic effects for both emotions and behaviors. Self-hypnosis is a method of entering different brain states, different brain-wave state. It is also a different physiological state in the body. Altered brain and body states have been shown to impact humans in many positive ways in terms of change potential. This may include increased self-healing abilities such as those achieved by frequent meditaters.