There are a lot of stereotypes about hypnotherapy, thanks in large part to old films portraying hypnotists as hokey and manipulative.
But in reality, true hypnotherapy is geared toward helping people to calm down from stress so that they can relax and be happy.
The majority of hypnotherapists work to help patients breathe better and open up emotionally to face what holds them back and keeps them from healing.
Charlie Curtis, who practices hypnotherapy in Wernersville, explained that we go through everyday trances on a regular basis. It happens every time we're asked a question. But healthier trances for healing are the ones hypnotherapists usually bring into the picture.
Helga Martin of Helga's Healing Center in Reading first began seeing hypnotherapists in a somewhat undercover fashion decades ago to learn more about what was a new skill of hers.
"I was first interested in hypnotherapy because I realized if the mind is not healed, the body isn't going to be able to heal," Martin said. "I understood that was a key factor, and making people aware that the mind is a chatterbox that never stops was very important."
Slowing the mind makes all the difference.
Elizabeth Jackson of U3 in Kutztown decided to study hypnotherapy after different people repeatedly said the same thing to her since her childhood: "I've never told anyone this before."
She eventually learned that people gravitating to her and opening up to her happened in part because she'd been doing hypnosis for years.
"Hypnotherapy (but primarily hypnosis) has gotten such a bad rap because people think of a person in a tent selling snake oil," Jackson said.
Jackson said that the U.S. is the only developed country that doesn't regularly use hypnotherapy as a complementary practice in hospitals and medical clinics, as confirmed from conversations she's had with like-minded international professionals she meets at annual hypnotist conventions.
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Insights from Charlie Curtis
Being hypnotized is really being in a state of focused attention. This means finding ourselves engrossed by a good film, television show or public speaker is a form of hypnotism we experience.
The fight-or-flight concept made sense when saber-tooth tigers roamed the Earth, and humans had to quickly react to fend for their lives. But today, the constant fight-or-flight mode has become detrimental to people, given that physical threats are fewer.
Fight or flight's stress on humans leads to tissue damage due to people experiencing it in a prolonged state.
Our culture is good at stimulation but not relaxing, which means people are dying slowly and prematurely from stress and chronic illness.
Trusting, feeling safe and relaxing are largely what help a person to successfully lead into a state of hypnosis with a hypnotherapist who assists in letting that person access the wisest part of himself for processing and coping with traumas and obsessions.
Hypnotherapy lets people calm down so they can better pace themselves and be more honest, in a healthier state of better awareness.
Hypnotherapists get people into the relaxation response, which is how they help people to help themselves.
Natural states of hypnosis are before we go to sleep and shortly after we wake up in the morning, which is why thinking about goal setting in these times is a good idea.
If you talk to someone at the speed of their breathing, they will tend to go into a therapeutic trance.
With neuro-linguistic programming, "I wonder" is a language pattern that makes the mind wonder, to help a person begin to delve into answering her own questions on hard issues.
Emotional freedom techniques of tapping certain acupuncture points on the body repeatedly help people to calm down and be able to face problems better in hypnotherapy.
"When you think of the life you want, how do you feel?" is a question Curtis continually asks, with think and feel as important verbs to address inner dilemmas of decision-making.
The Mayo Brothers performed 17,000 operations without a single fatality in the early 1900s once they began practicing hypnotherapy before procedures and had lessened their amount of anesthesia.
Many medical professionals don't realize how many scientific studies have been done on hypnosis related to health and healing.
Insights from Helga Martin
We are not taught and trained to pay attention to our feelings that create our experience in our reality; this makes life difficult for most people.
Relaxation techniques can make you become aware of how harmful common thought patterns and language are for healthy living.
People who meditate (with a fine line between hypnosis and meditation) have a much better handle on healing the mind and changing consciousness to benefit their health.
Hypnotherapy addresses the subconscious mind, which holds our dominant beliefs; what we speak and feel goes into the garden of our subconscious mind.
Those who can't be hypnotized often have deep fear blocking them from being open to it or have seen too many old Hollywood films that involve hypnotism.
For those who fear public speaking, hypnotherapy involves verbalizing courage and confidence all in positives, never in negative language; in fact, all hypnotherapy serves patients best when only positive words are used.
The hypnotherapist never has control of a patient. Instead, the patient has control all along and is aware during and after a session, if they want to remember all details from it.
The biggest key in hypnotherapy is to help a person become aware of his own power in what he does.
We're not even aware of making choices and decisions sometimes because it's often done in the subconscious.
Peace is our natural state, while war is from humans being unaware of their disconnectedness.
All healing happens when we relax and allow the state of peace to flow through us.
Insights from Elizabeth Jackson
The brain likes diaphragmatic breathing because it helps to switch control over from your limbic system to your frontal lobe, which is related to logical, rational decision-making.
To practice diaphragmatic breathing, push your stomach out as you breathe in, and pull your stomach in as you breathe out.
Jackson encourages diaphragmatic breathing and blowing bubbles to patients initially to help them calm down and relax for best hypnosis results.
Jackson specializes in drug and alcohol counseling and training clinicians to work with their clients successfully through positive language and conversational hypnosis techniques.
People are in trances a minimum of 10 times a day, including examples like while driving, not remembering the drive to work or missing an exit.
The subconscious does about 85 percent of what you do in a given day.
Jackson used the analogy of the subconscious as the hard drive of all programs, while the conscious mind is the software.
When we're imagining, we're in our subconscious.
We live in one of two realms, love or fear. It's easy to live in fear, because it's so encouraged in our society to be afraid or to worry about negative occurrences.
All illness is caused by stress, which means de-stressing the body through better breathing and relaxing is crucial.
Speaking in positive language is important because the subconscious does not understand negative words.