How Does Hypnosis Work?

Hypnosis is usually considered an aid to psychotherapy (counseling or therapy), because the hypnotic state allows people to explore painful thoughts, feelings, and memories they might have hidden from their conscious minds. In addition, hypnosis enables people to perceive some things differently, such as blocking an awareness of pain.

Hypnosis can be used in two ways, as suggestion therapy or for patient analysis.

• Suggestion therapy: The hypnotic state makes the person better able to respond to suggestions. Therefore, hypnotherapy can help some people change certain behaviors, such as stopping smoking or nail biting. It can also help people change perceptions and sensations, and is particularly useful in treating pain.
• Analysis: This approach uses the relaxed state to explore a possible psychological root cause of a disorder or symptom, such as a traumatic past event that a person has hidden in his or her unconscious memory. Once the trauma is revealed, it can be addressed in psychotherapy.

dr Alfred Barrios Phd research on effectiveness of various methods of therapy.

presented a review many years ago in the journal, "Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice (1970)" and also published in American Health magazine.
He gave the following recovery rates:

• Hypnotherapy was 93% after an average of 6 sessions.
• Psychoanalysis was 38% success rate after an average of 600 sessions.
• Behavior Therapy was 72% after 22 sessions.
  

A copy of this entire article, entitled "Hypnotherapy: A Reappraisal", can be found at his website, http://www.stresscards.com/ , in the articles section.