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Aziz BAKAY 20300841
Hümeyra Başol ÇETİN
English 101-05
Essay IV / Final
January 12,2003
BENEFITS OF HYPNOTISM
Hypnotism is a very common thing that is generally known as a show element, such as making people do strange things. The way people think about it should not be bounded only with that. Many experiments done and experiences witnessed on hypnotism show that it has a very mystic way of curing some illness and problems. In this curing process, unlike general thought, hypnosis has no risks or disadvantages such as losing conscious, feeling pain or unable to wake up from the trance, infact it has various psychological and physical benefits by strengthening the weaknesses that on individual may have. There are many defintions of hypnosis given in various sources.
One appropriate definition of hypnosis is “a method by which any person may be guided into an altered state of conscious awareness ('hypnotic trance') in which psychological and physical changes, beyond normal conscious capability, may be achieved.” (Robertson,2003) This statement tells us some developments may be done both psychologically and physically with hypnotism. These changes can’t be achieved by normal conscious. These can be made by only examining the conscious. Transiting the mind to a different state can help us to accomplish our goal which may be to find a cure to physical and psychological problems.
The main and the common psychological benefits of hypnotism are building self-esteem and self-confidence. However, there are no offical hypnosis usage on controling some feelings. We can claim that it might be quite useful for people who are having such problems with the high rate of excitement, intense or fear feelings. The other benefits, for instance, losing weight and quiting smoke are the physical benefits. With a normal conscious, it is almost impossible to have a remarkable change on this, but all these problems can have satisfactory solutions. Anyway, its usage in building self-esteem has already been accepted by medical environment.
If we happen to define the self-esteem, we can say that “it can be thought of as how highly a person values themselves.”(Lester,2003) People sometimes have bad experiences. They can leave some traces behind, even though these events may be quite little matters which are not even worth to consider. Those events, which produce some thought of bad reputation and not feeling confident, can create a low self-esteem personality on their later life. However, the hypnotism presents everyone a fundamental alteration in such a personality. Reaching to the deepness of the conscious by giving some physcical orders and making the person relaxed, is the way what hypnosis uses in this act. So hypnosis channels the conscious in the way of having more self-esteem and feeling more confidence in everyday life. Although, there are lots of hypnosis techniques to do something like this, the consequential functions of hypnosis are the same. As we look at the usage of hypnosis, we can obviously predict that it has the power to make the person control some feelings.
The ability of hypnosis to build self-esteem, can open us a way to claim that hypnosis can make the person get over some intense of excitement or fear feelings. Our base point for such a claim like that, is the way of hypnosis which worked exceedingly well in building self-esteem. However, the cure for that should not be exactly the same as I mentioned before. The important thing here is the possibility of hypnosis to have the power to make the person control the feelings of those. There are many instances for people who are complaining about the high level of feelings of excitement, intensive and fear.
Someone may be very scared from a little spider or someone might be excited from so tiny things which are not even considered about its excitement rate by other people. Also it is same for people who are helpless about their intensive feelings. For instance, there may be someone who don’t have the capable of preventing self from a little thing to be nauseated. Those can be a part of personality too, that means it can be a part of subconscious which we are not actually use in our everyday life, but it manages our general behaviours. We imitate it to a sub-control mechanism which occured and moved in an order in the first parts of our lives. Reaching to this mechanism is not easy for anyone but to hypnotists. Actually, hypnotists are doing that by changing the mind status. The thing we need in this process is regulating the rate of feelings which come up from different situations. Neverthless, we can say things above depending on the experiences gathered from successful sessions of building self-esteem. The way that we claim is not finishing up whole problems that people encounter.
Several common problems that can’t be solved easily are losing weight and the giving up smoking. The control of will or volition can be a real matter for those who can’t put a certain point on their process of giving up smoking or losing weight. This kind of process needs quite a lot of hardwork. For instance, there are many available programs which offer special duties concerning how to quit smoking and lose weight. Indeed, the whole satisfaction of those programs stands low, but the way we prefer has an unbelievable percentage of satisfactory, which proves its success. People often complain about the things they couldn’t achive in spite of they seem like they want to do. In this point, a conflict is obviously seen that is resulted from the neglection of cooperation of the some parts of conscious. While normal conscious wants to do the thing we want to do, the other one, subconscious or unconscious, really does not attempt to do that. Here, the power of hypnosis come into action. Hypnosis can establish a healthy comminication between those who are not exactly cooperated. It can reveal the unleashed parts and can channel it in the way wanted. So, an appropriateness of work can be founded like using hypnotism techniques. Whenever we come across with some of those techniques, we remember that we may be having risks for trying hypnosis. Infact, we see many evidences that refute the claims of dangers or risks about hypnosis.
There is a reality about hypnosis that, in the contrary of disadvantage claims of hypnotism, the hypnotists showed that no danger available in the sessions of hypnosis at all. The experts’ one evidence for those who really do not give enough attention to hypnosis, to maintain the situation of hypnotism, is the approval of medical associations, such as British and American. Their approval should be quite important because they are the associations whose sayings about health should be already accepted. The force, which orients people to rely on only what is scientific, is today’s materialist world. The world’s general idea about believing something is the dependence on the verification of those which are claimed. We can see this point of view if we had a deep analysis on those who are in the contrary of using such a method, like hypnosis. One thing, which is the need of concentration, may be occured as a matter for many people, too.
Claiming the concentration, which is needed to be hypnotised, can be another against idea about hypnosis. Despite the fact depends on the concentration in many points, the need is not actually high. A time, that we have received a cut or bruise which we were unaware of how we got it, is a time we concentrated and focused on something entirely so we did not feel. This level of concentration can be satisfactory for hypnosis. In an another viewpoint, we can say these generally about hypnosis : There is no pain felt during session. It is just like daydreaming, person feels drowsy, relaxed and comfortable. Anyway, these are acceptable things, the people can complain about the unconsciousness.
The main disadvantage may be thought about hypnosis, is the opiniom about being unconscious during hypnosis process. Although, this is advocated by many people, experts say that there is no unconscious stage in the process actually. This fact should has another reason for hesitating from hypnosis like some secrets or thoughts people don’t want them to be revealed. Indeed, beneath of those all the reasons people put towards against hypnosis, there are absolutely different causes, related to sexual concepts and confidential matters.
General fears’ source about being unconscious during hypnosis is maybe the fear of sexual abuse and revelation of the people’s secrets. People hesitate from being unconscious situation during the hypnotism session. As I mentioned before, hypnosis has nothing to do with unconsiousness. Thus, we can predict that people actually don’t hesitate from the unconsciousness, but other special things they may have. Even thought of feeling ashamed can make people stand away from hypnosis. One another possible reason for those can be the sexual harrasment. People have a hesitation because of their sexual condition. Several hypnotism sessions, events that were resulted as a sexual abuse, are enough to give some people bad opiniom about hypnotism. Those little matters are also enough for some people to forget about the benefits and give certain borders between themselves and hypnotism. Unconscious, inevitably makes people think of the waking up part of the hypnosis session.
The last but not the least matter we are in charge with, is the claim of the possibility of not being able to come out of hypnosis. Actually there is no possibility for that, there is no experience about someone who is in such situation. Because there is no experience about waking up the person even lately. The people, who are supporting this idea against hypnotism, are generally the apprehensive and anxious people. Neverthless anyone trying hypnosis first, might get bothered a little, but the way they criticise it, can’t be overlooked.
To sum up, the hypnotism is not only physical event that may be used for threapy. One of hypnotherapist points out this in this sentence: “The proper use of hypnosis can demonstrate that we are indeed more than just physical-that we are truly an immortal soul or spirit clothed in and operating through a physical body.”(Hickman,1983) According the two sides of hypnosis, we can say that the hypnosis involve no serious dangers or disadvanteges while it can be a real cure for many problems both physical and psychological.
References
Hickman,I.(1983) Mind Probe Hypnosis .Hickman Systems Pub.
Lester, E. What is Low Self Esteem and How Can Hypnotism Help. Available :
Robertson, Donald. Hypnosis & Hypnotherapy FAQ. Available :
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