Hypnosis In The Treatment of Drug Addiction

Hypnosis as An Adjunct Treatment for Drug Addiction.

The exact causes of drug and alcohol addiction are not fully known. Neither is there an exact remedy or cure for these ailments.  In fact, there are many treatment options available for drug/alcohol addition.  Hypnosis is one alternative approach.  Although hypnosis may not be a stand-alone treatment, when combined with other therapies, such as a 12-step program, hypnosis can be an extremely effective approach.

How Hypnosis Can Help In Relapse Prevention?

Hypnosis induces a mental state where the subject experiences increased relaxation and focus.  Due to the increased focus, the subject becomes more receptive to positive suggestions.  In a typical session, a hypnotherapist might give suggestions for:

• motivation to stick with the program;
• increased patience and feelings of worthiness,
• increased self-esteem and feelings of wholeness and serenity; and
• increased ability to regulate thoughts and emotions.

Internalizing such positive suggestions makes behavior modification more likely, and behavior modification is obviously a crucial component of relapse prevention.

Research Proving Hypnosis Works for Addictions

The following research shows hypnosis can be very effective in the treatment of drug & alcohol addiction:

• In a comparative study of hypnotherapy and psychotherapy in the treatment of methadone addicts, significantly more methadone addicts quit with hypnosis.  At six month follow up, 94% percent of the subjects who received hypnosis remained narcotic free.  (Manganiello AJ. American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis 1984; 26(4): 273-9).
• In a study on hypnosis for relapse prevention training with chronic drug/alcohol users, individuals who used self-hypnosis at least 3-5 times a week, at 7 week follow-up, reported the highest levels of self-esteem and serenity, and the least anger/impulsivity, in comparison to the minimal practice and control groups. (American Journal of Clinical Hypnotherapy 2004 Apr;46(4):281-97)
• In another recent study, clients who received hypnosis treatments over a 1 yr period showed a 77% chance of remaining drug/alcohol free. (American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis,  Jul 2004  by Potter, Greg)
• In a case study, where a female subject with a $500 a day cocaine habit used hypnosis 3 times a day for four months, the subject’s addiction was broken and she remained drug free for 9 years.  Hypnosis was the only intervention and no support network was available. (American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis 1993 Oct; 36(2):120-3).

How To Keep Your 2010 New Year’s Resolutions

With New Years just around the corner, a lot of people are taking stock of what they’ve accomplished this year and what they want to achieve in the year to come.

Statistics show 40-45-% of Americans make one or more resolutions each year. Among the most popular New Year’s resolutions are resolutions to lose weight, resolutions to get fit, and resolutions to quit smoking and/or drinking.  The following table, taken from www.proactivechange.com shows how many resolutions are maintained over time:

- past the first week: 75%
- past 2 weeks: 71%
- after one month: 64%
- after 6 months: 46%

While less than half the resolutions are maintained past the 6 months mark, studies show making resolutions is still a good idea.   People who make resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain their goals than people who don’t.

If you’re one of those people who has a hard time keeping resolutions, here are 5 tips that might help:

1. Be realistic. If you haven’t exercised in three years, increasing your exercise regimen to 5 times a week may be a bit unrealistic.  But 2-3 times might be a more attainable goal.
2. Tell the world!  Don’t keep your resolution a secret. The more you share it with others, the more accountable you will be.
3. Reward Yourself.  It’s important to celebrate your achievement by treating yourself to something you enjoy.
4. Keep Track of Your Success.  Keep track of each small success you make toward reaching your larger goal. Short-term goals are easier to keep and small accomplishments will help keep you motivated. Instead of focusing on losing 30 pounds, say, focus on losing that first 5.
5. Use positive suggestions to motivate yourself. Self-hypnosis works great for this!  Please visit www.hypnoswitch.com for a free self-hypnosis manual.

Can Hypnosis Treat Fibromyalgia?

About 5 million Americans suffer from fibromyalgia.    The condition is characterized by severe muscle pain, sore tender points and body fatigue.  Its onset can be sudden, as in the person who develops fibromyalgia after experiencing a trauma, such as a car accident.  It can also be more gradual.  Fibromyalgia can go into remission and then appear again. People with Fibro should avoid stress because stress tends to exacerbate the symptoms.

There are many different types of treatments available for fibromyalgia, including prescription medications, acupuncture, water aerobics, hypnotherapy and massage therapy.  What works for one person may not work for another.

One might not immediately think of hypnosis as a treatment option, but studies show hypnosis can turn off pain receptors in the brain.  That’s something fibro sufferers could really benefit from.  Indeed, according to a recent study in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine, where scientists compared the brain imaging scans of 20 women diagnosed with fibro with the scans of 10 healthy women, the Fibro sufferers had pain receptors that were much more active.  If we could only shut those pain receptors off? Well, now we know we can..with hypnosis.

In most Fibro sufferers, the stress response is constantly being triggered and the body has simply forgotten how to produce the relaxation response. Hypnosis can help reprogram your mind so that you’re producing the relaxation response much more readily and easily.

For more info on how you can benefit from hypnotherapy, please email me at melany@hypnoswitch.com.

Can Hypnosis Cure Bipolar Disease?

Treating Manic Depressive Symptoms with Hypnosis

Bipolar disease, also known as manic depressive disorder, is a type of mood disorder.  Everyone has highs and lows, but people with bipolar have extreme highs and lows.  This can sometimes inhibit their ability to function in life.  Extreme bouts of bipolar can lead to aggressive and/or self-destructive behaviors.  Some bipolars have audial and visual hallucinations.  Many bipolars turn to drugs and alcohol as a way to self medicate.  Some of the symptoms of bipolar disorder include:

• insomnia
• reckless behavior
• impulsive behavior
• racing thoughts
• delusions and hallucinations
• severe depression and thoughts of suicide

Bipolar is a very difficult disease to treat. Patients are generally given psychiotropic medication, but finding the right combination of meds can be difficult. Also, many bipolars prefer not to take their meds as it robs them of the supersonic energy they feel during the mania.

So, what’s the alternative?  Well, how about hypnosis?  If hypnotherapy is a great tool for molding the human mind, why not the bipolar mind?  Those were some of the questions I asked myself when I first started treating manic depressive symptoms using hypnotherapy.

My first experience with a bipolar patient was about 10 months ago.  When he first came to my office, he was in pretty bad shape. He was drinking excessively (to the point of black-outs) as a way to manage his illness.  He had severe insomnia and debilitating anxiety. He was totally out of control.

10 months later, he’s still sober.  He’s been taking his meds more consistently and he’s much less anxious.  He’s been sleeping better and he feels more balanced and in-control.

Can hypnosis cure bipolar disease? Maybe not entirely. But it can certainly be very useful in relieving some of the symptoms.

For more info on how hypnosis can alleviate bipolar sysmptoms, please write to us online or offline (melany@hypnoswitch.com).

Nail Your Next Audition Using Hypnosis & NLP

People have strategies for everything they do: boredom, love, depression, happiness, even audition anxiety.  A strategy is a specific order and sequence of internal and external representations.  It’s just like a recipe for baking a cake. If you add the right ingredients in a certain order, you end up with a delicious result! The same is true for your states of mind.  Most people think of anxiety as something that happens to them.  If that were the case, no one would ever be able to get past it.  Anxiety is something you do, not something that happens to you.  If you can figure out the sequence and order of representations that produces your anxiety, you can interrupt the pattern and get a different result!

So, how do you elicit your strategy?

Most people are not aware of their strategies.  They typically run in your head in a matter of seconds and are usually pretty automated. The idea is to become more conscious of your strategy by asking yourself how you got there in the first place.  In terms of the ingredients of your strategies, you could have visual (internal/external), auditory (internal/external) or kinesthetic (internal/external) cues. When eliciting someone’s recipe for audition anxiety, the best way to do it is to get the chef back in the kitchen.

Think of a specific time when you experienced audition anxiety.  Rewind the movie to the very beginning. What was the first thing that happened that let you know it was time to do anxiety?  Was it something you saw?  Something you heard? Something you said to yourself?  For some actors, the anxiety begins as soon as they get a call from their agent.  (External auditory).  For others, it starts when they walk into the audition room.  (External visual).  Once you determine the first ingredient, move on to the second and third, and so forth.  It’s important to run through the entire sequence of representations.

Once you’ve elicited the strategy, it’s time to scramble it.  In other words, throw in a wrench to the normal order and sequence, and you end up with a different result! For instance, if you find that you always get nervous as soon as you see other actors in the audition room, you could interrupt the pattern by imagining everyone in their underwear.  If you find that your anxiety always begins while you’re driving to the audition, you could interrupt the pattern by imagining that you’re cruising around Gotham in your Batmobile.  The sillier your pattern interrupt, the more likely you are to override the old pattern.

And, if you scramble it enough times, you simply won’t be able to play the old record anymore! Can you imagine going into every audition feeling confident and secure?  It’s entirely possible and it’s all up to you!

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