Essay --

Hypnosis Hypnosis is like guided daydreaming, a form of relaxed concentration. What is relaxed is first, the body and second, the conscious part of the mind. Hypnosis can be helpful at any age. Getting a good night's sleep, or conquering a phobia, are just two of the benefits you can bring to yourself with hypnosis, whereas other benefits include controlling pain, dealing with disease, positive idea about illness or serous diseases, reduction of medications, getting a good night’s sleep, overcoming guilt, resisting disturbing memories, improving relationships with family members and those around you are some of the benefits and positive uses of Hypnosis. Hypnosis has also been defined as a form of conditioning. A person learns, through direct experience or the media, how to behave 'hypnotized.' Another way to see hypnosis as something learned is to assert that a person becomes conditioned to a word stimulus such as "Relax." Once having allowed himself to relax, the client is thereafter conditioned to repeat the experience of relaxing upon hearing the stimulus-word. Yet another definition of hypnosis, one that has wide support among researchers, is that it is a form of dissociation. That is, that in some as yet unexplained way, the mental functioning of a person is compartmentalized and one part can be isolated from the others. The art and science of hypnosis is at once both old and new. Old, because it was used in ancient times and has a pedigree that stretches back to the beginning of mankind’s conscious development. New, because only over the past 100 years has it been subject to the full force of scientific scrutiny, after the discovery (re-discovery) that the unconscious mind, emotions and personal history directly affect ... ... 75-year-old who had no trouble sleeping at night but who found he could no longer enjoy his afternoon nap. At the root of his difficulty in letting himself sleep in the afternoons was a fear that he might never awaken. This was easily dealt with by providing Harold with an audiotape that put him into a pleasant state of hypnosis, with positive suggestions about enjoying a deep, refreshing sleep and awakening at the time he chose. Now Harold drifts off to sleep whenever he wants. Hypnotherapy is very effective in helping a senior who, many years ago, suffered sexual or other abuse. Even when the trauma has caused you decades of distress you can free yourself from its suffocating aftermath. This is done with the remarkable ability of hypnosis to, in a sense, rewrite your history. So you know the event happened, but you are no longer tormented by it. Bibliography