Hypnotherapy

Hypnotherapy is a therapy that is undertaken with a subject in hypnosis.

The word “hypnosis” (from the Greek hypnos, “sleep”) is an abbreviation of James Braid’s (1841) term “neuro-hypnotism”, meaning “sleep of the nervous system”.

A person who is hypnotized displays certain unusual characteristics and propensities, compared with a non-hypnotized subject, most notably hyper-suggestibility, which some authorities have considered a sine qua non of hypnosis. For example, Clark L. Hull, probably the first major empirical researcher in the field, wrote,

If a subject after submitting to the hypnotic procedure shows no genuine increase in susceptibility to any suggestions whatever, there seems no point in calling him hypnotised…

Hypnotherapy is often applied in order to modify a subject’s behavior, emotional content, and attitudes, as well as a wide range of conditions including dysfunctional habits, anxiety, stress-related illness, pain management, and personal development.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010 and is filed under What is Hypnosis?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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