How long do the effects of hypnosis last? As long as you are fulfilling the needs of the client, posthypnotic suggestions will stick and become permanent. Hypnosis has long been a mystery. The effects of...
Hypnosis has long been a mystery. The effects of hypnosis have been proven to help several patients in varying different areas. But what has yet to be explained by science is exactly how hypnosis works. The perception that most people have of hypnosis involves a magician with a shiny object. This magician waves this object in front of a crowd member to put them in a trance. After a few snaps of his fingers and a few soft words, the crowd member is soon barking like a dog or clucking like a chicken.
The difference between the magician acts of hypnosis and the hypnosis done in a doctor's office is the amount of time the hypnosis can last. Of course, the crowd member can not go home barking like a dog or clucking like a chicken, so the magician usually lifts the trance before they leave. But when someone goes to a hypnotherapist to get help to stop smoking, the best results only come when the client can be under some sort of trance at all times.
Wikipedia defines hypnosis as being understood to be a psychological condition in which an individual may be induced to exhibit apparent changes in behavior and thought. Although some individuals experience an increase in suggestibility and subjective feelings of an 'altered state of consciousness', this is not true for everyone.
Larry Volz is a former magician who took up hypnosis 15 years ago. He is the executive director for the American Hypnosis Clinic and has held this position for almost four years now. Volz believes that as long as the hypnosis state is working, it should stick with the client.
"As long as you are fulfilling the needs of the client, posthypnotic suggestions will stick and become permanent," he said. "For instance, if you are a smoker who smokes when you're feeling stressed and I gave a posthypnotic suggestion that you get away from things for five minutes, every time you start feeling stressed instead of wanting a cigarette you'll just have the desire to get up for a stretch or go have a glass of water."
"The nice thing about the human mind is that it will not accept suggestions if they don't fulfill your own personal needs," Volz added. "You can't be made to do anything you don't want to do. Say for instance, a person comes in for smoking and I suggest to him that he bark like a dog every time he feels stressed. Once we go really deep into hypnosis he might trust me and maybe bark for half an hour afterwards. Pretty soon his subconscious mind would refuse and he'd either wake up or say no."
"You cannot be hypnotized against your morals, values, or better judgment so you can't be hypnotized into doing things that aren't good for you," Volz said. "Hypnosis can be incredibly powerful, but your subconscious mind isn't going to accept it unless it's going to do you some good and your subconscious mind feels good about it."
