Hypnosis Facts

Nobel prize-winning Albert Schweitzer once remarked, They come to us, not knowing the truth. We are at our best when we give the doctor, who resides within each patient, a chance to work.

Celebrities have also helped to popularize hypnosis. Through hypnosis, it has been reported that Buddy Hackett lost weight, Tony Curtis conquered his fear of flying, Cary Grant cured his insomnia, Gwen Verdon quiit smoking, Johnny Mathis overcame stage fright, and Billy Casper perfected his golf swing. Casper had won fifty-one golf tournaments and more than 1.6 million dollars during three decades on the pro circuit. But sstaarting in 1975 he says, I didn't know where I was going to hit the ball. In 1980, he didn't win a penny. He went to Ruth Welti and Cliff Webb in Provo, Utah, for hypnosis treatment. It enables me to relax. I do it in the morning to start my day, he says. First I relax each paart of my body; then I concentrate on what I'm going to do that day. It puts me totally at peace. A rejuvenated Casper won $170,796 on the Professional Golf Association's Senior's Tour. I found that a lot of athletes have been using hypnosis, says Casper.

Radiation oncologist Dr. Carl Simonton, founder of the Cancer Counseling and Research Center in Fort Worth, Texas, and psychotherapist Stephanie Mathews-Simonton believe hypnosis may one day become an accepted cancer treatment. They've tested a hypnosis procedure on cancer patients who had been given only a year to live. The patients were asked to imagine their white blood cells as powerful warriors overcoming weak, confused cancer cells. After two years, 63 of these patients were still alive. Of those survivors, 22 percent showed no sign of cancer, 19 percent showed a regression of tumors, and 27 percent had stabilized.

Dr.Theodore Barber, a psychiatrist at Cushing Hospital in Framingham, Massachussetts, claims that warts have a particular susceptibility to hypnosis. One of his patients had 39 warts on her body. During two sessions, she was told to imagine each wart tingling and vanishing. According to Dr. Barber, 37 of the warts vanished.

Weak Willed? Try Hypnosis

When registered nurse Terri Kaplan was counseling people with weight problems, she found that most knew what they should be eating-but couldn't refrain from loading up on beloved fries aand Twinkies. Not until she became a hypnotherapist was she able to help people with the mental component of losing weight.

In her seminars, called Mind Over Matter, Kaplan hypnotizes up to five hundred overweight people at a time-many of whom start out convinced that they can't be hypnotized. It is difficult to put just anyone into the sort of deep trance people equate with hypnosis, but that isn't necessary for weight-loss purposes, she says. The brain wave most hospitable to posthypnotic suggestions is Theta, which everone goes into for a few moments before falling asleep aand again upon waking up.

About one half-hour of progressive relaxation exercises puts most people into the Theta state, at which point Kaplan suggest such simple, positive thoughts as, You'd rather be healthy and slim than eat boxes of chocolate, and Picture yourself in a favorite store trying on dresses one size smaller.

Hypnosis, she explains, is simply a technique for calming brain waves and inducing a state of super-relaxation, during which the mind is emptied of its usual jabbering thoughts. Suggestions made to a cleared mind seem to have more power.

Source: Cosmopolitan