Science Says
What happens in the brain during hypnosis?
There are finally scientific studies being done on hypnosis and its effects on the brain. They are discovering what hypnotists have known for a very long time. They are finally coming to understand that hypnosis is powerful and an effective way to solve our own problems fast.
The level of control over their mind and body a person has in trance is incredible. And the scientific proof keeps piling up. Let's have a look at some of it below.
Take the chains off your brain!
Scientists are now studying the power of hypnosis
Excerpt of an article written by By Muriel Prince Warren, DSW
I was further encouraged by numerous scientific studies in recent years showing that the hypnotized mind can exert a real and powerful effect on the body. Hypnosis is increasingly being used today to help women give birth without drugs, for muting dental pain, treating phobias and severe anxieties, helping people lose weight, stop smoking, or even improve their performance in athletics or academic tests (Wall Street Journal, Waldholz, 2003). The stage was set for my first trial.
Three Cases:
My first example involves a patient who feared an upcoming operation and the possibility of his blindness or death. He explained that he was a professional golfer, and had been diagnosed with osteoscarcoma. His physician had just found a tumor the size of a golf ball behind his left eye. He had been warned that he had a slim chance of retaining his eyesight and having the tumor removed. Furthermore, there was a real possibility that he would not make it through the operation.
We had five consecutive sessions during the week before his operation. The patient told me that he was a multimillionaire at age 40. All he wanted was to play golf, and his wife would not let him. He was deeply depressed and without a "causa sui" (a reason for living) (Becker, 1983, p. 119), and often dreamed of dying. Dr. Norman Shealy, a Harvard-Trained neurosurgeon and researcher, and many others have concluded that the immune system becomes compromised by depression, stress, anger, and guilt, leading to many diseases including cancer.
In each hypnosis session, I relaxed the patient's amygdala, shutting down the fear and enhancing the outcome. I did not explain to the patient that I was talking to his amygdala, but under hypnosis in a trance state, the amygdala shuts down the stress hormones, giving he patient an opportunity to rebuild his immune system. I am not a golfer. But I suggested that when the surgeon drilled into his skull, he would hit a hole in one and the tumor would pop out. On the day of the operation, the patient showed no fear of the procedure. When the surgeon made the initial incision just behind the eye, the tumor simply rolled out of his head without further intervention. The patient arrived at my office the following day with his eyesight intact and nothing but a band aid covering the incision. The tumor was sent to Johns Hopkins and the Mayo Clinic for analysis. To this day, the surgeon and his colleagues don't understand what happened. They think they made an error in diagnosis. The tumor was just not as serious as they originally thought. This patient has decided to become a golf coach, thereby reducing his depression and finding a, "causa sui." His immune system was now functioning well. About six months later, he began having difficulty with his prostrate. Because of their constant fighting, his wife turned to smoking pot which made her amorous. His amygdala was activated by her sexual demands and the fear that he would not be able to perform.
The prostate is a male sexual gland that surrounds the neck of the bladder and the beginning of the urethra. The gland secretes a thin opalescent fluid that forms part of the semen.
An activated amygdala doesn't wait around for instructions from the conscious mind," explains Claudia Haub (Newsweek, Feb. 24, 2004, p. 46). Once it perceives a threat it can trigger a body wide emergency response within milliseconds. Jolted by impulses in the amygdala, the nearby hypothalamus produces a hormone called Corticotrophin Releasing Factor, or CRF, which signals the pituitary and adrenal glands to flood the bloodstream with epinephrine, adrenaline, nor epinephrine and cortisol. These stress hormones then shut down nonemergency services such as digestion and immunity, and direct the body's resources to fighting or fleeing. The heart responds, the lungs pump, and the muscles get an energizing blast of glucose. The stress hormones also act on the brain , creating a heightened awareness and supercharging the circuitry involved in memory formation.
In autoimmune diseases, the immune system is confused and attacks the body. Hypnotherapy can help stimulate healthy immune system functioning where only foreign invaders or mutant cells are attacked. A general understanding of how autoimmune diseases operate is helpful to patient and therapist alike. Sometimes pictures of the disease process and immune system help to facilitate the internal changes necessary for healing or remission.
This patient underwent tests which indicated a PSA of 2.4 ug/L. We began hypnosis focused on his prostrate. In a quiet, relaxed state, I asked him to locate the pipe that controlled his prostate gland, reminding him that the back of his mind knew better than I just how to put it in working order. His PSA level has now been reduced to 1.66 ug/L. (The normal range is 0.0 to 4.0.)
Perhaps even more dramatic is the case of a 75-year-old man with kidney failure who was facing the prospect of dialysis. This patient had been through three heart attacks and showed an allergic reaction to the contrast or dye used in angioplasty. His kidney function, as measured by the level of creatinine in his blood, had declined to about 20-25% of normal. Using the same technique of inducing trance and reducing all stress hormones, I asked the patient to visualize himself in a healing garden, and using all of his senses, imagine through the powers of his own pure subconscious mind — which knows better than I do — sending healing energy to the parts of his body that need it most. In a sense I was using his own intuition to empower him. After three sessions of hypnosis focusing on improvement of his kidneys, blood tests showed his creatinine level was reduced from 3.0 to 2.0, equivalent to approximately 50% of normal and a 100% improvement. Although his kidneys are not perfect, dialysis is no longer necessary. We are now working on his carotid artery which shows a partial blockage.
Serious medical malfunctions are not the only areas susceptible to the power of hypnosis. This case involved a 16 year-old girl who was failing math with a 53 average despite attempts to tutor her. After three months of hypnosis once a week, her average climbed steadily to an amazing 85. Through hypnosis, I was able to shut down the stress hormones that can impair memory and taught her how to anchor those feelings of calmness. Eventually, she was able to perform her own self-hypnosis prior to scheduled tests at school. I helped her to realize that her brain was like a computer, only better. In fact, it was the prototype for all manmade computers. We went over the fact that in the first five years, she learned more than at any other time in her life. She learned a language, to tell one person from another, to distinguish different objects, to begin mastery of her ABC's, how to color, brush her teeth, and many other things. All of this was data she was able to program into her brain before she was five years old. Now that she was 16, those tasks slipped in to her subconscious mind. Just like breathing or sending oxygen to her blood cells, she didn't have to think with her conscious mind about how to do it.
The same principle holds true for math, science, and anatomy. Only now, it is much easier. Data we store in our computer brain can be retrieved just the way we retrieve the method for tying our shoelaces. First, the patient is given a simple way to anchor the feeling of calmness, perhaps by simply placing his pointer finger and thumb together, putting her into a state of self-hypnosis so the stress hormones do not interfere with her memory bank. Then she is told to tackle the easiest questions first, giving the patient a feeling of success. Success breeds success. Reducing stress hormones and strengthening the ego combined with desensitization helps patients with school and test-taking.
I can't claim that every case is an absolute success, but I can say that more and more and with the perseverance of my patients, I have been getting better and better results. Dr. David Barlow of Boston University's Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders, claims that we can actually talk to the amygdala and reduce stress in our minds and bodies. As a hypnotherapist, I know that the unconscious mind is best addressed by hypnotic language in a trance state.
I was further encouraged by numerous scientific studies in recent years showing that the hypnotized mind can exert a real and powerful effect on the body. Hypnosis is increasingly being used today to help women give birth without drugs, for muting dental pain, treating phobias and severe anxieties, helping people lose weight, stop smoking, or even improve their performance in athletics or academic tests (Wall Street Journal, Waldholz, 2003). The stage was set for my first trial.
Powerful stuff no? you see, they are finally admitting to the power the mind has over the body. But none of this is new to a competent professional hypnotist. We have known it all along.
Do we really need a pill for everything?
Modern medicine certainly has its place, sure, I will never argue that. Doctors save lives!
But doctors also take lives. To the tune of 400,000 lives a year.
And that is only as a direct result of medical malpractice.
There is another number of concern here, and that is the number of dead due to pharmaceutical drugs.
The brain has a function beyond thinking, remembering, learning and calculating.
It is also the best stocked pharmacological resource known to mankind!
From allergy through depression to pain to cancer and beyond, your brain provides everything you can think of.
The difference between what your brain provides and what the pharmacy provides?
It is that there is no need for a warning label, because your brain controls the dose and there is no possibility of overdose.
And one other thing to be considered here, the things the brain provides have no "side effect" of death as do many pharmaceuticals.
I am not saying stop taking your pills here, I am saying if the brain can provide it, why would you take the pills?
The secret is getting the brain to release those medications, which is where the competent hypnotist comes into play.
Here are 7 types of hypnosis explained
1. Behavioral Hypnotherapy
One of the first types of hypnotherapy a therapist usually attempts is behavioral hypnotherapy. It’s a non-intrusive form of hypnosis and provides a good starting point into their counseling.
Behavioral hypnotherapy is aimed at changing the current behavior of the patient toward a more positive outcome. Usually, the therapist and patient work together to figure out what that outcome looks like. They’ll also talk through the techniques and suggestions that will be used to support that outcome.
2. Analytical Hypnotherapy
Also known as hypnoanalysis, this type of hypnosis draws on the analytical school of psychotherapy. It looks for the root cause of a patient’s problem or behavior.
Analytical hypnotherapists help a patient determine why they behave in the way that they do. When they understand the behavior, they have a better chance of changing it.
3. Cognitive Hypnotherapy
Unlike analytical and behavioral hypnotherapy, cognitive hypnotherapy doesn’t focus on behaviors. Instead, it targets the beliefs that cause those behaviors.
A hypnotherapist employing cognitive therapy helps patients update their beliefs and think about their life and behavior differently. Techniques may be borrowed from cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), rational emotive behaviour therapy (REBT) and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). Cognitive therapy can also draw from mindfulness and meditative approaches
4. Regression Hypnotherapy
This type of hypnotherapy is considered relatively intrusive. For this reason, most hypnotherapists won’t employ this method until other approaches have been exhausted. Behavioral, cognitive, and analytical hypnosis are psychologically easier on a patient than regression.
However, if the case calls for it, and the therapist and patient have discussed the pros and cons, regression can help a client remember past events that might be adding to or causing their problem. This type of hypnosis carries the risk of re-traumatizing the patient and should only be used with caution and by an experienced hypnotherapist.
If the first approach your therapist recommends is regression therapy, it’s probably a good idea to look for a new therapist. Therapists that recommends this as the first or only approach generally don’t have much training outside of regression therapy. This means they’ll have trouble helping you with your problems even if they can identify them.
Past-life Regression Hypnotherapy
Some patients believe that a past life can affect their current life and cause their issues. For those patients, past-life regression can help them figure out what’s causing their behavior and give them insight on how to fix it. It also gives them an opportunity to cut the connection with anything from a past life that’s not helpful in this one.
The specific technique for past-life regression therapy isn’t much different than those used for a regular regression. As such, even therapists who don’t believe in past-lives can perform this type hypnosis and help patients. Other therapists simply use past-life regression and its language as a metaphor for change.
If you’re feeling stuck and can’t figure out why past-life regression might be something to consider. Learn more about it here.
5. Ericksonian Hypnosis
Dr. Milton Erickson is considered the father of scientific hypnosis. This type of hypnosis is named after the techniques that he developed.
Because Erickson used metaphors instead of direct suggestions in his approach, this form of hypnosis is more accessible and acceptable to skeptics. Using metaphors, this approach allows the mind to approach a problem in a new or more organic way.
6. Self-Hypnosis
Self-hypnosis involves inducing oneself into a relaxed and state-like trance. You can use any of the methods mentioned above but, for self-hypnosis, body scanning and breathing techniques work best.
Once you’re deeply relaxed and your mind is more open to suggestion, you can either introduce suggestion yourself or use an audio guide. If you’re skeptical about hypnosis or you’re not ready to trust a therapist with what’s in your subconscious, this is a great starting point.
7. Clinical Hypnotherapy
For all the effective forms of hypnotherapy, we had to include at least 1 to look out for. And that 1 is clinical hypnotherapy – because these are typically just hypnotherapists adding a fancy name to their practice. But they use the same techniques and processes of any other hypnotherapist.
The official definition of clinical hypnotherapy is a therapy that’s conducted in a clinical setting. It can also mean hypnotherapy that’s used to treat medical conditions. These might include treating pain, psychological disorders, skin problems, and more.
Because the involvement of other healthcare providers is an essential aspect of true clinical hypnotherapy, there aren’t many actual clinical options out there. Make sure you do your research before choosing a therapist who advertises in this way.
From an article by By Rick Nauert PhD
Study IDs Changes in Specific Brain Areas During Hypnosis
By Rick Nauert PhD
The power of hypnosis to alter your mind and body is thanks to changes in a few specific areas of the brain, according to a new study from the Stanford University School of Medicine.
Researchers used functional magnetic imaging to scan the brains of participants during hypnosis sessions. They discovered three distinct sections of the brain are influenced in subjects that are hypnotizable.
In the study, scientists scanned the brains of 57 people during guided hypnosis sessions similar to those that might be used clinically to treat anxiety, pain, or trauma. They found distinct neural areas experience altered activity and connectivity while someone is hypnotized.
The study findings appear online in the journal Cerebral Cortex.
“Now that we know which brain regions are involved, we may be able to use this knowledge to alter someone’s capacity to be hypnotized or the effectiveness of hypnosis for problems like pain control,” said the study’s senior author, David Spiegel, M.D., professor and associate chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences.
“Hypnosis is the oldest Western form of psychotherapy, but it’s been tarred with the brush of dangling watches and purple capes,” said Spiegel. “In fact, it’s a very powerful means of changing the way we use our minds to control perception and our bodies.”
Despite a growing appreciation of the clinical potential of hypnosis, though, little is known about how it works at a physiological level. While researchers have previously scanned the brains of people undergoing hypnosis, those studies have been designed to pinpoint the effects of hypnosis on pain, vision and other forms of perception, and not the state of hypnosis itself.
“There had not been any studies in which the goal was to simply ask what’s going on in the brain when you’re hypnotized,” said Spiegel.
To study hypnosis itself, researchers first had to find people who could or couldn’t be hypnotized. Only about 10 percent of the population is generally categorized as “highly hypnotizable,” while others are less able to enter the trancelike state of hypnosis.
Spiegel and his colleagues screened 545 healthy participants and found 36 people who consistently scored high on tests of hypnotizability, as well as 21 control subjects who scored on the extreme low end of the scales.
Then, they observed the brains of those 57 participants using functional magnetic resonance imaging, which measures brain activity by detecting changes in blood flow. Each person was scanned under four different conditions — while resting, while recalling a memory and during two different hypnosis sessions.
“It was important to have the people who aren’t able to be hypnotized as controls,” said Spiegel. “Otherwise, you might see things happening in the brains of those being hypnotized but you wouldn’t be sure whether it was associated with hypnosis or not.”
Spiegel and his colleagues discovered three hallmarks of the brain under hypnosis. Each change was seen only in the highly hypnotizable group and only while they were undergoing hypnosis.
Researchers observed a decrease in activity in an area called the dorsal anterior cingulate, part of the brain’s salience network. “In hypnosis, you’re so absorbed that you’re not worrying about anything else,” Spiegel explained.
It’s a very powerful means of changing the way we use our minds to control perception and our bodies.
Secondly, they saw an increase in connections between two other areas of the brain — the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the insula.
Spiegel describes this as a brain-body connection that helps the brain process and control what’s going on in the body.
Finally, the research team also observed reduced connections between the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the default mode network, which includes the medial prefrontal and the posterior cingulate cortex.
This decrease in functional connectivity likely represents a disconnect between someone’s actions and their awareness of their actions, Spiegel said. “When you’re really engaged in something, you don’t really think about doing it — you just do it,” he said.
During hypnosis, this kind of disassociation between action and reflection allows the person to engage in activities either suggested by a clinician or self-suggested without devoting mental resources to being self-conscious about the activity.
In patients who can be easily hypnotized, hypnosis sessions have been shown to be effective in lessening chronic pain, the pain of childbirth and other medical procedures; treating smoking addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder; and easing anxiety or phobias.
The new findings about how hypnosis affects the brain might pave the way toward developing treatments for the rest of the population — those who aren’t naturally as susceptible to hypnosis.
“We’re certainly interested in the idea that you can change people’s ability to be hypnotized by stimulating specific areas of the brain,” said Spiegel.
A treatment that combines brain stimulation with hypnosis could improve the known analgesic effects of hypnosis and potentially replace addictive and side-effect-laden painkillers and anti-anxiety drugs, he said. More research, however, is needed before such a therapy could be implemented.
Source: Stanford University
A word about hypnosis and who can be hypnotized
It is my considered opinion that everyone can be hypnotized. There is no question about that in my mind.
With that being said, not everyone is going to go into trance the same way.
I cannot speak to these studies and those they decided were not hypnotize-able, because I do not know anything about the methodology used nor limitations on induction parameters or time to trance statistics. In professional hypnosis, there are so many different types of induction and so many induction protocols, it is impossible for me to make sense of that portion of what they are saying.
If an Elman induction fails, one can shift to a shock induction, a pattern interrupt induction, a confusion induction, a rapid induction, an instant induction or any of several others and these are but classifications where we then go into the specifics, but one must understand that as a professional hypnotist, I sometimes make up custom inductions as I go.
There are key elements to an induction. However, there are also different elements to every person being inducted. So, if an Elman induction fails, I start looking for another way that is customized to the individual at hand. I have had people tell me that since the last hypnotist could not do it, I could not and I had them in trance pretty rapidly. It could have simply been a lack of rapport. For as simple as hypnosis is, it is very complex! A hypnotist must be on their toes for these things.
There are ways to also covertly induct someone so they do not even know they are being inducted, which slide right past deliberate defenses. There is also conversational hypnosis and NLP, there are so many ways to induce trance, one has to ask, what all did they try before declaring someone immune to hypnosis.
Hey Fred, the Elman and a pattern interrupt induction both failed! This guy cannot be hypnotized!??!
One hypnotist I studied under tells the story of a guy who came to a training seminar claiming it was impossible to hypnotize him. They had him standing, unable to move the arm over his head, he said it couldn't be done. They had his hand stuck to his forehead, but he couldn't be hypnotized. The man told them the only way he would believe it, was if they made him forget his name.
Of course they could not do that, everything else worked flawlessly, but not that. Why? Because all of his defenses were built around name amnesia and he never let go of that. If you are unwilling, you will not do it, even in full on trance in every other metric.
I have been doing stage hypnosis and the first skit bombed. Having watched what was happening and knowing my stuff, I leaned into the subject and quietly told them "Do NOT try to help me, just let whatever happens happen" and viola, everything worked as smooth as butter for the rest of the show!
There are a lot of factors at play in any induction. no two are the same. In a stage show, I am only going to try twice and then I will send the person back to their seat. Many reasons for this. First, I am doing a stage show and am not going to waste a bunch of time when the crowd is there to be entertained. Next, though not the last reason, is that sometimes you get those who are there only for the express reason to prove you wrong or incapable.
Today, after years of doing this stuff, when someone tells me I cannot hypnotize them, I tell them they are right and move on to another topic. I am not even going to do an induction, because I know they are not going to cooperate, whatever their reasons are. The bottom line is, they do not want to be inducted and I have nothing to prove to them, or anyone else.
In a research setting, I would not spend a lot of time on inductions either.
Research Shows Hypnosis Has Some Interesting Effects On The Brain
Answer by Colin Gerber, Parkinson's Researcher, on Quora:
There has been, and still is, a lot of controversy about the validity of hypnosis. However, more and more research has been coming out in support of hypnosis existing and actually affecting brain function to an extent.
First off, who does it affect? People are often broken into two groups when doing hypnosis research. Highly hypnotizable people and non-hypnozable people. As most people have heard, hypnosis does not work on everybody. But why is that? Well research shows that highly hypnotizable people actually have structural differences in their brains.
A 2004 study conducted by researchers at the University of Virginia revealed that subjects prone to be hypnotized actually had structural differences within their brains. In the study, highly hypnotizable subjects, on average, sported a 31.8% larger rostrum, a part of the brain involved in the allocation of attention and transfer of information between prefrontal cortices. [1,2]
It would seem that becoming hypnotized has has at least something to do with the rostrum.
So, people that are more susceptible to hypnotism have small differences in brain structure. That does not necessarily mean that hypnotism actually affects the brain.
Does hypnotism affect brain activity? There have been several studies that have shown affects on brain activity after hypnotism. Mendelsohn et al. studied this through giving people posthypnotic amnesia (PHA). This basically means that the hypnotist told people to forget a certain thing after they are hypnotized until they hear a recall trigger word which lets them remember it again.
In the study they took a group of people that were susceptible to PHA and a group that was not and had them both watch a movie. A week later they tested their recall on the movie after receiving PHA. The group what was susceptible to PHA scored much lower on the test than the non-PHA group. They also found that:
fMRI showed high levels of activity in areas responsible for visualizing scenes (the occipital lobes) and for analyzing verbally presented scenarios (the left temporal lobe). In stark contrast, when people in the PHA group performed the recognition task and failed to remember the content of the movie, fMRI showed little or no activity in these areas. [3]
What is especially interesting about this study is that, after the PHA was canceled, with the recall trigger the PHA group preformed just as well as the non-PHA group and their fMRI's showed similar results. Another fMRI study looked at hypnosis as well and found supporting reports here: Scans Show How Hypnosis Affects Brain Activity.
There is science that backs up hypnosis and it seems that people who are more susceptible to hypnosis have enlarged rostrums. There is still a lot of work going on to figure out all of the details of hypnosis.