Myths have always chased hypnosis and its healing offshoot, hypnotherapy. Some regard them to be black magic whereas others reject them as pseudo science. Some of the popular myths linked with hypnosis and the reality behind them are given below.
Hypnosis has nothing to do with magic spells of any kind. Psychology and several other scientific disciplines have an important role to play in the hypnotic procedure, and it is very simple to acquire and practice. People refuse to acknowledge hypnosis even after seeing participants successfully undergoing it in public shows. They hold that those who can be hypnotized are mentally not strong enough. But nothing could be farther from the truth. Hypnosis can in fact work on people who are mentally strong and are trying their best to avoid the spell.
Another notion about hypnosis that people have made up arbitrarily is that it is an altered state of consciousness. A person under hypnosis does not get shut off from the external world, but stays completely conscious of the happenings around him. Hypnosis actually brings forth a state of complete relaxation characterized by a rise in levels of concentration, and this heightened awareness helps the subject to receive new inputs with considerable ease.
Some scientific discoveries have stated that only about 5% of the population is capable of being hypnotized, which is the third myth on this list. Although, the finding has some element of truth to it, what makes it hollow is the fact that the scientists used the same hypnosis technique for everyone. Hypnosis can’t be oversimplified like that and works only if there are different methodologies for different characters.
Many people consider hypnosis to be a form of meditation. But while hypnosis is an interaction technique, meditation is all about a mental state and generally has nothing to do with communication. Trance too has no connection with hypnosis at all. The individual doesn’t communicate to achieve a state of trance, while hypnosis is not possible without communication.
It is often thought that hypnosis training or hypnotherapy cannot bring changes in appearance or in behavioural patterns of a person. Hypnosis obviously cannot attain something that is unnatural to the body. But it can bring about an improvement in physical health by altering behavioural patterns like overeating and constant smoking by raising motivation levels in an individual.
Hypnosis, and particularly hypnotherapy, can have an important function to play in the overall welfare of a person, and not giving them a try just because of some misconceptions is a missed opportunity.
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