Medical Assisted Clinical Hypnosis: What is it and What Does it Cure?

Clinical hypnosis is one of medicine's best kept secrets and has been used for thousands of years. It uses the powerful mind-body connection to treat debilitating physical and mental health conditions with little reliance on medication. Clinical hypnosis was used for surgery before the discovery of anesthesia. It's also used in the emergency room.

While many patients are susceptible to hypnosis, the effect may be magnified with medication assistance. This has been safely performed in the operating room for decades with tremendous safety and success when accompanied by an experienced physician.

What is Clinical Hypnosis, or Hypnotherapy?

A hypnotic state is simply a suggestible state with highly focused awareness. A hypnotic state may appear like a sleepy, dream-like state. However, when in a hypnotic trance, patients have increased concentration and attention, allowing for a stronger mind-body connection. You are literally in "the zone."

‍Clinical hypnosis (or medical hypnosis) is the practice of applying hypnosis to treat medical conditions by strengthening your mind-body connection. Medical hypnosis helps patients better embrace positive suggestions by doctors to fundamentally change perceptions, sensations, thoughts, and behaviors. Clinical hypnosis helps patients focus awareness to lessen pain, anxiety, and troublesome symptoms.

Hypnosis can provide powerful medical cures when used correctly

What Conditions Can Hypnosis Treat?

Hypnosis affects your mind-body connection, utilizing your nervous system to cause changes to parts of your body. Theoretically, any part of your body with nerves can be affected by hypnosis. Clinical hypnosis has been shown to improve many conditions:

• Asthma
• Anxiety (before surgery, too)
• Chronic pain
• Depression
• Headache and migraines
• Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)
• Side effects of cancer treatment: nausea, vomiting, surgical anxiety
• Childbirth
• And more

Can I be Hypnotized?

On average, 10% of the population is highly susceptible to being hypnotized, and another 80% is less susceptible. About 10% are not very susceptible. This is one of the advantages of augmenting hypnosis with medication. Increased susceptibility to hypnosis can allow patients with less suggestibility to still derive the benefits of hypnosis for long term benefit.

Children are more easily hypnotized. This is believed to be because of their more flexible mindsets.

How Does Hypnosis Work?

Hypnotic states appear to affect levels of important neurotransmitters, including dopamine, glutamate and NMDA receptor signaling, GABA, oxytocin, and serotonin. While we are still learning about the neurochemistry of hypnosis, we know that certain medications can increase the power of entering a suggestible state. A suggestible state allows for disarming inhibitory self-perceptions. This disarming is a powerful part of various hypnotic techniques:

1. Self-hypnosis: you enter a suggestible state on your own to control emotions, pain, or other conditions.
2. Guided hypnosis: your suggestible state is entered and continued with a guide. The guide can be an audio recording or an app.
3. Hypnotherapy: your suggestible state is guided by a licensed practitioner

Can Hypnosis be Dangerous?

Part of the neurochemical changes caused by hypnosis allow us to confront our vulnerabilities. While this can be therapeutic, the strength of the mind-body connection can also lead to harm without proper guidance. Specifically, structural weaknesses must be supported to prevent hopelessness and harm.

Trust and collaboration are key to the support and compassion that help make hypnosis safe and powerful

What is Medication Assisted Hypnosis?

When we struggle from disordered thought patterns and mental health conditions it is natural to set up defense mechanisms. These are natural, protective efforts by our mind and body. However, these barriers can work in both directions, preventing others from helping us while also preventing ourselves from healing ourselves. This can take the form of denial or avoidance.

Medication assistance allows a patient to more easily lower defense mechanisms with medication prior to entering a hypnotic or psychodynamic state. This can be critical in patients with low confidence in their self-healing abilities.

Medication assistance can allow for more cognitive flexibility to enter a hypnotic, healing state

Harmony Infusion's Medication Assisted Hypnotherapy

Harmony infusion provides infusions differently than other services. We always welcome bringing your licensed therapist to your infusion.

We also emphasize that medications are helpful to catalyze your self-healing. However, our goal is to release your inner healing potential through our experience together. Medications alone rarely provides a long-lasting cure, and our holistic medical treatment helps treat the root cause of disease. By treating the root cause, patients are able to rediscover themselves and live with greater purpose and less reliance on medications.