Well malkie

Why if you choose not to accept other people can have an opinion that is different to yours. Why do you use your energies and obviously very nimble mind to assert your own opinion? I can only surmise that you argue for the sake of argument. You pick your arguments well because even professional hypnotherapists all over the world have been arguing about hypnosis, and we all have our own conclusion. Allow us the freedom of our opinion without the demands of proof as to why.


which book which auther which reference?

Why if you choose not to accept other people can have an opinion that is different to yours.

Why do you continue to put words in my mouth, or deliberately take me out of context?

I am more than happy for anyone to hold any opinion that they wish. However, I'm still permited to question someone's opinion, and ask them to back it up where possible with evidence.

If they don't have any then that's fine, but they need to be honest and admit that they feel some way just because, and not for any specific reason.

It's like argueing over religion - you can't because it's all personal opinion and belief.

So, if you say hypnotism is real then prove it. Otherwise conceed that you are only expressing an opinion which you can't prove.

I've asked you a couple of simple questions several times and been ignored. You don't *have* to answer my questions, but if you don't then it just confirms my suspicions.

which book which auther which reference?

excuse me?

what are talking about

Mumbo Jumbo nonsense.

quote:

Originally posted by VegEd:
Mumbo Jumbo nonsense.

exactly - finally you agree with me you are making progress.

Now that wont ever happen, and would not be classed as progress. Its to show you up as the arrogant aggresive troller that you are.

You dont deserve evidence Malkie, you have proven time and time again that only your comments mean anything to you. So be it, although would suggest we could all do without them, in fact this forum and these threads would be of far more interest and use without you.

But you carry on trolling, as said you do do it rather well.

if that's the case, then why do you continue to respond to my posts ?

It's amusing that when you are backed into a corner, and are unable to provide a shred of evidence that you immediately return to your name calling.

Classy behaviour.

Malkie
The reading that I have has not informed me that one of the authors states that hypnosis doesn't work. Whether it does or not is not the issue. the fact is that many people have been helped to lead more productive lives free of phobias and/or other limiting beliefs. You are correct to wonder why people continue to respond to your postings and that may or may not be a good thing. Name calling doesn't help and I can imagine the self satisfied pleasure that you get from feeling that you have aroused someones emotions to that level. Good for you and shame on them for allowing themselves to respond in such a way. Again I can only repeat my earlier thoughts. You do not want to be convinced of the validity or otherwise of the hypnotic state as this would take the pleasure of winding up other respondants away from you. If you were to read Steven Wolinsky's Trances People Live you may recognise the trance state you are accessing to behave in the way you do. Though I find it unlikely that you will, as this would mean accepting that there may be a flaw in you reasoning and we all know that that is not possible (Generalisation ( you may recognise it as that, or not))

Forgive the intrusion, I was really forward to the use of this forum for interesting reading to see how the programme made the general public feel about hypnotism instead of believing it will make you eat a raw onion, however, malkie, you appear to have suceeded in making a lay person without any knowledge run as far away as possible, not because you have had a bad experience with it, but because the impression you have given me - a complete stranger - is one of petrification of something you cannot see and therefore control and and complete brainwash for scientific proof. Perhaps there could be a serious board for this topic and one for malkie to spout off at? If anyone who was petrified of drugs and was sincere at looking for serious answers please do not dismiss the effectivness of hypnosis in many areas and please go to professional hypnotherapy board to discuss and inform yourself.

And for those of us with an interest and/or a knowledge of how our mind works I was so pleased that the program showed how open other countries are to this idea, and hope this could lead to hypnosis been taken more seriously and more in-depth studies done in this country.

Malkie, in answere to VegEd's question about meditation and breathing excersises, you said:

'Yes, I believe it works, but not because you some how alter your brain function, but because controlled prolonged breathing has benefit in respiratory diseases, and sitting quietly certainly relaxes you and can be therapeutic.'

Do you really believe that sitting quietly is relaxing and can be therapeutic?

Exercises.

quote:

Originally posted by nlpmind:
Malkie
The reading that I have has not informed me that one of the authors states that hypnosis doesn't work.

No, the reading I gave you from the same author that you suggested was an expert on hypnosis clearly states that hypnosis didn't work in reasonably appropriate controlled study.

The reading that you gave me was nothing more than the author's opinion. It wasn't an appropriate controlled study, and wasn't a peer-reviewed study.

I've gone to the effort of finding your sources, have you even bothered to read the one I gave you ? (which was only 10 pages long or so).

quote:

Do you really believe that sitting quietly is relaxing and can be therapeutic?

Yes. It lowers blood pressure, which over time will reduce the chances of heart attacks and diseases associated with high blood pressure.

It's the people who never stop to relax and enjoy life who end up having heart attacks in their 30s.

Similarly yoga is very therapeutic for the same reason. Not because of the muscle stretching, but because of the controlled breathing and reduction in blood pressure.

So, like I've said, it's not the "meditation" aspect, but more the physiological consequences.

Hi Malkie,

Before I understood what hypnosis was I used to think it was mumbo jumbo and was totally ignorant about it and just assumed the stage hypnotists were magicians and therefore just creating illusions. But I had a really debilitating phobia and after witnessing a friend successfully treated with hypnosis I, eventually, out of desperation, went and tried it myself. Hypnosis totally removed my phobia, in an hour, after suffering for many years so I started to look into it and was so fascinated I ended up training for 3 years to become a Clinical Hypnotherapist. I tend to think in a VERY scientific way and need to know how things work rather than just accept that they do and I feel I do understand, finally, what hypnosis is but it isn’t what you might think. It is very simple and pure and something we do hundreds of times a day as its part of our brain functioning but often people miss the simplicity (especially those that are more intellectual than ‘common sense’ types) and also assume, due to the media, that it is something magical or mystical which can’t be explained – but it isn’t. With hypnosis, like many holistic, natural processes, one thing triggers multiple actions which all combine to give one result. It is not like a drug where it has just one single, easily measurable, action and just as well as this can then create imbalance in the body through the manipulation of just one thing. Man-made stuff is never going to work as well as natural stuff, steroids never identically match things, they get close but they can never beat nature.

Have you ever watched a film and found yourself physically and emotionally reacting to it even though you know it is a story and not really happening? This is hypnosis, where you are so focused on something that you are ‘absorbed’ and are very unaware of other things that may be happening around you. By being so absorbed you might suddenly lose awareness of the headache you had before you started watching the film, or the sadness or anger you were feeling towards someone. Alternatively, if you are trying to get rid of your headache and focusing on how in pain you are, you will be more aware of the pain. This is how simple it is and by taking that focused attention to an even deeper level with formal hypnosis, of course you could be totally distracted from the pain of surgery where the pain signal from the site to the brain is interrupted or re-coded. It is not as risky as you think because even if the patient did decide they were going to focus on the pain (for whatever reasons…?), the anaesthetist is monitoring the patient and can immediately administer the drugs. Surely this is better than the patient being held between life and death as the first option, with the small chance that the chemical anaesthesia is not strong enough and they are in pain but unable to signal to anyone? Yes, I think hypnosis can be dangerous in the wrong hands as it is a very powerful tool and hence why much of the training that a clinical hypnotist would do would be using it safely and taking the correct precautions which can be different for each condition and each person (so a hell of a lot to consider). The Hypno-sedation was a better idea where chemical sedation, which is much quicker to recover from, was used for initial sedation and dissociation followed by formal hypnosis to completely disable the pain signal. (Also important to know that a hypnotist must be specific with how things are worded as the subconscious takes everything literally, like a computer, so when they say for example ‘alter the pain signal for the next hour’ after an hour the pain signal will return, as it should.)

Although conscious intervention can help, i.e. breathing exercises to lower heart rate and calm panic attacks, its much easier if the initial reaction didn’t happen in the first place as the first part of the breathing exercise is the hardest for the patient to start because it is moving from one extreme to another. If you replace the subconscious reaction of stress with say relaxation, then, well that is the end of it, no breathing exercises necessary. (I wouldn’t be too keen on sitting quietly either as for many this just lets them focus more on their fear and could actually cause a rise in blood pressure and heart rate whereas replacing it with relaxation would over-ride it).

And yes the placebo effect is massively relevant with both drugs and hypnosis. If you believe something is going to work then you are subconsciously paving the way to making it happen, in the same way if you believe it won’t, then, well, you won’t so it won’t!

Very interesting read indeed. I especially like the bit about a headache going away when you completely focus on something else. I think we can all relate to that.

quote:

Have you ever watched a film and found yourself physically and emotionally reacting to it even though you know it is a story and not really happening? This is hypnosis

That's possibly the smartest comment anyone has made in this thread so far. I absolutely totally 100% agree with your suggestion here.

I've been scared by horror movies, then made to feel sick at the gruesome parts. That's imagery and suggestion having a pyscho-somatic effect on my body.


I'm very happy that this technique works for you, but you are the perfect example of the issue I have with the whole field.

So, you went to see an expert, he said a few things to you and the pain went away. Firstly, what's to say it wouldn't have gone away anyways, but secondly (and more importantly), whats to say that the cognitive process of just seeing an 'expert' didn't have the positive effect that you were looking for?

What's to say that it was the hypnosis that actually did anything ?

That's my issue - in the absence of an appropriate control (which there can't be), we can't prove that hypnosis actually works.

quote:

Man-made stuff is never going to work as well as natural stuff, steroids never identically match things, they get close but they can never beat nature.

I completely disagree. Man-made "stuff" works far better than natural "stuff" because we've taken the active ingredients, optimised them and purified them.

That means you can get a constant, identical dose of something time and time again.

Furthermore we've isolated the good parts while eliminating the bad parts. eg many parts of cannabis are carcinogenic, whereas the active ingredients are not. Synthetic, more potent variations of the active ingredients have therapeutic effects (on MS for example), without the associated side effects (such as the 'high').



Still no-one has provided any evidence that hypnosis is inherently safe. For example say a hypnotist controls your back pain for you, and also switches off your pain perception generally too. That would have horrible consequences if you were unable to feel pain, and is actually very dangerous as early pain is an important indication of a future major problem (eg arm pain before a heart attack, or stomach pain before your appendix ruptures).

No one has gone to any length to address that, and I'd really like to hear opinions.

Well Malkie, is it not possible that all the placebo/suggestive effects actually add up to what is commonly termed 'hypnosis'? Personally I think they're the same thing since they both the unconsious overriding conscious thought.

As for controls, I am of the opinion that there are certain aspects of human biology that we don't know enough about to formulate the kind of study you demand; the unconscious is one of them.

As for the danger aspect of hypnosis, I think we agree on that. No one can say hypnosis wouldn't be unimaginably dangerous for certain patients. And the whole 'hypnotizability' thing really bugs me. Its for these 2 reasons that I don't think hypnosis in a medical setting will ever catch on

quote:

Yes, I think hypnosis can be dangerous in the wrong hands as it is a very powerful tool and hence why much of the training that a clinical hypnotist would do would be using it safely and taking the correct precautions which can be different for each condition and each person (so a hell of a lot to consider). The Hypno-sedation was a better idea where chemical sedation, which is much quicker to recover from, was used for initial sedation and dissociation followed by formal hypnosis to completely disable the pain signal. (Also important to know that a hypnotist must be specific with how things are worded as the subconscious takes everything literally, like a computer, so when they say for example ‘alter the pain signal for the next hour’ after an hour the pain signal will return, as it should.)

I think that addresses my issue. WELL, hats of to you meow mix for a well written post of your opinion of hypnosis. Personally I'm too cerebral for my own good so my only phobia is of hypnosis itself!

quote:

Originally posted by malkie:
[QUOTE]So, you went to see an expert, he said a few things to you and the pain went away. Firstly, what's to say it wouldn't have gone away anyways, but secondly (and more importantly), whats to say that the cognitive process of just seeing an 'expert' didn't have the positive effect that you were looking for?

What's to say that it was the hypnosis that actually did anything ? .

I was actually part of a group of about 60 (it was a group hypnosis session for arachnaphobia) and out of the 60, 58 went straight into the spider house and quite happilly stuck our fingers into a plastic box full of house spiders (followed later by holding a tarrantula. The other 2 went through a process of 'flooding' by forcably holding the tarrantula to demonstrate to their subconscious that nothing bad would happen if they got close to a spider). I had the phobia for 20 years so the odds of it suddenly disappearing at that specific time has to be on a par with the likeliness of me winning the Euro Millions.

The rapport/expectation is a BIG part of it, if I hadn't had both of the above then it would not have worked. I needed someone to replace my unconscious reaction of panic, raised heart rate, palpitations, physical fear by disabling that conscious voice that was telling me I would always be scared of spiders and there was nothing I could do about it in order to allow my unconscious reaction of fight/flight fear to be over-written with one of relaxation. The fight/flight reaction itself wasn't removed, just the inappropriate appearance of it when I clocked a spider.

quote:

Man-made "stuff" works far better than natural "stuff" because we've taken the active ingredients, optimised them and purified them.

.

Sorry, I didn't explain myself properly - what I meant is that a natural physiological course of action, say, the action of progesterone on the female hormonal cycle creates a naturally flowing set of actions on all the other hormones in the body. Whereas taking the steroid progestogen has a knock-on effect to other hormones which aren't of benefit to the body. So the natural hormone is difficult to copy.

quote:

Still no-one has provided any evidence that hypnosis is inherently safe. For example say a hypnotist controls your back pain for you, and also switches off your pain perception generally too. That would have horrible consequences if you were unable to feel pain, and is actually very dangerous as early pain is an important indication of a future major problem (eg arm pain before a heart attack, or stomach pain before your appendix ruptures).

No one has gone to any length to address that, and I'd really like to hear opinions.

This is why its SO important to be well trained. You do not treat someone for a medical condition unless their GP has given you written consent because you could mask the pain of an underlying disease which needs treating. We are also extremely careful to be specific with the suggestions, so for chronic pain we would not completely remove it but instead leave a small signal (unless it was for, say, terminal cancer, where complete removal of pain is the best course - but again only working alongside the MD, with their permission).

I would totally agree with your fears of misuse with hypnosis and although any decent therapist will seek memebership to a well-regulated society, if/when the government sort out their own regulation it will be a lot safer for the general public.

I think more laboratory controlled testing could be done but it needs funding and where would it come from? Hypnotherapy in my eyes is Complementary to Western medicine rather than Alternative - a combination approach is surely the most sensible way to go.

I am the guy who had the herna operation on Hypnosurgery Live, I am still thrilled with the result ( although still cant watch the gory bits of the programme) and haved used hypnosis to lose 6lbs since the op, anyone who thinks if is rubbish is just ignorant.

No one is saying it's rubbish, but I'm skeptical, and in the absence of any proof then I'm perfectly entitled to hold my opinion.

I'm not sure you can call someone ignorant for not believing something which can't be proven.

It's like saying someone who denies the existence of God is ignorant.

I don’t think we have even began to tap into what the mind is really capable of doing and what power it really has behind it i don’t think people push the limits of what is really possible

I see you are continuing to troll malkie even in other topics