When most of the people hear the word Hypnosis, they will automatically imagine a person waving a pocket clock in order to make another person to act like a chicken, dog or walk like’s zombie or even do action against their will (kill someone, rubbing people).
But the reality is different; hypnosis is a mental state (according to "state theory") or imaginative role-enactment (according to "non-state theory"), in which the hypnotized person is not in a semi-sleep state but better he is hyper attentive and has absolute free will. This mental state is induced by a procedure known as a hypnotic induction (which is commonly composed of a long series of preliminary instructions and suggestions) or may be self-administered ("self-suggestion" or "autosuggestion"). Braid, the inventor of hypnotism (hypnotism derive from the term "neuro-hypnotism" - nervous sleep), described hypnotism as a state of physical relaxation accompanied and induced by mental concentration ("abstraction").
In 2005, a new definition of hypnosis, derived from academic psychology (Society for Psychological Hypnosis):
“Hypnosis typically involves an introduction to the procedure during which the subject is told that suggestions for imaginative experiences will be presented. [..]. A hypnotic procedure is used to encourage and evaluate responses to suggestions. When using hypnosis, one person (the subject) is guided by another (the hypnotist) to respond to suggestions for changes in subjective experience, alterations in perception, sensation, emotion, thought or behavior.”
According to Freud, the mind can be divided into two main parts:
· The conscious mind includes everything that we are aware of. This is the aspect of our mental processing that we can think, act and talk about rationally (when you extend your hand in order to retrieve something). A part of this includes our memory, which is not always part of consciousness but can be retrieved easily at any time and brought into our awareness (like a definition). Freud called this ordinary memory the preconscious.
· The unconscious mind is a reservoir of feelings, thoughts, urges, and memories that outside of our conscious awareness. Most of the contents of the unconscious are unacceptable or unpleasant, such as feelings of pain, anxiety, or conflict. According to Freud, the unconscious continues to influence our behavior and experience, even though we are unaware of these underlying influences (just like when you lock a door but later on you are not sure if you locked or not the door, because our unconscious mind told us to get the key and lock the door).
But what happens when we are hypnotized? When we are hypnotized, our conscious mind takes a step back and let our unconscious mind to take over. By that, the hypnotherapist has access and can suggest to our unconscious mind that we don’t like to perform an action, even if when we are awake we love to perform that action (smoke a cigar, drink a cup of coffee, get drugs, etcetera). This procedure is safer more than any other treatment, because if we try to give up to something by taking pills or do other stuff those can lead to harmful effects over our body, but hypnosis only teach our brain to reject them (there is no physical action against our body). And since the changes are made over our unconscious mind, we will remember that we don’t like to perform that action only when we try to perform that action.
Consequently hypnosis is a great therapeutic tool for getting rid of any kind of addiction.
As a fact, we all experienced hypnosis but we never thought of that, when we watch a movie, when we read a book, that is also a kind of hypnosis (self hypnosis).
Because of the fact that the subject is susceptible to suggestion and because the response to suggestion can lead to alteration in perception, emotions and behavior, hypnosis is used as treatment for many phobias, pain sufferance, addiction and many more.
Since AMA (American Medical Association) agreed that hypnosis can be use as an alternate treatment, more and more researches were made. Current research showed that hypnosis is the best treatment for addictions. For example, for a group of smoking addicts, different treatments were applied in order to quit smoking. Here are the results.
With no support only 3% manage to quit without a relapse. Using a substitute for nicotine only 22% did quit smoking. Same percent was able to quit but using medication, or behavioral modifications or single session hypnosis.
Using multiple strategies, 43% quit smoking and didn’t have a relapse. But using multiple sessions of hypnosis 63% quit smoking.
This is only a kind of research conduct. Other research revealed that suggestions given in a hypnotic state, even once, can produce actions in human beings that are the same type of actions that would have resulted from more long-term conditioning and practice (research made by Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London)
When it comes to addiction, every person that has an addiction will act the same way (being drugs, alcohol, sex or game computers). It is proven that hypnosis can alter the way we feel about our addiction. In order to change our lives we have to change our beliefs (which are stored in our unconscious mind), and hypnosis is the best way to change those beliefs.
When we do something we enjoy, our brains start to release chemicals in our body.
That’s why is very easy to become addicted to a substance (caffeine – from coffee, nicotine – from cigarette, pain killers, or worst, drugs), or an activity (work, watching TV, playing computer games). The term video-game addiction encompasses all genres of games, but it is often associated with MMOG’s (Massively Multiplayer Online Games).
According to Dr. Brent Conrad: “Most people can play most games without becoming addicted, just as most adults can drink alcohol on occasion without becoming addicted or gamble from time to time without losing their life savings”. Scientists are discovering with recent research that the genes which people inherit may include “addictive genes”. Those that do get hooked end up with ruined lives.
No matter how serious the addiction, hypnosis has been medically proven as a safe and extremely reliable way to deal even with computer gaming addiction. You can find more about how hypnosis is used in treating computer gaming addiction by visiting this site: www.escapewow.com.
The addiction phenomenon.
Addiction is one of the greatest problems that our modern society is facing. People are becoming addicted to drugs, coffee, TV, internet, games - and these are just a few of them. After drug addiction, computer addiction is a problem that is sky-rocketing.
symptoms for computer gaming
For many people, spending some time in front of the computer, playing some game, is considered an ok thing. Many people can play a game, and live their life normally, but when that game interferes in our lives then that game becomes a problem. It’s like alcohol, many people can drink a glass of wine and not become alcoholics. But when we cross the line we become addicted to that game. Do we even realized we crossed that line?
Games addiction: Myth or reality?
When we do something we enjoy, our brains start to release chemicals in our body. But when we keep doing that thing over and over, our brain is releasing so much chemicals that it will short circuit and we become addicted.
