Making someone lose control of himself by the power of a hypnotist's words and wake up hearing "one, two, three", and then forget everything, is an image product of fiction. Hypnosis as something supernatural does not exist and this show is very far from the method applied by psychology and medicine. This is defended by the Association for the Advancement of Experimental and Applied Hypnosis ( AAHEA ), a group that warns of the damages that the farce exhibited on television, in theaters, or in pubs has. The latest alarm has been triggered by programs 1,2,3, and Hypnotize me on Antena 3, which has led professionals in this discipline to send a letter of protest to the network. Antonio Capafons, president of the group and professor of the Department of Personality, Evaluation and Psychological Treatments of the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Valencia, provides the keys to understanding what this technique is (and what it is not) and what it is used for.
Since it emerged in the 19th century, it has been continuously shown on the stages of circuses, fairs, and freak shows, attracting the masses with its most spectacular face: a person in a trance experiences reactions as if they really happened to him and then he does not remember anything, or you forget that someone instructed you to act one way or another.
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“Forgetting that someone has given us information but remembering what we have been told is called source amnesia or cryptomnesia. In reality, total memory loss happens to very few people. Hypnosis works in a similar way to placebo, but society associates it with very fascinating beliefs such as the power to control the mind that takes place in fantastic works such as Dracula or in some crime novels. All of that is fake, just tricks to create an illusion. Normally, in the functions there are hooks between the public in collusion with the hypnotist, "says Capafons.
Everything that can be achieved with hypnosis can be achieved without it, warns this expert. “It is a specialty with a historical background that has given modern psychotherapies an interdisciplinary language among health professionals, creating greater understanding to treat problems such as pain or psychological disorders such as anxiety. The aforementioned theaters distort the reality of the advances in the field of neuroscience, psychology and medicine, and of the commitment of societies and professional associations to put it at the service of people, not of audiences or current accounts”.
Anything that can be achieved with hypnosis can be achieved without it.
In the Anglo-Saxon world, this activity has been applied in the clinical field to treat pain for more than a century, although in Spain it is still ignored as a health intervention tool: "It seeks to cause changes that benefit the person, who perceives them as if he did not make efforts to achieve them, although he really does make them without realizing it. Many practitioners avoid calling the procedures they use hypnosis, selling them as sophrology [another set of suggestion devices], visualization, or guided practice They should be labeled correctly to prevent the term from remaining in the hands of people whose intentions are not to achieve the benefit of the user”, observes Capafons.
believe or not believe
This method is not just about asking questions. It is a set of very varied procedures, such as those used for relaxation, but without delving into any state of it. In fact, there is waking hypnosis, where sleep and calm are not encouraged, but "activity and mental expansion. The individual can speak fluently, walk and perform daily tasks while experiencing hypnotic suggestions" explains Capafons. The basis of the process outline consists, according to the president of AAEHA, in "first evaluating the beliefs held by the person who is going to be treated."
It is as dangerous to believe the impostor as the ignorance of the therapeutic possibilities that its clinical version has, indicates this specialist: “One of the risks is the creation of false memories, making the person think that they can access past lives. There are those who believe that he has recovered memories of when he was in the womb, that he remembers being abducted by aliens, or dark moments of his childhood that he had blocked. There are associations affected in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia by this problem. We are talking about something very serious since in certain people it is not difficult to generate them". Many demand hypnosis "because they have seen it on television, and they think it is very fast, magical, and effortless. Instead, others avoid it because they don't believe it can be a health tool," he adds.
Suggestions can reduce pain, quench hunger, or make time go by faster for patients undergoing medical or psychological treatment
"Before starting therapy, it is necessary for the patient to understand that he himself will be in control of what happens without losing consciousness (if he does, it is because he will fall asleep, although it happens to very few people)." This formula aims to get to know oneself better, motivate oneself, and have more energy in order to get involved in the treatment they are immersed in. The user is taught a series of exercises that will allow them to get out of it when they need it. It is better that the person self-hypnotizes himself and this task is reinforced with hetero hypnosis, that is, supported by the therapist”, advises the professor.
“There are international attempts, for profit, to create a profession called hypnotherapist, starting from insufficient scientifically based training, or even absent, in psychopathology that claims to heal almost everything. Whoever says that this is the way to cure everything from cancer to fibromyalgia, depression, smoking or anxiety is lying to us, like the shamans of the 19th century”. Due to its possible adverse effects, Israel is the only country that prohibits hypnosis as a show in its legislation.
Relief, motivation, and health savings
This resource can contribute to a whole range of benefits to relieve the usual discomforts derived from various diseases: reduce pain, appease hunger, tolerate unpleasant substances, make time pass more quickly; give calm, firmness, security, indifference, or favor important emotional or physical alterations, such as, for example, that those people who experience a lot of cold due to peripheral circulation problems, feel more heat.
Neither complementary nor substitute. Efficacy in the clinical setting lies in acting as an adjuvant (auxiliary) in the field of pain, cancer, irritable bowel syndrome, surgery, or gambling addiction. “The more fallible it is when used as the only intervention. Only for some cases of pain and in some people, a single session can work very well as a placebo, but it is not normal or advisable. It must be part of a treatment to increase its effectiveness and efficiency”.
Around 70-80% of people who combine medical-psychological intervention with a hypnosis show a positive response, says the specialist. “And it is more efficient in two ways: it saves effort and suffering for the patient, allowing a higher quality of the intervention; and it saves a lot of money to the public administration, depending on what hospital interventions. In countries such as the United States, Australia, and Israel, it is used regularly in the health field”, concludes Capafons.
