Essential Chiropractic Center

4910 Van Nuys Blvd. Suite 104, Sherman Oaks CA 91403 · (818) 501-8743

Serving the San Fernando Valley since 1988.

Key Benefits

Capabilities

Anesthesia & First Aid

Hypnosis has been used for many years in place of drugs as an analgesic for dental procedures, surgeries, childbirth, and general chronic pain. It has been shown to slow or stop bleeding, saving lives at the scene in severe accident trauma.

 

Behavior Modification

Everything that we do and think and believe is somehow learned - either by observation, instruction, or personal trial and error. From brushing your teeth to smoking to the way that you walk, each movement is guided in a particular way by deep patterns in the subconscious mind. Because hypnosis allows you to relax into a state where it is easy to access the subconscious mind, essentially anything that you do or think or believe can be changed. To attempt to do so consciously is pitting approximately 12% of the mind (the conscious portion) against about 88% of the mind (the subconscious portion). This is way hypnosis is not only more effective overall, but much quicker than most other methods of behavior modification.

 

Medical Hypnosis

Hypnotherapy is used to treat a many health problems, particularly those that are anxiety related, have a strong psychological component, or can be modulated by levels of arousal. Some of the key areas in which hypnotherapy is used as a treatment are shown below along with evidence supporting, and in some cases opposing, its efficacy. These areas are: surgical procedures, chronic pain, gastrointestinal disorders, asthma, obesity and smoking cessation. However, hypnotherapy is by no means restricted to use within these areas. Other problems hypnotherapy is commonly used to treat include panic attacks, phobias, insomnia, depression, child-birth, infertility, eczema, eating disorders, headache, angina and rehabilitation following myocardial infarction or stroke. And, yes, it can be used to enhance (to some degree) breast size.

Surgical procedures

Hypnosis has been used as an analgesic component of surgery since the early 19th century. There is now a growing body of evidence that patients respond to therapeutic hypnotic suggestions made during surgery. In 16 of 18 clinical trials employing hypnotic suggestion to facilitate recovery from surgery, the intervention resulted in improved physical and/or emotional recovery of patients postoperatively. Significantly shorter periods of hospitalization and fewer instances of elevated temperature have been reported in patients receiving therapeutic suggestions while under anesthesia as compared to control groups. The fact that hypnosis offers the possibility of shortened hospital stays and can contribute to the well being of surgical patients would suggest it is worthy of further study and use.

Chronic pain

Hypnosis has been demonstrated to be highly effective in its capacity to alleviate pain. Intense pain often accompanies metastatic cancer. Studies have shown that hypnosis is effective when used for pain control in individuals with such cancers. Women with metastatic carcinoma of the breast experienced significantly less pain sensation when given weekly hypnotherapy than those in control groups. Anxiety, depression and fatigue subscales were significantly correlated with a reduction in reported pain. Similar reductions in pain have been found when hypnotherapy is used in other cancer patients and in patients with severe burn or arthritic pain.

Gastrointestinal disorders

Hypnotherapy has been used in the past to treat duodenal ulcers and prevent relapse. Following the discovery in the 1990s that the bacteria H. Pylori was the underlying cause of these ulcers, antibiotics have now become the treatment of choice. However, hypnotherapy was shown to dramatically reduce relapse of ulcers by reducing gastric secretions. It is now thought that hypnosis may also have caused the destruction of H. pylori by strengthening immune (T-cell) function.

The evidence that gastric secretions can be reduced by hypnosis is also found in the case of irritable bowel syndrome. This syndrome, and other diarrhea disorders such as ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, have been shown to improve when patients are given hypnotherapy. When gut-directed imagery was used to direct the patients' attention to the inhibition of gastric juice patients showed a dramatic improvement in all features.

Hypnotherapy has also been shown to be of use in the reduction of chemotherapy-induced anticipatory nausea, the conditioned response developed by some cancer patients to their treatment, whereby odors, locations, memories and persons associated with chemotherapy treatments trigger nausea and vomiting. Where antiemetic drugs have failed, hypnotherapy has succeeded in providing relief for these cancer patients.

Asthma

A variety of studies have shown that hypnosis may be of value in the treatment of asthma. A Report to the Research Committee if the British Medical Association comparing hypnosis practice with breathing exercises in asthma patients found that patients practicing hypnosis experienced significantly reduced wheezing and use of bronchodilators. Because there were no differences found in forced expiratory volume per second, however, it is possible that these differences may have been the result of a reduction in perception of breathing difficulty. This could potentially be highly dangerous, as asthma is an illness that can enter an acute phase with little warning and therefore patients must respond quickly and often have to rely on their symptoms as the first signal to respond. The use of hypnosis in the treatment of asthma must be treated cautiously, and additional studies assessing the ability of hypnosis to reduce inflammation in asthma are warranted.

Obesity

There appear to be conflicting views, and evidence, when considering whether hypnosis is effective for weight control. A meta-analysis of studies using hypnosis for the treatment of obesity concluded that the addition of hypnosis to cognitive behavioral training substantially enhanced treatment outcomes. Furthermore, it was noted that, unlike other weight-loss methods, patients who had used hypnotic inductions continued to lose weight even after treatment ended. However, some argue that obesity is a multifactorial problem and although hypnosis may be valuable as an adjuvant treatment, other factors (e. g. a sound knowledge of diet and nutrition, recognition that extreme dieting often fails and understanding the need to exercise regularly) must be included as well for weight loss to be successful and maintained in the long-term.

Smoking cessation

Literature evaluating the effectiveness of hypnosis as a treatment to quit smoking (or other addictions) is viewed with skepticism, as research information used to determine success is based purely on self-reporting, which has been demonstrated to be highly unreliable. Nonetheless, hypnotherapy continues to be used for the treatment of addictive behaviors such as smoking, with anecdotally reported success.

 

Past-life Regression

Regression therapy is a unique combination of hypnotherapy and intuition that bridges the present and the past, the practical and the sacred. Many difficulties faced in present life originate from unconscious patterns and experiences. This therapy process gently guides awareness to the sub-conscious mind, allowing for the opportunity to visit and observe past habitual patterns and undertakings that formed barriers to present day success. Once able to identify negative influences, behavioral traits, and unhealthy patterns, the journey toward positive life-path and self-transformation begins.

Some people believe the "past" simply refers to earlier experiences in this present life. However, if a person is open to the idea of reincarnation, the "past" can relate to prior lives, spanning tens, hundreds, or even thousands of years. For those who embrace the concept of past lives, it is important to note that all past life experiences, positive and negative, are stored in the sub-conscious mind, allowing for continual influence on values, decisions, and life-path choices. Past life regression therapy allows for the transport back in time to previous lives in order to confront, acknowledge, and eliminate memories, events, ideas, and beliefs that negatively impact and influence current life experiences and choices.

 

Performance Enhancement

Confidence and motivation have a key role to play in attaining your best level of performance. Whether you are on the sports field, on stage, a creative person, studying for an exam, or seeking promotion in the work place, hypnotherapy can help you prioritize and achieve your goals. Above all it makes people confident by preventing destructive feelings of self-doubt, allowing you to keep adrenaline at exactly the right level to achieve the best results.

 

Additionally, research has shown that mental rehearsal is at least as effective as actual physical rehearsal, and in some cases more so. In the receptive state of hypnosis, it is easy to imagine yourself performing a tennis stroke, golf swing, dance routing, etc. in perfect form every time - unlike in actual practice where performance may vary and bad habits and mistakes can be reinforced. The brain does not distinguish between actual and imagined practice, so improvements are seen more quickly as you practice perfect technique over and over.

 

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Copyright © 2007 Essential Chiropractic Center
Last modified: 09/10/09