Hypnosis can be briefly defined as a special psycho-physiological state caused by suggestion and similar to sleep or half sleep. According to the definition of the American Psychological Association, hypnosis is a procedure where a health care professional or researcher induces changes in the subject's sensations, perceptions, thinking, or behavior.
The authoritative American researcher of hypnosis Michael Yapko gave the following definition of hypnosis: “... hypnosis is a focused experience of absorbing attention, prompting people to a sensory multi-level response aimed at activating and using personal resources for
The well-known Soviet psychotherapist V. L. Raikov believed that hypnosis is a special, reserve form of psychological state and response, potential readiness for maximum mobilization of the psyche, when the altered function of consciousness and self-consciousness receives enhanced control of the central and peripheral nervous systems, including some elements of the unconscious, and to some extent the body as a whole.
Most hypnologists support Raikov's concept and believe that hypnosis as a mental state is a form of increased readiness of the psyche to receive information, process it and implement it in activity. This is a state of altered susceptibility of consciousness associated with increased controllability of almost all body functions.
In the process of hypnotherapy, the patient is immersed in a special state in which there is direct access to his subconscious, repressed or suppressed psychotraumas and internal conflicts that underlie the disease. There is an opportunity to get rid of inefficient habitual patterns of thinking, activate creative consciousness, gain access to the internal reserves of the psyche.
There are prejudices that the patient becomes dependent on the hypnotist, turns into a weak-willed automaton. Ignorant people develop the myth of the omnipotence of hypnosis, presenting it as an irresistible force that can turn a law-abiding citizen into a criminal. However, this is an unfounded misconception. A person in hypnosis retains the ability to consciously monitor what is happening and interact with the therapist. Dr. Jacob Cohn of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (USA), having analyzed the medical literature over the past 150 years, did not find a single fact that would indicate the commission of any crime under the influence of hypnosis.
On the contrary, in hypnosis one can instill in a person the ability to deal with difficulties more persistently, strengthen his mental and physical health, or get rid of many diseases and bad habits.
Особенно полезна гипнотерапия для лечения психосоматики. Исследования показывают, что в гипнотическом трансе внушения прямо влияют на функции отдельных органов и процессы организма, поскольку в человеческом организме нет ничего, что не зависело бы так или иначе от психики.
The results of a study of the effect of hypnosis on metabolic processes make a strong impression. Literature data indicate that, at the direction of the hypnotist, a decrease in calcium in the blood can occur. If you suggest to an individual that he ate honey, then an increase in blood sugar is noted. On the other hand, if it is suggested that there is no sugar or honey in the food consumed, the increase in blood sugar seems to slow down, even if the individual consumed sugar.
Therefore, finding out the causes of the disease with the help of hypnoanalysis and activating the recovery processes in the body, one can significantly help patients with psychosomatic diseases. Hypnoanalysis is a hypnotherapy technique in which memory is activated, as if a person returns to the past (with the help of regressive hypnosis), where it becomes possible to remember and realize those stressful circumstances that provoked the disease.
The process of remembering psychotrauma in hypnosis is called hypnocatharsis. In the course of it, there is a re-experiencing of a strong emotion caused by a traumatic situation, and its release. At the same time, the anxiety associated with the restoration of contact with the situation is deactivated by other, positive emotions in the context of psychotherapy, a sense of security and safety that the psychotherapist creates.
In our center, for patients who find it difficult to enter the normal state of hypnosis, or when a deeper hypnoanalysis is required, ketamine psychotherapy, which can be conditionally called drug hypnosis.
Hypnotherapy is carried out:
- director of the Expio center, candidate of medical sciences, psychotherapist Vladislav Matrenitsky. He studied hypnosis with Dr. Vitaliy Yevtushenko, a leading figure in Soviet and Ukrainian hypnotherapy, and with the founder of the School of Analytical and Cognitive Hypnotherapy (SACH), President of the Estonian Transpersonal Association, Jure Bichonski. Vladislav Leontyevich also developed his own method of emotional-metaphorical hypnotherapy. In 2015, Dr. Matrenitsky was invited to the International Congress on Hypnosis in Paris, where his report on trance methods attracted the attention of about 200 participants.
- Daria Shaposhnik-Dominskaya – crisis psychologist, candidate of psychological sciences, hypnotherapist (School of S. Greenwald, Kharkov, Eastern European Association of Hypnotherapists and Clinical Psychologists and Practice of Shock Hypnosis.