Recently a friend asked me why, with all the cutting-edge modalities available nowadays, I decided to get trained in something so old as hypnotherapy.

Well, the major reason is because it works! My starting with my undergraduate studies in psychology, I have explored and experienced many types of traditional therapy from a clinical psychologist, an MSW, a pastoral counselor, and a psychoanalyst and all of it was helpful, but my greatest, most immediate breakthroughs came from a few sessions of hypnosis. Friends and family had similar results.

Besides seeing its effectiveness in creating life changes, more information is coming out about why it works, some of it written by “cutting edge” authors. Molecular biologist Bruce Lipton, PhD, in the Biology of Belief, explains that “if an energy vibration in the environment resonates with a receptor’s antenna, it will alter the protein’s charge, causing the receptor to change shape”. . . so “biological behavior can be controlled by invisible forces, including thought, as well as it can be controlled by physical molecules, like penicillin. . .” We are not locked into our DNA, change at the core, cellular level is possible.

A study published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Science, “. . . that energetic signaling mechanisms, such as electromagnetic frequencies are a hundred times more efficient in relaying environmental information than physical signals such as hormones, neurotransmitters, growth factors, etc.” (81)

In addition to our genetic makeup and how it is affected by the environment through energy fields, much of how we live our day to day lives is simply due to programming that was instilled in us as children. Lipton points out that young children’s brains are operating at the same low frequencies (theta and alpha) utilized in hypnosis to create deep suggestible states. So, we all have taken in, “downloaded”, thousands of messages whether they were appropriate for us or even accurate. All of that programming was absorbed without being filtered through the critical mind, which develops later.

It makes sense, then, that to release some of those old messages and patterns that keep us in a rut, returning to the deeper levels of consciousness would facilitate the change we (our higher level of consciousness) desire. He states, “The biggest impediments to realizing the success of which we dream are the limitations programmed into the subconscious. These limitations not only influence our behavior, they can also play a major role in determining our physiology and health. (xiv)” he goes on to say that “positive thoughts have a profound effect on behavior and genes, but only when they are in harmony with subconscious programming” (xxviii).  We, hypnotherapists, could actually term ourselves as “subconscious behavioral therapists.”

Lipton provides this quote of Gandhi-

Your beliefs become your thoughts

Your thoughts become your words

Your words become your actions

Your actions become your habits

Your habits become your values

Your values become your destiny.

Positive thinking can help, prayer and meditation can help, willpower can help, but for those of us who could use even more help, hypnotherapy can provide an extra lift out of the old rut, into a new direction and destiny.