IBS - A Complementary Medicine Alternative

Hypnotherapy has in fact been proven successful at reducing or even eliminating most Irritable Bowel Syndrome symptoms. This is based on over 15 years of scientific research that has demonstrated hypnosis to be an effective, safe and relatively inexpensive choice as a therapy. 

It has been so overwhelmingly successful in this regard that the chair of the National Women's Health Network in Washington, DC, Adriane Fugh-Berman, MD,  has said that hypnosis should be the treatment of choice for Irritable Bowel Syndrome cases which have not responded to conventional therapy. Since the "conventional therapy" offered to most IBS patients ranges from doing nothing at all to a lifetime prescription of semi-effective anti-spasmodic drugs, this statement is the closest thing to an endorsement that an alternative and complementary therapy can get relief. 

For Irritable Bowel Syndrome, one of hypnotherapy's greatest benefits is its well-established ability to reduce the effects of stress. Your state of mind can have a direct impact on your physical well-being, even when you're in the best of health. If you're struggling with IBS, the tension, anxiety, and depression that comes from living with an incurable illness can actually undermine your immune system and further compromise your health. 

Hypnosis can effectively reduce stress and its negative impact by placing you in a deeply relaxed state, which can effectively promote positive thoughts, develop personal coping strategies, and manage most negative attitudes. 

Irritable Bowel Syndrome in fact is almost uniquely suited to treatment by hypnosis or self-hypnosis, for several reasons. First, as just noted, stress-related attacks can be significantly reduced. Second, one of the most impressive aspects from hypnotherapy, and of tremendous benefit to IBS sufferers, is its well-documented ability to manage virtually all types and degrees of pain. Finally, because most IBS is more of a syndrome, relief and symptom management can be developed. The underlying causes may still be present but if you manage your bodily sensations appropriately with the right messaging, you will be able to have control of the symptoms. This outcome is a definite possibility from hypnotherapy treatments. 

As with other alternative therapies, though there is solid evidence that hypnotherapy can provide lasting health benefits for many patients, there is uncertainty about precisely how and why the treatments work. Most scientists believe that hypnotherapy acts upon the unconscious, and affects the body's regulation of involuntary reactions that are normally beyond a person's control. Hypnosis puts these autonomic responses under the patient's power. Happily, treatment focuses in on gut-specific imagery and there are no risks or side effects. 

Comments on Mental Health and Hypnosis

Hypnosis -- or hypnotherapy -- uses guided relaxation, intense concentration, and focused attention to achieve a heightened state of awareness that is sometimes called a "trance". The person's attention is so focused while in this state that anything going on around the person is temporarily blocked out or ignored. In this naturally occurring state, a person may focus his or her attention -- with the help of a trained therapist -- on specific thoughts or tasks.

How Does Hypnosis Work?

Hypnosis is usually considered an aid to psychotherapy (e.g., counseling or simply therapy), rather than a treatment in itself. It helps with psychotherapy because the hypnotic state allows people to explore painful thoughts, feelings, and memories they might have hidden from their conscious minds. In addition, hypnosis enables people to perceive some things differently, such as managing their awareness of pain.

Hypnosis can be used as a suggestion therapy.

• Suggestion therapy: The hypnotic state makes the person better able to respond to suggestions. Therefore, hypnotherapy can help some people change certain behaviors, such as to stopping smoking or nail-biting. It can also help people change perceptions and sensations, and is particularly useful in treating pain.

What Are the Benefits of Hypnosis?

The hypnotic state allows a person to be more open to discussion and suggestion. It can improve the success of other treatments for many conditions, including:

• Phobias, fears, and anxiety
• Sleep disorders
• Depression
• Stress
• Post-trauma anxiety

Are there Drawbacks of Hypnosis?

Hypnosis might not be appropriate for a person who has psychotic symptoms, such as hallucinations and delusions, or for someone who is using drugs or alcohol. It should be used for pain management only after a physician has evaluated the person for physical disorder that might require medical or surgical treatment.

As a therapist I do not use hypnosis to recover repressed memories that they believe are linked to a person's mental disorder. However, hypnosis may also pose a risk of aiding to create false memories.  This can occur as a result of unintended suggestions by any therapist. For this reason, the use of hypnosis for certain mental disorders, such as dissociative disorders, remains controversial. As a result, I agree with this position. 

Is Hypnosis Dangerous?

In my opinion, hypnosis is not a dangerous procedure. It is not mind control or brainwashing. A therapist cannot make a person do something embarrassing or that the person doesn't want to do. The greatest risk, as discussed above, is that false memories can be created.

Who Performs Hypnosis?

Hypnosis is performed by a licensed or certified mental health professional who is specially trained in this technique. A Ch.t or any other "title", is not a state licensed mental health professional.

WebMD Medical Referenced

Tips On How to Overcome Fear of Public Speaking & Shyness

Many years ago I was so fearful of speaking in public, I would freeze up in an instant.

My stomach churned, my face became hot, my hands clammy, my voice choking. Similar symptoms occurred when I became a teaching fellow. Imagine 80 sets of eyes staring right on you!

I wish I could tell you that hypnosis (more accurately, hypnotherapy) cured my condition back then, but fortunately it was decades later I learned about the value of this technique and its value in helping others.

Let's look at some of the symptoms of the condition. A person’s symptoms may range from being unable to speak to strangers to a full-blown phobia that completely isolates the sufferer psychologically or even physically (as in the case of an agoraphobic).

Everyday fear of public speaking and being shy contains three related elements:

- physiological signs such as blushing
- negative thoughts such as “everyone is looking at me”
- bad feelings such as shame, anxiety and loneliness.

These elements often result in avoidance behavior.

This behavior frequently causes non-shy people to label the shy person as “stuck up” or “aloof” thus completing the self-defeating circle and reinforcing the shyness.

What are some of the causes of this type of behavior. A person may be shy because of a traumatic experience, family background or culture. Extreme shyness may be environmentally driven.

Lack of experience in social situations, perceived isolation experiences as a child in a home or community can contribute to shyness. Low self-esteem can arise from these life experiences can leave you vulnerable to shyness as an adult.

How can we cope with this shyness? Unfortunately, the most common way of coping is avoidance. Avoidance of places and people who arouse the anxiety within a person that causes them to feel shy.

Anxiety can be most evident when we are asked to speak in public. Yikes!

Coping with that (very common) form of shyness requires changing your thoughts and to let go of the terrifying fear of rejection.

How can Hypnosis help me through this issue? Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for shyness involves exposure to the fear-inducing person or place. Thus you eventually became immune to shyness when speaking in front of people.

Sometimes, drugs are prescribed for some forms of shyness, especially those which include high levels of anxiety. However, reducing the anxiety with drugs only acts as for the moment, with no long term help.

Clearly, the safest route to cure shyness is the hypnotic route. There are two main ways hypnosis is used to overcome shyness: suggestive and analytical. Let's see how these work.

This involves you, while in hypnosis, imagining yourself calm, confident and at ease in situations that previously had you feeling shy.

Coupled with powerful post-hypnotic suggestions this approach can result in a swift disappearance of the discomfort of shyness and fear.

Positive Suggestion Hypnosis often also incorporates techniques from different aspects of psychology.

The second way of using hypnosis is to get to the root cause(s) of your shyness. And then, of course, dealing with them. While the fact of you having no siblings, or coming from another culture or being ignored as a child for instance, cannot be changed, your perceptions and therefore your thoughts, behavior and feelings can.

This approach takes an investment of time and funds. Hypnotherapy as the primary approach can be an efficient way to manage these feelings. Isn't it better to feel good? I would say it's so.