North Adams Transcript
Hypnotism Day
not on every calendar
By John E. Mitchell
North Adams Transcript
Saturday, January 08, 2005 - It
went largely unnoticed in the Northern Berkshires, but Tuesday, January 4,
2005, was World Hypnotism Day.
Despite the creepy sounding name, this was not the work of
super villains hell bent on mesmerizing the world, but an effort by Woburn
Hypnotherapist Tom Nicoli to give the use of hypnosis in medicine and
therapy its due.
"It was an idea I had in June that I thought the National Guild of
Hypnotists would benefit from," said Nicoli, "as a way to not sit
back and wait for things to happen. I'm the type of person who likes
to make things happen, so I figured why don't we all just get
together and make something happen here?"
Nicoli managed to rouse 16 different hypnotherapy organizations in 11
different countries to hold events, ranging from a formal lecture in
the Hall of Justice in Canada to a talk given in a Ground Round in
New Hampshire. Nicoli and two other colleagues took part in an event
in New Hampshire that donated its admission fee to Boston Children's
Hospital. In addition, awareness has been spreading online at the
World Hypnotism Web site ( www.worldhypnotismday.com, which offers
four self-hypnosis audio sessions as free downloads.
"The whole intent was more to publicize and create awareness in the
public of the benefits that hypnotism provides," said Nicoli, "and
more than just weight loss, stopping smoking, and stress management."
Bennington psychologist and Hypnotherapist Kirke McVay hadn't even
heard of World Hypnotism Day, but sees the benefits of pushing
awareness. With the popular conception of hypnotism being pulled from
stage performers and movies, many people fear that hypnotism is a way to
be controlled by someone else. The fact is, hypnotists cannot make
anyone do anything that they don't want to do, whether it is quacking
like a duck or quitting smoking.
"I can't make you do things that you don't really want to do," said
McVay. "That's the problem with smoking. People come in and say that
they have to quit smoking. It's a question of do you really want to
quit smoking? Because if you don't want to and you're not ready, it's
not going to work."
Even when a person does want to quit smoking, there are gray areas in
the recovery. Sometimes a successful hypnotherapy doesn't mean
quitting at all, it means cutting down to the amount of smoking the
patient actually enjoys, rather than what the patient puffs out of
compulsion.
"It helps eliminate a lot of the habit smoking," said McVay. "It
narrows it down to the amount of smoking they really want to have.
They don't quit unless they're really ready to."
Rather than being thought of as an unnatural trance imposed by a
stranger, the hypnotic state would be more correctly considered a
natural and daily occurrence induced by a trained professional.
"It's a natural experience that everybody goes through in the process
of falling asleep, so it's not like it's anything new," said McVay.
Hypnotism is, in fact, a state of consciousness that everybody
experiences everyday.
"Whenever you enter a daydream and enter the upper level of conscious
analytical thinking, you are now in the hypnotic state of mind," said
Nicoli. "Most people don't even think they're hypnotized because
they're surprised they heard everything, they just felt really
comfortable, their body felt heavy. Behavior modification happens at
that level."
McVay points out that the National Guild of Hypnotists is largely
comprised of what is called "lay-hypnotists," a term for people who
are licensed to practice hypnotherapy for basic behavior
modification, but are not medical professionals who can diagnose
problems often associated with smoking and weight problems, such as
accompanying anxiety disorders. In this way, hypnotism is considered
by McVay to be one of the most underutilized procedures in mainstream
medicine, largely due to the effort involved and the misconceptions
about it.
"I work closely with primary care physicians on this and the patients
aren't interested. I don't know why. I've had people come in and say
that they don't believe in this self healing stuff. People, they just
want to be given a pill to cure the problem and then go out and keep
doing what they're doing. I ask them to do things differently, learn
to relax, develop certain skills."
McVay points to studies that have shown that hypnosis is effective in
treating irritable bowel syndrome, headaches, chronic pain, breach
pregnancies, morning sickness, eczema, sleep walking, some skin
conditions, and is even used by some anesthesiologists before
operations.
"You can help lower blood pressure," said McVay, "but people would
prefer to take a pill rather than practice self-hypnosis 20 minutes a
day."
Nicoli hopes his effort has helped other Hypnotherapists -- and
believes the best way to measure its success is to measure better
understanding through a rise in clients.
"That's a pretty much a side benefit from the efforts that are being
put forth for the initial reason," said Nicoli, "which is to
publicize the truisms and the benefits of hypnotism. We spend so much
time in the office reframing people from what they are mislead to
believe."
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