Hypnosis

by Dennis Lowry
Director, American Academy of Hypnosis

Look deep into my eyes.
You are getting sleepy...
You will do as I say...
Now, cluck like a chicken...

Almost everyone is familiar with the hypnotist's stage scenario. Those who hypnotize for fun may put on a good show but in general have a small rate of success compared to the growing number of certified hypnotherapist trained at state licensed schools.

Hypnosis although relatively new to modern medicine, had its start in the 1700's when Dr. Franz Mesmer discovered that patients got well after he made healing suggestions to them. The term "mesmerizing" comes from Dr. Mesmer's first experimental work with putting patients in a hypnotic trance using magnets. Patients weemed to be healed from suggestions.

Over the years I have found that when clinical hypnosis is used with the body's natural healing processes there can be a significant success rate. Today, hypnosis has far reaching clinical benefits and has been approved by the American Medical Association and such medical schools as Louisiana State University have offered clinical hypnosis to their students since the early 1970's.

Clinical hypnosis does not attempt to do something to the patient... it simply is used to guide the patient to help him heal himself. I have had clients improve from illness including ulcers, severe burns, cancer, colitis, tourette syndrome plus stuttering, stage fright, insomnia, smoking, weight problems and the list goes on.

Take the case of the patient who had tourette syndrome. I helped this young nine year old who had been to many psychiatrists, the Mayo Clinic and several doctors overcome his problem. In my interview with Eric I counted sixty eight spasms in a fifteen minute period. I then hypnotized him and the spasms decreased to sixteen spasms in fifteen minutes under hypnosis. Eric was a good hypnotic subject and by working with the mind to release the conflict he was totally able to release facial tics. Eric had wanted to go hunting with his father plus he wanted to play football. I helped him to let the subconscious mind know that the positive of playing football and being able to go hunting out weighed the negative his mind had accepted.

Eric was an excellent student and he was number one is his class. He was enrolled in a Catholic school and the teacher had given him 100's on his papers... however the teacher had put an unhappy face next to the 100's. Her message to Eric was that only God is perfect and that just because he was the best student, he was still not perfect. Eric's mind took this as failure and the facial spasms set in. Once his mind was able to release the quilt he was able to release the spasms. In the last session I put Eric in charge. I had Eric become the adult and the teacher become the small child. After telling the teacher off under the hypnotic session his mind accepted that he had done nothing wrong. Today Eric plays football on his high school team and is still number one is the classroom getting those 100's.

Positive change can happen for anyone, and it can work for you if you truly want it.

Dennis Lowry, is the Director of The American Academy of Hypnosis. (702-737-5266) Mr. Lowry has hypnosis instruction centers in Alabama and Florida. He also hosts the "Hypnosis Hour" every Monday morning 10:00 - 11:00AM on KLAV in Las Vegas.