Has anyone tried hypnotherapy?

Hi all,

I've never actually contributed to this forum before but the more I have read, the more I see the same issues coming up over and over again to do with shame, guilt, powerlessness, anger, frustration and so on and so on. So many people looking for solutions to fix their symptom, but the thing is, its a symptom, not a cause. Masturbation, porn addiction, visiting a prostitute, being a sadist or a masochist, whatever the hell this 'awful' thing is: these things are not the problem. They are a solution to a deep pain, one that each of may or may not be aware of. So many of these things are hidden deep in our psyche that you simply can't imagine where they come from, maybe because they come from before your conscious memory began. Or even more screwy, you know exactly where the feelings come from, you can rationalise it and understand it endlessly, but the addiction or deviant act fulfills such a strong need inside you and is so effective at it that no amount of willpower will ever shift it because its helping you to avoid something painful. I know it sounds woowoo, but just for a second give your subconscious the benefit of the doubt: he's doing stuff to stop you hurting. It might not be the best solution in the world, but in his world he's being really really good at solving your problem. When the symptom is actually serving you really well in certain areas of your life then its damned hard to kick, because deep down you need it. You can say this about pretty much any addiction.

So I don't want to blather on and on, but in all sincerity have people tried hypnotherapy? I mean with someone who really cares and really understands their issues, who they can truly and honestly open up and say the truth to? Because the thing is, men are not faulty and they aren't guilty and they aren't ever 100% wrong. There is always a kid inside who wants to do good, no matter how deep he may be buried. We are all just hanging on to some hopeless ideas of how to heal ourselves from hurt or loneliness and even though those ideas may not be not working very well, they provide some relief and are working better than nothing. The hypnotherapists job, in fact you can maybe simply say the job of love, is to see the good. To see the good no matter how bad the person thinks themselves to be, no matter how much they are suffering or believe bad things about themselves. Send them love, believe in them, and hand them their miracle. Put it there in front of them and say go on, I dare you, live and love like you truly truly wish you could. The anger is only hurting you, the one you are frustrated with doesn't even know what you are thinking, or doesn't care, or is so old now they need you more than you need them, or is already dead. Or whatever it may be. I'm not saying hypnotherapy is guaranteed to work, it completely depends upon the individuals true wish to fix themselves, but damn it does work well in those situations. That might sound evangelistic, but I really truly believe it, I experience it and I do it for others. It usually requires a lot of forgiveness - of others and of ourselves - frequently needs a lot of anger and frustration to be released, but eventually when an individual accepts themselves as they are, 100%, human, making mistakes, lacking self control, fucking up and realising we are all like that then... wow. The world changes. I could write and write about this but eventually it all comes down to self acceptance, love and forgiveness. The world is full of light and shade and the quicker we come to accept the dark side of ourselves then the easier the tension inside us will release. With that, the need to find a momentary inner oblivion or hit of life through some sexual outlet or other disappears. Instead of wanting to wank off for a moment of connection in the pain and aloneness, the world starts to show its love. And that, honestly, is what this is all about.

Why hypnosis? Because it gets straight to the subconscious and that's where our feelings and habits lie. A year of psychotherapy might never get to the subconscious and do what a few session of hypnosis can achieve. I wont sell it any more but if you want any further answers let me know, if just one person can lift their head above all this stuff and breathe again in peace then its all worthwhile.

I know this sounds simplistic and I apologise for that, I can imagine people here have been suffering for years. I mean nothing other than to help so if you think my words are stupid that's fine, I don't have all the answers but maybe some of you may find this at the right moment. Ask me whatever you like if it will help.

 

This is really important to dig into, so thank you for the comment. Let me try my best to go through each of your convictions and see how best to respond. Have you ever been hypnotised? Your description is well off mark for what people actually experience. Plus your username makes references to god, so I am going to assume that you have a religious belief that underpins your comments. And you are entitled to all these concerns, they are valid when you haven't experienced it: I would simply ask you to keep an open mind on something until you have experienced it for yourself.

So, lets go:
"Hypnosis is an act of surrendering one's will to the will of another, and within that act one's own will and willpower is weakened, often permanently."
There are aspects of this that we all fear and for good reason. The whole reason we are advertised to on the tv is in the advertising executive's hope that the tv has already put us into a hypnotic trance where those evil advertising suggestions will just slip through. Propaganda is another example, Nazi Germany. People can be led to do things seemingly against their will if the environment supports it and scratches an itch within them. Lets be honest, porn is hypnotic. The tv hypnotic argument actually is mute, because people have willingly chosen to go into that hypnotic trance much like when you go see a movie at the cinema. You quite deliberately suspend reality to go to a fun place in your mind, you make believe. Similarly with porn, its an act of choice: people want to suspend reality for a moment and feel the love or connection or release. The propaganda argument is harder to grapple with because it includes so many factors: social norms, peer group pressure and so on make up one side but then the individual's personal anger, frustration or sheer boredom with the routine of life can make them choose to believe things that they might not otherwise wish to believe. People have a dark side that can be triggered easily if they suffer enough. So yes, lets say its possible. Lets not simply deny that possibility, but lets put it into the context that good and bad lives in the world, light and shade, and we all have choices to make every moment of every day. Just because you deny the bad doesn't make it go away.

But lets now go to what I’m talking about, not hypnotism of the masses but one-on-one therapy. Here, I assure you, hypnotism brings about a state of heightened awareness within the individual. They aren’t asleep, they aren’t numb, they are vividly (and I mean really vividly) aware. They are in no way giving up their will and their willpower is definitely not weakened. I would debate how strong willpower is anyway, if we could fix things through willpower then honestly there would be no-one on this website. Willpower doesn’t work. No, I’m taking here about a state where your conscious mind, with all that judgement and criticism and blather and armour, takes a seat next to you in the passenger seat of the car. He’s there the second you need him, he hasn’t gone away anywhere, but he’s chosen for a small moment to sit back and let you communicate with your inner mind. So you can see your truth, so you can learn and maybe love yourself, not so you can rub out your truths and replace them with someone else’s. I assure you, the second your conscious mind gets a sense that someone is trying to manipulate your thoughts, that door will slam shut and you will wake up. People on stage do crazy things in hypnotic trance because they want to, they want the freedom of making a fool of themselves on stage and blaming the hypnotist afterwards - they love the freedom to be silly. I hope that makes it clear. You say “there is no human worthy of such a trust, and no sane mind would seek to relinquish his or her own rights and powers in such a manner” but in so saying you are assuming that an individual just rolls over and gives in to the hypnotist; but nobody gives up their rights. The only reason the hypnotic contract works is because the two people decide in unison to do their best to help fix a problem. And seriously, the second you as the client feel that’s not what’s occurring, you will wake up mad as hell. So it’s not going to happen. But yes, you need to find someone you trust, obviously. You need rapport and respect and a room where there is no judgement, where all is open, to be able to tell someone all those things that you’ve been trying hard to cover up all your life. But that’s part of the magic.

And moreover, the hypnotherapist is not there to fix the problem for you, he’s there as your guide to help you understand what is causing you to act in the way you do. He’s not perfect, he doesn’t have all the answers and he cannot fix the problem for you because he cannot twist your mind. You, the client, do all the work, but the reason you do it is because all the presumptions of your conscious brain (the one that has been trying to fix it for years and failed?) has decided that maybe his isn’t the only way so go on, see what you can do. I’m here if you need- just pull the alarm chord. The whole thing is a very welcome and vivid act of choice and consent and learning. You will become aware of things you had completely forgotten.


“Essentially, it is an act of desperation in the vain hope for an easy shortcut for the one who fails to properly exercise his or her own willpower.” Yep, maybe this one is partly true (although it is not an easy shortcut). You’ve tried willpower and it hasn’t worked. You really want it to work, you have the will, but it just doesnt seem to be sufficient. You’ve tried psychotherapy and it hasn’t worked. You’ve tried religion and it hasn’t worked. You’ve tried visiting a shaman and going into an orgiastic rite and it hasn’t worked. So back of the list, oh my god have I sunk this low?, is the hypnotherapist. What the hell, I’ve tried everything else. I see this often. Let me say this as often as it needs to be said: if willpower worked, this website wouldn’t need to be here. If you want on a later post I can give you a more thorough explanation of why hypnotherapy works but hypnosis works in conjunction with your will, not against it.


“Similar, in some ways, to a "get rich quick" scheme, all participation in hypnosis is doomed to failure. “
It’s nothing whatsoever like a get rich quick scheme. For a start, no-one is trying to sell you anything. There is no manipulation. And anyone promising you instant or guaranteed results is a liar. What I’m saying is that people suffer for years and years because of fear. In a way, your whole argument above could be seen as based upon fear. With fear comes denial and with denial comes tension, anger, frustration, shame, anxiety, discord…. Hypnosis will simply help someone accept themselves and with the comes peace. No-one is being brainwashed, they are being allowed to be themselves. Imagine a world where everyone was nice to you, where they respected you, where you were looked after and felt secure, where you were valued and trusted. That world all exists inside you, you just need to love yourself. It has nothing to do with the world outside or how other people treat you. And it starts by accepting who you are as human, shaking off any preconceptions, any guilt, and just being you. Maybe that doesn’t fit with your idea of religion, I don’t know, but honestly the experience is one of inner emancipation. When you know yourself so well, addictions are no longer necessary because you have everything inside yourself that you seek and to hurt yourself would be nonsense. That doesnt mean you are fixed overnight, habits have triggers and so it can take time. But the need, the basic problem that is causing the symptom, has shifted.

I hope that addresses your issues, but number one is nobody is going to take control away from the individual.

 

You have all the control in the world. You reveal what you want to reveal. But the point is, you are here for a reason and if you want to fix it then you have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Take responsibility, accept, and take steps to get out the hole. It can work, you simply need to embrace it. People always come with fear that they don't want to lose control and its hard to describe the sensation until you have experienced it yourself: you are very aware of yourself and it feels really really good.

 

You are entitled to your opinion and I can see that you won't be swayed so that's fine, just ignore my thread. I don't need to persuade you of my rightness and I respect that your views are certain. But for the benefit of anyone else who is reading this, there is no weakening of one person's will nor is there domination. There is no manipulation, the client does the work they want to do in the way they want to do with a hypnotherapist accompanying them on the journey. Your words suggest that for there to be a winner there must be a loser but in the environment I'm talking about, both people have the same goal - to help the client - so the client doesn't give up anything, indeed he gains strength and awareness. There's no bending of the will, no weakening of the spirit, no manipulation. If anything the client will be secured, their spirit strengthened as their self awareness increases. What we are talking about here is knowing onesself better and accepting onesself as one is: the person grows through hypnosis, they do not weaken. They aren't led down some path they don't want to go, they go down the path they choose and the process is a revelatory one.

I completely disagree with you about one's will being strengthened by uncompromising focus, without submission. For me, that sets someone up to painful disappointment in themselves as they inevitably falter along the way. There are hundreds of threads on here of people who have lost this uncompromising focus and are suffering within themselves as a result. It is the psychology of a perfectionist and perfectionism really makes people suffer. People are human, they make mistakes, and that's how they grow.