International Handbook of Clinical Hypnosis pdf Edited by Graham D. Burrows AO & KSJ, Robb O. Stanley & Peter B. Bloom

WHAT IS HYPNOSIS?

Like many psychological phenomena, intelligence, depression and anxiety, hypnosis is defined according to the subjective experience and report of participants and by the phenomena that accompany the ‘hypnotic state.’ The characteristics of this state include a redistribution of attention to an inward focus, a reduction of critical judgment and reality testing, a suspension of forward planning, increased suggestibility, heightened imagery or involvement in fantasy, and hypnotic role behaviour.

While there are many definitions of hypnosis, the most widely accepted is that proposed by the British Medical Association as a result of their investigation into the use of hypnosis in medicine in 1955 (BMA. 1955, 1982):

Hypnosis is a temporary condition of altered perception in the subject which may be induced by another person and in which a variety of phenomena may appear spontaneously or in response to verbal or other stimuli. These phenomena include alterations in consciousness and memory, increased susceptibility to suggestion, and the production in the subject of responses and ideas unfamiliar to him in his normal state of mind. Further phenomena such as anaesthesia, paralysis and the rigidity of muscles, and vasomotor changes can be produced and removed in the hypnotic state.

The use of hypnosis, under other names, for the treatment of clinical problems has a long history, being recorded in ancient scripts describing ritual and religious ceremonies. The phenomena of hypnosis have been used to account for miraculous cures that in the middle ages were attributed to sacred statues, healing springs and the ‘laying on of hands’ by those of high status or religious power.

The more modem use of hypnosis began with the work of the Viennese physician Franz Mesmer, who achieved many spectacular cures which he attributed to the appropriate redistribution of invisible ‘magnetic fluid’ within the body. In 1784. a commission of Louis XVI could find no evidence of animal magnetism, and attributed Mesmer s successes to suggestion.

Despite Mesmer s fall from popularity following the Royal Commission, interest in the clinical application of hypnosis developed rapidly throughout the nineteenth century. The term hypnosis was coined in 1841 by James Braid, a Manchester surgeon, who believed that a psychological state similar to sleep accounted for the phenomena observed. The use of hypnosis by the French neurologist Charcot, and by Breucr and Freud in the 1880s, extended its use to the treatment of neurotic disorders broadly referred to as ‘hysterical.’ Freud subsequently abandoned the use of hypnosis in favour of psychoanalytic techniques (Sulloway, 1979).

CONTENTS

PART I THE NATURE OF HYPNOSIS

1 Introduction to Clinical Hypnosis and the Hypnotic Phenomena
2 Training in Hypnosis

PART II GENERAL CLINICAL CONSIDERATIONS

3 Patient Selection: Assessment and Preparation, Indications and Contraindications
4 Memory and Hypnosis—General Considerations
5 Neuropsychophysiology of Hypnosis: Towards an Understanding of How Hypnotic Interventions Work

PART III THE PSYCHOTHERAPIES

6 Injunctive Communication and Relational Dynamics: An Interactional Perspective

PART IV SPECIFIC DISORDERS AND APPLICATIONS

7 Hypnosis and Recovered Memory : Evidence-Based Practice
8 Hypnosis in the Management of Stress and Anxiety Disorders
9 Hypnosis and Depression
10 Hypnosis, Dissociation and Trauma
11 Conversion Disorders
12 Personality and Psychotic Disorders
13 Dissociative Disorders
14 Eating Disorders—Anorexia and Bulimia
15 Hypnotherapy in Obesity
16 Hypnotic Interventions in the Treatment of Sexual Dysfunctions
17 Hypnosis in Chronic Pain Management
18 Hypnosis and Pain
19 The Use of Hypnosis in the Treatment of Burn Patients
20 Hypnosis in Dentistry
21 Dental Anxiety Disorders, Phobias and Hypnotizability
22 Applications of Clinical Hypnosis with Children
23 The Negative Consequences of Hypnosis Inappropriately or Ineptly Applied

Language: English
Format: PDF
Pages: 352
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