A couple of days back, Channel 4, did a 2 hour program on Hypno-surgery. It involves using hypnosis to induce anesthesia instead of the usual way, while performing a surgery. The entire operation was telecast live on TV with a surgeon watching it and commenting about it in the backroom to take the audience through what was happening. The process was smooth, the person being operated upon did not feel any sense of discomfort and the most important thing being – this was for real! Not something staged, no camera tricks, no illusion, and no gimmicks.
It has been used widely to help people deal with psychosomatic ailments, deal with behavior that is habitual – like smoking, to overcome phobias, as an aid to forensic investigation, as a motivational tool for sports people or anybody trying to achieve a goal, as a way of inducing a state of relaxation and even in the context of market research in understanding subconscious consumer behavior.
It is a completely safe and natural state to experience, that many of us have experienced involuntarily and unknowingly several times.And yet when people think about hypnosis, all they can associate with it is stage hypnotism – the kind that involves the hypnotist taking control of his subject and making him behave like a frog or some such pointless application used purely for the purpose of entertainment. One of the reasons for such a strong association could be a lack of awareness about this discipline but another and a stronger reason I would attribute this to is, practitioners who can do so much more with the tool but put it to unethical use, motivated by money or propaganda.
hypnosis
