The Three Aspects of Hypnotherapy, Absorption, Dissociation and Suggestion

Hypnotherapy can often come across as a confusing subject to those who are considering it. A good way of looking at how hypnotherapy works is to break it down into three individual sections. After you have come to understand each of the three it will then start to become clear how they all work in synergy.

The first of the sections is known as Absorption. Most people achieve a mild form of hypnotic trance everyday, whether they are driving their car or reading a book, at some point they become absorbed and the people who have these kinds of experiences on a daily basis are those who are more susceptible to hypnosis.

Suggestibility refers to how suggestible a person is to hypnotherapy, the more they are able to dissociate and the more a person is able to direct their attention and their absorption the more focussed they will be during the process. It has been found that people who are highly hypnotizable have the personality trait of ‘absorption.’ They are more likely to find themselves absorbed in a task.

A study was performed on 481 undergraduate women to see how susceptible they were to hypnotherapy. As well as measuring their hypnotic suggestibility their personality traits were also considered and the study found that absorption was a common personality trait of those who were highly suggestible. These women commonly had moments of full attention on specific tasks in their everyday lives

The induction aspect of a hypnosis session increases suggestibility. When a person has increased absorption and increased dissociation due to a hypnotic induction or trance, they become more suggestible

These components demonstrate that there are varying degrees of hypnosis and suggestibility in people. The capacity to be hypnotised can be ether genetic or learned and can occur ether spontaneously, induced by a hypnotist, or self-induced, showing that people respond to hypnosis in different ways and in different capacities.

Read the full story here.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 at 9:00 am and is filed under Alternative therapy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.