What is the difference between hypnosis and hypnotherapy?

Why this resource is helpful:

"The first stages in hypnosis and hypnotherapy are the same. Through hypnotic induction the therapist helps you achieve a deep state of relaxation, then deepens it further until you are in a trance state.

Most people are familiar with the very deep trance state that you see in stage hypnosis demonstrations where the hypnotist makes suggestions which the subjects carry out, usually to the great amusement of the audience and the subsequent humiliation of the hypnotized person. These deep states may be useful for some situations, such as surgery without anesthesia, but there is no possibility of real problem solving because the conscious mind, to all intents and purposes, is on vacation somewhere with no forwarding address.

Hypnotherapy, in contrast, induces deep relaxation but a light to medium state of trance so the conscious mind is an active participant in the session. In a hypnotherapy session you do your problem-solving and healing work in this trance state.

You may wonder how that is any different or any better than just sitting in the counseling room with your therapist, talking over your problems and working toward resolution. Having spent over 30 years doing exactly this kind of traditional talk therapy, I can tell you that there is a profound difference.

When the body and the conscious mind are relaxed and in a trance state, this state opens the doorway to all of the experiences and memories that are stored in your body and subconscious mind. Whether you are aware of it or not, everything about our personal history gets recorded and stored. This allows you to go back to the initial events, called source events. If these events were traumatic, and not adequately dealt with at the time so that healing could take place, they will show up as problems in our lives. They may contribute or cause physical problems, emotional distress, self defeating thinking and behaviors, feeling spacey and disconnected, problems in jobs or relationships these are just a few of the ways that unresolved traumas express in our lives.

Sometimes a person in a hypnotized state will go back to a source event and discover that it is in a past lifetime. Issues that I personally have seen with the source event in a past lifetime are chronic headaches, alcohol addiction, a pervasive sense of guilt and low self-esteem, being repeatedly betrayed in love relationships, sibling rivalry, not wanting to assume leadership positions, a feeling of being strangled, back and neck pain, wrist pain, and many different kinds of fears and phobias.

Source events that occur in this lifetime may have occurred very early in life, so early, in fact, that the conscious mind has no access to them and therefore they cannot be discussed and healed in traditional talk therapy.

There are therapists who believe it is unnecessary to delve into one"s past in order to solve current issues. I agree that in some instances that is true, but in the majority of cases, particularly those in which you have a recurring problem, and definitely those for which you have tried many other things to little or no avail, you need to go deeper. Issues that are not healed at the source tend to pop up again. For example, research with people who have had weight loss surgery which prevents them from eating as they were used to frequently transfer their food addiction and their stress reactions to other substances and behaviors. The underlying issues which created the compulsive eating behaviors in the first place were not dealt with and were not healed by surgery.

Hypnotherapy enables you to get to the roots of the issues so that you can weed your life"s garden and experience its peace and beauty."

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