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  • John J. Murphy, Ph.D.
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  • Member: American Psychological Association

    • About Hypnosis

  • An Overview of Hypnosis
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Article: "What is Hypnosis?"
  • What to look for in a Hypnotist

    • Specialties

  • Quitting Smoking
  • Weight Management
  • Negative Self-Esteem
  • Fear of Flying
  • Anxiety, Phobias & Performance

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    Overview

    Hypnosis can best be described as a state of mind in which there’s a more automatic communication between the conscious mind and the sub-conscious mind. What’s the difference between the two? The sub-conscious mind is the part of your brain that regulates emotion, perception and basic instinct. The conscious mind is the part reading this text right now. The primary goal of the sub-conscious is to survive and replicate (i.e. have children), while the goals of the conscious mind often include success at work, a great love life and being happy.

    These differences in goals often create conflicts between the conscious and the sub-conscious. If the conscious mind wants to be free of cigarettes or be able to fly in a jet, the sub-conscious will only oblige if it feels that quitting smoking and flying are safe activities that don’t threaten survival. Although it seems obvious that flying is safe and quitting smoking is good, the sub-conscious mind, for whatever reasons, sometimes feels very threatened by these goals and will offer a tremendous amount of resistance.

    It’s often futile to attempt to "will" the sub-conscious into submission but with the right type of communication, we can understand what the sub-conscious finds so threatening about said goals and then communicate that these goals are safe and nothing to become excited about. I find this transition occurs best with cognitive therapy and then hypnotherapy.

    In cognitive therapy, we focus on the thoughts and underlying beliefs that may cause the subconscious part of the brain to produce resistance to conscious goals. To follow the examples mentioned above, we may find that sub-conscious learned from an early age that flying usually leads to crashes or that smoking looks "cool." Here we have the sub-conscious mind communicating with us.

    In hypnotherapy, we communicate back to the sub-conscious. The sub-conscious processes ideas through imagery and emotion. With hypnosis, it’s much easier to project the imagery and emotion to motivate the sub-conscious to change. Thus the therapy is a mix of both cognitive therapy techniques and hypnotherapy (as well as behavioral techniques and a collection of other techniques I’ve learned along the way).

    Although many people are worried about hypnosis, there’s nothing really magical or mystic about hypnosis. It’s simply a relaxed state the body goes though, typically when we fall asleep. Research from both scholarly journals and practical applications supports the application of hypnotherapy for a wide variety of issues. From my own experience, I believe that with the right mix of cognitive therapy and hypnotherapy, we can use this natural function of the body to produce positive change, often in a much faster pace compared to traditional, psycho-analytic therapy.

    What to learn more about hypnosis? There’s a longer post (or short essay) I’ve written about hypnosis, which you can read by clicking here. If you’d like to contact me with any questions or to setup an appointment, click here.