Nationwide: Drug and Alcohol Users Turn To Hypnotherapy For Habit-Breaking Relief

 Can Hypnosis Break Bad Habits?

By Eric Greenleaf PhD

“Breaking” habits is like breaking a sheet of glass : it leaves stress fractures surrounding the breaking point . Forcing oneself to stop doing something is similarly difficult. When was the last time someone had success ordering you around ? Hypnosis that insists that “You will stop smoking!” runs into the same sort of trouble .

In professional hypnotherapy conducted by licensed psychotherapists, there is another approach, and it frequently works better than trying to force an outcome against a patient's natural will . This approach involves your own imaginative force and resources to supplant bad habits.

How is that done ? 

First , all bad habits begin with good reasoning . We drink alcohol “to relax,” smoke cigarettes “because of stress,” or overeat “to enjoy ourselves,” or “to feel full.” Hypnosis invites a organic state of relaxed, focused attention which is, by itself, a stress reliever . And hypnosis utilizes the placebo effect. One-third or more of all people treated with sugar pills or other placebos improve in their condition, regardless of the nature of their condition or its severity ! This has been proven in many experiments in psychiatry, traditional medicine , even some types of surgery.

Hypnosis induces the real power of placebo – the natural power of our own unconscious mind and body to help us heal from our psychological troubles and pains . An individual struggling with harmful habits might be told, “You really love your food , but you don’t like the health effects of obesity. Suppose you could feel full and satisfied after a light meal, and lose interest in any more food for a while after that , because you genuinely feel full? Would you like that ?”

The hypnotherapist can help the habit-ridden eater experience a sense of complete fullness and satisfaction by imagining the bodily emotions and sensations that accompany a pleasantly full belly . In hypnotic trance, time can slow down , and the improved focus heightens the persons sense of experience . So the felt experience is of slowly enjoying a large, tasty meal in the space of a few well-chewed bites of actual food . Think of how the first sip of pure water feels to your body and tastes on your lips when you’ve been extremely thirsty, and you can begin to understand how delicious and filling even a single bite of good, healthy food can be! Practicing satisfaction is much easier than practicing abstinence.

Even serious alcohol and drug habits can be approached this way, providing placebo sensations and feelings without the “medicine” of the drug with all its terrible side effects – emotional, physical and societal.

Another approach to habit resolution used by hypnotherapists is to use a trance-promoting signal, something as simple as touching your thumb and forefinger together, or listening, very still, to catch a bird song outside their door . Habits are complex arrangements of behaviors. Interrupting them is like pulling a small part from a complicated machine and bringing it to a halt . That way , instead of their habit distracting the person, the person can distract the habit. They can signal themselves to enter a hypnotic trance, interrupting the sequence of say, reaching for that cigarette, holding it a certain way , lighting the match, igniting the cigarette, taking a puff. These and other hypnotic approaches help people hold on to the experiences they value, and lose those that harm them.