The benefits of hypnotherapy

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – A blackboard sits outside Tim Shurr’s office in the Castleton area of Indianapolis, advertising a free class on hypnosis.

No matter how much he lectures, people are still wary and hopeful that hypnosis might help them with any number of problems.

First, what hypnosis is not: a trance-like state, where the person hypnotized loses all control over his or her behavior and behaves any way the hypnotist suggests.

Anne Perkinson has undergone hypnosis for smoking. After 17 years of a tobacco addiction, she was able to quit. She’s returning for more sessions with licensed hypnotist Tim Shurr to lose close to 50 pounds.

She expects to drop the weight by using Shurr’s suggestion that she turn to water for snacks after 7 p.m.

She has absolutely no fear of being hypnotized.

“It’s learning how to get into a relaxed, resourceful state of mind,” says Shurr, “and then getting suggestions into your unconscious mind, the part of you that makes most of what you do happen.”

According to the Mayo Clinic website, hypnotherapy can be an effective method for coping with stress and anxiety.

It’s been studied for a number of years and has been found to be helpful for controlling pain associated with cancer, irritable bowel syndrome, TMJ, headaches and even hot flashes.

According to Shurr, hypnosis is taught at both Stanford and Harvard Medical Schools and is used by the military. The Vatican has even approved of its use for quitting smoking.

“Learning to tap into that part of your mind allows you to be able to follow through on the things that you want to achieve,” says Shurr. “It allows you to get around the blocks and sabotages that keep us stuck.”

According to Psychology Today, Doctor James Braid coined the term “hypnosis” from the Latin word for sleep back in 1841.

To learn more about hypnosis you can read any number of journals, including Hypnotherapy  by Dave Elman, Hypnosis and Suggestion in Psychotherapy  by H. Bernhein and  Hypnotherapy – An Exploratory Casebook by Milton Erickson and Ernest Rossi.

Tim Shurr has written four books himself and readily distributes them to his clients.

“Hypnosis allows you to be able to get results and keep them long term,” says Shurr.

But hypnosis isn’t for everyone.

David Spiegel, MD, of Stanford University estimates one-quarter of the patients he sees cannot be hypnotized, though a person’s hypnotizability is not linked with any specific personality trait.

“There’s got to be something going on in the brain,” he said.