Vast amount of research and clinical trials done over decades have shown that hypnosis can be very effective for a wide variety of conditions. Just to name a few, a study published in the Journal of Paediatrics showed that hypnosis produced a 75% significant drop in the severity, duration and frequency of headaches in children and a study by Frank Schmidt at the University of Iowa showed that hypnosis was 3x more effective than nicotine replacement for quitting smoking. Some people believe that hypnosis produces changes in brain activity while others believe that it is simply has a placebo effect. Either way, it’s clear that hypnosis does work and it’s through communication with the unconscious mind (also known as the subconscious mind).

Conscious, preconscious and unconscious/subconscious are terms to describe the general characteristics of the human mind. The conscious mind is where you live. It takes information from stimulus (internal or external) in your environment and throws it up onto your “screen” or your conscious awareness. Your preconscious mind is where recent memories are stored for quick recall (like the name of a person you just met or your telephone number). It holds the current programs that you run every day, like your recurring thoughts, behavior patterns, habits, and feelings. Your unconscious or subconscious mind is the long term storage for all your thoughts, memories, experiences and programs that have been installed since birth that you are not consciously aware of. It controls all of the autonomic processes that you don’t have to think about (heart rate, blood pressure, tissue growth, cell regeneration, immune system) along with your emotions, habits and responses to the world.

The unconscious part of the mind is much more accepting but quite literal and tends to take things personally. It uses all 3 of these programs (conscious, preconscious and unconscious) to make sense of the data you receive from the world, keep you safe and ensure your survival. The logic of the unconscious mind is that if what you did in the past kept you alive then doing the same thing will help you get through similar situations. It does not matter to the unconscious mind how misguided, painful or unhelpful the results may be to you on a personal level.

Hypnosis works by updating the unconscious mind with new and more helpful information, like reprogramming a computer. It can be used to change associations or mentally rehearse better ways of going about things. For example, no longer seeing your cigarettes as “little friends” and through hypnotic suggestion seeing them more realistically as “toxic sticks of death”. Or visualizing yourself dealing with stressful situations without having to light up a cigarette or binge on junk food. Hypnosis works by bypassing the critical conscious mind through relaxation techniques and then speaking directly to the unconscious in a language which it understands (pattern, association and metaphor).

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