Yes! Hypnotherapy is completely safe when carried out by a trained and qualified practitioner. Hypnotherapy is not something that can be forced upon you; as a participant, you are in complete control of your body throughout the session.
You can’t be brainwashed, nor can anyone control you. You won’t be forced to do anything against your will.
The reason people ask if hypnotherapy is safe tends to be because of how *hypnosis* is viewed in the entertainment industry and perceived by the media.
You know the ones?
When a total stranger from the public gets up on stage, is hypnotised with a click of the fingers and then seemingly does anything they are told, usually the classic ‘act like a chicken’.
They might not seem like it, but they are fully participating, hypnotised or not.
In hypnotherapy, you’re put into a natural state of mind (trance) where your therapist can make suggestions to bypass your conscious mind and enter the subconscious. These suggestions then affect change once you’re back into your conscious state. But the critical thing to remember is that you always have a choice. You can still decide whether or not to take on those suggestions.
How does hypnotherapy work exactly?
Firstly, not everyone is equally susceptible to hypnosis. Those people you see up on stage running around like chickens – they are either super susceptible or putting on an act.
A therapist can test your susceptibility, and they’ll take you through a series of visualisation exercises to help you get into a calming and relaxing state. There are different ways to get there, but essentially, once in trance, your surroundings disappear, and you are in a state of flow.
A calm, serene bed of stillness.
Brain scans have shown that while in this state, certain brain regions quiet down, including the area responsible for self-reflection. This could be why people are more open to suggestions, which is where the therapeutic aspect comes in.
Once a person is in a deep state of trance, the therapist can make suggestions to the unconscious. We know that previous lived experiences affect how our subconscious mind tells our conscious mind to act. This is why hypnosis works so well – as, instead of telling your conscious mind to ‘try harder’ (which isn’t working) we can bypass it and go to the root of the issue.
It’s a reprogramming of the conditioning you’ve been under for all those years.
Some people choose to explore that through talking therapy and CBT. With hypnotherapy, we find it’s a lot quicker to resolve.
When it comes to scientific studies and research, as you can imagine it’s challenging to conduct a double-blind study on hypnosis; the familiar ‘one group taking a pill and the other taking a placebo’. We cannot placebo hypnosis. People know what to expect, so you can’t fake hypnotherapy to reduce bias.
What we do know from the studies and anecdotal reports is that it’s effective and widely accepted in the scientific community.
Hypnotherapy and meditation share similarities. Meditation is a form of self-hypnosis, and there have been numerous studies that prove groups of people using meditation have better outcomes than those who don’t in many different situations.
Is hypnotherapy recognised by the NHS?
Although hypnotherapy is not available on the NHS, some therapists and psychologists working under the NHS have received training in hypnotherapy.
The reason it’s not available as a standalone treatment is that the NHS see it as a complementary therapy to use alongside other treatments.
On their website, they have a page dedicated to explaining hypnotherapy and rightly point out that hypnotherapists aren’t required to have any specific training by law.
We agree that this is quite frightening when you consider that you’re working with extremely sensitive issues and placing suggestions into the subconscious minds of others.
This is why we’re so passionate about our Hypnotherapy Training Academy and providing comprehensive training that goes beyond surface-level hypnotherapy.
For example, what do you do if someone has unresolved trauma? Or they aren’t susceptible to treatment? Our head trainer and founder, Charlotte Mather, continues her comprehensive professional development so that she can pass on her knowledge, experiences, and lessons learned to students.
At Axiom, we continue to support you AFTER you’ve completed your training. It would be highly irresponsible of us not to offer ongoing support.
Hypnotherapy is ever evolving, and we evolve with it.
Further reading on the science of hypnotherapy
We can talk about hypnotherapy all day long, its benefits, and the science behind it, but here are some reputable research providers and bodies you can go and take a look at from all over the world that prove that hypnotherapy is safe and effective.
This is one of the largest hypnotherapy organisations in the UK. They represent thousands of qualified practitioners (including some of our students!) and are linked to the General Hypnotherapy Standards Council which sets ethical and training guidelines. They work to improve the confidence around hypnotherapy as a legitimate treatment and maintain a professional register so people can be assured they’re getting treatment from qualified practitioners.
PubMed is an online database run by the National Library of Medicine. There are (wait for it) 35 million! Citations from peer-reviewed journals and clinical trials. There are endless studies around hypnotherapy.
National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH)
This organisation is part of the US National Institute of Health (NIH) and is a government-run body that researches evidence-based complementary health treatments. Their scientific studies are unbiased and evidence-backed.
There are various articles on the effectiveness of hypnotherapy from the Harvard Gazette and Harvard Health Publishing. They bring the latest research and reports from one of the most respected medical schools in the world.
Become a hypnotherapist today
If you’d like to learn more about what it takes to become a certified and trained professional hypnotherapist, book a call today for an informal discussion. Want to get stuck in right now? You can sign up to our Online Hypnotherapy Diploma and get immediate access to all the materials and training you need to begin your journey to running your hypnotherapy practice here.