Judy Mcbride Hypnosis What is Hypnosis?

According to an official U.S. Department of Education definition, hypnosis is the bypass of the critical faculty and the acceptance of acceptable, selective thinking. (Scroll to end for videos of interest.)

So what does that mean? Simply, it means that you accept as truth something you see, hear, read or sense without questioning it. Normally, your conscious mind has an invisible censor—called the critical faculty—whose job is to screen all incoming data and decide whether to accept it or not. In hypnosis, you agree to let the censor take a break and allow acceptable suggestions to pass into the subconscious mind where they are written onto your “hard drive”—your permanent memory.

If any suggestions were unacceptable to you ... much less unethical ... your censor would return from break in a millisecond and bounce that suggestion right out. So, you are in complete control during a hypnosis session. In fact you are more mentally alert than normal ... even though your body may be very relaxed. And you must like the suggestion and know it will work for you before it makes a dent in your subconscious programming. But when it does, it can change your life for the better.

That’s because your subconscious mind controls most of your behavior. Your conscious mind, on the other hand, operates your willpower. If your subconscious programming doesn’t agree with what you think you want, guess which one prevails? Just think of all your failed New Year’s resolutions, and you’ll begin to realize that your willpower is no match for your subconscious programming. That’s why reprogramming through hypnosis can shift life-long habits. Children ... especially those under age10 ... respond faster to positive suggestions because their programming is far less etched into their subsconcsious minds.

If you think you have never been hypnotized ... think again. Hypnosis happens all the time without you’re realizing it ... for example, when you’re “vegging out” in front of the TV with your conscious mind on autopilot. And your subconscious mind is far more receptive if the content is emotional. TV programming, including fear-based news reports, and political or religious speeches are just a few examples of “waking hypnosis” in your life. By contrast, when you come to me or another certified hypnotist, you knowingly agree to be hypnotized.

If your issue is deep seeted, you may require more advanced techniques of hypnotherapy.

How is hypnotherapy different from hypnosis?

Hypnotherapy helps you find and release any subconscious resistance to change. So it enables more profound changes in programming that drives unwanted behavior or lowers self-esteem or limits your success and happiness. It can also reverse chronic disease, allergies ... even cancer ... and erase fears, phobias and other emotions that keep you from living life to the fullest.

From the time you were born until around age 5 to 7, you were hypnotized by older family members, relatives, teachers ... just about anybody who knew more than you. That’s because you didn’t have enough knowledge on your hard drive to question their input. Your critical faculty hadn’t developed yet. And their input came in any number of ways ... from their behavior, their body language and their facial expressions as well as from their words. It’s how you learned to perceive yourself and the world around you.

In hypnotherapy, you can retrieve anything you have ever seen, heard, read or sensed ... all the way back to the womb. I can help you reconnect with the first time you adopted a limiting belief and perceive it through the eyes of your older, wiser self. I also help you let go of the old feelings connected to those events ... anger, guilt, fear, hurt ... that still affect you so many years later. When these steps are complete, your subconscious is far more receptive to positive, supportive suggestion ... and your stress level drops markedly.

I may also use another technique—called Time Line—that doesn’t require hypnosis. The technique can banish a phobia easily and gently in a single session. It’s another way to locate the initial cause of a limiting belief and its associated emotions and to shift that perception to a far more supportive one.

Each person is different and will respond better to one therapy than another. I will always choose the therapy that my experience tells me will produce the best results for you in the easiest manner and the shortest time. And I will never let any harm come to you.

To watch an hour-long video on the efficacy of hypnosis from the National Institutes of Health, click here. When the videocasting screen appears, write hypnosis in the "Test" box and select
"Search exact words," then "Search." When the new
screen appears, click on "Play Video."

To view a major surgery (hernia) in the U.K. using only hypnosis for anesthesia, click here. Taped by a British news organization, the program lasts nearly 2 hours. But you can move the slider to view parts that you want ... and miss those you don't want to see.