

You Can Relax and Enjoy Your Visits
Countless people allow major and even life-threatening damage to occur in
their bodies simply because of unreasonable fears of visits to physicians or
dentists. Such fears come from false convictions that these visits will
involve pain. Some people carry the potentially deadly fear that a visit
will produce bad news, living under the inane conception that “what you
don’t know won’t hurt you”.
Hypnocounseling is the method of choice for achieving
the attitude changes necessary to accomplish the reduction or elimination of
debilitating fears.
Dentists
Fear of a dental appointment is virtually innate. Children have heard tales
of unendurable pain suffered (and exaggerated) by other children. Stories
and cartoons have featured dental offices as chambers of horrors. Some
parents have even threatened children with dental visits as punishment – “If
you don’t brush your teeth, you’ll have to go to the dentist!” Dentists
seem always to get a bum rap. Yet nobody seems to focus on the fact that
the greatest expense, and the greatest pain if any occurs at all, usually
results from not going to a dentist.
Preventive dentistry exists and for those who practice it, the benefits are
immeasurable. But many people, children and adults, simply don’t buy the
concept. They see only the mentally visualized “chamber of horrors”. Fears
of dentists are among the relative common anxieties seen by psychotherapists
and psychiatrists as well as by hypnocounselors.
Increasing numbers of dentists are using hypnosis for pain control in place
of or in addition to local anesthesia. Extractions and dental surgery under
such conditions are becoming more utilized, with benefits to dentists and
patients alike. Many dentists are also using personal training and skills
in hypnosis to help patients relax and become more comfortable before any
dental work begins, and to provide post-hypnotic suggestions which can make
future visits free from fear and even pleasantly anticipated. Some dentists
even have hypnocounselors on staff.
These procedures however, are possible only with the patients who, fearful
or not, come to the dental office. For those whose fears are such that they
never approach the door, Hypnocounseling offers the prospect of removing or
reducing the apprehensions and prejudices, achieving relaxation and positive
mental attitudes and understanding the benefits of dental care and the risks
of avoiding it. Hypnosis can motivate the visit. This is an area for the
individual hypnocounselor.
Physicians
Hypnocounseling is applicable in so many fields of medicine that entire
volumes have been written on the subject. One of the most important
functions is modifying attitudes – to the point where a reluctant sufferer
will seek medical consultation. Another is the reduction or elimination of
pre-surgery anxieties. Patients scheduled for surgery, whether for ingrown
toenails or cancer removal, come under great stress. Hypnosis is highly
effective in stress management; Hypnocounseling further can be a major
factor in pain control and expediting recovery.
The amazing capabilities of hypnosis to enhance relaxation, heighten
expectation of success and recovery, eliminate negative thinking, control
emotions and generate imagery are applicable in virtually all medical
situations.
Following World War II, hypnosis was found highly effective in treating
cases of battle fatigue and post-traumatic stress problems. Traumatic
events, whether related to wars, crimes, accidents or other causes, can
become completely assimilated experiences which haunt victims in forms of
anxieties, nightmares and involuntary memories. Hypnosis, as a controlled,
voluntary and usually comfortable form of dissociation, allows patients to
re-experience traumatic events through a process called revivification,
which involves hypnotic regression. Such re-experience enables the victim
of post-traumatic stress to achieve a catharsis accompanied by new
understanding and relief.
Hypnocounseling has proved highly effective in emergency room medicine, and
specifically in burn therapy where suggestions can be given to reduce fluid
and electrolyte loss, increase comfort, reduce pain and expedite healing.
In
dealing with medical and dental apprehensions, Hypnocounseling provides one
of the broadest areas of service.