Mental health conditions like depression, anxiety, addiction, eating disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may respond favorably to therapeutic hypnosis. In a psychiatric services context, hypnosis is a little different from what you might have seen in the movies!
Dr. Geoff Nugent and his team of mental health counseling and psychiatry experts at Nugent Family Counseling Center provide hypnosis and other psychiatric services from locations in San Jose, California, Los Gatos, California, and Reno, Nevada. Here’s what you can expect if your provider recommends you try hypnosis.
Hypnosis and psychiatric services
Your provider at Nugent Family Counseling Center may recommend therapies and treatments including medications management supported by pharmacogenetic testing, psychotherapy, aromatherapy, noninvasive neurofeedback, or hypnosis. Psychiatric services aim to address your mental health symptoms, as well as the underlying causes of your mental health concerns.
Successfully treating your mental health disorder means using all the evidence-based treatments and modalities available. Therapeutic hypnosis, also known as hypnotherapy, is a form of complementary or alternative medicine that uses guided meditation and concentration to help you focus your attention and temporarily block out intrusive thoughts.
The hypnotic state may be helpful for you in exploring painful thoughts or memories, or in crystallizing essential insights. Hypnosis can also block your awareness of pain for a temporary period.
We can use hypnosis as part of suggestion therapy. You can also use hypnosis as part of therapeutic analysis. We typically use hypnosis to accompany another form of psychotherapy like counseling.
What to expect during therapeutic hypnosis
When you work with our providers at Nugent Family Counseling Center using hypnotherapy, here’s what you can expect.
We start by ensuring that you fully understand the hypnosis process, and how hypnotherapy fits into your treatment goals. Once you’re ready, your provider uses a calm, gentle voice to guide you through a relaxing meditation that enhances your sense of security. This meditation helps to bring you into a receptive trance state.
From the hypnotic trance state, you may be able to more clearly visualize ways to achieve your goals. Your provider can offer suggestions, helping you to reduce anxious feelings or cravings, or to explore challenging feelings or memories.
At the end of your session, your provider may help you exit your relaxed state, or you may be able to bring yourself out of your trance on your own. Either way, you don’t need to worry about post-hypnosis suggestions to do silly or self-destructive things.
Hypnosis doesn’t control you, but gives you access to a different type of thinking and perceiving so you can take control of your own mental health and wellness.
To learn more about how hypnosis can help you cope with pain, anxiety, stress, sleep disorders, depression, addiction, and more, get in touch with the team of experts at Nugent Family Counseling Center today.
Schedule your initial consultation over the phone, or book online now.