DrRoberta Have you ever watched a YouTube hypnosis show? A television show where a hypnotist has folks do crazy things? Is it fun to watch? There’s plenty of controversy about such shows. I happen to think they’re fun and terrific entertainment. Some medical practitioners think they’re dangerous.
There are two types of hypnosis. There’s entertainment hypnosis, also called stage hypnosis, and there’s clinical hypnosis, also called medical hypnosis.
The stage hypnotists ask for volunteers and then hypnotize them to do wacky things to entertain the audience. Usually the results are so hilarious that viewers think it might be a fake show. It is real. The stage hypnotists are very skilled and know just what to say. But, also, you may notice they don’t hypnotize everyone who volunteers. They send some folks back to their seats. That’s because the hypnotists choose to work with only those who are very, very hypnotizable. If everyone who volunteered were accepted the show wouldn’t be so funny – there’d be some people just sitting on the stage with no reaction.
Medical hypnotists use hypnosis for many situations including:
- Having an easy childbirth experience
- Faster healing after surgery
- Calmness when in an MRI machine
- Increased tolerance to painful procedures
- Increased compliance to dietary and other instructions
So, why do the medics object to the TV shows? Some of them believe that viewers will think that all hypnosis is for fun and not consider going to a hypnotist when it is recommended for a health reason. Now that you know the difference between the two you can enjoy the shows and you can also benefit as a medical client.
