Hypnosis and science
Hypnosis is not a form of medicine taught in medical school. Some people even disregard that hypnosis should have any effect or that it even exists. This article is a review of a scientific study about the effect of hypnosis on the mind.
This article is written mainly for the skeptics. I have often been asked the question of a skeptic "Does it really work?" or "Is it real?", when hypnosis is the topic of discussion. I often hear remarks like "I don't believe in hypnosis" or something like "I have seen stage hypnosis, and I could separate my hands, so I cannot be hypnotized".
I often respond to this by asking the skeptic: "Do you believe in gravity?", often this repons confuses the skeptic, because it is perceived as having no relevance to what we are talking about. Even the explanation that hypnosis is just as natural an occurence as gravity or that hypnosis is a state of mind we all use for learning, doesn't really make them "believe in it". A formally induced state of hypnosis is something that has to be experienced, but very often I have found, that the most skeptical people has never even tried it! It's really tragic since I believe that hypnosis could be very benificial, not just as treatment but also as a very healthy form of relaxation.
Because of that I will review an article I read the other day. People who would like to read this article in its full lenght can do so here:
http://www.hypnosis.edu/articles/brain.asp
The scientific study builds upon the so called Stroop effect. In 1935 J.R. Stroop described an effect he discovered, that when you wrote the name of colors using other colors than the word represents and asked someone to name the color of the word, it would be somewhat difficult for the person to name the color. He tested the speed at which several persons could name the color when the word was written in the color it represented and he compared this speed with the mismatch between word and color. He found that the majority of people will be slower to name the colors when it didn't match (incongruence). Below this text I have made an image that can demonstrate this test for you. Try naming the actual colors of the words without being disturbed by the color that the word represents.
If you would like to try this test against time, then visit this URL:
http://www.dcity.org/braingames/stroop/index.htm
When you have tried being a subject of the Stroop effect, you are ready to read the rest of this article. This article continues to show how hypnosis can be related to the Stroop test.
A man with the name of Dr. Amir Raz hypnotized several persons and evaluated their ability to enter into a hypnotic trance. After having done that he would make a hypnotic suggestion that the words they would see when performing the Stroop test, would look like gibberish, and therefore they would only concentrate on the color of the words. The persons who were evaluated to be highly capable of going into hypnosis, the answers were much faster than those who wasn't as capable of going into the hypnotic state of mind. By using a brain scanner he later revealed that the part of the brain responsible for handling the written words were inactive with the persons who did the test the fastest.
The same effect where hypnosis alters the information handling of the brain can be observed when hypnosis is used as treatment against pain: http://www.hypnosis.edu/articles/mind.asp
"In Sebastian Schulz-Stubner's study, the hypnotized group showed subcortical brain activity similar to that of non-hypnotized volunteers, but the primary sensory cortex stayed quiet. The "ouch" message wasn't making it past the midbrain and into consciousness."
I hope that this article can inspire some of the skeptics to try hypnosis or hypnotherapy, because I haven't got the slightest doubt that it's a useful tool. The use of hypnosis could be much more widespread.