MILFORD —  Tried everything and still can’t kick that addiction to smoking or curb that tendency to overeat? If so, a dose of hypnotherapy may be just what the doctor ordered.

Angie Hernandez, a certified hypnotherapist from the Milford area, recently launched a three-part workshop series at the Milford Library focusing on the mental and physical benefits of hypnotherapy.

Through her workshops, Hernandez describes — and even demonstrates — some of the many ways she says hypnotherapy can be used to improve people’s lives, be it through smoking cessation, weight loss, pain management or even overcoming a deep-seated fear or phobia.

“When you go to a hypnotherapist, you’re going to talk about the goals you have in mind for your life — what you want to accomplish — and then we take the words you’ve given us and we suggest those same words to the subconscious,” Hernandez said. “It might be to stop smoking, a weight loss goal, or something you want to overcome like a fear or phobia. Or maybe you want to improve yourself, like if you’re an athlete that wants to improve your performance. And of course there are medical uses as well, such as helping people who have chronic pain, or people who are going through treatments such as chemotherapy.”

How it works

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, a hypnotherapist is someone who induces a hypnotic state in a client in order to increase motivation or alter behavior patterns through hypnosis. Such trance-like states are typically characterized by extreme suggestibility, relaxation and heightened imagination.

In describing how hypnotherapy works, Hernandez first asks her clients to imagine a large circle that represents the mind.

“When you’re born, there’s a little slice at the bottom of that circle that’s formed, and that’s your fight or flight response,” Hernandez said. “When you’re a newborn, the only thing you’re afraid of is being dropped or a loud noise. But as you grow older, you start to further develop the mind, making more complex decisions and judgments. That’s your critical mind, which represents about 12 percent of the total circle.”

So we have the first 12 percent of the mind. What about the remaining 88 percent?

“That 88 percent remaining is your subconscious mind, and all through your life you’re making associations with experiences that happen to you which are stored in your subconscious,” Hernandez said. “For example, let’s say you were bitten by a dog when you were young. Now every time you see a dog your fight or flight response might kick in. So all your life, in your mind, you have a little negative association there when it comes to dogs.”

On the flip side, Hernandez said that people can also have many positive associations stored in their subconscious as well, such as the association of chocolate cake with a happy memory of their mother making them a chocolate cake for their birthday as a child.

“But let’s say you have a positive association with smoking, where when you started you believed that it made you look cool, or older, or more mature and attractive,” Hernandez said. “But now you’ve come to the point where you want to quit, but since that positive association is still there in your subconscious, it’s very difficult to stop. That’s where hypnosis comes in. With hypnosis, we open a little channel into the subconscious mind, and we can ask that part of your mind to change those positives into negatives.”



Examples

Examples of such a change could include associating smoking with feeling ill, Hernandez said, where any time a person thinks of smoking they get sick to their stomach, effectively curbing the desire to smoke.

“On the other hand, we can’t tell you to do something you’re morally or ethically opposed to doing,” Hernandez said. “Basically we can’t tell you to do something you’re not willing to do on your own.”

While hypnosis has been shown to work well for a large variety of people, Hernandez admitted that there are some types of people who are more resistant to the practice.

“Some people are definitely more resistant than others, so we give them a little test before we start to see which way their mind is — whether it’s more outgoing or more introverted,” Hernandez said. “With an outgoing person you can generally give them a suggestion that’s straight up. But for an introverted person, they typically don’t like to be told what to do, so we may have to use a different method or tactic to get the desired result. But they’re just as susceptible, it just takes training to learn how to reach them.”

Does it last?

As for the permanency of successful hypnotherapy, Hernandez said that for a majority of cases, change brought about by hypnotherapy is long-lasting, though it’s not unheard of for people to have a setback every now and again.

“It also depends on what it is,” Hernandez said. “Like say if you’re a smoker, and you think ‘Hey, I’ve been off smoking for six months. Maybe it’s OK if I just smoke one cigarette on Friday nights.’ But if they do, most likely they’ll pick it right back up.”

That said, Hernandez noted that it’s never too late to get back on the wagon.

“If they fall off the wagon, it’s not permanent, and they can always come back in for a little tune-up if they feel like they need one,” Hernandez said. “But for the most part these people are really motivated to make the change. They’re usually coming to me because they’ve tried everything else, and it hasn’t worked. So they want to change, they’re willing to change, and they’re willing to work for it.”

Giving it a try

Milford’s Jason Miller, one of the attendees of Hernandez’ first hypnotherapy workshop at the library last Thursday evening, is exactly one of those people.

Recently diagnosed with diabetes, Miller said he has tried numerous diets and alternative therapies to try and get himself healthy and off the meds that keep his diabetes in check, but none of them have worked.

So, upon hearing that Hernandez would be holding a free workshop on craving control at the library, Miller jumped at the chance to see hypnotherapy in action.

“I’ve tried all the diets and things like that, but none of them stuck,” Miller said. “I have a real problem with willpower, and with this whole diabetes thing, getting healthy is definitely on my to-do list. So when I heard about the hypnotherapy workshop at the library, I thought ‘Hey, why not give it a shot?’”

What he found, while perhaps not completely selling him on the potential of hypnotherapy, definitely got him interested in taking a much more in-depth look at the field.

“I’m still kind of on the fence,” Miller said of his feelings toward hypnotherapy following Hernandez’ workshop. “I think personally that maybe the setting should have been a little quieter or darker. I think there were too many distractions, so I think maybe it didn’t work as well as it could have. But I definitely felt something, so I’m going to come back to her for a one-on-one session to see if it works a little better.”

Miller admitted that he came into the workshop feeling fairly skeptical of what he might find. Even so, he said the demonstration proved intriguing enough to warrant a second look.

“I’m still a little skeptical, but I’m not quite ready to give it up,” Miller said. “Everybody’s looking for that golden ticket, so we’ll see. But I’m definitely interested in pursuing it further.”

For more information on the practice of hypnotherapy or to schedule an appointment, contact Hernandez at 574-658-4686, or email her at angle0251@yahoo.com.