The Life Change Therapy article below was published in the South Wales Evening Post – Health Post Family Guide in June 2010.
PROBLEMS WITH IBS – SOLVED BY HYPNOTHERAPY!
Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is a nasty problem to live with. Sufferers (reckoned to be about 10% of the population – 6 Million of us) can have a range of symptoms including cramping abdominal pains, bloating, diarrhoea and or constipation. Some sufferers become so worried about whether they will be able to reach a loo that they become unable to go out to places they don’t know.
It is caused by an abnormal sensitivity of the gut lining. There is no conventional medical cure but recent research done by Peter Whorwell, Professor of Medicine and Gastroenterology in the School of Medicine and Director of the South Manchester Functional Bowel Service, has discovered a way to treat Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) using hypnotherapy. The success rate has been about 70% over 250 people treated with hypnotherapy – success drug companies would fight over. The best thing is that patients effectively cured themselves using the power of their minds and there were no side effects. (See also: http://www.medicine.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/news/ibs).
Hypnotherapy has proven effectiveness for a many other complaints including weight control, stress, anxiety, phobias and depression. With a national success rate of 60% for stopping smoking after a year, nothing else, including patches, comes anywhere close.
Clinical Hypnotherapy is different to hypnosis tricks portrayed on the TV, so no one needs to be concerned about losing control. Hypnotherapy uses the trance state to address the subconscious mind. Trance is a state that everyone goes into and out of completely naturally at least several times a day. If you have ever been driving and arrived with no conscious memory of parts of the journey – you were in a trance. Your subconscious mind took care of all the driving. Most people remember everything said in therapy however.
The subconscious mind is that part of us that controls all our breathing, heart rate and digestion and a myriad of other things that we are not even normally aware of. It can manage between 2,000 and 2 million things at once – rather better than our conscious minds that can only manage between 5 and 9 things at once. So it really isn’t too surprising that the subconscious mind can effectively alter the sensitivity of the lining of the bowel and IBS can be fixed – really by the patient themselves using a mixture of hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis that is taught to them.
Modern scientific EEG Investigations of Trance State show that the frequency of brain waves varies from very slow when asleep to between 3 to 25 times faster when alert. The trance frequency is just faster than sleep; everyone goes through this state when falling asleep and waking up. So everyone can go into a trance state easily when guided by a qualified hypnotherapist – if they want to and aren’t trying too hard!
Article authored by Peter Saville who works together with his wife Hazel in Clinical Hypnotherapy practice as Life Change Therapy at The Golden Hill Centre near Carmarthen – Tel. 07733582087 (www.lifechangetherapy.co.uk).