Healing and the Mind

(Excerpts:  By Anne H. Spencer, Ph.D) 

Lilly Tomlin once said, “When I speak to God, they call it prayer. When God speaks to me, they call it schizophrenia!”

Three decades ago I told my clients that they could talk to their immune cells and make a change for the better; their doctors thought I was schizophrenic. Fortunately, times have changed. Mainstream America is fully aware that traditional medicine is not the only answer. Allopathic medicine is now one of perhaps several solutions to a current medical challenge.

Everyday in the popular press (newspapers, magazines, radio, and TV) we are hearing of amazing results when alternative or complimentary therapies are used to help someone heal. It seems that all of these therapies have one common ingredient: The patient wants to get better and is willing to go along with the protocols, which include having hope and believing that it will bring about a better quality of life. Some call this self-hypnosis at its best…I would agree.

When hypnosis is used with the “healing” prescription, there are wonderful positive results. Hypnosis is given many names these days such as: relaxation response, stress reduction imagery, mental imagery, guided meditation, visual prayer, trance, visualization, imagery, journeying, safe place imagery, becoming centered, altered states, and the list goes on. It matters not the name, as long as the desired results are achieved.

Due to the positive results that have been achieved through alternative medicine, the National Institutes of Health created the Office of Alternative Medicine in 2005 led by Larry Dossey, a physician of internal medicine, and co-chairman of the Panel on Mind/Body Interventions of the NIH Office of Alternative Medicine. They began doing research into alternative therapies which included meditation, biofeedback, psychotherapy, hypnotherapy and hypnosis, distant or psychic healing, art, music, and dance, to name a few.

In the book Healing and the Mind by Bill Moyers, he states, “There are different levels of healing. There’s the biological level, an emotional level, a mental level, and depending on what language you use, a spiritual level. But the point is that at the very simple biological level, mainstream medicine does not make the wound heal; it only creates the conditions under which the tissue can knit back together.” What the book states is that with any life-threatening illness one can make great strides by using one’s own healing resources, as the healing potential lies within.

Often the results found by hypnotherapists and clients are amazing. Certainty is not rational when no suggestions for a “cure” or erasure of symptom are given, yet the healing occurs. We need to honor both forms of healing. Direct suggestion works, yet it seems non-specific suggestion works even better. The mind knows what needs to be healed. It will seek the “cure” if it is listened to. Maybe we should always listen when our higher self and intuition speak to us.   Healing takes place in the mind; the body and emotions follow. Good health means the integration of body, mind, and spirit.

As a Registered Hypnotic Anesthesiologist, I have worked with clients in pre- and post-op, as well as in operating rooms. I understand the power of one’s mind to heal, and how hypnosis can help as a complimentary medicine and a viable approach to one’s wellness. That’s why we at the Motivational Institute of Hypnotherapy teach our students how to help people use their mind’s power to experience their greater potential, even in their own healing process.

To Your Success,

Marla Brucker, DCH. R.HA