We are all familiar with the kind of hypnosis seen in Las Vegas shows, but we are only slightly familiar with medical hypnosis. Medical hypnosis isn't all that new, though. The British Medical Association recognized the value of hypnosis in medical treatments as early as 1955. The American Medical Association followed suit in 1958. For use in psychological therapy, the American Psychiatric Association acknowledged its potential in 1962.

Now, hypnosis as a valuable medical tool has been fairly well established, though it is not fully understood how or why it works. There is still a lot of research being done to determine just how extensive its usefulness is. The number of diseases and conditions it has the potential to aid treatment of grows continually. There is a rather long list of things that are known to be helped by hypnotherapy.

Some of the most common are weight loss, quitting smoking, stress management, motivation, self-esteem and pain management. For all of these, the process is pretty much the same. An altered state of consciousness is induced that brings the patient to a higher state of suggestibility. The desired suggestion is made and then the patient returns to a normal state of consciousness. This is a rather simplistic description but it gets the point across.

Many people think of being under hypnosis as being in a trance or waking sleep-like state. The truth is that you are more likely to be more focused. You are going to be more open to things like suggestion and be less disbelieving or critical.

Being in a more focused state of mind helps in the suggestions necessary to treat the pertinent condition. If the condition being treated is quitting smoking, you are going to be able to incorporate the suggestions of aversion to smoking and affirmations of positive replacements better than if you were in a normal, less focused state on mind.

In pain management, this ability to focus is useful in taking a measure of the pain and then reducing its severity with strong relaxation methods. With repeated practice, it is possible to stop more pain each time. Hypnosis has shown itself to be very effective to ease labor pains during childbirth, thus reducing stress for both the mother and the infant.

Hypnosis works well for weight control, too. Through hypnosis, the appetite can be more easily controlled. Suggestions can also be made to make healthier food choices, too. Since being overweight also carries self-esteem problems, these can be addressed, as well. In fact, addressing this problem along with the other issues in weight loss makes the therapy more effective since low self-esteem is self-defeating.

These are just a few of the medical uses of hypnosis. There are many more and new ways of using hypnosis in medicine are being studied and researched. It is possible that, as more uses are found, the more invasive medical procedures will become easier to tolerate and even less necessary.