'Mind over matter' - this is hypnotherapy in a nutshell. Employing hypnosis to treat an illness began in ancient Egypt and India where music and religion were used to induce trance. In modern times, when people began to look outside the pail of conventional medicine for solutions, the use of the mind for treatment became a powerful procedure in itself.

The most simplistic form of hypnotherapy is seen in the common placebo effects.

Placebos lull patients into a false belief that they are taking powerful drugs while they are actually taking dummy medications.Surprisingly however, patients get well just because their minds convince them that the medicine will work.

Practitioners of hypnotherapy believe that when patients enter the hypnotic trance, their subconscious mind is more receptive to positive suggestions. These positive suggestions in turn help to cure the patients.

Hypnosis has been defined as an altered state of consciousness where the mind is fully alert but chooses not to react. In normal human beings the sub conscious mind is normally out of reach. All our negative and positive emotions are stored religiously in the subconscious mind. We neither know what is happening there nor can we control it; which is ironic because it is the subconscious mind that controls more than 70% of our actions. The conscious mind always acts as a translucent window that separates us from the subconscious mind.

Hypnotherapy allows a doctor to gain access to the powerful subconscious mind. The doctor then proceeds to uncover the mysteries and putrefying secrets that lie at the root of the problem. The first part of treatment deals with uncovering and unraveling the cause behind the problem.

Once the cause is known the second part of the treatment starts. The doctor places certain positive suggestions that work continuously in the sub conscious mind of the patient. These suggestions enable patients to overcome their will and scale heights they previously believed were impossible.

As Hypnosis deals with the mind, hypnotherapy is usually used to cure maladies that are brought on by some weaknesses of the mind, like obesity, addiction, anorexia, smoking, anxiety, stress, phobias and amnesia. Disorders like the Irritable Bowel Syndrome, sleep apnea and even cancer have been known to get better under the influence of hypnotherapy. This is the power of positive suggestion at its best.

The amazing success of hypnotherapy in curing people of addiction, stress and phobia shows just how effective and quick the results of hypnosis can be. "The therapeutic effects of 8 years of persistent meditation can be gained from just three sessions of hypnotherapy", says Dr. Spinovsky, the director of a US-based Hypnosis institute.

While hypnotherapy is effective and quick, the time taken to affect a cure really depends on the readiness of the patient. Contrary to what most people believe, the mind under hypnosis is still alert and very much in control. Unless the patient is willing to accept a change or let go of harmful and regressive thoughts, the doctor is helpless. Undoubtedly, the mind has the power to heal the body and when the mind is willing to cooperate, the body is able to heal itself.