Does Hypnotherapy really work? If so, what can it be used to treat?
It worked for me.
I had been dealing craps for a couple of months, and I would be extremely nervous on a busy game, to the point where I almost couldn’t deal, and the pit boss was threatening to fire me. I went for two sessions of hypnotherapy. Games were slow for the next couple of weeks, so I didn’t have a chance to see if it had worked, but then one night…
Eight players on each end, cheques flying everywhere, and I was just ridin’ the wave…
it is hard to be certain because controlled trials are very difficult to set up properly with hypnotherapy. It has been claimed to be useful in
Asthma
Burn injury (reducing pain)
Fibromyalgia
Irritable bowel syndrome
Labor and delivery
Nocturnal enuresis
Peptic ulcers
Psoriasis
Smoking cessation
Tension headache and other forms of headache
Vertigo and headache caused by head injury
warts
from http://www.caromont.org/16278.cfm , however as the site states, many of these studies of of uncertain quality. Many of these conditions have an organic basis (e.g. infection for ulcers) and it hard to see how hypnotherapy could be useful.
If you have a behavioural or nervous problem it may be worth a go
Can it be used to treat clinical depression?
I quit smoking after one session with a hypno.
The process works best when, ultimately, the thing you’re trying to accomplish can readily be accomplished by having the right mind-set.
With clinical depression, it’s a bit more complicated: it is widely believed that the persistence of the mental state called clinical depression is due to the neurotransmitter/neurochemistry situation. (As to whether one ends up in that condition because of disturbing/depressing life circumstances or from physiological conditions in the first place, I don’t think anyone knows). Is it possible to change a person’s neurochemical circumstances through refocusing the mind? Maybe. Not necessarily. I wouldn’t discount it as a possibility.
You’d have to be in an initial mental state that would be conducive to your participation in hypnosis, of course.
Thanks.
I’ve used hypnotherapy successfully and unsuccessfully. I concur with AHunter3, and would add that you might use hypnotherapy in conjuction with other modes of therapy to treat depression, but hypnotherapy works better for a targeted behavior than a global mood disorder.
I’d love to see an episode of Spiderman where Doctor Doom builds a great big hypnoray and uses it to get all of America to give up smoking. In a follow-up he tries to cure depression but is foiled.
“Ha! Hypnotherapy works better for a targeted behavior than a global mood disorder!”
“Curses!”
My brother is a practicioner of NLP therapy, which is similar to some hypnotherapy but doesn’t look much like the stereotypes of hypnosis. (I have no idea if other schools of hypnotherapy resemble stereotypical hypnosis any better.)
Helped me get my painful migraine headaches under control, as well as getting rid of some inconvenient habits I won’t mention. 
NLP writings have said, among other things… “every person goes into a ‘trance state’ on their own dozens of times a day, if not more. If you want to use the term ‘hypnosis’ at all, then when you go into a trance state you’re hypnotizing yourself.” (I can’t remember what the precise definition of a trance state is… but we’re not talking about being out like a light and ready to be ordered to cluck like a chicken here. Any time when you’re unusually focused or aware of yourself, maybe.)
To me, self-hypnosis is just about being aware of what’s going on in your mind and body and how they’re inter-relating. There’s very few things that hypnosis or self-hypnosis can’t help with.
Okay, enough babbling now. 