Wednesday 16 Jul 2025

Healing through hypnosis

How many have you tried to break a habit and failed? Have you tried to give up something but not been able to? Probably your answer lies in Hypnotherapy

Bharati Pawaskar / The Goan | NOVEMBER 10, 2012, 07:50 AM IST

The mind is a powerful tool in treating the differentphysical and mental disorders. It’s a mind to mind dialogue that helps inhealing a person of various types of illnesses – physical and psychological.Sometimes medicines don’t work, especially if a person becomes addicted toalcohol, smoking or substance abuse, thus making him/her the slave of his/herown mind.

Confirming this with his practical example, Ninad (namechanged) who was a chain smoker for 40 years, expresses a sigh of relief whilesharing his story, “I was a chain smoker. I knew smoking was affecting myhealth so much so that I could not exercise anymore and my knee and joint painwas becoming unbearable. Still I just couldn’t give up smoking. I tried severalthings like nicotine patches to get rid of this habit albeit unsuccessfully.Finally, someone suggested that I try hypnotherapy and I agreed as a lastresort. Believe me, after six sessions with my hypnotherapist, I am completelysmoke-free  for the last two years.”

How did this happen? For hypnotherapist Leona Fernandes thiswas a case from everyday life. Leona deals with even more complicated cases andmotivates her clients to achieve their goals. “There lies a definite connectionbetween the mind and the body and its effects can result in dis-ease or thewellbeing of a person. The thoughts, emotions, energy body and physical body –all fall under the purview of the mind. So controlling the mind, leads towards health and happiness,” she putsit in simple terms.   

Habits are a powerful force in our lives. They areconsistent, often very unconscious patterns and are reflected in our day-to-daylives in our effectiveness or in most cases, our ineffectiveness. Do we knowwhy a person would engage in an activity which he knows is detrimental to hishealth or his wellbeing? Leona has an answer, “This happens because thesubconscious mind is the more powerful state. And though consciously you knowthat something is bad for you, you still do not have the control to say ‘no’.The first time that a person smokes or drinks is generally a negativeexperience but the more you do it, the more you get habituated or used to it.So in your subconscious mind there is already a positive experience created ofthe addiction. Over a period of time it may become substance abuse. That’s whenyou want to give up but can’t because the experiences in the subconscious mindalways win.”

Addictions are generally void fillers. There are manyreasons behind these addictions, the main being, the need to self-sabotage.Leona elaborates, “Using hypnotherapy, we can access the subconscious mind andby giving certain suggestions we alter the neuro pathway. And since all thishappens in the subconscious mind with the consent of the person, the healinghappens. There are no withdrawal symptoms and no developing of neweraddictions.”

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