Dr. David Spiegel

And most rape victims will tell you, I was floating above my body feeling sorry for the woman being assaulted below.

People in traumatic episodes, they just say, you know, I blank out.

I don't know what's happening.

I'm on autopilot.

Yeah.

That's a kind of self-hypnotic state.

So when you use hypnosis to help them deal with a traumatic memory, you're making the state they're in right there in your office with you more congruent to the state they were likely in when the trauma happened.

And I think that is part of what helps facilitate treatment of trauma-related disorders.

In a way, the principle, Andrew, is like you need to reconfront a traumatic situation before you can modulate your associations to it and then figure out how you can approach that problem or how you did approach that problem from a different point of view.

And I think what happens is that people are sometimes too good at being able to separate themselves from the recollection.

So it's in there somewhere.

It doesn't.

It's out of sight, but it's not out of mind.

It's having effects on you, but you can't deal with it.

You can't reprocess it.

The issue is control.

And hypnosis, which has this terrible reputation of taking away control, is actually a superb way of enhancing your control over mind and body.

Most people start by coming to see a clinician like me.

It's better to see someone who has licensing and training in their professional discipline.

somebody who can really assess what your problem is and make sure that you're not talking someone into reducing their chest pain rather than getting their coronary artery problem.