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14 THE MYSTERY SOLVED + 7 5 1 3 9
...cleverly hidden by the heart in the p. 15 ad for EVERYDAY ELDER CARE LLC THE WINNER: BRENDA L’ECUYER! Want to find your name here next time? If it is, we’ll send you some cool swag from our goodie bag. The new Mystery Word is on page 12. Start looking! The Mystery Word in our last issue was: GLUCOSE
The Celebrated MYSTERY WORD CONTEST
...wherein we hide (with fiendish cleverness) a simple word. All you have to do is unscramble the word (found on page 12), then find it concealed within one of our ads. Click in to the contest link at www.AugustaRx.com and enter. If we pick you in our random drawing of correct entries, you’ll score our goodie package!
SEVEN SIMPLE RULES: 1. Unscramble and find the designated word hidden within one of the ads in this issue. 2. Visit the Reader Contests page at www.AugustaRx.com. 3. Tell us what you found and where you found it. 4. If you’re right and you’re the one we pick at random, you win. (Winners within the past six months are ineligible.) 5. Prizes awarded to winners may vary from issue to issue. Limited sizes are available for shirt prize. 6. A photo ID may be required to claim some prizes. 7. Other entrants may win a lesser prize at the sole discretion of the publisher. 8. Deadline to enter is shown on page 12.
G N A W E S P Y P C B P E A C H O K I E L O I S U N P L E A S A N T E N D O B E E E D I T G A T E S A L O N E C A S I N O S T R O M W O M E N A R E N A S P E D G A S S I L E N T T R E A T M E N T H O E H A N K H E N N A N A W A B A L T A R B U T T O N D A V I D A L L O W R I A L P H I S T E N R O U S T A B O U T E R S E P H I L N I N E S A S S M O D E D O G S
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TheSUDOKUsolution
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QUOTATION PUZZLE SOLUTION “It does not matter how long you live but how well you do it.”
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ALTERED STATES ALTERED STATES
How can people lift cars off accident victims and perform other feats of superhuman strength? How do sleepwalkers leave the house and even drive without really being conscious? What causes PTSD, flashbacks, and powerful memories of things that never happened? Guest columnist Wayne Thigpen takes a look at various altered states in this new series.
HYPNOSIS
Experience tells us that there are mental states of varying focus, wakefulness or abilities apart from those induced by alcohol or drugs. Our most powerful organ, the brain, can access great reservoirs of concentration. It can remove pain, even withdraw life itself. Perfectly healthy people have come to believe they are supposed to die, get in bed and pass away within weeks; others survive what they are told is a terminal illness because they believe they should live. The brain can detour in self-defense. A dozen or more alternate mental states exist, from sleepwalking to panic attacks, to name just two.
What of today’s topic, the hypnotic state? Is it real, and if so, what is it and does it have medical uses?
Medical specialists tell me hypnosis is real, not a trick, with centuries of history behind it. Although entertainers and charlatans have abused it for most of the past 250 years, accounts of hypnosis are found in literature from ancient times. More recently its use has ebbed, and for good reason, as it can be dangerous in hands not specifically trained.
The process of hypnosis creates a trance-like mental state in which the subject or patient appears partly asleep, but with an increased ability to cooperate with the therapist, right then or later -- suggestibility, in short. A person under hypnosis cannot be persuaded to do things they oppose morally. A therapist cannot and does not “take over” the subject’s mind, cannot make the subject do that which they do not wish to do, much less commit a crime — unless perhaps they are a criminal in the first place! Rather, hypnosis amounts to a temporary partnered power, a potential healing aid. Like the brain itself, much mystery persists, and the exact neurochemistry eludes exact definition. Essentially, the patient briefly dissociates or disconnects from daily life. We have all experienced driving somewhere and arriving without recalling much of what happened on the way. We were on cruise control. The hypnotic state can be viewed as an extreme form of such disconnection, used to help heal. A person cannot be hypnotized against their will, and not everyone who wishes to can be. According to a local expert, a “good” subject a) has favorable attitudes toward hypnosis, b) is strongly motivated to be hypnotized and c) expects to be hypnotized. Of paramount import, the patient must trust the therapis and believe the therapist can hypnotize them. Profoundly, the expert says, “the behavior of the hypnotic subject, while hypnotized, is a direct function of their altered perception of themselves and of the situation; they are ready, willing and expecting to perceive the therapist’s statements as valid descriptions of what is or is not happening.”
For example, decades ago this writer observed a psychiatrist well-trained in hypnosis undertake a group hypnosis of about 40 deer hunters. The physician changed into a coatand-tie, while everyone else remained in hunting garb. Of the 40, maybe 30 decided to participate; and of those nearly all were hypnotized to a degree. The doctor then selected one man about 25 years old as being the most completely “under,” released to the rest back to their normal states, and asked the young man to re-visit his second grade classroom. Most of us likely can name our second grade teacher, and he did. However he amazingly recalled where he sat: the second row. Counting from the wall or the window? The wall. Responding readily, the man then named all the students sitting right around him until he was asked who sat behind him. Silence. Did you sit at the end of the row? Yes. When later a remark was made to the doctor about the astonishing level of recall, he smiled, “He was there for nine months; of course he remembers.” (Not long after, the psychiatrist decided hypnosis was not appropriate for entertainment.) On another occasion this writer observed a pediatrician, self-taught in hypnosis and limited in experience, hypnotize a teenager, tell him he was a Revolutionary War soldier, hand the subject a long stick said to be his musket, and to kneel by a tree and shoot at the enemy. The boy knelt, appeared to aim and said, “Pow!” He turned his stick to the ground, reloaded and fired again and again. However, when the amusement ended the doctor could not readily release the boy from his altered state. It took hours, but the boy did finally awaken to normalcy. Danger averted, but there was serious question for awhile as to whether that boy could come back.
It has been said that when successful, hypnosis is “the most vivid, effective psychological tool ever devised” by humans. A bold statement.
Therefore, of what medical use is it? Hypnosis can be help free someone from a troubling memory or one that recycles ceaselessly. In fact, the memory which recycles may not be the memory that caused the memory to begin recycling. However, a patient may be very greatly relieved to be free of the stress, to be healed of it. Two caveats: the patient must be ready for recollection, for a possible emotional outpouring from recall of a painful memory. And, a therapist must not project onto the patient the therapist’s own ideas, which then can become fabricated “memory” not of the patient. Leading questions which contain the preferred or suggested answer must be avoided, according to another expert.
Surprisingly, innumerable surgeries have been performed under hypnosis without anesthesia in years past, including amputations. Pain from natural childbirth, severe burns and malignancies have all been relieved by hypnosis Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and tinnitus (ringing in the ears) can be relieved. People can be assisted in efforts to quit smoking, though one therapist remarked that care should be taken: if a therapist suggests that cigarette smoke will make the subject nauseous, second-hand smoke will likely have that same effect. Better to suggest that having a cigarette in one’s mouth will cause nausea. It should be noted that
+ true addictions with physical withdrawal symptoms, hallucinations and tremors, cannot be effectively dealt with via hypnosis.
We might well ask, then, if it’s so great, why isn’t it used more?
Part of the answer is that the technique obtained a bad reputation several decades ago from some court cases in which the origins of victims’ or witnesses’ memories were successfully called into question, with attorneys impeaching the witness with the idea that it was the therapist’s memory, not the victim’s. Part of the answer also lies with insurance companies, which prefer to pay therapists for more conventional methods. A hypnotherapist may be able to fight successfully to be paid; however, a local psychiatrist says following insurance company guidelines takes less time and effort. Patients who seek or receive assistance via this method are likely to be self-payers. Liability issues may have also caused disuse, though it may be too easy to simply blame it on the lawyers. Asking medical experts yields the conclusion that hypnosis works as described and can genuinely assist in mental and physical health. It is employed today almost exclusively by psychologists and is mostly a forgotten art among mental health tools.
Proudly affiliated with Dr. John Cook of Southern Dermatology in Aiken
John Cook, M.D.
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Pictured above (from left to right), John Cook, MD; Lauren Ploch, MD; Jason Arnold, MD; Caroline Wells, PA-C; Chris Thompson, PA-C
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