Depressed, anxious, in pain? How the relaxing power of hypnotherapy can help free your mind and body
- Hypnosis has been used for thousands of years and is now being more widely adopted by the medical community
- A hypnotised person is deeply relaxed, open to suggestion and has heightened focus. It’s quite safe – nobody can be hypnotised if he or she doesn’t want to be
Fourteen people sit in a room, their arms stretched out in front of their bodies, fists clenched, concentrating hard. Stressed, or anxious, exhausted, or simply curious, they have come to a free hypnotherapy workshop in a studio high above the busy streets of Tsim Sha Tsui in Hong Kong.
Max Shear Ka-fai, who runs the Hypnosis Studio, offers free workshops to educate people about the potential benefits of hypnotherapy and give them a chance to try it before signing up for his sessions.
Sitting on a high stool at the front of the room, he suggests imagining a mirror (to help guide his visitors’ subconscious through hypnosis), and then to visualise sitting under a starry sky, and finally to feel their bodies getting lighter.
Most of the people in the room have never tried a hypnotherapy session, and seem startled by the effects.
“For the first part I felt quite drowsy,” says a local middle-aged man, “but at one point I think I saw starlight.”
“Exactly,” Shear says. “Did you know you were also shaking for 20 minutes in the process?” The man shook his head. “It felt like I was a child again in my heart.”