Rehabilitation: How hypnosis helps you

There may be all kinds of surgeries or situations in life after which you need to rehab. For example, consider hip surgery, knee surgery or if you have suffered a brain attack.

This process can sometimes be harder than expected because your body or brain doesn't pick things up as quickly as you would have liked. In that case, hypnosis can play a supporting role to improve your rehabilitation process.

Rehabilitation is for body and mind

In general, it is good to know that rehabilitation involves more than being able to walk or speak again.

It may also be necessary to accept a new situation while you’re undergoing rehabilitation, for example, because you can no longer perform certain bodily functions. Consider, for instance, learning to walk again after the amputation of part of a leg.

Rehabilitation is also something that takes into account both the physical side of rehabilitation and the mental can of rehabilitation. After all, an altered body also affects how you feel. Even if full recovery is possible.

If you are suddenly faced with a disability, it is important to create a new sense of self during rehabilitation. In doing so, you also want to look at new values that you value so that you can have a good life despite reactions from society[1].

Progression can be an important technique in this regard, as it helps people visualize what their new life might look like after surgery.

With a progression, you help people visualize what their life looks and feels like when they are fully rehabilitated again. The road toward it can also be visualized, such as when someone reaches a certain milestone in the rehabilitation process.

In addition, regression therapy can be used to address limiting beliefs, so you can move forward in life free from your past and from limiting thoughts about how the world works and how you’re supposed to function within it.

In a regression, you go back to the moment in a person's life when a limiting belief arose and a hypnotherapist helps to repair the limiting belief. Depending on the belief, this can be with the fast phobia technique, viewing the situation from the third person or even a conversation with the inner child.

Both techniques are covered in the courses offered by the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands. You’ll learn regression right at the beginning, and progression—or “The Dream”—is taught in the third course.

Hypnosis and rehabilitation after surgery

Hypnosis can play a role in an adult’s recovery even before surgery . A meta-analysis—a type of summary study with an overarching conclusion—shows that people who receive hypnosis before a medical procedure:

1. Have less stress.
2. Experiencing less anxiety.
3. Need less medication.
4. Recover faster.
5. Being under the knife for a shorter time[2].

When it comes to rehabilitation, the prospect of faster recovery is particularly appealing. So you can always ask your doctor if hypnosis is offered; if not, you can also see a hypnotherapist yourself to learn self-hypnosis in preparation for a medical procedure.

How cool would it be if you were someone who actually teaches people to hypnotize themselves before a medical procedure?

There are many medical procedures where the functioning of certain limbs must be maintained, such as after surgery on your hip, knee or hand.

For example, after hand surgery, people need to keep moving their hands to maintain hand functioning and prevent deformity, but this can be very anxious and painful. After all, you don't want to lose the functioning of your hands, but at the same time, you'd rather not be in pain either.

In a study where people had undergone hand surgery, 2 groups were compared. The group that rehabilitated in the standard way and a group that received hypnotherapy in addition to the standard way.

People in the second group experienced less pain during rehabilitation and less anxiety[3].

Rehabilitating after knee surgery

Knee surgery is also something where you want your knee to function normally afterward. Even with knees, rehabilitation can be a painful and exciting process. Fortunately, hypnosis can play a supportive role in this as well.

After knee surgery, hypnosis can already help you become less dependent on painkillers. In one study, hypnosis even resulted in people who received hypnotherapy after surgery needing more than half as many painkillers as those who did not receive hypnosis[4].

This is important because exercise after surgery helps for rehabilitation, but it is painful and so you want to be able to do something to combat that pain[5].

Fighting pain with hypnosis can be done in several ways. Visualizing, at least, plays a big role in pain management. For example, you can visualize how your hand or knee heals itself and how, as a result, the pain goes away more and more.

Depending on how the pain feels, you can also visualize using ice or cold water, for example, to numb your knee against the pain. Imagine that it is a burning or nagging pain, then a visualization of coolness can already do a lot to reduce the pain.

Then there’s also the “volume control” technique. In this case, a hypnotherapist helps you practice the feeling of control over the pain. You can then visualize how you can use a volume control to make the pain worse or less severe.

You’ll learn how to help people with this technique in the training program offered by the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands.

Hypnosis and rehabilitation after stroke

If you have somehow suffered brain damage, hypnosis can help during the rehabilitation process. This is particularly valuable if you find that you have little confidence in treatment and therefore have reduced motivation.

Research shows that hypnosis helps improve motivation in people with brain injuries, which in turn leads to better rehabilitation outcomes[6].

If you have suffered from a brain attack or cerebral hemorrhage ( stroke), it can greatly affect what you can do mentally and how you feel. Research shows that hypnotherapy can help you rehabilitate.

Chinese research shows that hypnosis helps you suffer less anxiety and depression over your neurological functioning during rehabilitation. In doing so, it even helps neurological recovery and gives you a better quality of life[7].

A 1985 case study reveals that a person who had suffered a stroke, leaving him partially paralyzed, was able to regain full use of his arms and legs within 5 weeks through hypnotherapy. In the process, he also had improvements in facial muscle control[8].

Other research from the 1980s also shows that hypnosis can help people who have suffered from stroke or other neurological damage. This helps, for example, for re-learning the swallowing reflex and control of muscles and your balance[9].

In fact, hypnosis helps create new connections in your brain,[10] which can have far-reaching effects.

Learn Hypnosis

Do you help people with rehabilitation? Or is that something you want to do? Then knowledge of hypnosis can help you and your clients make the process easier.

Come to the free master class for an introduction to hypnosis.

Or register directly for one of our events and trainings.

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