Does hypnosis help against gambling addiction?
Can hypnosis help with gambling problems? There are several counselors who answer in the affirmative. And others who have reservations or are outright negative. The answers will come mostly from personal statistics. If they have successfully helped several people with gambling problems, then they are likely to be more enthusiastic than the counselor with few results.
There is a tinge of mysticism around hypnosis, partly due to the carnival tricks of variety artists. It is, however, a state of consciousness that people can experience several times a day. And that people have experienced for centuries.
It has to do with brain waves. We distinguish five of these according to their frequency. When working, learning, gambling, watching TV, in traffic and the like, your brain moves fastest. This is the normal daily state and the frequency of the brain waves is called the beta wave motion.
If you are sitting around looking outside for a bit without a purpose, daydreaming a bit or perhaps meditating, then your brain waves move slower and experts speak of alpha waves. You could say that you are awake, but a bit asleep. If the movement goes even slower then you enter the theta waves. And finally in delta waves. In this last state you are in a deep sleep.
During the day beta and alpha waves are the most common. When sleeping, all frequencies play a role and you experience them in a cycle. When you go to sleep your brain first enters alpha, then goes through theta to delta and back again. Then this cycle repeats itself several times while you sleep.
In hypnosis, the frequency of your brain waves is at the beginning of alpha and end of theta around 7 Hertz (Hz).
So you are in hypnosis in a state that you might know from sleep..., if you were awake. In this state, your attention is heightened, you are focused, and you are open to suggestion. Even when you are asleep. Should someone enter your bedroom you would probably be instantly awake.
Hypnosis is often compared to this sleep state. And the similarities are obviously great. The main difference, however, is that the intention is different. When you go to sleep you begin a daily cycle of about eight hours.
Whereas in hypnosis there is a different expectation. This could be participation in the act of an illusionist. But also reducing an addiction, such as hypnosis for gambling problems can help.
How does hypnosis for gambling problems work? During hypnosis, you are in a state where you are open to suggestion. At that point, an outsider (a hypnotherapist) or, for example, an audio recording can make a suggestion to modify your behavior.
So in principle such a suggestion can also be made during your sleep. But with hypnosis most people assume that it happens during an appointment between two people.
The state of hypnosis has existed for a very long time. There had also been several people using suggestion to change behavior. It was the German physician Franz Mesmer who was the first to put a scientific spin on it. However, he was still on the cutting edge of religious fantasies and science.
His ideas inspired the English physician James Baird. In 1841 he was the first to use the "suggestive sleeping state" as we now know it in treatments. At the time he also described how to hypnotize someone or yourself and coined the word hypnosis.
Fifty years later, hypnotizing became popular. The German physician Hippolyte Bernheim pointed out that hypnosis is nothing more than a state of heightened suggestibility. Thus, during hypnosis, a person is simply open to suggestion.
Bernheim was followed by many who used hypnosis, researched it, and expressed their ideas. For example, the well-known psychotherapist Sigmund Freud used it as a stepping stone to his method of analysis.
The American psychiatrist Milton Erickson took hypnosis to the next level with his studies and ideas. He has been called the father of modern hypnosis and is still known as the most skilled hypnotherapist.
Erickson described the hypnotic state as a situation as mentioned above with theta brainwaves. There is a state of heightened awareness. People are then open to indirect suggestion, which he called conversational hypnosis. They can then actively participate in the therapeutic process. During an ordinary conversation, such a "hypnotic trance" or the therapeutic suggestion can cause a change.
What does that mean for hypnosis in gambling addiction? In general, serious treatment then involves hypnotherapy. Hypnosis is then part of a treatment by a psychologist or psychiatrist. The practitioner is familiar with the situation of the person with a gambling problem, addiction or other problem.
That person knows that hypnosis will be used during treatment and has agreed to it. The hypnotherapist can then make a suggestion that will change the person's behavior. Incidentally, many hypnotherapists do not speak of changing behavior, but of changing inner experience. This can be consciously or unconsciously experienced feelings, thoughts, memories, ideas, and the like. Some speak of changing beliefs, the opinions a person has about specific subjects.
The use of hypnosis for gambling problems and addiction, in most cases, involves strengthening willpower. In other words, in multiple studies hypnotherapists report that when using hypnosis they focus on willpower. By strengthening it, a person with a (gambling) addiction can overcome his/her addictive behavior.
The suggestion is then directed at the underlying situation, the specific environment of the person with the (gambling) problem. After all, if the problem lies with a belief about a gambling addict father, it makes no sense to make a suggestion about driving.
As we wrote earlier, the last word has not been said about willpower in gambling problems. Several researchers wonder whether the problem in addiction lies with willpower, in the sense referred to above, the inner strength of the will to stop doing something. Or whether, for example, one's opinion of one's own willpower is the problem.
In addition, in hypnosis for gambling problems, hypnosis itself is also still under discussion. This has to do with history. After Erickson there were many other scientists who studied hypnosis. That it exists is something everyone agrees on. But there are quite a few differences of opinion about how and when hypnosis works.
And also because of that, the question we asked at the beginning "Can hypnosis help with gambling problems?" may be answered differently. 10 factors that influence the popularity of gaming sites also need to be investigated. After all, such popularity and idealization are addictive.
