Before hypnosis was used as an art to enter into a person's subconscious mind and plant suggestions within it to modify the person's behavior patterns, it was widely being used by physicians as a means of to alleviate pain of wounded or those undergoing some surgery. And, since the advent of pain killers and other drugs, hypnosis started subsiding from mainstream knowledge. Most of the people started knowing hypnosis only through stage shows in a stereotypical ritual involving pendulums and crystal balls. However, thanks to the contributions of Dr. Milton Erickson, hypnosis was expanded upon as self hypnosis and was started to be used in many practical uses.

To state Wikipedia, "Erickson is noted for his often unconventional approach to psychotherapy.....He developed an extensive use of therapeutic metaphor and story as well as hypnosis and coined the term 'brief therapy' for his approach of addressing therapeutic changes in relatively few sessions. Through conceptualizing the unconscious as highly separate from the conscious mind, with its own awareness, interests, responses, and learning’s, he taught that the unconscious mind was creative, solution-generating, and often positive. He was an important influence on Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), which was in part based upon his working methods." According to him, drug or any other anti-pain treatment was not effective enough in removing or alleviating pain and stress. These factors lie hidden deep within the recesses of the subconscious mind, thus pain, stress and anxiety need to treated at the subconscious level.

Erickson believed that Self-hypnosis could be used to help people overcome their addictions, stress, phobias and other psychological ailments. He stressed upon the fact that every individual's unconscious mind could be used for hypnotic influence for autosuggestion, commonly known as self hypnosis. For Erickson, hypnosis could intervene wherever mind was concerned to affect the behavior and thought patterns of the individual by seeping into subconsciousness. He believed that it is every human capacity to neglect the inner strength and resources. And when these inner resources are tactfully tapped and controlled, every individual will report a sense of relaxation, self control, satisfaction and achievement. Simply said, hypnosis is a form of communication on subconscious level to assess the latent or underutilized skills and past experiences that result in modified attitude and behavior.

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