Interview with psychiatrist Claude Virot on hypnosis

Brut America

It can help someone quit smoking, treat depression, and even replace anesthesia. Here's how hypnosis has become a recognized medical tool.

Transcript

00:00Hypnotizing someone is very easy to do, it's very easy.

00:04It takes two, three, a few days of learning and we know how to change the state of consciousness of the subject.

00:10Hypnotizing someone is very easy to do, it's very easy to change the state of consciousness of the subject.

00:23A subject in hypnosis phase has a brain that works differently from a subject in ordinary state of consciousness.

00:33There are some parts of the brain that are more activated, others that are less activated.

00:37This is shown, it is published, there is no doubt about it.

00:42Let's imagine a mother who has a toothache, who has a terrible pain and who suffers a lot.

00:49This same mother has a little girl.

00:51This little girl falls down the stairs.

00:54The mother rushes, the little girl cries and screams and the mother comes to take care of her.

00:58First of all, reassure her, comfort her, treat a small wound, there was no big damage.

01:04Do you think the mother still feels her pain?

01:07During this whole phase, she will have completely forgotten that she had a toothache.

01:12Why? Because she was completely focused on something else.

01:16This is how unconsciousness works.

01:24What does an anesthetist do with a patient in an operating room?

01:27Well, he will look with him for a subject, an experience of his life, an event of his life,

01:35which is very interesting for this person.

01:39And with hypnosis techniques, the patient will be able to stay fixed and focused on this experience.

01:45The more he will be focused on the experience, it will be like running a marathon,

01:50or going diving, or celebrating his birthday with friends.

01:55Strong moments.

01:57If he is fully focused on this event, everything around him seems to disappear, including pain.

02:05How does hypnosis work?

02:15Many people who suffer, it's as if they were stopped,

02:18as if a part of their consciousness was stopped somewhere,

02:22didn't walk anymore, didn't move anymore.

02:24Well, hypnosis will allow to restart consciousness processes,

02:29but also brain processes, memory processes, creativity processes.

02:34We can do a lot of things with the skin, sensory organs, glands, exams.

02:43We can do a lot of things, but we can't do everything, that's for sure.

02:46We could do it alone, we call it self-hypnosis.

02:48But at some point we need help from someone who will guide us, a guide,

02:52someone who accompanies us to reactivate this state of trance

02:57and therefore this state of healing potential.

03:00Hypnotizing someone is very easy to do.

03:02It's very easy.

03:04It takes two, three, a few days of learning, and we know how to modify the state of consciousness of the subject.

03:10But to use this hypnosis for care, to help someone in a difficult situation,

03:18in a painful and painful moment of his life, or a dangerous moment,

03:22it requires a lot of other skills and a lot of other knowledge.

03:26So you have to be a health professional first.

03:36But first, medicine in all its fields, whether pharmacological or hypnosis,

03:41it's empiricism, people practice, experiment things, exchange.

03:46Today it's in congresses, for example, that we exchange knowledge like that.

03:50And that's how knowledge is built, the knowledge of a healer.

03:54It is very recently that we know the mechanisms of action of morphine.

03:58It has not prevented thousands of generations, since always, to use substances to relieve patients.

04:05And then there is research, and today there is a lot of research.

04:08Today we have magnificent devices to measure the transformations of the brain,

04:15the exchanges in the brain, which allow us little by little to better understand what we are doing.

04:19The intimate functioning that makes up the consciousness, the consciousness of me,

04:22the consciousness of what surrounds me, the way to use my memory, my experiences,

04:28to project myself into the future, to create music, to dream, well ...

04:35we still struggle.

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