Forget the swinging watch. In his West Broadway office one afternoon, Vancouver hypnotherapist Rob Hadley handed an MP3 player and a set of headphones to a male client who was seeking to overcome a drug addiction.

The man settled into a reclining chair, closed his eyes, and started to listen to recorded instructions on how to relax through breathing. After covering him with a blanket, Hadley invited the Georgia Straight into an adjoining room.

After 10 minutes, he returned to his office. Removing the headset from his client, whose eyes remained closed, Hadley told him in a slow, measured manner that he was getting even more relaxed. He asked the man to try to open his eyes. The client strained to do so, but his eyelids stayed shut.

With the man in a hypnotic state, it was time for his therapy.

“Hypnosis is the process of putting someone in a trance,” Hadley explained in an earlier interview. “Hypnotherapy is where we sort out an issue specific to a person’s health or well-being. There is no hypnotherapy without hypnosis. There is also no hypnotherapy without the therapy.”

According to Hadley, the crux of good therapy is finding the “triggers” that make a person feel or act in a certain way, and then either disconnecting that link or making a new association.

He cited the case of a client who kept getting sick after she’d quit smoking. Hadley recalled having “uncovered” during hypnosis the fact that the woman associated the smell of smoke with a time when somebody was cleaning the family chimney and the house filled with smoke. At the time, the woman—then a child—was sick, and was being cared for at home by her mother.

As an adult smoker, the woman would get sick when she tried to kick the habit. “At the rational level, we know that’s ridiculous, but at a subconscious level, the association was there linking smoke with mommy being there, reading her books, being comfortable in a loving environment,” Hadley said. “I explained while she’s in hypnosis that there cannot be a link between recovering her health and the association she has been making.”

The Canadian Federation of Clinical Hypnosis represents health-care professionals who use hypnosis as one of their tools in treating patients.

“Hypnosis, a natural state of heightened and focused attention, is one of the most fascinating phenomena of the human psyche,” according to the CFCH’s Web site (www.clinicalhypno
sis.ca/). “Our ability to enter this unique state of consciousness opens the door to endless possibilities for healing, self-exploration and change.”

Vancouver-based hypnotherapist Vincent Milardo told the Straight that he uses hypnotherapy in his life-coaching and counselling services.

“I work with people in the film industry, athletes, and entrepreneurs,” Milardo said in a phone interview. “I help them calm the body and mind so their concentration is focused.”

Milardo noted that triggers associated with conditions like irritable bowel syndrome are stress-related. “Definitely, it’s [hypnotherapy] a form of mind control; it’s a form of visualization,” he said. “The subconscious is an amazing mechanism. You train it or retrain it so that it begins to work for you instead of against you. It’s been around for thousands of years.”

Lance Rucker, a professor at the UBC faculty of dentistry, teaches clinical hypnosis to dentists and dental hygienists. In a phone interview with the Straight, Rucker noted that American and Canadian medical and dental associations recognize the value of hypnosis.

However, Rucker explained that hypnotherapy is not a regulated profession. He suggested that those seeking hypnotherapy should find out whether the practitioner is a licensed professional in an accountable or regulated field like medicine, dentistry, psychology, psychiatry, or social work.