Therapy: Hypnosis

How it’s done: Patients enter a relaxed state, almost trance-like but not unconscious, which allows the brain’s conscious and unconscious sectors to communicate and create new neural pathways.

Good for helping with: Kicking bad habits and achieving new goals like getting into “the zone” faster for athletes, or tapping into deeper levels of imagination for creatives. Some of the issues Cascade Hypnosis Center in Bellingham treats include texting and smartphone addition, anger management, and jaw pain. Any problem a patient consciously wants to fix can likely be treated with hypnosis.

Theory behind the therapy: Kelley Woods, a certified clinical hypnotherapist and owner of Woods Hypnosis Center in Anacortes, uses a metaphor to describe the process, “I liken this to the idea that if a person wants to make a corporate change and they speak to the receptionist, they will get little result. They need to go to the CEO!” Sometimes people need a little help to tap into the inner drive for whatever habit they are trying to get rid of or attain. Hypnosis helps create those pathways. For example, a smoker knows consciously he should quit smoking, so hypnosis will tap into the underlying subconscious reason why he can’t or won’t.

According to patients, don’t dismiss it until you try it. Many hypnosis patients credit the therapy for solving their seemingly insolvable problems and having life-changing epiphanies. Everyone is different, but most patients can achieve their goals in one to six sessions.