Times of India - 14 July 2009
Parthiv Shah has been suffering from lactose intolerance since his childhood. Taking milk or milk products spells doom for him. It begins with a major stomach ache, followed by a stomach upset. Even the sight of milk triggers panic. Traditional treatment has not proved good enough for him, and so he opted for hypnotherapy. He is now completely cured.
"If the body is the hardware, the mind is its software. We often tend to treat the hardware, when the problem is actually with the software. Here, hypnotherapy does the magic by curing the root of the problem," said Dr Yuvraj Kapadia, head of California Hypnosis Institute of India (CHII), a non-profit organization for delivering clinical hypnotherapy in India.
In Parthiv's case, hypnotherapists explained to him during sessions that it was some bitter experiences he had relating to milk during childhood that reinforced a belief that milk was not good for him. So, his mind makes his body secrete certain chemicals whenever he takes milk and turns it toxic. Through hynotherapy, that particular belief system was neutralized and he was cured.
Hypnotherapy works on the principle that any disorder of the body is actually entrenched in the mind and hence, it is a healing of the mind that is actually needed. Through hypnosis, the patient is taken into the deepest recesses of one's mind. The patient is then able to see where the problem lies and, with the help of the therapist, he is guided to set the problem right.
The mind, say experts, can be divided into two parts the conscious and the sub-conscious (or unconscious). While we are able to access the conscious mind without help of a healer, in order to address any ailments, we need to access the unconscious mind, explained said Neerja Poddar, Kolkata head of CHII.
The conscious mind, she added, makes up for not more than 18% of the entire mind, trying to emphasize the importance of the unconscious mind. "There's a critical filter that prevents one from visiting the unconscious mind and past lives on one's own, otherwise life will be a complete chaos. The duty of the healer is to help one cross this filter and delve inside," said Dr Sanghabrata Chattopadhyay, another hypnotherapist.
CHII, which has centres in Delhi, Kolkata and Bangalore, with its headquarters in Mumbai, also offers courses on hypnotherapy. "Hypnotherapy has been flourishing as a safe and yet highly effective method of healing. This science has gained credence in India after 2002, once it was accredited as an acceptable therapeutic modality by the Union ministry of health," said Poddar.
