Hypnobabies teaches our students medical-grade somnambulistic hypnosis techniques, creating an automatically peaceful, relaxing and more comfortable pregnancy, a calm confident Birth Partner, and an easier, more comfortable natural birthing for our pregnant students. Hypnobirthing at its best, with medical-grade hypnosis techniques, courses and audio tracks. 

Hypnobabies Hypnobirthing is a very successful 6 week, 3-hours per week, complete childbirth education course that was adapted with permission from Master Hypnotherapist Gerald Kein’s “Painless Childbirth Program” techniques (medical grade, somnambulistic hypnosis). These techniques allow our Hypnobabies students to enjoy “eyes-open childbirth hypnosis”, easily remaining deeply in hypnosis while walking, talking and changing positions; being as mobile as they would like to be during childbirth. Hypnobabies is well-known for helping people create much shorter, easier and more comfortable labors, making childbirth the joyful experience it was meant to be.

Expectant students use our Hypnobabies workbooks, audio tracks and hypnosis scripts to re-train their subconscious minds that contractions in labor will be perceived by their body as pressure or a squeezing-type sensations, and/or pushing, pulling and normal baby movement sensations. With the use of medical-grade hypnosis and the type of hypnotic compounding (repetition) that our Hypnobabies students learn, practice and then use during labor, normal birthing sensations can easily be transformed into more pleasurable ones. Our students are also fully in tune with their babies during the birthing process, and as aware of everything around them as they’d like to be, easily able to communicate with their support team, and completely in charge of their own birth experience.

*Source: Hypnobabies®

It is important to remember that hypnosis is a state of mind that we are all already in many times a day, so it’s a very natural response to how our mind works.

We are all automatically in hypnosis when driving, swimming, doing other sports, sitting in church or a lecture, reading, watching television or movies or on the computer (a screen of any kind) and when waking up or going to sleep. In Hypnobabies we are simply guiding that process in a very positive way to create an easy, fear-free comfortable childbirth experience. Since our program is designed for people of every faith and belief system to use, it contains no “new-age” or other content that would offend anyone. Many of our Hypnobabies students are Christian and have had wonderful success with Hypnobabies while incorporating their beliefs into our hypnosis scripts and practice as well as adding prayer into the actual hypnosis when giving birth. We have come to realize that our students know what they need and will find it in Hypnobabies, adapting it perfectly and serenely to their own religious or non-religious belief systems. They always do.   Below are two articles written by Christian hypnotherapists, for you to consider on your hypno-journey, and below them are comments and birth stories from Christian Moms who have used Hypnobabies and had wonderful births. 

Christianity and Hypnosis – by Janet Field, CHt, HCHI
“A significant percentage of my Hypnobabies students are Christian – as am I!  The way many of my Christian students choose to use hypnosis is to add to the more general birth-related suggestions given in class by using the scripture verses which mean the most to them and are deeply encouraging for them.  During pregnancy and birth both partners find this extremely comforting and a very valuable assistance to a peaceful birth.

Because of the nature of hypnosis, women are in a deeply relaxed state when their partners read the scriptures to them.  In this relaxed state, the subconscious mind imprints those words of scripture deeply and directly and responds to and acts on the encouragement – even in the face of possibly difficult circumstances.  For my Christian students, prayer usually becomes an integral part of the birth process, just as prayer is an integral part of their lives.  The only difference is that, with the relaxation of hypnosis, prayers are taken in much, much more deeply and the heart responds to them that much more deeply.

Occasionally someone has expressed concern to me that hypnosis would leave them open to ‘evil’ forces.  Let me assure you – when you are using hypnosis, you are the one in control.  You are simply relaxed.  I say ‘when you are using hypnosis’ because all hypnosis is self-hypnosis.  Nobody does it ‘to you’.  You are always in full control of your own thoughts and actions.  In fact, I let people know at the beginning of a hypnosis/relaxation session that, at any time, they can bring themselves back to their full awareness – much the way you would open your eyes and discontinue a prayer or meditation if you needed your attention on a suddenly pressing matter at hand. Dr. Larry Nims, a PhD psychologist with over 30 years’ clinical experience, works with clients using hypnosis.

Dr. Nims’ works and articles about forgiveness are for a general audience, yet one can see the Lord’s hand in Dr. Nims’ work.   Following is a paragraph from Dr. Nims.  Through his words, I find one very positive description of the way some Christians use hypnosis for themselves.

“At the end of each hypnosis counseling session with all of my Christian clients, I ask them to say a prayer.  The prayer focuses on the negative attitudes and actions that were involved in each of the problems that were treated in the session, and it invites the Lord to occupy these places and be the Lord of them.  I always encourage Christians to use this prayer every time they use hypnosis on their own or in my office.”

Before and during my own work with students and clients, I like to stop and call on God in prayer, asking that I be used as an instrument of His healing love.  A simple search of the web will provide an abundance of additional information on Christianity and hypnosis.”

HYPNOSIS AND PASTORAL HYPNOTHERAPY

The Rev. Dr. Prentice Kinser III, B.A., M.B.A., M.Div., D.Min., CPC, NBCCH, is Executive Director and Pastoral Counselor for the Blue Ridge Pastoral Counseling Centers, Inc. (BRPCC), is an ordained minister (Episcopal priest), has received a Doctor of Ministry degree in pastoral counseling and psychotherapy, is certified as a Pastoral Counselor and Fellow of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors, is an Adjunct Faculty member at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College, and is a National Board Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist, a Certified Trainer of Clinical Hypnotherapy, a husband, a father of three children, and a grandfather of three grandchildren.

Dr. Kinser leads Vestry retreats, spiritual growth classes, stop smoking, weight loss, and performance enhancement programs. All of these positive benefits can be used to greatly enhance spiritual practices, deepen meditation and prayer, control stress, assist in physical, spiritual and emotional healing, and, in general, assist individuals to find greater wholeness and happiness in life.

“Hypnosis and Pastoral Hypnotherapy” is a portion of Dr. Prentice Kinser, III’s doctoral thesis presented in June, 1997 at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary:  “Many psychological and physical factors, acting reciprocally through the image-producing faculties of the mind induce the perceptual response called hypnosis.   The capacity to enter into hypnosis is as natural a phenomenon as sleep, but it is distinctly different from sleep.  Hypnosis has been described as “a state of consciousness involving an extension of concentration combined with a susceptibility to suggestion occurring during physiological relaxation.”(1)  Another definition I find useful is: “Hypnosis is a process which produces relaxation, distraction of the conscious mind, heightened suggestibility and increased awareness, allowing access to the subconscious mind, through the imagination.  It also produces the ability to experience thoughts and images as real.”(2)   My own approach to hypnosis, pastoral hypnotherapy, and treatment comes out of my training and experience in using the therapeutic insights and writings of Milton H. Erickson, M.D. (19011980).  From that perspective, hypnosis can be seen as an altered psychological state “generally characterized by certain physiological attributes (e.g., relaxed muscle tone, reduced blood pressure, slowed breath rate), by an enhanced receptivity to suggestion, and by an increased access to unconscious feelings, ideas, and memories (Erickson, 1989).”(3)

It is important to remember that hypnosis does not have to involve the stereotypic rituals of swinging pendulums, watches or crystal balls, or that it is a fixed internal state.  “Clinical” hypnosis and “pastoral” hypnotherapy do imply a clinical or pastoral setting, with the focus more on the process of communication and therapeutic outcome, rather than on the hypnotic state involved. Clearly, hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness, i.e., it is different from normal waking consciousness. However, it is believed that all people go in and out of hypnosis on a regular basis.

Many people have experienced a type of hypnotic state while driving a car and become unconscious of the fact that they are still driving.   As they come out of the hypnotic state, they suddenly realize they do not remember what has happened for the past several minutes.   It is as though an unconscious part of the mind was able to drive the car, avoid danger, speed up and slow down as necessary, while the conscious mind went off on a brief vacation thinking about something else.  A hypnotic state may be experienced in the movies or while watching TV when people become so involved that they actually cry about a picture that has been projected onto a screen.   At one level of their minds they know the picture is fiction.   On another level, their minds move voluntarily into the imagination in which there is a suspension of reality testing and an acceptance of what is happening on the screen as real.

Likewise, when people experience hypnosis, they often simply allow their bodies to relax and their minds to focus attention on the words they hear, and the various images they may represent in their minds.   As Erickson observed, this is not hypersuggestible mind control but a very natural process that allows clients to more easily reach goals or objectives they have chosen for themselves.   With proper motivation, the client moves naturally and easily into a comfortable hypnotic state.  This is a safe process in the hands of a trained Hypnotherapist.

In summary, hypnosis, when utilized by trained and competent practitioners, can be a natural, comfortable and helpful process of communication, during which clients and/or parishioners may experience increased attention to suggestions, profound concentration, heightened recall of memories and access to state-dependent memories, greater image-producing abilities, and increased ability to form new habit patterns.”

Footnotes:

1. David Fox, “Mind/Body, Brain/Soul: Halakhic Explorations of Hypnotic Trance Phenomena,” Journal of Psychology and Judaism, Vol. 16, No.2 (Summer 1992), p. 97. 2. A.M. Krasner, The Wizard Within (Santa Ana: American Board of Hypnotherapy Press, 1991), p.2. 3. John H. Edgette, Psy.D., and Janet Sasson Edgette, Psy. D., The Handbook of Hypnotic Phenomena in Psychotherapy (New York: Brunner/Mazel, Inc., 1995), pp. 3-4. 4. Edgette and Edgette, p. 4, quoting J.K. Zeig “Therapeutic patterns of Ericksonian influence on communication” in J. K. Zeig (Ed) The Evolution of Psychotherapy (New York: Brunner/Mazel, Inc, 1987) pp. 392-412).