I love being a hypnotherapist and helping people achieve their goals, and one of the things I enjoy is talking about the brain. I am often surprised by how common some brain misconceptions are. So, I thought it’s time to debunk some brain myths that I hear.
People are left or right-brained
There are two hemispheres to your brain and people think that left-brained people are analytical and logical, and right-brained people are creative and expressive. The truth is that certain types of task and thinking tend to be more associated with one hemisphere or the other, no one is fully right-brained or left-brained. In fact, the corpus callosum connects both sides of the brain and information passes between them all the time. So, people use all their brain.
People use only ten percent of their brains
We use all the areas of the brain to perform some type of function. PET and fMRI scans show that much of the brain is being used even during simple tasks. Why would evolution create a brain so big that 90 percent of it wasn’t used? If we did use only ten percent then brain injuries to the other 90 percent wouldn’t have such a significant impact.
The brain is hard-wired
Brain are organized in a standard way, and some parts are specialized for certain tasks. But neuroplasticity shows that parts of the brain that normally have one function, can, instead, be used for a different function, eg following a brain injury.
Brain damage is permanent
In fact, a person’s ability to recover from brain damage depends upon the severity and the location of the injury. The human brain is plastic! Neuroplasticity is the ability of the brain to change throughout an individual’s life, including after an injury.
Adults can’t grow new brain cells
In 1998, a Swedish team showed that new brain cells form in the hippocampus, a structure involved in storing memories. In 2014, another Swedish team found that the striatum, a brain region involved in motor control and cognition, produces new neurons throughout life. Neurogenesis is the name for creating new brain cells.
People see the world as it is
We aren’t passive recipients of external information reaching our brains through our sensory organs. In fact, brains actively search for patterns (while at the same time ignoring any details we aren’t expecting). We have only a limited amount of attention that we can pay to anything – hence why multitasking ends badly. How we see the world is not just built of objective observations layered together in a logical way, it’s also driven by our expectations and interpretations.
People learn best when the teaching style matches their learning style
Tests in 2006, at the University of California, found that students didn’t perform any better on a test when given instructions in their preferred learning style. Similarly, a 2009 review paper found no studies upholding the claim that teaching and learning styles should match. It’s best to use repetition, testing, and spacing out learning sessions.
Humans have the biggest brains
A human adult brain weighs around three pounds and is about 15 centimetres in length. Sperm whales have the largest brain, weighing 18 pounds! An elephant’s brain is around 11 pounds. Could it be that humans have the largest brain size in proportion to body size? The animal with the largest body size to brain ratio is the shrew – its brain makes up around 10 percent of its body mass.
Memories are precise, detailed, and persistent
When a significant event happens, people remember exactly where they were, what they were doing, who they were with, and what they saw or heard. But like all memories, they decay over time. Each time a memory is accessed, details are lost and other information is added. That’s why eye-witness accounts vary so much.
Brains are like computers
No!
And here are some great hypnotherapy myths…
There’s no proof that hypnotherapy works
Yes there is. There’s lots of clinical trials and published papers showing the efficacy of hypnotherapy. NICE (The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) recommend hypnotherapy as a treatment for IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome). The BMA (British Medical Association), and British Psychological Society, among others, have independently endorsed hypnotherapy as a valid form of treatment.
Only mentally weak people can be hypnotized
Anyone can be hypnotized, and people who are able to concentrate and have a strong sense of creativity can be hypnotized most easily.
Some people have never been hypnotized
Every time a person daydreams, uses their imagination, or really concentrates on a task, they have entered an hypnotic trance. It’s like coming to the end of a film and realizing that your foot is hurting, but you’ve not noticed the pain before because you’ve been entranced by the movie.
People lose all self-control and end up chicken dancing!
A client is fully aware during a hypnotherapy session, and clients can pull themselves out of the trance-like state at any point during the session. A client does not lose control of their mind. And clients only chicken dance if they decide to do so!
People can be controlled by the hypnotherapist
If only that were true! Everyone who half-heartedly attended a stop smoking session because their wife had sent them would now be a non-smoker. People with weight issues would all be saying no to a second piece of cake or extra cream on their pudding. Hypnotherapists can’t place post-hypnotic suggestions that will make people do anything that they (the client) don’t want to do.
People don’t remember anything about the session
It’s not like being asleep. In fact, some people have a heightened sense of awareness, concentration, and focus during a trance session. And do remember every detail. Other people remember only part of the session. It depends.
People can get stuck in a trance
This has been used as a defence in court – it was thrown out! No-one can be stuck in trance, because people can pull themselves out of a trance whenever they want to.
People tell the therapist their innermost secrets
People may very well disclose personal information, but that will be part of the conversational therapy and will be because they decide that’s what they want to do. It won’t be something they’ll be forced to do.
Hypnotherapy can cure people in one session
Sometimes this is true. A stop-smoking session (or, as I like to call it, a becoming a non-smoker session) is usually a single two-hour session. For most things (phobias, anxiety, weight control, etc), more than a single session is needed.
So goodbye myths about the brain and hypnotherapy. Welcome neuro-scientific facts.
Written by Trevor Eddolls, Solution Focused Hypnotherapist, Specialist Trainer and NCH Supervisor.
