Hypnosis House Call: A Complete Course in Mind-Body Healing

by Steven Gurgevich

Science is revealing the astounding powers of the human brain to reorganize itself according to the stimuli it receives. New research methods and state-of-theart technologies, including neuroimaging devices like functional MRIs and PET scans, allow us to look into the brain and see, in real time, exactly what happens when someone is meditating, imagining something, or responding to hypnotic suggestion. “What we have found is that the brain cannot tell the difference between what is real and what is only imagined,” says Dr. Steven Gurgevich, a licensed psychologist specializing in mind-body medicine, author, faculty member at the University of Arizona College of Medicine, and director of the Mind-Body Clinic within Dr. Andrew Weil’s Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine. “The brain responds as if the event were actually happening. When a person imagines a cat, the brain acts as if a cat were actually present. If a person is given a hypnotic suggestion that something painful is happening to her foot, the portion of the brain that senses pain in the foot ‘lights up,’ just as if the pain were real.”

Gurgevich shows exactly how it is possible for us to be proactive in our own healing by utilizing the power of self-hypnosis to physically reprogram the brain to unleash its amazing ability to heal our bodies. With a clinical hypnosis practice that spans nearly four decades, he is able to draw on real-life case studies to illustrate how stress and anxiety manifest in the body and the way that the subconscious, or the mind-body, expresses both our hidden problems and their solutions. “The subconscious is capable of magnificent healing,” he says, “particularly when we combine its inherent power with our own motivation, belief, and expectations.” Our thoughts literally create physical changes in the brain, and the brain initiates changes in the body, demonstrating the truth of the adage: “You are what you think.”

Gurgevich’s book gives readers the opportunity to learn medical selfhypnosis techniques from a master of the art. The accompanying two-hour DVD provides step-by-step instructions to hypnotic induction and offers a real “hypnosis house call” experience.