About Treating Schizophrenia with Hypnotherapy

We’d like to preface this blog article by saying that schizophrenia is a severe mental health disorder requiring psychiatric care, and we work closely with our clients to ensure Miami Hypnosis and Therapy is the best fit for each person’s individual goals. The below information is meant for informational purposes only. Please reach out to us for your initial consultation to learn whether or not hypnotherapy would benefit your own treatment plan.

Whether you’re looking for support for yourself or a loved one living with schizophrenia, there are several treatment options for schizophrenia, the most common being psychiatric care with medication and ongoing psychotherapy, whether at in-patient or out-patient clinics. For some people managing schizophrenia, hypnosis and schizophrenia may be an effective supportive therapy. Therapy for schizophrenia can be helpful for many clients, but has also its share of concerns for those contending with more severe forms of this disorder. Please consult with your primary care provider and psychiatrist before adding to your existing treatment plan.

From traditional talk therapy to cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) to hypnotherapy, there are several options that can help you or your loved ones navigate negative symptoms of schizophrenia. This holistic approach isn’t the most common, and may be contraindicated for those managing psychosis, but more and more individuals are seeking the help of a trained professional to transform their lives by treating schizophrenia with this treatment plan.

Overview of Schizophrenia

The symptoms of schizophrenia range in severity for everyone. Common symptoms that someone living with schizophrenia might experience include delusional thought processes, disorganized behavior, thinking, or speech, and decreased emotive capabilities. Severe cases also may involve audio and/or visual hallucinations, which, as mentioned above, may be a sign that hypnotherapy and other alternative treatments are not the best fit.

Whether you’re the one experiencing these negative impacts because you have schizophrenia or someone you care about has it, the toll it takes is immense. These intense episodes and potential impacts are just one of the reasons treatment is key for those affected by the mental disorder.

There are several supportive therapy options for treating schizophrenia that can help you or your loved one manage the symptoms and provide a higher quality of life for those affected by it.

Hypnosis and Mental Healthcare

The use of hypnosis in the mental healthcare community is a hot topic of conversation for a lot of people. This holistic approach to mental healthcare has proven to be beneficial for many patients dealing with various medical conditions, including schizophrenia.

Psychotherapists have been using hypnosis therapy to help address the negative thoughts and behaviors that an individual is experiencing while they’re in a trance-like state. This is also commonly referred to as a dream-like state.

Hypnosis has been proven to help individuals who are addicted to cigarettes stop smoking, change eating habits, and assist with relieving anxiety caused by phobias. A psychotherapist licensed in hypnotherapy guides their client into a relaxed state, creating space for heightened awareness in a supportive environment. Once that state has been established, a hypnotherapist will guide their client to reframe negative thoughts and beliefs into positive and productive ways of thinking, tapping into the power of cognitive behavioral therapy while doing so.

How Hypnotherapy Can Treat Schizophrenia – And Acknowledging Risks

Treating schizophrenia with hypnotherapy can provide tools to navigate negative thoughts and behaviors, which otherwise can cause serious episodes that affect the individual’s life and overall well-being. Many people believe that hypnosis and schizophrenia go hand in hand because of the success others have seen with the treatment, but as we have been discussing, deeper states of psychosis or severe schizophrenic episodes do make hypnotherapy more of a risk.

With those risks in mind, we are pleased that research continues to show positive benefits for this treatment option. Research shows that hypnotherapy can be beneficial in treating those with general anxiety disorder. This relates to schizophrenia because evidence shows that up to 65% of individuals with schizophrenia have anxiety symptoms and even reach the diagnosis threshold for anxiety disorder.

Many individuals with schizophrenia have episodes due to a trigger, which is often anxiety-related. Hypnotherapy can help treat negative thoughts that can trigger episodes or intense symptoms of the mental disorder.

It’s important to remember that while hypnotherapy schizophrenia treatment has been proven to help treat schizophrenia, everyone is different.

The Best Way to Utilize Hypnosis for Schizophrenia

With roughly 24 million people being affected by this mental disorder, finding adequate treatment has been at the forefront of many mental healthcare professionals. Like other mental disorders, treating schizophrenia requires a deep understanding of the illness and working side-by-side psychiatrists, primary care providers, clients’ families or caregivers, and more.

The most common treatment for schizophrenia is a combination of antipsychotics and other medications, but anywhere from 5-15% of individuals still have symptoms despite taking their medication. Since schizophrenia has no cure, managing the disease is vital to the health and well-being of the person it’s affecting. That’s why hypnosis and schizophrenia continue to be explored as a tool to navigate the condition.

Treating schizophrenia requires finding the right combination of medication and psychotherapy.
Antipsychotics and other medications are more capable of controlling positive symptoms than negative symptoms. Hypnotherapy, through suggestions in the dream-like state, may reduce the side effects and symptoms of negative symptoms those living with schizophrenia can experience. Therefore, combining both is the best way for people to utilize hypnosis as a treatment.

Transform Today

When it comes to your health, the body and mind are connected. While psychiatric treatment is vital to helping schizophrenia, hypnotherapy can be beneficial in conjunction with this line of treatment. If you or someone you love is living with this intense mental disorder, hypnotherapy schizophrenia treatment could be what helps bring balance to negative symptoms. That being said, it’s no substitute for treatment from a psychiatric or primary care physician.

At Miami Hypnosis and Therapy, we offer hypnosis, NLP, and CBT therapies to create a unique approach for your concerns. We have a highly qualified and fully accredited team ready to help you feel your best. Our primary practitioner, Anna Marchenko, LMHC, M.A., ED.M, is passionate about treating schizophrenia and holds degrees from NYU and Columbia University.

If you’re ready to learn how hypnotherapy may support your mental health goals, schedule a phone consultation with us to get started.