Mind-Body Medicine

As an osteopath, Dr. Nally was trained with the mind-body-spirit ethos at the forefront of training. He has spent his career focused on treating the “whole” patient. After practicing medicine for over twenty years, one comes to recognize that you cannot treat the body without understanding the contribution and health of the mind and spirit.

There is no question that to the uninitiated, there is often something mysterious about mind-body medicine. In truth, the relationship of the mind to the body is no more mysterious than the relationship of the heart to the circulation of the blood, or that of any other organ to the workings of the human body.

Contrary to what is portrayed in movies, TV, media and on the stage, hypnosis is a natural state of mind. Each of us pass through the stages of hypnosis or trance as we fall to sleep and wake from sleep daily. As hypnosis is a natural state of mind, there is nothing unnatural about hypnosis and there is nothing supernatural about it.

Hypnosis can be used to allow the individuals conscious mind to communicate with the subconscious mind while in an extraordinary state of mental, physical and emotional relaxation. During hypnosis, the individuals sensory awareness including hearing, touch and memory are heightened and selectively focused. Everything that occurs during a session of hypnosis will be remembered by the person in trance.

Because most of our habits, cravings, appetite and emotional responses are governed by the subconscious mind, the use of guided hypnosis by someone clinically trained in helping you to access behavioral change is profoundly effective. There is a great deal of research demonstrating the effectiveness of hypnotherapy with weight management, obesity, smoking cessation, stress management, anger management, pain control, fear & athletic performance.

History of Hypnotherapy

At the turn of the 20th century the study and treatment of mind-body disorders was recognized by many medical professionals as a very promising and important frontier of medicine. Then, in the mid 1950’s, almost overnight, the American Medical Community took a wrong turn and simply abandoned its interest in psychosomatic or mind-body medicine. There are a number of reasons for this, many of them scandalous in nature, but the important thing to understand is that the direct result of turning its back on this vital part of medicine, the medical profession has spawned epidemics of pain and other common disorders affecting the lives of millions of Americans.

Why Hypnotherapy in Family Medicine/Obesity Medicine?

After 22 years of medical practice, and treating thousands of people suffering from these common, but often mysterious, conditions associated with bodily pain in the back, neck, trunk and limbs, Dr. Nally came to recognize the psychosomatic or mind-body nature of these diseases and began identifying and applying effective treatments for them.

The approach to mind-body medicine is not one of an armchair deduction, but is the result of years of experience with thousands of patients, reinforced by the findings of highly trained psychotherapists, hypnotherapists and the pioneering work of physicians from around the world who have successfully treated a very high percentage of patients with these conditions.

New patients will commonly enter our office with a familiar litany of sufferings and real pain, all of which have never cleared up, or from which they have only gained partial improvement or healing:

Chronic back back of mysterious origins
Sciatica
Migraine Headaches
Acid Reflux
Irritable Bowel
Ulcers
Skin Disorders
Allergies
Auto-Immune Disorders
Carpal Tunnel
Fibromyalgia
Tension Myositis Syndrome
the list goes on . . .

For example, let’s say a person has persistent “worry” in his or her “intelligence,” “spirit mind” or “super-ego” (which-ever of these terms you want to use). That worry stimulates the imagination and memory (the “ego”) to produce electrical frequencies that trigger the release of neuro-peptides (serotonin and dopamine) in the brain (the “id”), triggering the autonomic nervous system and the nerves of the brainstem. Worry triggers the part of the brain that effects the T5-9 region of the spinal cord that innervates the stomach. This changes the stomach lining speed of growth and the pH of acid that allows for over growth of Helicobacter Pylori (H Pylori bacteria) causing the stomach ulcer. This can be treated by antibiotics for the bacteria, acid blockers at the stomach level, chiropractic or osteopathic manipulation treatment at the T5-9 level, stomach meridians can be treated with acupuncture or acupressure, anti-depressants are used to treat this at the brain level, and/or changing the broken thought processes that has been causing the chronic worry through hypnotherapy.

How Does Hypnotherapy Help Mind-Body Disorders?

Your subconscious mind is always eves-dropping on your conscious conversations and verbalization. If you frequently verbalize negative things at the same time you are feeling powerful emotions, memory records it in your subconscious mind. Self-worth is lifted or depressed by the subconscious mind’s rumination and re-enforcement when scanning and reviewing these stored memories. Because memories are recorded by attachment via neurohormones, you will frequently feel anxiety, fear, panic, doubt if those emotions were predominant at the time you stored your memories. The statement “as a man thinketh, so is he” holds more meaning because we become the things that we most frequently verbalize and feel.

First, it is essential to understand that everything we have ever seen, smelled, touched, heard, said and viewed has been stored in the subconscious mind. This record of memory can all be accessed through the subconscious mind in every single person.

Second, memories are tied to emotions. Emotions trigger our actions both consciously and subconsciously, both in physical action and in automatic responses of heart rate, breathing and hormone release. Essentially, we think it – we feel it – we do it.

The autonomic nervous system is the connection between our conscious/subconscious mind and our body. Emotions have electrical energy at the level of the brain and trigger hormones called peptides that act as the molecules of communication between our subconscious mind and our body.

There are two categories of mind-body disorders:

Those directly induced by unconscious though patterns and emotions.
Those indirectly or partially induced by unconscious emotions.

Dr. Nally and the hypnotherapist that he uses facilitate health improvement by challenging and changing thought patterns in the conscious and subconscious mind. Behavior is altered by working with though processes in both aspects of the mind, thereby resetting the autonomic nervous systems ability to balance peptides and neuropeptides affecting behavior and the patterns of disease listed above.

Experience has suggested that only 20% of people with a mind-body disorders are able to accept the fact that their symptoms are emotional in origin. And, many are downright hostile to the idea. Though there are large numbers who seek psychotherapy and psychoanalysis , it is a small percentage compared to the whole population. The majority would rather accept a “quick fix” and are willing to take anxiolytics, antidepressants or other psychoactive drugs.

Mind-Body Medicine All But Lost

Because none of the current treatment available in mainstream medicine actually address the thinking disorders found in the subconscious mind, they often end up seeking treatment in our office after they have tried and failed all the mainstream approaches above.

The legendary Sir William Osler once remarked that one was more likely to learn about the course of tuberculosis by looking into the patient’s head than in his chest. In the last sixty years, psychosomatic symptoms involving other body systems (i.e. – gastrointestinal, genitourinary, dermatologic) are usually treated with medicine, diet and so on. Unfortunately, doctors of all kinds in the last twenty years appear to be constitutionally incapable of attributing physical symptoms to emotions. This is a dramatic change from medial attitudes and practices in the first half of the 20th century.

Why the change? There are may reasons. Among the most predominant are that medical research has become dramatically more laboratory oriented in the last fifty years. Emotional contribution to disease has been widely ignored in the last 50-60 years. And, contemporary medicine has been preoccupied with studying genetic aberrations, genetic risks and the drugs associated with changing it.

Why Hypnosis?

The ability for a person to access the subconscious mind and to address aberrant thinking errors attached to powerful emotions confers advantages that cannot be acquired through any other medical medium. Wholeness of the mind, body and spirit are ultimately the goal. Hypnotherapy changes fragmented, unhappy people into integrated, happy people by simply helping people to identify and repair the broken subconscious thought patterns that can occur in all of our day to day lives.

Hypnotherapy Services & Pricing

Hypnotherapy services are not currently covered by insurance companies. Treatment can generally be completed in 2- 6 one hour sessions.

One-on-One Therapy Session with Dr. Nally – $300 per hour
Therapy Session with Certified Hypnotherapy Staff – $150 per hour.

Talk to Dr. Nally’s staff regarding special package pricing.

Hypnotherapy Enrollment

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