MIND GAMES According to the article “Mind Games” by Henry and Melissa Billings, hypnosis is considered a treatment for several medical conditions. Before being considered a treatment, people believed it was a trick. Hypnosis has different definitions and opinions by experts. Also, hypnosis can be an effective and inexpensive tool for changing behavior, blocking pain, and jogging memories. The benefits of hypnosis are changing behaviors, blocking pain, and jogging memories. Hypnosis can help to change a behavior, such as smoking, but a person, who wanted to use hypnosis to quit smoking, must be motivated to give up the habit. One fact is that the success rate when hypnosis is use to get smokers to quit their habit for good is in one in every five quits, and this fact demonstrates how effective hypnosis is to help smokers to quit. Another benefit of hypnosis is that most experts agree the hypnotism can at least minimize surgical pain. An example of this is Victor Raush, who before having surgery hypnotized himself to reduce the pain. In hypnosis there are also negatives facts, one of them is that hypnosis has supporters and opponents, and this is confuse for people who doesn’t know anything about hypnosis, and this is why hypnosis was considered a trick long time ago. Most reference books define hypnosis as an altered state of consciousness, and other people define hypnosis as a state of repose. Another fact is that hypnosis is not for everyone. For example if someone wants to use hypnosis to quit smoking, this person must be Alex Castellon May 21, 2009 ELA 9 Ms. Porcaro Castellon – 2 - motivated to give up the habit. Finally, not even the majority of people believe that hypnosis can be used to relieve pain. The article “Mind Games” by Henry and Melissa had proved how hypnosis help people with several conditions such as changing behaviors, blocking pain, and jogging memories. This article also helped us to capture the negative and positive facts of hypnosis. In conclusion, hypnosis is not for everyone, everything depends in the patient who is taken the treatment of hypnosis. Alex Castellon