Quote from: SandraJane on August 07, 2011, 01:16:10 PM
Does this help with Gender Dysphoria?
Hypnosis helps with a lot of things, actually. But you have to really want it to work or else it won't work. Conceivably, you could use hypnosis to reduce dysphoria. The problem is that it just a temporary fix, like a bandaid. Since the source of dyshporia is being in the wrong body, hypnosis would really only have application to relieve dysphoria temporarily after you have already taken steps to correct the real source of dysphoria (being in the wrong body)
This is why hypnosis and conversion therapy are, for the most part, completely useless as solutions to GID. As powerful as hypnosis is when done properly, it is not as powerful as inherent subconscious traits. This is why you can't take an MtF and use hypnosis to convince them that they are really a man. The inherent thought of gender is more powerful than the implanted thought of being a man, so the hypnotically programmed thought will be rejected.
Of course, you can use brainwashing to convince someone that they are a man. But that still doesn't eliminate the thought of being female. That only disguises the thought of being female with a false idea which is usually held out of fear or shame. This is why conversion therapy is so dangerous. If someone thinks they want to be a man, but subconsciously they really don't, then conversion therapy will actually put them in a worse situation than they started. They will be in even more denial after the therapy, and have that much more wrong thinking to have to correct later when their inherent desire to be female becomes unbearable (which it inevitably will)
This isn't to say that conversion therapy can't work. There are probably men out there with false desires of being a woman. This could happen through several mechanisms. Hypnosis could be used to remove such false desires by replacing them with positive desires to be a man in the same way false desires can be implanted through brainwashing in the presence of negative emotions. But it is important to remember that there is no "conversion" going on. They would still be men, they would just be very confused men. The therapy would simply make them unconfused. Hypnosis can't make someone be or do something that they don't already want to do.
