Category Archives: Tinnitus

He who has ears, let him hear! Hypnosystemic pastoral care and tinnitus

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Shortly before Christmas, on 19 December 2025, I completed my doctorate in philosophy (PhD) in Paderborn with my viva voce examination.

The dissertation was awarded a ‘magna cum laude’ grade.

The title of the thesis is ‘He who has ears, let him hear! Hypnosystemic pastoral care and tinnitus’.

The University of Paderborn has published it under doi: 10.17619/UNIPB/1-2450.

Here is a machine translation of my doctoral thesis:

He who has ears, let him hear!Download

For the thesis, I offered 27 test subjects 90 minutes of hypnosystemic treatment each; before and after, we took neurological, hearing, vocal and stress-related measurements.

After the treatment, 3 subjects experienced silence, all 27 subjects experienced quieter tinnitus, 26 experienced improved hearing abilities, all 27 experienced less emotional stress and 24 had a more resonant voice. Numerous direct correlations were found between the neurological (magnetoencephalographic) measurements, the tinnitus volume and the hearing threshold, as well as between the voice volume and the stress experienced (determined using heart rate variability measurement and a tinnitus questionnaire) and between the voice volume and the hearing threshold.

I was able to demonstrate that:

  • Tinnitus can be treated therapeutically and is potentially curable in terms of the perception of noise.
  • Tinnitus can be described and measured as a syndrome of neurological, auditory, vocal, muscular and stress-related symptoms.
  • Like many other health disorders, tinnitus can be treated effectively with words and non-verbal and paraverbal suggestions.
  • Pastoral care is physical care when it uses such words.
    Since Aristotle’s separation of body, soul and spirit cannot be the basis for a modern view of humanity in the age of psychosomatics, psychoneuroimmunology and epigenetics, the resulting separation of professions such as doctors, psychotherapists and pastoral carers (both male and female) must also be re-examined. There are obvious parallels between hypnosystemic treatment, in which words bring about physical healing, and the actions of Jesus, who treated physical, mental, social and spiritual healing as a unity, in which one condition determines and brings about the other.

I notice that a certain burden has been lifted from me now that everything is done. It’s nice to be able to end the old year this way. In the new year, I would like to publish the scientific findings I have gained as an article in a neuroscience journal. In 2027, the therapeutic essence of the work will be published as a specialist book. I signed the contract for this a few weeks ago.

I wish you all a confident, wonderful and healthy New Year!

Yours, Stefan

Könyörületesség (Mercifulness)

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I owe thanks for this story to Attila Mislai who translated it.

A zenéről volt szó.”A fülünk könyörületes.”, mondta a zongoratanárnő. „Nem azt hallja, amit valóban játszunk, hanem amit játszani szerettünk volna.” Sok-sok évet töltött diákok körében, volt ideje töprengeni a fül, az agy és a zene viszonya felett. „Könyörületes?, kérdeztem, „Hogy értsem ezt?” A tanárnő így felelt: „Amikor zenét hallgat, a közönség elsiklik az apró hibák felett, nem az előadó játékához, hanem a szándékaihoz igazodik. Tudatunkban hiánytalan, teljes dallamok születnek újjá. A tanár és a zenész a játékra figyel, de a közönség mindig a zenét hallja.

This story in English: https://www.stefanhammel.com/blog/2014/03/24/2678/

Милостив (Mercifulness)

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Говорихме за музика. „Ухото е милостиво“, каза тя. „То чува това, което е замислено, а не това, което всъщност се свири.“ Жената, която каза това, беше учителка по пиано. Беше преподавала на ученици в продължение на десетилетия и се беше замислила как ухото и мозъкът обработват музиката. „Ухото е милостиво“ – повторих аз. „Как искате да кажете това?“ Тя каза: „Когато слушаме музика като публика, тогава заличаваме грешките. Чуваме това, което се има предвид. Това, което пристига в съзнанието ни, е завършената мелодия. Изпълнителите и учителите обръщат внимание на грешките, но публиката чува музиката“.

Тази история на английски език (This story in English).

Merciful

На 27 и 28 октомври 2025 г. в София ще проведа семинар за терапевтично разказване на истории.

Повече информация можете да получите от Българската асоциация по хипноза и хипнотерапия (БАХХ).

С най-добри пожелания
Стефан

“Hammel Digital” – AI assistant for utilization and supervision

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I asked an AI developer to build me a chatbot with offers for therapeutic interventions based on my manual for therapeutic utilization, among other things.

The prototype has been refined and improved over the last few months.

You can find the AI assistant for Utilization and Supervision embedded in my

🔗 Blog.

If you feel like it, you can play around with it (e.g. ask: “my client suffers from moth phobia and tinnitus, how can I help her therapeutically / do you have a story I can tell her) and write me what positive / negative experiences you have had with it and what you think should be improved.

The AI also works if you speak to him in other languages.

I look forward to your feedback 📧.

Your Stefan

Everything Else

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In a land in our time there lived a man, who read a book and found lots of wonderful stories therein. There were true and invented stories, experienced and pensive, enjoyable and painful stories. There were stories which contained stories, and such which were actually not stories. For every story he read, there occurred to him nearly five which he had either experienced or thought up himself. So the thought came to him, that a lot in the world was a story which could be healing for himself and others; he only needed to absorb the healing stories well and to forget the terrible ones immediately. Then he would learn which story he had used when and for what. So he organised his own stories which he knew, and which had become a help to himself and others, or could become so. Sometimes he noted it down when a new story came to his ears and sometimes when a helpful story occurred to him, he memorised it.

Then he saw before him in a picture the storystories of this life arranged in long shelves, as in a large pharmacy. And behind the counter there sat a man who had learnt to listen to himself and others. He was a master of his subjectspecialty. His talent was that he understood how to tell the right thing at the right time to himself and to those who visited him.

Merciful

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We talked about music. “The ear is merciful”, she said. “It hears what is meant, and not what is actually played.” The woman who said this was a piano teacher. She had taught pupils for decades and had thought about how ear and brain process the music. “The ear is merciful”, I repeated. “How do you mean that?” She said: “When we hear music as an audience, then we blot out the mistakes. We hear what is meant. What arrives in our consciousness is the complete melody. The artists and teachers pay attention to the mistakes, but the audience hears the music.”

Volume Control

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She loved going to the disco. When her parents picked her up, they wondered each time: “How can you bear it with that noise?” But she knew: the music is only loud at the beginning. Soon the music is no longer loud. The ear adjusts the volume accordingly. In bed in the evenings she loved to listen to the radio, turned down low. Okay, her parents had forbidden it when she had school the next day, but she turned the volume down so low that even she hardly heard anything. She knew: the music is only low at the beginning. Soon, quiet is no longer quiet. She can turn the radio down many more times, and she still hears everything. The ear adjusts the volume accordingly.