Hypnotherapy is used to speak directly to a person's unconscious mind in order to remove unwanted behaviors and install new, healthier ones.  The term hypnotherapy is sometimes met with resistance or sarcasm due mainly to stage hypnotists performing for entertainment.  There is often a roadblock for people to accept that hypnotherapy is actually used as an excellent therapeutic tool in the treatment of many illnesses and diseases, along with habitual behavior.  The main premise behind hypnotherapy is to get a subject as comfortable as possible allowing for minimal resistance to the practitioner's suggestions leading to better health or a goal that has been established.  A big misconception is that people lose control while in a hypnotic trance and this is completely not true.  At no time is a person under the control of anyone other themselves.  Also, a person cannot be made to do anything under hypnosis that they wouldn't already do in a wakened state on their own.  

Hypnotherapy can be used to get to the root cause of a person's limiting belief about a situation.  By removing all distractions and increasing awareness and focus on a particular subject, a person can recall practically anything with the use of their own unconscious mind if they have experienced it sometime in their life.