Hypnosis is not magic of any kind. Clinical hypnosis consists of teaching you how to quiet your mind and listen in closely on the signals that your mind and body are giving you. By focusing in closely on breathing, listening, feeling and visualizing, you can be taught to control your reactions to common stressors. There have been many, many studies documenting the effectiveness of hypnosis in reducing addictive behavior and phobias, increasing learning and performance and reducing pain and worrying and losing weight.
Many people have only seen or heard of hypnosis through television programs that use hypnosis for entertainment. That is not at all the domain of clinical hypnosis, which is guided by ethical and scientific principals of behavior change. Most people will worry that they will not be in control of their conscious behavior. Clinical hypnosis is not aimed at taking away control but is aimed at giving you even more control of your behavior especially in difficult situations.
Most people will also then say that they don't think they can be hypnotized. They are usually happy to find that they can focus very deeply on the changes that they want. They are able to slow their breathing to gain control of asthma, to reduce high blood pressure and to lessen their experience of chronic pain.
Many users of hypnosis have been grateful to learn that they can reduce their use of medications and look forward to living with health conditions that had formerly dominated their lives.