September 22nd, 2010

Have you experienced a thought that just won’t go away?

You know, one of those thoughts that goes round and round in your head. The more you try not to think about it, the bigger it gets. Maybe you find yourself replaying a conversation that you felt went badly with someone, over and over again, or rehearsing a conversation that you want to have.

Sometimes the thought forms a kind of monologue. Some schools of psychotherapy might call it an internal script and suggest that it can be helpful to recognise whether the script reminds us of someone we know – a parent, perhaps, or an ex-partner. We can easily internalise the words or ideas of people around us when we hear them say something often enough. It’s a kind of learned script, a sort of habit. It can begin to shape the way that we represent the world outside us – events, experiences, arguments, conversations – to ourselves inside our own minds.

It can be very revealing to slow down and begin to notice consciously the conversations or ‘voices’ or internal thoughts that are going on daily inside our minds. It can also be helpful to begin to ask ourselves whether those voices or thoughts have a certain kind of tone or remind us of someone we know. But then what?

What do we do next?

Sometimes it might be tempting to think that we need to get rid of those unhelpful scripts/voices/thoughts. But is that really possible?

In my own experience, both of working on my own internal critical scripts and of working with clients, it perhaps isn’t helpful to think of never having one of those unhelpful thoughts ever again. In fact, the desire to rid ourselves of such thoughts might throw us back into feelings of guilt or shame about even having them in the first place.

What seems more important and helpful is how much importance we give to the thoughts. Saying to yourself ‘It’s just a thought’ might be more helpful than worrying about how to get rid of it.

Remembering and reminding ourselves that the thought has no power over us unless we choose to give it some kind of value seems to help the thought to dissolve.

In other words, our internal thoughts can be ‘hypnotic’ – but only if we allow them to be.

If you think about it, when you try really hard to get to sleep, you’ll probably find yorself achieving the opposite effect. When you try really hard to stop giggling in a lecture theatre or business meeting, you probably find it quite hard to stop.

Hypnotherapy  has a long tradition of talking about this relationship between the conscious will and the unconscious imagination. Emile Coue’s theory of auto-suggestion and Milton Erickson’s ‘indirect’ model each recognise that trying to do something usually brings your conscious will and your unconscous imagination into conflict. A kind of resistance is created to the outcome that you want to achieve.

One method to experiment with when you notice yourself having an unhelpful thought is to take a nice deep slow breath, letting your shoulders soften, your stomach gently expand, hold it for a moment and then breathe out, listening to your breath leaving your body. Thinking about something whilst cultivating a relaxed kind of focus seems to help the thought to become less important or troublesome.

As you continue to cultivate this relaxed focus, say to yourself, ‘It’s just a thought. It’s just a thought.’

It might even be helpful to make a kind of internal gesture in a way that feels helpful to you, such as brushing the thought gently away or watching it dissolve.

Hypnotherapeutic techniques such as creative visualisation, repeated regularly, can bring a calm, relaxed quality of acceptance and kindness to the experience of any previously troubling thoughts or scripts.

Over time,  you might also begin to notice that such thoughts happen more often when you’re feeling tired or in a certain context. In fact, your unhelpful thoughts or voices can even become friends to you, offering useful signals e.g. that you need to rest or that a certain person or situation is unhelpful to you.

We probably don’t need to get rid of our unhelpful thoughts but, by noticing them and accepting them for what they are – just thoughts – we can help ourselves to live more easily with them.

Tags: CBT, cognitive therapy, Coue, Hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis, Milton Erickson
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September 13th, 2010

I was at the cinema on Friday night with my sister and found myself responding with frustration to one of the ads (for a Muller yoghurt, I think… or some such yoghurt-based product).

You might have seen the advert I’m thinking about. It starts with a rather beautiful cow, standing on an empty beach, and the voice over says ‘This is Molly. She’s always dreamed of being a horse.’

(Or the cow might be called Mary – I can’t remember.) The point is that this is such a hypnotic concept, isn’t it? A cow that has always dreamed of being a horse.

Just the idea of this cow having an inner world that might be rather like our human one, with dreams and longings and aspirations, is powerfully hypnotic. It gets our attention and we start translating that experience into our own wanting and yearning and longing and what that might mean for us.

And then Molly, or Mary, begins to canter along the beach, her hooves splashing through the shallow water, her body rippling, her udders swinging, whilst the soundtrack surges to something that stirs our own sense that, hey, perhaps we too could do anything we dream of… (And also, isn’t it a bit funny too? What do we ourselves  dream of that is a bit funny or even ridiculous?)

And all that is going on beautifully, we’re engaging with it all and then…

WHAM! The voice over starts talking about other stuff, starts spelling out to us what is going on and what might actually happen and telling us what to think. The camera cuts to a girl with beautiful red hair and a far-off expression who just happens to be poised perfectly on a rock eating a spoonful of yoghurt.

At this point, for me, the ad’s hypnotic effect just ebbs away. I’m being told what to think. It’s overdone. It’s ruined.

I sat in the cinema thinking, ‘Why didn’t you just leave us with this delightful Molly (or Mary) cantering on the beach? Why did you overcomplicate it?’

And the flow of my own thoughts began to move to how true this is of life in general, of what I do as a therapist, making use of hypnosis and hypnotic principles, to help people to experience changes in their own inner states and private worlds.

I know that if I try to do too much in a session, it won’t be as effective as if I keep things simple.

I meet people from time to time who seem very pleased and proud that they know sixteen different NLP techniques for a phobia ‘cure’ (and how I hate that word ‘cure,’ as if there is something ‘wrong’ with the person in the first place, which they have to be somehow ‘cured’ from rather than just some unhelpful habit or way of thinking they’ve got into that it might be helpful for them to unlearn).

Yes, we may know five techniques for helping people to see things from a different point of view but, probably, we only need one – and that is the one that is right for that particular client at that particular time.

You know, I think it is so easy to overlook sometimes that the most powerful and effective ways of working with our clients might often be the simplest.

For example, you could use an all-singing, all-dancing method with all kinds of complicated visualisations for helping someone to let go of their spider phobia but, first of all, why not just take them through a very simple desensitisation process and find out what happens?

And, even more hypnotically, why not allow them to really own that process as their process rather than showing-off your language patterns and your fifteen complicated techniques?

And I think that if we have a a cow-who-wants-to-be-a-horse for a client, we need to help them to check out whether wanting to be a horse is the most helpful wanting that they can be doing right now. And, if it isn’t, why not help them to find the experience that is most helpful for them, right here, in the here and now, and how they can begin to connect with that and allow it? In their way, a way that makes sense to them.

Then we need to get out of their way.

Oh, but eat lots of yoghurt too. It’s supposed to be good for you.

Tags: hypnosis and advertising, Hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis, hypnotic, self-hypnosis
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April 14th, 2010

The range of what we think and do
is limited by what we fail to notice.
And because we fail to notice
that we fail to notice
there is little we can do
to change
until we notice
how failing to notice
shapes our thoughts and deeds.

R D Laing

This, from one of the most influential psychotherapists of the 20th century, merits further reflection, I think.

When we slow down enough to notice, to become more consciously aware of, a feeling or a response and how we are doing that response, we can begin to let go of it or enhance it, do more or less of it, depending upon the effects that we now notice it has on our well-being.

So much of what I do as a hypnotherapist is about helping people to notice, right now, how they’re doing this thought, this feeling.

What is that film you’re running inside your mind, right now, and what effect is it having on the way you live your life?

Sometimes your body is desperately trying to tell you something. When you slow down enough to notice – not just with your head but with your body and your breathing – what is happening for you and how you’re doing that response, it is so much easier to begin to recognise what is helpful and what is unhelpful to you.

It can be interesting, surprising – and fun – to notice, with a kind curiosity towards yourself, what you’re doing in any one moment.

You may want to spend the next hour or so just experimenting with that and notice what you notice.

Tags: Hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis, R D Laing, self-hypnosis
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April 12th, 2010

I have spent the last few days researching venues for a very exciting new project that I’m involved in – a Hypnotherapy Practitioner Diploma that is coming to York in 2011.

Together with my colleague, the incredibly talented hypnotherapist and trainer,  Adam Eason, I’ll be offering an intensive 18-day training throughout February and July 2011 in my beautiful home town of York.

Adam and I are both very excited about working together to offer people this unique opportunity to gain all the skills and knowledge necessary to become fully qualified and accredited Clinical Hypnotherapists. It is going to be fabulous to work together in this way, combining our approaches to equip people with the latest evidence-based skills and practices in this field that we are both so passionate about.

You’ll train with us in February, go away and deveop your skills with our guidance and then return in July for further in-depth training.

More details to be released over the next couple of weeks. Watch this space – or in the meantime drop me a line if you want to be the first to find out more.

Tags: Hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis, hypnotherapy training diploma
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March 12th, 2010

Last night, I was listening to music whilst cooking Tom one of his favourite suppers. (For any foodies out there, it involves chestnuts and Savoy cabbage and it is really a lot more delicious than that actually sounds…)

As I blanched, chopped and stir-fried, I stuck my iPod in our speaker-gadget thingie (technical term) and whacked up the volume. It wasn’t long before I was dancing around the kitchen to tunes I hadn’t heard in a very long time: Morcheeba, Moloko, Goldfrapp and one of my all-time favourites, ‘Instant Pleasure,’ by Rufus Wainwright.

I had my music on the shuffle setting and tracks popped up that I hadn’t listened to in a couple of years. It was very interesting to me that, as each song came on, images from the past would pop into my mind.

Some of the songs were powerfully associated for me with the last long hot summer I spent living in London; others revivified for me the experience of driving around in Tom’s car through the Yorkshire countryside in the first months after we met.

It reminded me of just how powerful music is for me in inducing these trance phenomena. To be more specific about it, you might say that music has the ability to trigger a series of age regressions in which I revisit specific scenes and feel in my body some of what I felt back then combined, in a particularly potent way, with my emotions about remembering those scenes from my past.

Fragrances and scents do that for me too:  the smell of old books with a certain kind of paper can regress me right back to particular moments from my childhood; the smell of a cocoa butter body lotion I like to use still carries with it a memory of my first holiday in France. I am leaning out of the window of an old house on the coast, looking at the sun making long shadows between the olive trees, stretching my arms above my head.

Of course, I have cultivated that particular association, perhaps deepened it over the years, because I enjoy experiencing it so much. I can still connect with the sense of excitement, of my life opening for me, that I felt as a thirteen-year-old in France and I want to reconnect with that feeling, from time to time.

The iPod-induced trance phenomena I experienced last night was a powerful reminder of the ability of our minds to create these associations. Sometimes it is extremely pleasurable to revivify and reconstruct the happy, life-enhancing memories and experiences that nurture deep parts of our selves.

You know, I think that sometimes, as hypnotherapists, we can easily forget that spontaneous regression as a phenomenon doesn’t have to be difficult or unhelpful. We might spend a lot of time working with people who need help in stopping the unhelpful regression to and endless reconstruction of incidents and events in their past that are troubling them in some way.

And yet there are all kinds of powerful positive memories and associations that we can draw upon as resources to help us to strengthen aspects of our selves.

I don’t think that’s what Rufus Wainwright actually means when he sings about, (ahem!) ‘Instant Pleasure,’ but it works for me.

Tags: age regression, hypnosis, Hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis, instant pleasure, music, regression, Rufus Wainwright, trance phenomena
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February 22nd, 2010

Every Monday, I address a common myth around hypnosis and hypnotherapy…

I feel I need to warn you. This myth is a Big Myth. In fact, this myth is so pervasive in the world of therapy, hypnotherapy and hypnosis that perhaps it should carry a health warning.

I mean that seriously.

The problem, as I have come to understand it, is that there are many therapists out there – working in many different disciplines – who will tell you that it is necessary to understand why you feel the way you do in order to feel better. Let’s call this myth the Big Myth of Why.

But first, let me ask you something. Are there things going on for you right now that you understand perfectly well – and perhaps you may even have had a couple of years of soul-searching and/or therapy to understand where those feelings come from and you have a very good intellectual understanding of these problems – and yet you still seem to be experiencing them, all the same?

I meet people every day who have an incredibly finely honed and articulate understanding of the history of their problems. They have spent years thinking about it and analysing it. They can understand why that something is happening and yet the why doesn’t necessarily help them to change the behaviours, habits, emotions and responses that they want to let go of. The why doesn’t necessarily change anything.

My feeling is that ‘why ‘doesn’t serve us particularly well when we want to make changes in our lives.

And, indeed, I have met people who are on a search for why. They are on a big mission of why. They are making why their life’s work. Their internal script goes, ‘If I can just understand why this is happening, I will feel better…’ and they have been trying to understand why for the last two or twelve or twenty years. And this trying to understand why has become a painful and tortuous journey in which they find themselves feeling worse than when they started. Maybe they are now obsessed with the idea of wanting to know why or caught up in endless rumination and questioning that is creating a lot of anxiety and feelings of somehow not being good enough.

And this search for why brings them to the consulting room of a hypnotherapist. Because the Big Myth of Why says that a hypnotherapist can go inside your mind and discover why. A hypnotherapist can regress you to the exact time and place in your life where the problem started – and then you will know and then you will feel better. Right?

Well, erm, actually, not necessarily. In fact, probably not.

It’s a seductive notion, this concept of ‘deep underlying causes’ for our problems and issues. If we could neatly pin it down to one formative event – for example, the day our primary teacher told us off in front of the class for getting a word wrong and then we suddenly became unable to read aloud in front of others -  that might certainly be very convenient. But is this a little over-reductive?

Problem One: Now, I am not saying that some issues that people experience do not carry with them the resonances and echoes of prevous experiences. Of course, they can do. Over the years, we can form beliefs about ourselves as the result of our experiences, the things we hear around us,  our interactions with significant others, for example.

However, fears, problems, phobias and habits tend to fade away over time unless we are actively keeping them fuelled with our own thoughts and worries and beliefs and the way that we talk to ourselves inside our minds.

So our primary school teacher may have introduced us to the notion of fear – but that is only part of the story.We have somehow kept the fear going. In order to let go of the fear, we need to understand how we are still doing it to ourselves twenty-five years later, so that we can start to change things.

Problem Two: Even if a hypnotherapist can help us to indentify the so-called ‘root cause’ of a particular issue, this doesn’t mean that it actually happened  or happened in the way that we experience it now in hypnosis.

We still do not sufficiently understand the way that memory works, for example, but it is thought that, in order to experience a memory, our brains need to go back and reimagine or recreate that memory in order for us to experience it again. And we may not recreate it in exactly the way that it actually happened.

Have you ever experienced a situation that really didn’t bother you until you began to go over and over it in your head and it gradually assumed all the proportions and details and colours of a horror story? That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about.

In a similar way, dreams and fantasies can be re-imaginings and re-workings of what we have experienced in the day. And although our dreams can feel very ‘real’ to us when they are happening, we wouldn’t dream of supposing that they are representations of truth.

We can’t be sure that how people experience things in hypnosis is how things actually happened either. There may be a feeling-tone, a sensory theme of the hypnotic experience that carries emotions and  memories and associations from way back. But things can get a little blurry and what actully happened and how we re-experience it can get a little mixed-up.

But what really concerns me about the Big Myth that goes, ‘there must be an underlying cause somewhere in a person’s past for the problems and challenges that s/he might be facing in the present,’ is that this assumption can result in long (and often expensive) periods of fruitless searching, over-thinking, rumination and anxiety.

If you’re asking yourself why something is happening for you, a well-trained hypnotherapist can help you to understand how you are doing that thing in the present and what you can do differently to change it as well as any possible emotions, associations and habits you’ve been carrying from the past.

So, I think this is good news. Because if it’s possible that there is no why,  no single pin-downable ’cause’ for what you are feeling, then you may simply have been looking in the wrong direction. The search for why may have been holding you back from becoming more consciously aware of how you can do the problem differently.

Tags: hypnosis, Hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis, regression, underying cause
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February 15th, 2010

Every Monday, I’m going to be addressing a common myth around hypnosis and hypnotherapy…

This week, let’s look at the one that goes: ‘Hypnosis is weird/ scary/ mystical/ mind-control/ utter hippy nonsense/ what that bloke off the telly does/ brain-washing/ something you do to me to fix my head  *

* or a combination of the above.

Firstly, I want to let you into a secret. Noone knows exactly what hypnosis is. Nope. Hypnotherapists don’t know what hypnosis actually is, and neither do researchers looking at people’s brains whilst in this apparent state of hypnosis with MRI scans and other neuroimaging techniques.

In MRI scans, we can see parts of the brain either ‘light up’ or get ‘turned off’ when people are apparently in hypnosis. Here is an example of the kind of research into hypnosis that neuroimaging is making possible, carried out by Amir Raz, who wanted to look at how hypnotic suggestions might affect the regulation of pain in the brain. This particular research gives us fascinating data about how hypnotic suggestions ‘turn off’ the area of the brain known as the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), which would normally get activated when performing certain tasks. It has many interesting possibilities for further research and application.

But it still doesn’t really tell us what hypnosis actually is.

The question of whether hypnosis is an actual state of attention (state theory) or a set of beliefs, attitudes and expectations (non-state theory) is hotly contested in the field of hypnotherapy and hypnosis. In fact, you will find people arguing about it all over the internet.

The state theory maintains that hypnosis is an actual change in the quality of our attention and awareness, a kind of experiential shift or hypnotic ‘trance’ state that is often described by people in terms of changes in temporal and spatial awareness (‘My body feels so heavy,’ ‘My hands feel so huge’ or ‘Has that really been half an hour? It felt like ten minutes’).

The non-state theory of hypnosis claims that there is no such thing as this altered state of awareness or hypnotic ‘trance’ and that the effects of hypnosis can be explained by the motivation, cognitive set and expectation of the person being hypnotised and the way that he or she is prepared to work towards a therapeutic goal.

You will notice that, so far, there has been no mention in either of these theories of a sleep-like or unconscious state, nor of vaudevillian stunts. Contrary to popular misconception – and I do still meet people who think of hypnosis in this way – hypnosis is not like being asleep or unconscious. It is not something that a hypnotist or therapist does to you.

In hypnotherapy, the therapist does not go inside your mind and flick levers and switches or make things disappear or convince you that something you previously thought true is now suddenly untrue. (I don’t know about you but I would personally find that rather unnerving. I wouldn’t go anywhere near a hypnotherapist if I believed that s/he could do that to me!)

We know that hypnosis is something that you actively need to co-create with the therapist you choose to work with. The therapist guides you through the process of going into hypnosis (state theory) or you yourself create the mindset and beliefs within which the changes can happen (non-state theory) because you want to make the changes you want to make. Or a combination of these two.

To illustrate this more clearly, we know that if a person sits in the chair with their arms crossed and says, ‘Humph. Well you’re not going to put me under. You’re not going to hypnotise me, matey,’ well, then they are right. They will not be experiencing anything very soon except their own desire not to go into hypnosis. And maybe their own fear, which may be what is preventing them from making the changes in the first place.

So if we assume that most people seeking the help of a hypnotherapist actually want to make some changes in their lives, is hypnosis a state that therapists guide them into or a description of their set of beliefs and expectations that will make it possible for the therapist to work with them?

Personally, I think it is a combination of these two.

Many people who come to work with me are worried that they won’t be able to ‘do it right’ or relax sufficiently (see last Monday’ Myth-Busting) or go into hypnosis but, despite these fears and apprehensions, they learn exactly how to use the power of their minds and the power of self-hypnosis in helpful ways.

Whether you think that hypnosis is a weird (or mystical or in some way spiritual) state or non-state really depends upon your own set of beliefs around turning your attention inside yourself in a focused way. Some people think this is a very ordinary thing to do. For others, it is actually something quite special.

What I do know and continue to notice all the time in my own practice – both as a hypnotherapist and as someone who regularly uses self-hypnosis – is that it’s so easy to be carried away by the busy-ness of our everyday lives so that making time to direct our attention inwards in a focused way and really notice what we are feeling and thinking and how, in a sense, we are doing or creating or imagining our lives can feel strange, weird, pleasant, a relief or even slightly scary at first. It may be something we haven’t done for a long time.

When we begin to learn and understand how to do our lives and thoughts and internal experience in more helpful and progressive ways, I do personally think that is a very powerful experience. Learning to relax deeply or notice our thoughts or the way that our body feels in the midst of our busy-ness can be a kind of special or transformative experience.

There are some who would say that all our experiences are kinds of ‘trance state,’ either positive, neutral or negative, until we become consciously aware that we are doing them. So we find ourselves going into the trance of a particular relationship (he says that, she says that, you say that) or the trance of work (everything is so hard and it will never get any better) or the one about money (I need more and never seem to have enough and if only I had more my life would be so much better), for example.

Hypnosis, then, in this regard, is a kind of waking up from the trance of our everyday lives.

Tags: hypnosis, Hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis, hypnotic suggestibility, non-state theory, state theory, suggestion, trance
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February 11th, 2010

What do you think about when you think about ‘evidence’ in hypnotherapy? Or when you think about ‘evidence’ for any kind of clinical or theraputic intervention?

I think it’s an interesting and important question to ask.

Evidence can mean – and is often thought to mean, solely and entirely – the data gathered through third-person research and quantitative studies such as random controlled trials and systematic reviews. These are reviews that are largely designed to produce ‘objective,’ ‘third-person’ evidence. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: evidence, evidence in hypnotherapy, evidence-based practice, Hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis, research
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February 9th, 2010

One of the many reasons that I think I was so powerfully drawn to the kind of work that I do as a hypnotherapist is my interest in – or should I say passion for – metaphor.

Over the years, I have researched conceptual metaphor theory extensively and used it consciously and subconsciously in my own writing. I am fascinated by the way that we all use metaphor, every single day of our lives, to describe our experiences.

We have spatial metaphors: I feel so down today.

We have metaphors that suggest that we experience our body as a sort of container for our emotions: I was seething with anger. I thought I might explode.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: bed, hypnosis, Hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis, therapeutic metaphor
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February 8th, 2010

Every Monday, I’m going to be addressing a common myth around hypnosis and hypnotherapy…

Sometimes, when I’m working with new clients to gather information for the work we’re going to begin together, they will say something like: ‘I am worried that you won’t be able to hypnotise me because I just can’t relax.’

In other words, hypnosis and relaxation are often thought of as more or less the same thing. Well, whilst it’s true that many people experience hypnosis and self-hypnosis as a deeply calming, centring or grounding experience in which their mind and body begin to feel more relaxed, we do not need to actually feel relaxed in order to go into hypnosis.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: hypnosis, Hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis, relxation
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January 13th, 2010

You may have noticed a slight change in the tone and content of these posts so far this year.

In fact, OK, what I’m probably saying here is that I really hope that you have noticed.

Because, you see, I am doing a thing here. My thing. The thing I think I always wanted to do but never quite felt brave enough or free enough or perhaps never slowed down enough to notice that I wanted to do it.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: being me, coaching, creativity, Hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis, letting go, writing
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November 2nd, 2009

Much as I hate to start my Monday morning with a grrrrrrr, I am going to be doing some grrrrr-ing. But I think it is good grrrring. It is not a moaning and complaining kind of grrrr that is on my mind but more a general myth-debunking, righting wrongs kind of grrring that I hope will be helpful in some way.

It started on Thursday evening. I had just come back from a pleasant evening out and caught the tail-end of a new drama series on BBC1 called, ‘New Tricks.’

It is apparently about a group of eccentric ex-police officers who meet up to solve crimes and, guess what? In the bit of the storyline that I caught, the evil killer was finally apprehended… or so the main characters thought. What caught my attention were his words: ‘No, when I met her [the victim] I hadn’t got into NLP… I didn’t know about mind control…’

Ha! If it wasn’t so sad, I would have laughed out loud.

Here we are, yet again, with another suspected evil killer, under suspicion because he knows how to control people  not with blackmail, extortion or a stolen Kalashnikov but with the deadliest weapons known to man: hypnosis and Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP).

Oh dear, oh dear…

Every day, I talk to people in my consulting room about what hypnotherapy can help them to achieve in their lives, the changes they can make by learning to master their own thoughts with some simple ideas from NLP, and how they can let go of fear and unhelpful emotion using hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis. I explain how in the very natural relaxed and focused state of awareness that we call hypnosis, they have access to their own amazing resources for change – and can even strengthen those resourceful states or begin to create new ones. I explain that I, as a hypnotherapist, have no power over them. Contrary to some beliefs, I cannot make them thin, rich or happy. I can help them to discover these things for themselves.

In the same way, after working with me they will not find themselves dancing like a chicken, emptying their bank accounts and handing the contents over to me or committing murder – unless, of course, they already wanted to do that in the first place.

Because I have no ‘control’ over the people I work with – and it would be very improper if that were the case. Although it can be tempting to hope that someone can actually get inside your mind, flick a switch and make you stop overeating or smoking, wouldn’t that be rather unnerving, to say the least?

Would you really be wanting that to happen? Isn’t it even more amazing when you realise that, with the help of a well-trained and experienced hypnotherapist, you can do these things for yourself in a lasting and permanent way?

I explain all of this to my clients, debunk the myth that hypnotherapists are expert manipulators and then along come the writers of ‘New Tricks’ on BBC1 and, in one fell swoop, they reinstate the idea of the evil hypnotist who uses NLP and hypnosis to make someone kill their own mother.. Evil cackle, evil cackle.

By a very clumsy plot twist, it turned out that this is not what had happened… but still, the misrepresentation of hypnotherapy – a profession that helps people and that is now a recommended treatment by the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) for a range of problems including IBS and ulcerative colitis – is unfortunate to say the least.

It makes me a bit annoyed, it makes me go grrr because I know what a huge leap it is for many people to say, ‘I need some help with this,’ and then to pick up the phone and call a professional hypnotherapist. Programming like this may actually be detrimental to the well-being of a person who could really benefit from hypnotherapy.

So grrrrrrrr to you BBC. We need more responsibe talk about hypnosis and hypnotherapy,even in low-budget TV dramas. Otherwise, you are misleading people who may need help.

Grrr…. grrr… grrrr…

Meanwhile, I will keep doing my bit to spread the word about the benefits of solution-focused hypnotherapy.

Tags: 'New Tricks', Hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis, TV drama
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May 11th, 2009

One of the single most influential hypno-stories to have gripped the pubic imagination in recent months, is Lily Allen’s transformation, dropping two dress sizes from a very pretty size 12 to a toned size 8, which she attributes to hypnotherapy sessions.

It’s interesting to see media all over the world picking up on this story. Here’s a link to the Ahlan! Live in the United Arab Emirates version of the story. They also mention other recent celeb stories:

Mel B, last week revealed she sought hypnotherapy in a bid to boost her body-confidence, Fergie to quit biting her nails, and nicotine addicts Charlize Theron and Drew Barrymore to kick the habit by being “put under.”

And there’s the annoying thing. It seems that hypno-lingo is pretty universal too. Phrases such as being “put under” – even with the inverted commas – or the headline of this article ‘Look into our eyes..’ seem to be getting far too ubiquitous for my liking.

Maybe I should announce a campaign, right here and now on this blog, for better and more accurate reporting of hypnosis and hypnotherapy stories.

I mean, harrumph! Using words like ‘going under’ or ‘look into my eyes’ is not only tired and unimaginative but also very misleading. Hypnosis is not like being ‘under’ as in anaesthetised; and we hypnoptherapists do not ask people to look into our eyes or at our swinging pendulums and watches.

I had a client a while ago who opened his eyes and said ‘But I was aware of everything you said to me…’ He felt cheated and a little disappointed about his first experience of hypnosis, even though we did some great work together, got a great result and I had explained to him at length beforehand that hypnosis would not feel like being asleep. 

Now, I happen to think that the natural trance state is pretty magical and powerful in and of itself. Being able to access your subconscious and allow it to find solutions to your problems is rather awe-inspiring when you think about it. I don’t know about you but, when I’m entering hypnosis, I like to know that I am fully focused and in control while this amazing process is happening. I don’t want anyone putting me ‘under.’

One popular application of hypnosis that I have, however, been enjoying recently is the TV show, ‘The Mentalist’. If you haven’t yet seen it, the show stars Simon Baker as Patrick Jane, an independent consultant with the
California Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Jane (and I must admit that it is a little disconcerting when his colleagues call him that) has a remarkable track
record for solving serious crimes by using his razor sharp skills of
observation. Within the Bureau, Jane is notorious for his dapper dressing and his blatant lack
of boundaries and protocol. His semi-celebrity past as a psychic medium also adds a whiff of scandal because he now admots that he feigned his
paranormal abilities. I just love spotting his use of hypnotic language patterns and they way that he ‘enables’ suspects, crime victims or witnesses to recall or reveal things about themselves.

I think that, most of all, I like his wearing of waistcoats on California beaches. I think you can catch it in the UK at 9pm on Thursdays.

So less tired old miselading hypnosis lingo and more hypno substnce, please. Or at the very least, can we have more amusing hypno crime-solving programmes? If anyone is asking, I wouldn’t mind playing a crime-solving hypno-cop… and I wouldn’t even need a waistcoat.

Tags: hypno, hypnosis, Hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis, Mentalist
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April 14th, 2009

So I was at my parents’ house on Easter Sunday, keeping my mum company, and my mum pointed out a double-page article on hypnotherapy in her Sunday paper, The Sunday Times.

The article, very imaginatively entitled ‘Look into my eyes,’ (ha, ha, ha….we haven’t heard that one before, have we?) highlights that, despite the many jokes and quips about hypnosis, there is also:

‘a body of scientific evidence to back up the effectiveness of hypnosis for weight loss  and a range of other issues, from anxiety and sleep disorders to infertility and compulsive shopping.’

You can read the online version of the article here.

The article goes on to say:

‘Let’s face it, hypnosis does not exactly have the best reputation, what with the ritual humiliations employed by stage hypnotists. “The stage scenario has given the process a bad name,” concedes Georgia Foster, a hypnotherapist who has treated a string of high-profile clients. “People think it’s all about mind control, but nobody can really control someone else’s mind. It will only absorb what it knows is appropriate. Hypnotherapy is like Google. It puts helpful information into the subconscious mind so the brain can find it next time it’s doing a search.” ‘

That’s an interesting metaphor. You know, I tend to dislike metaphors that compare the brain to a computer and our thoughts to software that can be ‘re-programmed.’ I think that way of thinking is a little reductionist. It doesn’t really work for me. Metaphors are, after all, highly personal.

However, I can see what Georgia Foster is saying here. It is a neat way of conveying that you, the browser of your brain, are in control. I could extend the metaphor by saying that your thoughts and emotions are only a result of the particular search terms that you enter. Hmmmm… I need to think that through a little…

The article is a useful round-up of some popular applications of hypnotherapy: to change your weight and shape, to let go of anything that may be holding you back from optimum fertility, to enjoy a better sex life and now, of course, the subject that everyone is talking about, hypnotherapy for ‘credit crunch anxiety.’

I went into a gift shop the other day and got talking to the owners about hypnotherapy and we got onto the subject of hypnosis ‘for a better sex life.’  I am constantly amazed at the conversations that my job opens up for me.

Tags: Google, hypnosis, Hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis, sex
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February 11th, 2009

A couple of fun things after yesterday’s somewhat serious blog post.

It is ‘awards season’ right now – the Oscars, the BAFTAs – and several major celebs seem to be happily acknowledging the role of hypnosis and hypnotherapy in helping them to lead happy and successful lives.

There have been lots more stories circulating of Lily Allen’s use of hypnosis to let go of unhelpful eating habits. She really is a great champion of hypnosis. Thank you, Lily!

Then there is this story about Black Eyed Peas singer, Fergie who says that she continues to use hypnotherapy. She used it to make some lasting changes in her life a few years ago and she says: ‘I still go. I need to. Hypnotherapy helped me a lot. I love it.’

And you can see a clip of Brian David Phillips’ hypnotising Miss India over on his blog here. Brian has been doing some very interesting work ‘using hypnosis and trancework to enhance actor training and skillsets’ with students, teachers, and guests at Kishore Namit Kapoor’s Acting
Institute, which is one of the premiere actor training institutes in Bollywood.

It’s official: pop stars and Bollywood stars love hypnosis!

Tags: Bollywood hypnosis, Brian David Phillips, Hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis, Lily Allen hypnosis, Miss India hypnosis
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December 1st, 2008

I have blogged about this issue before and the very strong evidence for hypnotherapy as an effective treatment of the problem of bedwetting.

It can be a real issue for children who want to sleep over at friends’ houses, go on school trips and enjoy all the usual busy socialising that children these days like to get involved in. I have found that it can also profoundly affect general levels of confidence in children.

This article in Natural News highlights an excellent 2004 study on hypnotherapy and bedwetting – or chronic nocturnal enuresis, to use the official medical terminology. It says:

‘In 2004, a study appeared in The Journal of Norwegian Medical Association
about using hypnotherapy to treat patients with chronic nocturnal
enuresis. The study consisted of 12 boys ranging in age from 8 to 16.
All of the boys had been diagnosed with primary nocturnal enuresis and
four were also diagnosed with diurnal enuresis (daytime accidental
urination). All 12 reported an average of 0 dry nights per week. The 12
participants also had a family history of bedwetting. The participants
also had tried other forms of treatments such as the bedwetting alarm
and medication.

The 12 patients underwent a medical exam prior to participating in the
research study. The boys had between 2 and 8 hypnotherapy sessions as
part of the study. They also practiced self-hypnosis on their own for
about one month after their hypnosis sessions.

Two follow-ups were performed at 3 months and one year intervals after the
hypnotherapy sessions. During both follow-ups, 9 out of the 12
participants reported 7 out of 7 dry nights per week. The researchers
referred the 3 patients who continued to experience bedwetting to seek
additional medical or behavioral treatment.

The researchers concluded that hypnotherapy is an effective treatment for boys
experiencing chronic bedwetting. They also recommend that hypnotherapy
be part of the treatment for boys diagnosed with nocturnal enuresis.’

Source: Diseth,T. H. & Vandick, I.H. (2004). Hypnotherapy in the Treatment of
Refractory Nocturnal Enuresis. The Journal of Norwegian Medical
Association, 124(4). 488-91.

You know, as I write this, I can’t help thinking that if we had evidence four years ago that hypnotherapy is a recommended part of any treatment for this probem, why don’t more children now have access to it more readily?

I guess there is still a lot of dissemination and awareness-raising to do. Hopefully, this article will make a small contribution to that.

Tags: bedwetting, Hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis, nocturnal enuresis
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