BACK TO THE FUTURE: ALTERNATE HISTORY HYPNOTHERAPY

Alternate History (AH) is a genre of speculation fiction which alters historical events and sets stories within worlds created by those changes.  The only rule required of writing a successful alternate history is that the changes must be reasonable and the outcomes plausible (John Farrier, January 2014).   

Two such examples of alternate historical novels are Man in the High Castle (Philip Dick), about a totalitarian, fascist imperial world, the consequence of World War Two extending to 1947 and being won by the Axis powers of Imperial Japan, Fascist Italy, and Nazi Germany; and The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (Michael Chabon), about a temporary settlement for Jewish refugees set in 1941 Alaska, just previous to Israel being destroyed in 1948.   

Typically, the AH genre is mostly militarily bleak and gritty; it is for history buffs who quite enjoy the imaginary and detailed aspects of the dark and dystopic.  To apply such a notion to hypnotherapy, the change in history must offer a brighter and more positive result than the pattern of past conditions.

ALTERNATE HISTORY HYPNOTHERAPY (AHH) is my positive application of the new story-line the client wishes to enact.  For example, a client wanting to quit smoking will, through AHH, will adopt a partially new lifestyle that does not include smoking.  Every human being has the trait of suggestibility.  It is the client who holds this important factor to be hypnotized; it is the client who wants to quit smoking or wants to get thin or wants a good night sleep.  Everyone has the tendency to respond sometimes to suggestions.  Under hypnosis, this tendency is artificially increased by the technique of the hypnotherapist.  The power of suggestion and the tendency to respond to that suggestion is what hypnotherapy is all about.  SUGGESTION IS EVERYTHING.

SUGGESTION IS EVERYTHING.  Hypnosis is not sleep.  Hypnosis is a state of trance.  Hypnosis is a state of increased suggestibility.  Hypnosis is a mix of prescribed suggestion and auto-suggestion.  Hypnosis is a form of automatism; it is the perfect state of automaticity.

ALTERNATE HISTORY HYPNOTHERAPY (AHH) will always work provided the following client-therapist conditions are met:

• The client has to be candid about the current state of dysfunctional affairs.  The client has to tell it like it really is.  If the client is smoking two packs of cigarettes a day or drinking a case of beer every day or howling all night at the moon; all of this and even more has to be disclosed to the therapist.  Failing to acknowledge and admit exactly what conduct is troublesome for the client means only failure for the hypnotherapy results.

• Clients have to reckon with the facts that their acts do not have just singular consequences.  Every dysfunctional act is in concert and discordance with those people surrounding them.  Whether they are family members, workmates, or playmates, their dysfunctional actions have caused enough personal concern and social embarrassment to lead them to hypnotherapy.

• Clients have to realize that once they’ve altered their current actions to create their new history, that other actions, too, will change.  For example, a client who quits smoking will inevitably quit coughing and could end up running marathons.  Clients who quit drinking will inevitably meet teetotallers and java maestros who prefer coffee shops over pubs.  Clients who lose a few pounds may decide to become fitness fanatics or even fitness instructors.

• Clients who cease their problem afflictions may, too, be delusional, expecting their entire lives to change in the most positive regards.  Clients who conquer negative addictions by latching on to behaviors regarded as more positive, will without a doubt  experience a positive part-time change, but this part-time change may or may not attribute to their whole-life happiness. One does get more attractive (literally and metaphorically) through successful hypnotherapy but … the entire world will not be donning sunglasses to adjust to the glow.  Rising from the hoi-polloi and transforming to the highfalutin will not happen suddenly.

• Clients need to create for themselves histories that are detailed explicitly.  These new histories need to go where the alternate history realistically supports, not necessarily where the client wants them to go.  For example, clients who are in constant tipple need to quit drinking completely, not just cut back or sip socially.  I say this because when a client who is always drunk finally comes to hypnotherapy for help, the new history will not allow that client to be part-time drinking.  Clients who are prone to alcohol addiction need to create realistic, not romantic and delusional, non-drinking scenarios. 

Clients participants of AHH need to understand outcomes that are positive and plausible.  Human beings have a built-in elasticity factor.  Any connections and movements toward an old habit will always result in resuming to a former self or state.

Most clients attending AHH suffer an abulia.  This inability to make a plausible outcome, to create a new plausible history, is the result of long-time suffering of the malady that prompts the hypnotherapy.  Hypnotherapy is a client-therapist collaboration.  It is up to the therapist to guide and help the client create the new historical path onto which the client wants to set foot.

Here is the skinny (outline) of my typical hypnotherapy session with a client:

CONCERN: (This is the reason why the client is seeking hypnotherapy.)

·        CAP-A-PIE INDUCTION … RELAX & ENERGY EMISSION … 10 TO 1 COUNT-DOWN

 (I employ a variety of inductions, all of which to solicit client relaxation.)

·         SCRIPT #1 [ENTERING MOST PLEASING AND RELAXING PLACE]   

·         SCRIPT #2 [ALTERNATIVE HISTORY INCLUDING BEHAVIOR BENEFITS]

·         SCRIPT #3 [EXITING MOST PLEASING AND RELAXING PLACE] 1 TO 10 COUNT-UP

ALTERNATE HISTORY HYPNOTHERAPY is not for the Quixotic.  No reputable therapist in any discipline will assist their clients in the foolish pursuit of impossible ideals.  Thaumaturgy (the performance of miracles) is not my notion hypnotherapy.   

Ravens for too much drink or for too much dessert or for too much nicotine can be suppressed, but only if the ravenous ones are open to create personal alternate histories that are plausible. 

THIS IS ALTERNATE HISTORY HYPNOTHERAPY.

Marching (skating, rather) in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week:

MY BEST FRIEND, COLBY WILLIAMS (WILLY) PLAYED IN HIS 200TH WHL GAME LAST NIGHT

 

IN HIS 200TH GAME, MY BEST FRIEND, WILLY, GOT HIS 100TH POINT!