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| MY TWO BUSINESS CARDS |
Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her; but once they are
in hand,
he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.
~ Voltaire (1694 – 1778)
This blog
entry is about HYPNOTHERAPY from my point of view and practice, of course. As you read, you’ll notice that I’ve attempted
to express Hypnotherapy in a context that is pragmatic to other traditional
forms of therapy and even, at times, to English literature.
This blog
entry is also about my pencil portraiture (a fancy name for sketching people’s
faces). I’ve always loved the
expression, Chaucerian Parade, and so today I’ve decided to re-label this
regular section as MY CHAUCERIAN PORTRAIT PARADE.
To begin
I’ll give the skinny on the client-centred therapies for which I’m
empirically proficient. When I say proficient,
I’m expressing that I’ve delivered each of these therapies in both academic and
professional practice. Here is a
dance-card (pun intended) description for each:
- Reality Therapy (RT) was my first academic study
and it served me well. RT got me into
guidance, got me into private practice, got me my Master’s degree in
Educational Psychology. During my past
and present years as a professional high school guidance counsellor with Regina Public Schools, RT has always
been my go-to model. (Reality Therapy
and Choice Theory are from the same hand-books written by William Glasser.)
Counselor
guidelines: Who are you? What do you
want? What are you been doing about it? Is doing what you’re doing working for
you? (Of course it is not … because if
it were working … YOU WOULDN’T BE HERE.)
- Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) was my first pragmatic
system when I did contract work. One agency
for which I did contract work, Catholic
Family Services, insisted that I follow this model.
SFBT is
characterized by the rather hypnotic Miracle
Question (MQ). You wake up one morning and YOUR PROBLEM IS GONE … How would you
know? Describe your imaginary
problem-free day …. How would your life be if it were perfect? … And so when
you wake up tomorrow morning behave exactly as if your world was perfect and
everyone around you is responding according to your perfect world picture.
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is another model employed
at another counseling agency, Ehrlo
Counselling Services, for which I did contract work.
CBT is a
behavior therapy purportedly combined
with simultaneous reflection and introspection.
All of
the aforementioned therapies are considered behavioral therapies, action-oriented
and monitored by the therapist/counselor so to speak. Hypnotherapy, too, is
action-oriented, but entirely client driven, and not necessarily monitored by
the therapist. Therapist monitoring is
always dependent on following sessions.
Hypnotherapy, typically, takes fewer sessions than other therapies.
Hypnotherapy is now my favorite. Hypnotherapy is therapist suggested imagery creating for the client surreal experiences
to be re-enacted immediately thereafter.
Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy
WHAT IS HYPNOSIS?
Hypnosis is a natural brainwave state in which you have been many times.
Whenever you have experienced extreme emotions while reading a book or watching
a movie, or whenever you daydream at home or at work, or when you are drowsy
just before falling asleep, and whenever you have been glued to the television,
are all just some rather ordinary examples that are very similar to natural
brainwave state of hypnosis
HYPNOSIS IS NOT MEDITATION.
When a subject enters an altered state
of consciousness through meditation, the focus is on oneself. When a
subject enters an altered state of consciousness through hypnosis, the client
is open to receiving suggestion from the therapist. The motive for most
meditations is to focus on oneself; whereas, the focus on hypnosis is to take
action outside of yourself.
HYPNOSIS IS NOT SLEEP.
During sleep a person will not hear
conversations. During hypnosis a person will hear the therapist’s voice.
During sleep a person has no ability to concentrate; whereas, during hypnosis a
person has an extremely high ability to concentrate.
HYPNOSIS is a technique used in HYPNOTHERAPY.
SOME FACTS ABOUT HYPNOTHERAPY:
HYPNOTHERAPY is a form of Hypnosis used for
therapeutic purposes.
HYPNOTHERAPY is relaxing and enjoyable.
HYPNOTHERAPY can
help clients overcome certain phobias and other emotional problems. HYPNOTHERAPY IS
A STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS.
WHAT IS HYPNOTHERAPY?
The conventional wisdom suggests:
“The
conscious mind determines the actions, the unconscious mind determines the
reactions; and the reactions are just as important as the actions” (American
theologian, E. Stanley Jones, 1884-1973).
The
conscious mind is the one that most people associate with who you are, the one
where most people live day-to-day. The conscious mind is where you are at in
the present moment. But by no means is this where ALL the action takes place.
It is
generally agreed that we have three minds, the conscious mind, the subconscious
(per-conscious) mind, and the unconscious mind.
People,
generally, seek HYPNOTHERAPY to help them change some present and undesirable
behavior patterns in their lives; eating less and quitting smoking, and getting
a good night sleep, are just some popular examples.
I believe in the power of HYPNOTHERAPY, and I’m reasonably comfortable
with the academic distinctions between the conscious mind and the unconscious
mind, and that hypnosis could be an altered state of consciousness.
However ...
I believe HYPNOTHERAPY to be a state of crisp and clear
consciousness.
And this state of crisp and clear consciousness is brought about by hypnotic
induction. The hypnotist will SUGGEST – the subject will COMPLY, and this
is hypnotic induction.
Any exchange between the hypnotist and subject, has been defined as hypnotic
induction; induction being a synonym for a session. Every
hypnotic induction, no matter the method, that interaction between practitioner
and client always involves the social process of having the client take on the
role of hypnotic subject. Always, the hypnotic subject is a willing
participant, taking on the role of which involves a willing suspension of
disbelief of the client’s limitations.
For more than 200 years since Mesmer proposed his animal magnetism theory,
hypnosis has struggled for scientific credibility (See The Trouble With
Hypnosis, K. Harary, March 1st, 1992).
Hypnosis, it seems, begets an altered state of mind that eludes current means
of measurement. (The key word is measurement, a word NOT used in
qualitative theory.) Hypnosis is a qualitative/subjective state, such as
love and joy and hate and pain are for the most part, subjective, therefore
qualitative. Such abstract states are
exceedingly difficult to measure through quantitative means.
This I know: A successful hypnotherapy session has more to do with
eloquent and descriptively thick language, than with hypnotic protocol.
Creating a picture state of mind, a metaphor so to speak, is the basic strategy
of hypnosis. A metaphor is a figure of speech that identifies something as
being the same as some unrelated thing for rhetorical effect, thus highlighting
the similarities between the two. For a person afraid of flying, the hypnotic
metaphorical suggestion could be a comparison to riding in a car.
For pain, the metaphorical suggestion could be the expressions of warmth
and pressure. For fear of public speaking, the suggested metaphor
could be for the subject to imagine, rather than banquet guests, addressing a group
of new slow pitch ball buddies. Even the idea of hypnotic age
regression is a metaphor. Nobody really regresses to an earlier age;
memories are not literal, they are imagined. Nobody actually re-lives any
moment suggested.
And this, too, I know: For hypnotherapy to work, hypnosis has to
create for the client, an alternative history; one that is thick and vivid
enough to positively distort into a healthier history yet to come.
This is
my self-described ALTERNATE HISTORY HYPNOTHERAPY (AHH).
This is what you get when you seek hypnotherapy from me, an opportunity to create
your own future history.
In the ethos of Reality Therapy mixed with ALTERNATE HISTORY HYPNOTHERAPY …
EVERYBODY HAS A STORY TO TELL (William Glasser) …
AND AN OPPORTUNITY TO RETELL … UNTIL IT ENDS RIGHT! (Neil Child)
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).
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. Hypnotherapy is 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 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
In
closing, I would be amiss not to mention Mindfulness. Mindfulness seems the current counsellor
flavor, lining all the Western book shelves and written about in literally
hundreds of psychology blogs.
Mindfulness
is to practice that Zen-like non-judgemental awareness of the richness of the
present moment. Mindfulness is the
practice that makes us pause and reflect, to gain a certain distance and
perspective of our present conditions.
Hypnotherapy would be especially
helpful to those clients who frequently and/or continually experience racing
thoughts, an appeal even to those who are now subscribing to Mindfulness. Hypnotherapy is the
employment practice of focus, focus, focus.
And that’s that!
And here is my CHAUCERIAN PORTRAIT PARADE FOR THIS
WEEK:
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| ROB MILTON IS A CALGARY CARICATURIST |
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| ROB MILTON IN EAU CLAIRE (CALGARY) |
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| ROB DREW ME IN RETURN |
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| MELANIE AT THE CENTENNIAL MARKET (REGINA) |
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| LEVI (KENSINGTON MARKET IN CALGARY) |
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| EDIE AT A BARBEQUE |
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| MY COUSIN, CRAIG, AT A BARBEQUE |
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| JOANNE |
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| BOB (JOANNE'S HUSBAND) |
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| KEENAN (MY NEW COLLEAGUE) |
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| PATSY (MY NEW COLLEAGUE) |
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| GARY (MY NEW COLLEAGUE) |
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| BUSKING WITH MY NEW GOLD TONE BANJITAR |
