Geoffrey Knight - articles on hypnotic Topics

Here are articles that I have written for magazines and newspapers which I hope will be of interest to my readers. The subjects are
Quitting Smoking
Past Life Regression
Phobias
Weight Loss through Hypnotherapy
Hypnotherapy and Healing
Self-Hypnosis
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Children and Hypnosis
Hypnosis and Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Hypnosis for illness and surgery
Enhancing Memory Recall through Hypnosis
The Mind Set of Healing
Motivation and the Inner Game
Bulimia and Eating Disorders
Covert Hypnosis
Letting Go

Explanation of NLP (neuro-linguistic programming)
[not by me!]

Quitting Smoking
High Success Rate
But, you have to come to me wanting to give up smoking. Hypnosis is all about change. If you are not prepared to change your mind set, then it is a waste of your time and money.
The general public is aware that if you want to quit smoking, the remedy that most immediately comes to mind is to consult a hypnotherapist. Hypnosis, however, is one of the many methods available but, in my humble opinion, it is the most effective way to quit the habit.
You can see a counselor or an acupuncturist, wear nicotine patches or chew nicotine gum; or you can smoke your cigarettes through a special holder and filter. I could continue with a long list of alternative remedies and the people willing to treat you with them - some are effective and some useless.
Smoking is horrible
Smoking is a horrible habit. I am well aware of how horrible it is because for twenty years I smoked up to 40 cigarettes a day. I stopped when I went to a fellow hypnotherapist who practiced in England and asked him to do me a favor by hypnotizing me. From that day I haven't been tempted to touch a single cigarette.
Reason for success
The reason it has been so successful with me is because my colleague imposed amnesia when I was in hypnosis, and no other therapy, to my knowledge, can do this. I forgot about it completely. I never feel the urge to pick up a pack of cigarettes or the need to accept one when offered. I automatically say "No thanks, I am a non-smoker."
While I was under hypnosis, my colleague imposed an aversion to cigarette smoke and the awful smell of stale smoke on your breath and in your clothes. I don't object if someone comes to my home and smokes a cigarette, as a lot of my friends put up with my smoking habit for many years. I do, however open all the doors and windows immediately after they have left; I am aware of the odious smell until it departs.
Health improved
My health has improved. I no longer cough up lumps of phlegm when I wake up in the morning, nor am I short of breath. In fact. I didn't know how toxic nicotine is until I started to help people to quit smoking. Nicotine contains acetone, DDT, hydrogen cyanide, formaldehyde and carbon monoxide - together with a whole host of other nasty chemicals. I have a particular horror of getting cancer of the throat and mouth.
One session
I tell my clients that it only takes one session of hypnotherapy lasting about two hours to quit smoking. My follow-up research shows that my success rate is of the order of about 85 per cent. I often treat a husband and wife together, or a group of friends or work colleagues.
Group therapy is very powerful and cost-effective
Group therapy is very effective and powerful; I have treated up to twelve people at once in a single session. Of course, charges are discounted in a group receiving hypnotherapy at the same time.
Method
I start off a "quit smoking" session with a questionnaire and a talk about smoking and how quitting can affect, for the better, the individual concerned. Few people realize that the death rate from cancer caused by smoking is one person every five minutes; this is more than road accidents, AIDS, drug abuse, suicides and alcohol abuse put together.
Once they become aware of the statistics, this knowledge helps people to start to change their mind set. In order to achieve lasting effect, I need to put the client into deep hypnosis. This takes time - especially if you have not been hypnotized before.
After about an hour and a quarter of hypnosis, most clients emerge never wanting to touch a cigarette again. Many tell me the experience for them appeared to take about ten minutes. As they leave the room I have to remind them to throw into the waste basket the lighter and a half empty pack still lingering in their pockets

Your hypnotherapy cost for stopping smoking is now a tax write off!
IRS Tax Credit for smoking cessation - click here for details

You may wish to read an article in the Portland Mercury which
features me hypnotizing John Dooley, a reporter, to
Quit Smoking. John Dooley smoked 60 cigarettes
a day and quit after one session. He was so
pleased, he wrote an article on his experience
(his picture is opposite).
Just click here to read the Article. Article dated 12/13/01. Type into 'Search' the key words "Geoffrey Knight".

Past Life Regression

Regression therapy is very commonly used in hypnotherapy in order to find the cause of some emotional problem that a client is seeking to change. A client, under hypnosis, is taken back in his or her present life to a situation or event in the past.

Often this is a traumatic event which so affected the client at the time that it has had a debilitating affect on that person ever since. When this event or situation is found, the therapist and the client work together to change or re-frame the trauma experienced in the past, so that it can no longer detrimentally affect the client when therapy is successfully concluded.

Re-regression therapy is where you are taken back, in hypnosis, to a past life (or sometimes to a future life) for exactly the same reason. This is known as Past Life Regression.

Past Life Regression was first used as a therapeutic tool by a French doctor in Paris in the 1890's called Dr. Pierre Janet. The famous psychologist Sigmund Freud and Dr. Janet at one time collaborated by experimenting on past life regression. The subject was for sixty years regarded as taboo because it was thought to be unbelievable at best and something approaching occult philosophy at worst. Then an American hypnotherapist called Morey Bernstein brought the therapy back to life in the sixties with a book called " The Search For Bridie Murphy ". This was an account of one of his clients called Virginia Tighe of Colorado, who in hypnosis, went back over 200 hundred years to when she was an Irishwoman called Bridie Murphy in Ireland and recalled an abundance of details about her life. Unfortunately when the facts given were checked by journalists, no trace of Bridie Murphey could be found in Ireland. Mrs Tighe as a child had an Irish neighbor across the street called Bridie Murphey Corkell, and she was probably recalling stories she learnt from her in childhood.

About the same time Arnall Bloxham, an English hypnotherapist of high repute, collaborated with the BBC in making a Television program of a housewife called Jane Evans. She regressed, live on screen, back to a twelfth century Jewess called Rachel who lived in York in 1189 in the reign of the bad King John. Live on television, she recalled how she was the wife of a wealthy money lender called Joseph. In great detail she described how she and her family and other members of the Jewish community were hounded by a mob led by a nobleman called Richard Malebisse to whom her husband had lent money and who had refused to repay . They and their two children tried to take refuge in York Castle but were ejected by the constable of the castle, and eventually found their way to a crypt of a church just outside the gates of York. It was here that the family was put to death by the sword.

An historian called Prof Dobson was intrigued, since Jane Evans was uneducated and had never read a history book about the York Massacre. He decided to check the details of Jane's story, and was amazed at what he discovered. From Jane's description of the church in which they took refuge, he concluded it could only be St. Mary's Castlegate; but, since the church did not have a crypt, he questioned her memory of the events. However, a few months later when the church was being renovated, workmen found under the chancel a crypt with stone arches and vaults dating from the twelfth century. The crypt had been infilled with rubble from the time of the killing. All the other facts given under hypnosis were corroborated by known facts of the massacre of Jews in York in 1180 where the rest of the community had by agreement been slain by Rabbi Yantof who then killed himself. York paid dearly for this crime by being heavily taxed and 100 citizens were imprisoned for life. Richard Malebisse escaped to Scotland.

This is one of many recorded accounts of facts that emerge in past life regression therapy and are found to be inexplicably true. I personally believe that we have all experienced many lives. And these lives have been in many bodies, in many diverse places, under a variety of circumstances and in different sexes. This is all part of the continuity of our soul. I believe without question in the existence of our soul and in reincarnation. I am not alone in this belief, because over half of the world's population regards reincarnation as a fundamental tenet of their faith. What a number of people don't realize is that Past Life Regression is a wonderful therapeutic tool. Recalling and re-experiencing dramas of the past can help us. Here are some examples:

Insecurity and fear of abandonment . Often relates to past life memories as a child, separation during war, being orphaned, left to die in times of famine.

Depression and low energy . Past life memories of loss of parent, unfinished grieving, suicide, deportation, massacre etc.

Phobias. Every kind of trauma in a past life e.g. death by fire, water, suffocation, natural disasters etc.

Guilt . Past life memories from feeling responsible for the death of others. "It's my fault. I deserve this". Etc.etc.

But the list is extensive, and one person may have several themes that need to be worked through in the course of therapy.
Perhaps one of the most profound responses to past life regression is that inevitably it relieves the fear of death. Without exception , death is experienced in regression as a painless withdrawal from the final moment of death, and often the person lingers in spiritual form to observe the body from which they have just departed. This experience puts to rest the fear that many people hold that they will simply cease to exist when they die. Not true.

Phobias

Of the emotional problems I deal with in my practice, there are three types that I encounter all the time. They are guilt, fear and depression. It may surprise many people to know that depression is a long way down the list, while guilt and phobias are by far the most common.
In my medical dictionary there are 283 recognized phobias, and I am sure there exists an equal number of unnamed ones.

A phobia is an irrational fear, the experience of which can produce an irrational response - such as pulling your hair out, or a massive response where your body systems are involved. We describe it in our everyday language "sweating with fear", "paralyzed with fear", "butterflies in the stomach" etc. The word "phobia" originates from a god of ancient Greece - Phobos the god of Fear. There are countless definitions of phobia, but the most apt one defines a phobia as "a fear of a fear". Perhaps, more accurately, a phobia may be described as " an extreme reaction to fear triggered by a stimulus".

Phobias are very common. One in nine people have a phobia of some sort - more than eleven per cent of the population. And one in twenty people have panic attacks at some stage in their lives, quite commonly triggered by a phobia.
There is little that conventional medical science can do for your phobia, other than prescribing an antidepressant drug.

Hypnosis, on the other hand, can in most cases, eliminate or alleviate the phobia. In England, London Zoo runs a course in eliminating the fear of spiders under the guidance of an experienced hypnotist, and the participants end the course in the Insect House stroking spiders. British Airways at Heathrow runs a course for those who have a fear of flying.

Leading up to the summer holidays, I always get a string of clients who have a fear of flying, In the past they have either avoided flying or gone through agony and much mental pain when they board an aircraft taking their family on holiday. A number of these clients then spent those two weeks on holiday in fear of the return flight.

I usually regress the client in hypnosis to the original event that caused the phobia, then I "desensitize" the phobia. by making them experience that event again but in circumstances where they are dissociated from the actual trauma of the event. Then I change or re-frame that event so that the client no longer has that fear. In the case of a flying phobia, for example, I take them (in hypnosis) through the whole experience of the flight from Portland to Hawaii, starting with getting in the car at home for the trip to Portland airport, then booking in, going through airport controls, boarding the aircraft and experiencing the take-off, the flight, and finally landing at the destination.

While they are under hypnosis, I implant into the client's unconscious mind that everything goes smoothly and well, and they thoroughly enjoy the whole experience of flying. I also use a technique that no other therapy can achieve, and that is "time distortion". By teaching the clients to put themselves into hypnosis when they get on the aircraft, by prior suggestion you can make the flight appear to them to last only 15 minutes.

I have dealt with countless phobias. I find them all very interesting and it is very satisfying to me when I have been instrumental in eradicating a phobia.

As always, the person with the phobia must want to get rid of it and act in partnership with the hypnotist. I have dealt with fears of spiders, snakes, mice and rats, heights, fear of open spaces, fear of animals, fear of water, fear of public speaking, and so on.

One of my clients had not stepped out of her house alone for two and a half years. She had "agoraphobia" - the fear of open spaces. She had to be accompanied on her few trips to the supermarket or to the doctor. After two sessions she started to venture out, and by the end of eight sessions she was well enough to start up her own business.

Weight Loss through Hypnotherapy

If you are overweight, you have plenty of company. A survey carried out recently by the National Health and Nutrition Survey states that 58 million adult Americans in the twenty to seventy four age group are overweight. Overall, about one in five Americans are overweight. A former Surgeon General, C. Everett Koop, said the "the number one public health crisis today is obesity." More than one in five children aged 6 through 17 are overweight, and the number of overweight youths in this age group totals 4.7 million. Although the weight loss industry currently makes in excess of $50 billion a year, it has up to now lacked the fundamental clinical understanding of the problem of weight control. "Fad" and "Quick" weight loss programs provide only temporary reduction in weight and can be dangerous for individuals with health problems. Furthermore, surveys estimate that the failure rate of these 'quick diet' programs is as much as 95%! Obesity is linked to chronic diseases such as coronary heart disease, hypertension, high blood pressure, diabetes and some forms of cancer, all of which can cause premature death. But what the studies don't show is the emotional cost to the individual.
Hypnotherapy is a powerful tool to help people to lose weight and maintain a sensible weight thereafter. However, to lose and maintain your ideal weight there are three further elements;
you must take some exercise daily;
you need to follow a sensible eating program of good and healthy food;
and in order to create any change in your life, you have to provide COMMITMENT.
Most of the clients I treat for weight loss have an emotional issue underlying their weight problem. Hypnosis is one of the best and fastest ways of getting to it. Typically tension and frustration are common causes of over eating such as domestic upsets, lack of self esteem, fatigue, sexual problems, and economic worries; but there are many other sources of tension, and some of these can be deep rooted in the past. In my opinion, it is essential to find the original cause of the problem and then get your unconscious mind to reframe that event or situation, so that your fundamental belief system relating to over eating, (which is lodged in your unconscious mind), is changed permanently.
You have to let yourself think "I am attractive" and "I am slender". Feeling good about who you are, is all about commitment to yourself. Change your internal dialogue by telling your self you are slender and talk to yourself about positive affirmations of what you are in the process of achieving. Hypnosis is not a magical wand. You have to make the effort of bringing about changes in you life, and to take responsibility for your actions in life.
I get clients to put down in writing ten reasons why they want to lose weight. I then ask them to set a goal of 'X' pounds of weight loss over a specific period of time. The goals should be obtainable and specific, and the levels of weekly weight loss reasonable, as you will find that the graph will oscillate and not necessarily go down each week.
And to reach your ideal size and weight, you have to choose to form new eating habits. You will need to make appropriate choices of good healthy foods in moderate amounts, and eat only when you a physiologically in need of food - and you must allow this pattern to become a habit.
I tell clients that they should only eat three meals a day, and absolutely no snacking in between meals. You need to understand how your blood sugar levels work, and snacking prevents the breakdown or metabolizing of the fat cells.Eat a large breakfast of of protein, and eat a moderate meal early in the evening leaving three hours to digest your food before you go to bed. Use your common sense and eat an abundance of fruit and vegetables in your daily diet. By reducing or eliminating the consumption of red meat, dairy products, salt, refined sugar, white refined flour and processed foods, your weight will decrease and your energy and vitality will increase.
What about exercising. You don't need to join an expensive gym and undertake excessive physical exercise. Two quick walks of twenty minutes each a day, exercising arms as you walk, is in most cases adequate exercise. Step out. Walk your dog. Walk up and down stairs, avoid using the elevator, walk down to the corner shop instead of driving there, park in the far part of the parking lot and walk.
Most importantly you need to make the commitment to keep telling yourself you are achieving your slimming goals and this is done by self hypnosis every day or evening for fifteen minutes. Self hypnosis is easily taught, under hypnosis initially, and then if practiced regularly will help you return to a healthy human being with a prospect of an energetic and happy life.

Your hypnotherapy cost for weight reduction is now a tax write off, with Doctor's letter!
IRS Tax Credit for weight reduction - click here for details

HYPNOTHERAPY AND HEALING

I have wanted to come out and write about healing in hypnosis, but up to now I have felt confined to the closet because most conventional medical practitioners think it's a joke, something for mass entertainment. The present day doctor was brought up in the belief system of modern science that has driven allopathic medicine for the last one hundred and forty years. If the efficacy of a treatment has not been demonstrated in controlled clinical trials, it is unconventional, dangerous and can't be said to work. Furthermore, anything that cannot be proven scientifically should not be practiced.
I want to remind these doctors that healing in hypnosis has been around for at least 5000 years. There is ample evidence that at the time of Ramses II in ancient Egypt (he built the great pyramid in Giza as his mausoleum) there existed temples of healing in which people would be put in hypnosis for periods of up to seven days. Later in ancient Greece the Temple of Aesculapius at Epidaurus was a revered place of healing in hypnosis. Belief in miraculous healing has persisted to this day.
I, however, don't claim to use miraculous powers to heal anybody, because any person who comes to me heals himself. I am simply the facilitator. I induce the hypnotic state and act as their guide and instructor, showing how and where to heal themselves.
I recently had a young man as a client who was a butcher and severed the thumb from his left hand with a band saw whilst cutting up a carcass. Using the wonderful technology of modern medicine doctors were able to sew his thumb back on, although it took three operations, as the blood wasn't' t circulating properly.
The first thing I did was to address, in hypnosis, the multiple traumas surrounding the incident. Aside from the shock of severing his thumb, he had considerable anger. He was angry at his employers for the callous manner in which he was treated at the time of the accident, and at the first hospital he was taken to, where they made him fill in 5 sets of forms and took various tests, while he twice passed out from shock. It took five hours from the time of the accident until he was taken to another hospital and operated on. It was essential to desensitize these events; otherwise he would carry these strong emotions of anger within himself for the rest of his life.
I then taught him self-hypnosis and showed him how to visualize, in hypnosis, how his thumb was healing: seeing the calcium growing from the end of the severed bones and then coming together and fusing: seeing the skin regenerating and the blood circulating perfectly.
I was able to teach him how the discomfort (the word " Pain" was never mentioned) in his arm, hand and thumb could be alleviated by blocking it with the power of his mind and transferred to another part of his anatomy.
It is now two months since the accident. The bones have fused, the skin is rapidly regenerating and the whole healing process has been accelerated. A fourth operation and skin graft have been canceled, and his surgeon told him, "I don't know what you have been doing, but keep it up!"
Equally importantly, he has no ' Hang up' about his employers or the treatment he experienced in the first hospital and no intention suing anyone. He is able let go of the past and get on with the present and the future of his family and himself.
This is the healing of mind and body. It is an inseparable combination, and rarely practiced by allopathic medical people because they appear to think that the connection between the mind and the body is irrelevant. I suspect that this is one of the reasons why the man in the street is turning more often today to alternative medicine and spiritual healing. If the American Medical Association continues to ignore the necessity to treat the mind as well as the body, physicians following its lead blindly do so at their own peril.

Self-Hypnosis

Everyone has experienced a trance-like state many times. We go into light hypnotic states every day of our lives. Have you ever caught yourself daydreaming and not been aware of things happening around you? Have you ever been so absorbed in a book or watching a movie that you haven't realized an hour or two has gone by? What about driving in your car and at the end of your journey not remembering a thing about the details of your journey? These are all forms of hypnotic trance. The main difference between these types of trance and purposeful self-hypnosis is the lack of specific motivations and suggestions towards a goal. Hypnosis channels the trance to achieve some desired result like pain or stress relief.

The trance state is so familiar that it is common for people to disbelieve that they have been hypnotized the first or second time it occurs. The trance state is a subtle phenomenon and we all experience hypnosis differently.

No one has yet discovered how hypnosis works; we can only describe its effects. People in a hypnotic state appear to be asleep, but their brain wave patterns show alert wakefulness. You are physiologically deeply relaxed but your unconscious mind is absorbing the images and instructions the hypnotist is giving it.

A lot of people don't realize that all hypnosis is self-hypnosis. The hypnotherapist is simply the facilitator. In fact, you can put yourself into hypnosis without a hypnotist. In my practice I regularly teach my clients self-hypnosis because using it between sessions helps compound the suggestions and speeds up reaching the desired goal. It can be used in any situation where you need to change your physical, mental or emotional state. In fact, it is such an important tool for making changes that I regularly teach classes in self-hypnosis.

Some of the areas where self-hypnosis is really helpful are:

Management of stress, anxiety, insomnia and phobias
Relief from allergies and asthma
Improving many skin conditions
Control of pain and speeding healing
Natural Childbirth
Increasing your self confidence and problem solving ability
Maximizing performance
Weight management

In my experience the easiest way to learn self-hypnosis is in the hypnotic state, so I teach it to my clients whilst in session and then we practice it together. You can also learn self-hypnosis from the many books on the subject, or from tapes and videos made by hypnotherapists. You can find a variety of good products on the market or you can make a tape for yourself.

So, how do you go about learning how to hypnotize yourself? It is a bit like meditation in that you should chose a convenient time of day, such as first thing in morning, and sit in a comfortable chair, feet on the floor and no limbs crossed. If you do it when you are tired or lying down, you are likely to fall asleep. Take several deep breaths, holding your breath for as long as possible, and as you breathe out relax your body from head to toe. Feel yourself sinking into your chair as the relaxation spreads throughout your body.

Then I like to visualize going down a marble staircase, counting from ten to one, and saying to yourself with each step that you are doubling the relaxation. Continue the deepening of the trance state by, for example, going into and exploring a garden of your own imagination. As you explore your garden, use all the five senses as this deepens the trance rapidly. Use your sense of touch and feel by imagining, for example, taking your shoes off and walking on the lawn in your garden. Enjoy the freedom of walking barefoot and feel the cool, moist grass on the soles of your feet, 'squidging' up between your toes! Smell the flowers, listen to the hum of the bees.

Then when you feel yourself in a comfortable and relaxed hypnotic state, visualize the positive outcome you desire. For example when you want to lose weight, visualize yourself three months from now weighing 25 pounds less, see yourself eating more fruits and vegetables, cutting out sugar and snack foods, getting slimmer and more attractive. Make it so real that you feel yourself zipping up the clothes you had put away and admiring yourself in the mirror. You know in the depth of your being that you are achieving your goal.

One client of mine using self-hypnosis has lost nearly 80 pounds. It is a powerful tool for changing your own reality, and in some ways self-hypnosis is similar to prayer. The more real you make it, the more feeling you put behind it the more powerful the effect.

If you would like to make a self-hypnosis tape for yourself, you will find a sample script under the navigational bar of "Self Hypnosis" below at the bottom of this page.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is an illness that affects 1 in 50 adult
Americans, and twice that many will have experienced it at some time in their
lives. It ranges from merely annoying to an emotionally crippling condition which,
if left untreated, can affect a person's relationships, work and family life and lead to
depression and other problems.

The core of the OCD is an obsession with something, such as cleanliness.
The anxiety generated by this obsession is dealt with by the associated compulsion,
typically a repetitive ritual, such as continually washing one's hands, often until they
are raw. Sufferers are powerless to stop their compulsive behaviors, and may have
elaborate "rules" as to how they must be done. They will repeat them over and over
until they feel they have got it right. However, unlike the compulsions
to drink or shop, OCD compulsions do not give the sufferer pleasure,
but only a measure of relief.

It is now accepted by the medical profession that the cause may be an imbalance
of a neurotransmitter in the brain called serotonin. This is a chemical messenger
in the brain that is involved with controlling mood states and is believed to be able
to regulate repetitive behaviors.

OCD's take many forms, such as: contaminating obsessions, concern with dirt
or germs, or excessive concern with chemical or environmental contamination;
counting compulsions, having to count up to certain numbers; checking compulsions,
checking doors, locks, stoves, brakes etc; hoarding or collecting compulsions;
repeating rituals, going in and out of doors; aggressive obsessions, like fear of
harming people, horrific images, doing something embarrassing, terrible events
like death, fire etc.; even severe workaholics are sufferers. OCDs are sometimes
accompanied by depression, substance abuse, eating disorders, attention
deficit disorder and many other anxiety disorders.

Children are frequently suffers of OCD, but it can affect a person of any age.
OCDs can come and go at any stage of a person's life, disappear for a period
of time and then return in a different form. They range from mildly interfering
to extremely incapacitating, lasting more than an hour a day. Sufferers are aware
that their behavior is irrational and disruptive, but they have great difficulty in
controlling it. Dealing on a daily basis with someone with OCD can put a severe
strain on families and relationships, so it is important to work with them as well
as the sufferer. Sensitivity is important, because sometimes these rituals
are the only way the person has to communicate.

OCD is usually treated by a triple approach: education, medication and therapy.
In treating OCD, self-education is the priority, and I recommend finding out as
much as possible about this disorder. The first stop, if you have Internet access
is the excellent web site of the Obsessive-Compulsive Foundation,
http://www.ocfoundation.org, or call or write to them at
OCF, 337 Notch Hill Road, North Branford, CT 06471, Tel: 203-315-2190,
Fax: 203-315-2196. The foundation has an excellent and comprehensive
bookstore online, and will also send you a printed catalogue if you contact them.

The second step is medication. Modern drugs can produce dramatic
results and OCDs are normally treated by a class of drugs known
as serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SRIs.) SRIs such as Anafranil must
be prescribed by a doctor because of their powerful effects on the brain
and body's chemistry. Once you are on SRIs, it is dangerous to change
the dosage or stop them on your own, even though you may experience
unpleasant of side effects.

There are a number of therapies that are useful and cognitive behavioral
psychologists have the longest track record. Group therapy led by an
experienced facilitator is also effective. Hypnotherapy can greatly assist
suffers of OCD because it quickly gets to the roots of the obsession.
and helps to reframe it. It is also useful in helping the individual regulate
his own body chemistry, thus helping them avoid or get weaned from
dependence on SRIs.

A few years ago a 19-year-old college student came to my practice in
London who had formed an obsession for a pretty girl student in his class.
He had a compulsive need to watch her all the time and had been stalking
her until the College authorities warned that he would be expelled.
This obsession for the girl occupied most of his day, although he admitted
that he was not in love with her. He had become deeply depressed and
the College doctor prescribed Prozac, but the side effects made him
even more depressed.

I needed to find out the underlying cause of his disorder, and I was able to
regress him in hypnosis back to a single trauma that turned out to have
been the primary cause. Over a period of four months I was able to teach
his unconscious mind how to change and then overcome his obsession.
I then tested these changes by taking him through a process of desensitization.
In the process he found he no longer wanted Prozac, and gradually he
weaned himself off this drug. He went back to attending lectures, writing
essays and leading a normal student life - and his exam results were excellent!

Hypnosis for children
I am a Certified Pediatric Hypnotist. Certified by Donald Mottin under the auspices of the
National Guild of Hypnotists, Inc

There are many children's problems that hypnotherapy can help with. And, the great thing is that children are usually excellent hypnotic subjects. They have such wonderful imaginations that you can induce the hypnotic state easily and rapidly by getting them, for example, to imagine taking off in a space craft or taking part in their favorite television program or movie.

A surprisingly large percentage of childhood complaints stem from unresolved emotional issues. Many children, for example, who suffer from Bronchial Asthma are anxiety-ridden, lack confidence and are dependent on one or both of their parents to an extreme degree. There may be physical factors that are directly implicated, but often the parent is told that the child will "grow out of it". More likely the child (and maybe even the parent) simply matures enough to resolve the emotional issues that triggered the problem in the first place.

Allergies are another problem suffered by children, and allergic reactions are often associated with stress. There can be a whole host of stressful events in a child's life such as relations with siblings, school, dependency on a parent, fear of interaction with peer groups, and aggression towards one or both parents sometimes arising from a past traumatic event. You may have heard about an experiment carried out on children whose allergen was flower pollen. In hypnosis they were asked to smell a rose in a sealed glass jar, whereupon they immediately had an asthmatic attack. Subsequently under therapy they were instructed in ways to control, and then stop altogether, having asthmatic attacks, principally through the use of self-hypnosis.

Nail biting, stuttering, various kinds of habitual spasms, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), can all be addressed by hypnosis. I am not saying hypnosis is always successful, but in the substantial majority of cases I have seen and treated, the child has achieved a satisfactory outcome. Perhaps the one factor that I enjoy most is giving a child an effective therapy that does not rely on synthetic drugs. Even if I had the power to prescribe pharmaceuticals, I would never wish to do so because of the great potential for harm.

I believe that the over-diagnosis of children as having Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and ADHD has been to the detriment of many of the children concerned. The practice by teachers, schools and some child psychologists of labeling the children and putting them on Ritalin has been the subject of recent criticism from the media, which has helped reduce the practice to some extent. Current research indicates that in bona fide cases of ADD and ADHD, the cause is a lack of Dopamine in the frontal lobe of the brain, which controls the child's ability to program and organize their lives. Some more effective recent derivatives of Ritalin called 'Adderall' and 'Concerta' have improved release of dopamine through a twelve hour day, and greatly aided the ability of a child to function normally. Children whose parents think their child might have ADD or ADHD, should consult a child psychologist who specializes in this area to test if they have this disorder. (I can recommend some).
Hypnosis is able to play a secondary role in changing thought patterns in the child and can make effective changes in the child's behavior complimentary with prescribed drugs.

In a study on Dyslexia in 1975, Crasilneck and Hall showed that over 75% of dyslexic children can be helped with direct hypnosis. Following hypnotherapy that included suggestions for improving performance and pronunciation, recognition of words became automatic and more rapid. The results in this study were as good as, or slightly better than, those reported by special behavior modifiers.

Nocturnal Enuresis, or bed wetting, is particularly distressing to both child and parents. There are a number of possible physical causes that need to be checked out by a doctor. Equally there are a number of psychogenic factors that may play a role such as loss of a mother, sibling rivalry, emotional immaturity due to overprotection etc. Very often the symptom is a form of passive rebellion by the child against the parent. The child discovers that when he wets his bed he has a real weapon against his parent, and often he will continue this pattern long after the original cause for his hostility is forgotten. Bed wetting is a difficult problem to overcome because you have to help the child establish a motivation for bringing about a change in his life. Hypnotherapy can also help other behavior disorders such as thumb sucking and examination anxiety.

Finally, there is the terror of the dentist's chair. There are a few enlightened dentists who have had an adequate training in hypnosis and can eliminate the child's phobia of the dentist's chair by using hypnosis. A professional hypnotherapist is able to use post hypnotic suggestions with the child before the visit to the dentist. In extreme cases the therapist can accompany the child to the dentist, and immediately bring about a deep hypnotic trace state by a simple cued induction. You do need a sympathetic dentist.

Like adults, child can be easily regressed in hypnosis and can then reveal the underlying cause of their problem. There is an effective therapy called the "Talking Puppet Therapy" where the child states to a puppet, in the hypnotic state, their fears and hang-ups about parents, teachers, siblings, school etc. The puppet is the grown up they normally will not speak to or about. The hypnotherapist is then able to reframe that which has been spoken about by the child to his or her great benefit.

Here is a list of children's presenting problems hypnosis is known to be able to help:

Bed Wetting - Weight Reduction - Sugars - Nail Biting - Conduct at home -

Conduct at School - Improved Grades-Improved Reading - Surviving a Divorce

- School Illness - Stuttering - Speak Slowly - Nightmares - Stress -

Stopping Lying - Stopping Stealing - Improve Writing - Test Anxieties-

Sports Improvement - Improved Coordination - Become a Good Sport-

Don't Start Smoking - Fears & Phobias- Enjoy Life -

Pain Control - Overcoming Loudness.

Hypnosis and Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Do you put your troubles and worries into your gut? Some of us experience chronic upsets in our gastrointestinal tract that range from inconvenient and annoying to totally debilitating. When there is no obvious physical or microbial cause, these symptoms are lumped under the general heading of Irritable Bowel Syndrome abbreviated to "IBS." This is a common disorder worldwide, and IBS affects 14-24% of women and 5-19% of men. IBS is more a descriptive heading than a diagnosis, because it can be caused by so many factors and can express itself in so many different ways. Many doctors in general practice make the mistake of trying to treat the overt symptoms rather than seeking out the underlying causes.

Symptoms often begin during periods of major stress such as a divorce, death of a loved one or school exams. Symptoms may also follow a gastrointestinal infection or abdominal surgery. Food allergies may play a role, as can reactions to drugs taken for other conditions. The most common symptoms that IBS patients complain of are: frequent diarrhea, abdominal pain (usually in the lower abdomen area), gas, bloating, diarrhea alternating with constipation, mucus in the stool and bowel urgency or incontinence. Upper GI symptoms include heartburn or acid indigestion and nausea .

IBS rules the lives of a number of patients and can be very debilitating. It affects their family, home and work life, and can deprive family members and partners, as well as the sufferer, of a normal life. I know of one lady sufferer of IBS who has made a point of knowing every public, hotel and store restroom in Portland for use in case of an emergency.

There is a strong connection between your central nervous system and your gut. You know when you have an urge to go to the bathroom, but, equally, you can suppress the urge to go when you have to remain in an important meeting. Acute anxiety or stress often results in diarrhea, but it is only when it becomes chronic that you suspect IBS. The emotional influences behind IBS are often linked to issues around self-esteem, self-confidence and self-respect. They may express themselves as anxiety, panic attacks, depression or eating disorders, or can result in the diarrhea/constipation seesaw of IBS.

Hypnotherapy is one of a number of therapies that may alleviate or even eliminate IBS. I know of an English hypnotherapist called Mike Mahoney who has a practice in England dealing solely with IBS and is very well known for his skill in this one area. Over a two-year period between 1995-1997, he was involved in a controlled research project with a medical practice, treating IBS with hypnosis. All the patients involved in the study had been diagnosed with IBS for over two years. The youngest was 9 and the oldest 74. The results showed an improvement of about 80% in severity and frequency of symptoms. Six months after the project ended, the patients' stabilization continued and many reported an increased improvement.

When I use hypnotherapy in treating IBS, the first thing I do is to try to find and uncover the underlying cause of the clients' IBS. In most cases the unconscious mind in deep hypnosis will reveal this cause. I then address this cause, reframe it or change it, and proceed to teach them to control their IBS. I give them methodologies on how to either speed up or slow down their digestive system. It is all about giving them the insight and confidence to manage their own digestive system; the power of the mind can take control of the nervous system, which in turn controls their gastrointestinal system. I teach the client about peristalsis (the contractions of the digestive system) and how their mind can take over and make the necessary changes so that the whole system 'flows' in a normal manner. The direct suggestions given in session are then reinforced on a regular basis by the client putting him or herself into self-hypnosis.

We are fortunate in having in Portland a group of gastroenteritis physicians and surgeons who do embrace the fact that hypnosis is one of the ways of treating IBS. They can be found at the St. Vincent's Hospital medical center.

Hypnosis for Illness and Surgery

I was recently asked by the mother of a child of eleven to attend her daughter in hospital the morning of a procedure where she was going to have a catheter put into her stomach. This procedure required the catheter to be put up her nose and then, after swallowing, down her esophagus and into her stomach. No Valium or calming drugs were permitted. This is not an unusual procedure, but the child was naturally very anxious and fearful of new procedures she hadn't encountered before.

I put her into a deep state of hypnosis, called the nurse in, and the catheter was in place in five seconds. When she came out of the hypnotic state it was all over and the child was able to accept and accommodate this inconvenience in a tolerable way for the required twelve hours. The nurse who carried out the procedure was delighted and surprised how quick and easy it was. And not a sound from the child!

Hypnosis before and after surgery can be very helpful. This is something I often do for clients who seek it. Surgery is normally a traumatic experience for the body and mind, in spite of anesthesia. Many surgeons and surgical staff are unaware that your unconscious mind is open and alert all through the operation, and absorbing what is going on and being said. Inappropriate remarks made about you whilst on the operating table stick in your unconscious mind. A friend of mine recently had extensive facial surgery following a bad car accident where his face was literally smashed by the steering wheel. I asked the nurse to play Sibelius throughout the operation and gave her the disk. I also told her I would check by using hypnosis later on exactly what happened throughout the operation, and Sibelius was played and all talk was kept to the minimum! The operation was successful.

Hypnosis may be effective for controlling pain and discomfort following surgery and in particular assisting the body to heal well and rapidly. I am a firm believer that we all possess the power to heal ourselves and hypnosis is in my opinion one of the most effective methods to use. Every cell in our body has a mind of its own and you can give those cells positive instructions to change their composition or purpose and bring about the healing process. For many years now I have use a process devised by a well know English hypnotherapist called John Howard where I ask the subject to go inside their bodies to heal a particular part or organ. I used this process recently on a friend whose liver nearly failed due to a virus infection. He healed his liver and his kidneys which had been working overtime as a result. He told me, whist in the hypnotic state, the he thanked his kidneys for working so hard to bring his body back to normality and he wished to awarded each a special engraved trophy appropriately engraved!

The pain threshold varies from individual to individual. Some people anticipate pain in their minds so that the moment they are touched they translate this into pain. Perhaps the best example is the dentist's hypodermic needle approaching the gums of a patient. A combination of fear, anxiety and anticipation wells up in the mind of one patient which can result in him feeling great pain the moment the needle penetrates the gum. Whereas in someone else who is relaxed and not bothered, a mere pin prick is felt. Major surgery can be performed under hypnosis without any anesthesia but this requires the patient to be have some training. In the case of chronic pain, I do not necessarily think pain can be entirely eliminated, but it's severity can be cut by up to 80 per cent. It's all in the mind; and hypnosis does assist by cutting down and in some cases eliminating pain altogether. I fear we are all so used to seeking a pill for instant relief.

Enhancing Memory Recall through Hypnosis

This time of year is back to school and college time. Over the coming year, students will be studying for tests or exams that could well have a critical effect on their careers and lives. Can hypnosis help to recall what is needed to pass those exams, or get a better grade? The answer is "Yes, it can", but the end results depend on the degree of commitment of the individual, and the skill of the hypnotherapist.

Recently I have been seeing students wishing to achieve good results in their medical exams - a lot of which depends on sheer ability to memorize facts, such as anatomy of the human body. First, I teach the person how to relax through self-hypnosis, both while learning prior to the exam and most importantly during the exam. Next I teach them to enhance their recall during the exam by reading their lectures notes or text book while in a deep hypnotic state of mind, known as 'somnambulistic depth'. Their eyes are open in deep hypnosis whilst focused single-mindedly on the pages of their notes, and all peripheral vision is blocked out. They can turn the pages of the book or notes at the speed of five seconds per page. This is repeated five to fifteen times before the exam, but then it only takes ten minutes to read all the material for a particular subject at that speed. The results are amazing.

It is not just students that do a great deal of reading. Lawyers, government employees, management and financial consultants, politicians and chief executives all have to read masses of information every day of their working lives. Most don't know that they can absorb this information in a fraction of the normal time by speed-reading using a process that employs hypnosis. They can also improve their memory recall of what they have just read by the same process.

It is a well-known fact that some memories, which are thought to have been forgotten, and therefore inaccessible in the waking conscious state, can be recalled during hypnosis. This remarkable phenomenon is called 'hyper amnesia'. In deep hypnosis, age regression can be achieved by getting the person to relive experiences in his past, even back to childhood and infancy. I regressed a client back to their fourth birthday party and he recalled the names of every child there and each present he received.

Memory recall with hypnosis can be rewarding. One client was able to find a large sum of money he hid in a hurry but then forgot where he put it. My sister found her diamond ring in her husband's gun cabinet where she had hidden it for safekeeping. I have had clients recall motor accidents in detail and sexual abuse. In the case of very unpleasant or traumatic incidents, it is not unusual for the unconscious mind to deliberately impose amnesia and shut them out completely. Very often in hypnosis they can be recalled.

But, beware. The unconscious mind does not always wish to yield up its secrets. Often it may do this to protect the person from having to relive an unpleasant or traumatic situation from the past. It can also lie in hypnosis. The unconscious mind in hypnosis can hallucinate and fabricate events. A skilled hypnotherapist is an essential requisite to help recover past memories. In particular, he or she must be scrupulously careful not to ask leading questions.

There is a well-known and dangerous phenomenon called "False Memory Syndrome", where a person under hypnosis makes up a tale of a parent, sibling or close friend sexually abusing that person earlier in their life. Unfortunately, this can happen where an unskilled therapist asks leading questions, which the person then visualizes and believes the subsequent images to be real memory. Untold harm has been done by a therapy developed by Messrs Bass and Davis and expounded in their book called "Courage to Heal" which is considered the bible of followers of RMT or 'Recovered Memory Therapy." Beware.

Besides enhancing memory, hypnosis is a wonderful therapy for helping you to comprehend a subject you find difficult - particularly mathematical subjects. It boils down to getting over any phobia of figures or symbols, and teaching you that figures and symbols as just another way of telling a story you can understand. I recently treated a client who had gone back to college after taking 18 years off from her engineering career to be a mum. Now she wanted to re-take her engineering qualifications but was afraid she would not be able to comprehend the advanced mathematics. I regressed her back to her college days and when we opened the social side of her unconscious mind to the great and fun times she had then, her stress was relieved. She got back her enthusiasm and was confident she could relearn her engineering skills easily.

How can you go about improving your memory? A good start is to buy one or more books on self-hypnosis, and there are many excellent books on this subject. Try searching the Internet. Amazon.com is good as it gives critiques and write-ups, and Barnes and Noble are also helpful.

The Mind Set of Healing

Have you ever wondered why some people get sick while others, who may be exposed to the same stresses or source of infection don't seem to be affected? Some people's immune system is strong, helping them recover quickly while others may experience a prolonged, debilitating chronic illness. What determines whether and why a person gets sick?

Practitioners of acupuncture, traditional Chinese medicine, Reiki, Kinesiology, medical intuitive and other healers will often blame energy imbalances - blocks or leakages along the meridians and chakras, the body's energy channels. They will treat a condition by supplying a balancing energy to the body through whatever modality they use. Sometimes this can produce a dramatic improvement, but often it is only temporary because old emotional and behavioral patterns reassert themselves.

How can the emotions cause the body to get out of balance in the first place? Louise Hay, best-selling author of You Can Heal Your Live, states, "When we create harmony and balance in our minds, we will find it in our lives. She identifies the emotional states most commonly associated with particular physical problems, and tries to change the emotional state with affirmations. These affirmations are only a general guide, because, while helpful, they are of necessity simplistic - one size fits all. Human beings are complex and need to be able to identify their causes from within their own experience.

That is easier said than done, as people undergoing years of psychotherapy can attest. This is where hypnosis is so helpful.

Hypnotherapy employs the powerful technique of regression to go back to find the root cause of the emotional problem that set off the dis-ease in the first place. It might, for example, be a belief system that was implanted a long time ago in childhood, mot likely by a parent, teacher or other relative. Up to seventy five per cent of our beliefs are implanted in our unconscious minds before the age of seven. We do form new belief systems throughout the course of our lives, but after that young age, many of these belief systems are formed by particular situations, or traumatic events or lifestyles that are forced upon us or we fall into.

Often the emotional cause of dis-ease is because in our minds we are playing over and over again a movie that is showing and telling us we "deserve to be punished" or we feel "damnable guilt" for an act we committed. These emotions of fear and guilt, often reinforced by religious upbringing, can be twisted into powerful negative affirmations that can create their own reality. But, the movie can be changed.

Where there is a willingness on the part of the suffering patient to change, that movie can be quickly erased and a new movie, with positive new pictures and sound track, can be produced and absorbed by the unconscious mind. When you see and you hear an affirmation many times a day that is telling you that you are healed, or you have overcome that affliction, or no longer feel any pain and limitations, then it will happen. It may not bring about a one hundred percent U-turn immediately, but it can be substantial and alleviate a high percentage of that pain, or make that dis-ease far less debilitating.

It is an aspect of human nature that it is more comfortable to blame something or someone else for our problems than ourselves. Sometimes we may be getting a secondary gain from our ill health; for example, if we are ill, then we cannot go to work, and perhaps our partner then has to take care of us. When we are able to accept responsibility for our own role in our illnesses and recognize our reasons, it will be much easier to let go of them and heal.

Hypnosis is one of the fastest ways to help the individual recognize the issues he or she is dealing with. A skilled therapist will help a person let go of those deeply embedded issues and chose a state of emotional and physical wholeness. Whether you call it faith or the placebo effect, remarkable healings can take place with just the power of the mind.

Motivation and the Inner Game

I am often called upon in my hypnotherapy practice to help people motivate themselves more effectively. This can extend to successfully thinking about your job or career, about making money and having abundance in your life, or to maximizing your sports performance.

Hypnosis can be a very effective way to motivate sportsmen and has been used for many years now for enhancing athletic performance, especially in baseball, tennis, football, boxing, skiing and golf. The techniques for helping to enhance sports performance are broadly the same as motivating performance for anything you care to name.

I recently saw a professional sportsman who made his living playing on the world circuits. He complained that his performance in competitions over the last six months was mediocre and he was losing the will to win. He had suffered an injury, but he had fully recovered now after taking time off, but he was unable to return to his past form.

When I enquired about what had happened in a recent competition, he explained that a voice inside him told him "he was completely useless" and "why should he now bother to go on with the competition." That voice was his ego. I explained that the conscious mind (Brain 1) was always judgmental and he needed to improve his relationship with the unconscious mind (Brain 2). Playing a better game starts by having a clear picture of your desired outcome to win; learning to be "non-judgmental" by seeing what was happening rather than noticing only how badly it was happening; and learning to trust Brain 2 to perform at its best, because it knows exactly what to do.

I taught him how to completely switch into Brain 2, his unconscious mind, during the game. Brain 2 knew exactly what to do: how much pressure or force it should use: the exact trajectory of the shot; where it should bounce and how much back spin was required--visualizing in his mind the ball landing in the exact position he desired. By shutting down that judgmental inner voice, he was totally relaxed and the complex co-ordination of mind and body needed to make that shot was given over and entrusted to the unconscious mind.

Hypnosis can provide some further tools. For example, in order to go into the hypnotic state for the game, he was taught a "trigger," such a wiping his brow with a wristband or pressing thumb and forefinger together. Suggestions were given that he would not hear any noise from the watching crowd or even see the surroundings.

I recommend an excellent book called "The Inner Game of Tennis" by W. Timothy Gallwey. It's a good foundation for all sports psychology and indeed for anything that you wish to be motivated in.

How often does the ego or Brain1 sabotage that motivation by saying "I cannot possibly do that," or "It's beyond my capability," or "I am stupid and lazy," or "I cannot make this cold call because I cannot abide someone being rude to me."

The word "sabotage" comes from the industrial revolution of 19^th century France, when exploited workers showed their distaste for bad working conditions and low pay by throwing their wooden shoes, called 'sabots' in French, into the machinery. Hence the word, sabotage. The English talk about "throwing a spanner (monkey wrench) into the works." How often have we done this to ourselves? Just think of all those missed opportunities that have flown by right under our noses, which we didn't take up!

Why do we sabotage ourselves from time to time? Well, we let our big ego get in the way instead of following the instinct of the non-judgemental unconscious mind. Follow your instincts and listen to that inner voice, or feeling, or sense talking to you.

I have clients coming to me to help them make important decisions in their life. Should I leave my wife and children and seek a divorce? Should I run for political office or leave it for another election time? Should I go ahead and commence litigation against a family friend? I don't presume to advise them, but I help them by-pass their egos and get in touch with what they are really feeling.

By using the hypnotic state, clients have found satisfactory answers to important questions in their lives and have been grateful for being shown a powerful tool that has helped them make the right decision. It is not necessarily a painless decision. The human mind will do everything in its power to avoid pain - both physical and emotional. That is why we find it so difficult to make changes in our lives. However, when we listen to our inner mind, we can play the game of life so much better and easier.

Bulimia and Eating Disorders

Recently the Surgeon General rightly stated that the biggest medical problem for the United States today was overweight and obesity. What is not so often talked about is the other end of the scale, that is to say Bulimia Nervosa and Anorexia Nervosa. Bulimia is a condition that mainly affects young women in the west, and western cultures in other parts of the world such as Japan and Australia .

It is primarily a dieting disorder although, paradoxically, the main symptom is overeating. Following an episode of Bulimia, the sufferer has guilt and self blame and a feeling of failure, and this leads to putting a finger down the throat to induce vomiting. This is then followed by the sufferer vowing never to repeat the overeating again.

Typically the young person is restricting food intake or is dieting and by the evening when she is so hungry, she eats the forbidden food. This results in feeling "I have ruined the diet now, so I might as well binge." More commonly bulimia becomes a depressing compulsion, and not all suffers vomit after binges. Some take laxatives, appetite suppressants, diuretics or other medicines. The result is that physical and mental health suffer.

Lady Diana was a sufferer, and she was cured at a specialist clinic attached to a hospital in Chelsea in London , an area where only the very wealthy can afford to live. Ironically, bulimia is often found in teenage girls of well-to-do parents who are subjected to parental or peer pressure to mimic the look of the models and TV stars.

Anorexia is very closely related to bulimia, and sometimes anorexics will alternate between anorexia and bulimia. I treated a lady in London who was the wife of a CEO of a large and well known corporation. She lived a life of luxury and had all she could possibly need. However, the stress of constant public exposure as the wife of a public figure drove her to bulimia. She felt pressured to always look slim and attractive, and became depressed which led to low self esteem which led to binging, then vomiting, thereby giving her lower self esteem that led to further depression that led to binging and vomiting etc. The whole circle then goes round again.

The causes are immensely complex. There may be a physical cause, as it is known that some chemicals found in the brain help to control eating and some anti-depressants have a helpful effect. However, the psychological cause is most important to recognize, and in my experience 'toxic' parenting features high on the list.

I treated a young girl of 26 who was severely anorexic and when I regressed her in the hypnotic state, her unconscious mind told me that her mother made her, from the age of 14, spend all her time riding and training for competitions. Her wealthy parents bought her one expensive pony after another and she began to hate the sport. Also a chance remark by her father that she "was looking fat on that pony at the last show" bore a devastating effect on her from that day forward. This made her determined to slim. Unfortunately she became forty pounds underweight and anorexic.

We worked on reframing the dominating and controlling mother, and eventually she was able to forgive both parents. Her self esteem and confidence began to improve at once so that she was able to see that she was not fat, but rather needed to put on forty pounds-slowly and in a controlled way.

Anorexia sometimes leads to some strange side effects; shoplifting is one of them. One of my clients lived a comfortable middle class life, but her anorexia had led her to the compulsion that she must store food "for a rainy day." Everyday she spent two hours going to different shops part of a large chain of supermarkets, and stealing different products - mainly canned food. This was then stored in her basement. She had been caught twice by the store detective and charged, and she was told that the third charge would meet the "3-strikes you're out" rule and she would be sent to prison. She knew that one day she would be caught again by the store detective, but she could not stop. Unfortunately the Courts don't seem to recognize that this is a serious mental illness in some ways; she needs further treatment, not jail bars. I regressed her in hypnosis and the cause, in her case, was toxic parenting by her father. He was a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp and constantly harangued his children about the necessity to skimp on expenditure, especially food. "Put it aside for the rainy day."

You can see from these case histories that it is distressingly common for careless remarks, especially from parents, to have devastating effects on the tender psyches of their children. Fortunately, hypnosis has proven to be one of the most direct and effective ways of helping sufferers of these debilitating disorders.

Covert Hypnosis

Without being aware of it, we slip in and out of hypnosis all day long. When we drive that car to work each day on auto-pilot without remembering the details of the journey, we do so in a light hypnotic state. We automatically stop at the traffic lights, and obey highway driving rules without having to think. When we day dream, or get absorbed in watching a movie, or reading an interesting book or in the act of sexual intercourse, we are in light hypnosis. It is similar to the light hypnotic state we experience every time we drift into or come out of sleep, or have one of those rare lucid dreams.

Not surprisingly, this fact of life is exploited by others in our daily lives. I doubt that the average American realizes just how much covert hypnosis he is subjected to daily, particularly through the medium of advertising--on Television, the newspapers, radio, and on the bill boards. Hypnotic language is used with great skill to induce us to buy all sorts of products and services at every twist and turn.

The advertiser plays on those magic Mom's words, like the word NOW. "You have got to go to bed Johnny.NOW". As a six year old child, you recall the power of Mom's command, and the physical consequences if you disobeyed.

Then translate it into the words of the car salesman; "You might want to buy this car NOW, because it won't be in the showroom for more than a day." The average salesman might say "Buy this car: it's a good deal;" but the salesman trained in hypnotic language will turn it into, "I can't tell you to buy this car, that's your decision." This phase is much more powerful.

How about the pitchman on TV: "Call NOW in the next three minutes, and we will give you two additional widgets, absolutely free. DON'T delay, call right away!" "Don't" is another of Mom's words.
"You DON'T have to invest in several Fidelity Mutual Funds, (just one or two I have suggested will be fine)." "You DON'T have to decide NOW,( but can you imagine what will happen if you lose this special deal)." These are called embedded commands. They were invented by the psychiatrist and genius, Dr. Milton Erickson MD, who employed hypnosis extensively in his practice in order to persuade people to make therapeutic changes. Therapy is all about change. His techniques have since been exploited to assist the salesman to sell more. Car salesmen go to school to learn hypnotic language patterns, and they prowl the car sale lots waiting to pounce on that little person who only intended to buy a second hand car, but finds himself driving away in that new, all-singing all-dancing, BMW.

I bet you were not aware that the word BECAUSE is a power word. It's another Mom's word, and we have to obey Mom. It is a magic word, because it lends credibility to whatever goes before it, and it carries attention away from the embedded command before you consciously recognize it. "You can feel good seated in this car, because it is the only car in this price range with leather seats."

Did you know that every good advertising business works the "Sixteen Basic Desires?" What do you think the first basic desire is? Yes, you guessed correctly--it is SEX of course. Just look at those incessant adverts on the TV urging you to buy the latest SUV. Then notice the macho man or curvaceous blond in just about every car promotion.
Here are the next six basic desires in order of priority: to acquire and save; to bond and connect; to learn; to protect; to eat; to nest or shelter. When you reflect on what you see daily on the TV, how many of these basics desires are emphasized? The product might have nothing to do with "bonding", yet the whole advert supports this desire.

It might be reasonable to suppose that these desires simply reflect our innate ancient urges from pre-historic days, when we needed to go around in groups in order to eat and survive. There are some 250 power words that are commonly used to change minds and influence people. You will be familiar with all of them, as you hear them on the TV and radio every day. They include, for example, such innocent words as: money-saving, discover, breakthrough, last chance, discount, satisfaction, superior, etc. If you visit a web site with the URL, www.mrfire.com, you can get Mr. Jo Vitale of "Hypnotic Marketing Inc." to write your company's brochure in hypnotic language for a mere $15,000. It's obviously good business!

The car salesman is taught, by using hypnotic language patterns, how to extract information from the unsuspecting purchaser, even though he does not want to tell the salesman his real intentions.

When a salesman "helpfully" asks, "What is important to you in buying a new car?" he learns exactly how the purchaser will make his decision. The purchaser gives him explicit instructions on how to sell to him! It's all so simple and the unsuspecting buyer finds himself trapped in the salesman's web.

The good news is that these techniques can be put to powerful use in therapy. Parents as well as those in the medical profession may well find it beneficial to learn how to use hypnotic language patterns on their children and patients. They will do what is desired, and without tears!

Letting Go

We were recently burglarized.
I returned home just after nine in the evening and on entering the garage, I noticed the back door and frame had been smashed open. My heart leaped as I immediately realized that burglars had entered our house. When I opened the door, I saw the contents of every drawer in the house strewn over the floors and corridors. I felt angry and defiled. Painfully, we began the task of calling the police and Insurance Company, cleaning up, replacing the doors, determining what had been stolen and preparing lists. We were comparatively lucky. Easily disposable items such a camera, camcorder and DVD were missing, as well as other things that we are still discovering, and all my wife's good jewelry had gone--things that had great sentimental as well as monetary value.
The insurance covered the repairs and most of the equipment, but less than 5% of the value of the jewelry. The next evening as we sat finishing the lists for the police and Insurance Company, we decided from that moment on that we would let go of the anger and frustration and any other emotion the burglary had aroused in us. We decided we would not do the rounds of the Pawn Shops, as the police suggested, nor would we seek to replace any of her jewelry. We were just going to let go of the whole incident. We immediately felt so much better, and have remained so since.

It is not easy to let go, just like that. The human mind has a propensity to hang on to the past. It likes to churn over incidents and relive emotions long gone from its daily life. In my practice, I help people release a whole variety of emotions--from events that might appear to be insignificant, to big traumas that have had a huge impact on their lives. A good way of addressing this problem is to remind oneself that 'Now' is the only reality. As Eckhart Tolle so compellingly explains in "The Power of Now," both the past and the future are but shadows and smoke, and the only substance that these thoughts have is what we give them by dwelling on remembered pain. This pain is like a parasite that has a life of its own and feeds on negative thoughts.

Let me give you an example. Recently an attractive client in her early 40s came to me for weight reduction, needing to lose about 50 pounds. When I questioned her unconscious mind in the hypnotic state, she told me about the sexual abuse--both physical and verbal--her former husband gave her over a period of years. She put on weight deliberately so that she appeared unattractive to him, until he finally walked out of the house for good. She was now happily remarried, but still held on to that out of date belief system. When she was able to let it go and move on, the pounds fell off. But, she also changed her diet and started exercising every day; those are also essential elements in reducing weight.

Sometimes there is a secondary gain that needs to be identified. For example, if someone is temporarily disabled but enjoys sympathy and financial support, or is worried about losing social security benefits, then their unconscious mind will do all in it's power to protect them, and they will continue to hang on to that unnecessary piece of the past.

It can nearly always be helpful and beneficial to confront a problem again. You can use rituals to release and resolve things, such as grief. An example is that of a young woman who developed anorexia since the death of her younger brother in a tragic auto accident. The family was quiet about the loss of their son and forbid talk about it for over two years. Eventually the father called a family conference about the son's clothing that remained in his closet. This brought emotions to a head. They all agreed to bury his clothing in the yard and plant a tree. The anorexic daughter participated in the digging, and soon afterwards began eating again.

Creating a ritual to release grief, the pain of a trauma, or those feeling of resentment from some past insult or injury that has been eating into you, can be so helpful. There are also lots of other ways, especially in a deep hypnotic state, that can allow you to 'reframe' those past thoughts or feelings, such as putting them in a new picture frame, and seeing this from a new angle or through a different pair of glasses.

So often, I come across victims of sexual abuse who are aggressively hurting themselves by holding onto the past. Thirty years might have passed, but that incident or the image of that person is being replayed constantly on the movie screen of their minds. Maybe you have something that has been eating at you for years. You will find that letting go and forgiving can dramatically change your life. Maybe now is time to move on, and start living in the 'Now'.

For enquiries about hypnosis, feel free to email me.

For information on how to book a consultation, see Making an Appointment.

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