Hypnosis & Hypnotherapy Blog Page 2

By Inspector Marx Howell, BS (Ret.)

While there are a number of similarities between the application of investigative and therapeutic hypnosis, there are distinct and important differences. This article will delineate the salient factors associated with both approaches.

Initial Interview

The initial interview, rapport building and evaluation of the witness/victim or client/patient are similar but an investigative session is more demanding regarding the keeping of records. In an investigative session, it is imperative that all contact between the witness/victim and the hypnotist be audio and/or video recorded. While most, if not all clinicians, keep a patient file and records of contact, there is no compelling reason, in most cases, to keep an audio and/or video record of all patient contacts.

If you're overweight, feeling tired and sluggish from carrying around those extra pounds, and fed up with the way you look, follow our weight loss guide carefully to lose weight.

Take Control of Your Mind

With junk foods so easily available in the shops it's so easy to take in more calories than we need. When food was scarce we used more physical energy to actually get the food, which triggered a survival mechanism to avoid starvation.

Having less food inside us the body's metabolism slowed down in order to preserve energy; this meant less fat was burned.

A selection of resources for hypnotherapists - client forms, questionnaires and promotional material downloads.

As you go deeper and deeper into relaxation you realize that one of your strongest desires - one of your most treasured wishes - is to love and be loved in return by a partner who will love you passionately and lovingly.

You realize that for this to happen you must feel the same feelings towards each other to make that perfect partnership.

Your subconscious develops a strategy for achievement by way of visualization - visualizing what you want to achieve - your main goals, to show your Subconscious what and how you want to be and what you want to achieve in this your perfect partnership.

Allow the flickering candle flame to guide you into a dreamy state of self hypnosis and as your mind begins to relax, observe the images that float through your inner vision.

When using candles to induce hypnosis, always make sure that you're safe and that the candle is well away from you. If you 'fall' into a hypnotic trance and knock anything, a fire could start very easily. Sit in a comfortable chair with the candle above eye level and at least three meters away from you.

It is estimated that in Britain alone, 25% of all drug sales are for pain-reducing remedies (mainly Paracetamol and Ibroprofen) to help with headaches, migraine, joint and period pains, toothache, etc - many of these claiming to target specific areas.

As anyone who reads the back of a box of supermarket brand pills can attest, the ingredients are often identical across the brands - regardless of whether they cost 19p a packet or £4.99 a pack.

If there is a difference then this usually lies in the coating of the tablet, the addition of caffeine which can accelerate pain-relief or lysine which is water-soluble and speeds absorption of the pills.

How does someone get involved in hypnotherapy? How do you identify a good subject for hypnosis? This week, we interview Sandra Norman, a Spokane, WA-based hypnotherapist, about life in the profession.

1. What made you decide to become a Hypnotherapist?

I had been working for years in the Electronic industry, growing up in Silicon Valley. This line of work served its purpose until I was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 50. I recognized how powerful the mind is and how it can be influenced by both the negative and the positive. I wanted to help people overcome the negatives in their life and found hypnotherapy could assist in that.

This account was sent into Hypnotic World by one of our valued visitors. All contributions are gratefully received. The photo of the Heart Tree was taken on a trail near Molly's home - it just goes to show how love can grow in the places you least expect it to.

Hi, I am a 51 year old woman, and something unusual happened to me this spring upon meeting a gentlemen at work.

This is a great visualisation for young football enthusiasts - I used it with a 13 year old boy with lifelong enuresis and after only 5 sessions he was completely cured of a lifelong habit....

For children interested in football this can be used to improve focusing and directing the mind to achieving goals. It can be easily adapted to other sports that are of interest to the subject. Insert the name of the child's hero or role model for more impact.

"Picture yourself at a football match. You have the best seat in the stadium and it gives you a perfect view of the football pitch and all the players down there. You're wearing the colours of the team you support. It's cold but not too cold and you're comfortably wrapped up with layers and layers of clothing.

The hypnotic benefits of lucid dreaming

Hypnotherapists recognize the value of dreams for revealing information from the subconscious mind and venting blockages and frustrations as therapeutic change occurs. A lesser known but highly effective aspect of dreaming is "lucid dreaming."

The awareness that you are dreaming while you are dreaming. It's an ability every one possesses, yet dormant in most people.

Therapist can assist clients to develop lucidity or increase the degree through specific techniques and practice. As you may know, any hypnotic suggestion is most effective when the client takes some form of immediate action. This is also true for increasing lucidity.

When we work using regression we regularly see the most extraordinary results very swiftly. Suddenly things become plain to the client and they understand why something happened. Subsequently their ability to manage their issue becomes very much more easily understood.

Dave Elman's book, Hypnotherapy, provides a good roadmap for anyone using regression generally to manage an issue. However the pattern occasionally swings out of the norm. Typically an incident in the recent past is associated with an incident in the clients' early life that had traumatic elements and introduced stress and anxiety. By reframing the earlier incident the issue in the recent past is resolved " and future occurrences defused. This is not an unfamiliar process to most hypnotherapists.

Hypnosis related jokes and amusements.

Hypnotic projection is the opposite of regression and means projecting the mind into the future to see what will be, or what is likely to be. If this sounds a bit far-fetched to you, remember that the mind can move not only backwards and forwards in time, but sidewards as well - take dreams for example, how can you define time in dreams? I can't be the only person who has dreamt through a whole year in less than 30 minutes.

If the mind envisages something happening enough times, there is a strong likelihood that it will eventually become a self fulfilling prophecy.

Having read quite a bit of information about negative hallucination I figure that I understand the basic concepts behind it.

I have seen stage hypnotists claiming to be invisible to their subjects and cross the room (allegedly bodiless) holding a stick or something else that is apparently travelling around on its own.

Or they tell their subject that a broom is a beautiful woman whom they will want to make love to - or someone's belly button or penis has dropped off in the toilet - I'm sure you've seen the same sort of act if you've been to one of those shows?

The four aspects of Karma are: Cause and Effect, Compensation, Balancing and Completion.

Through different lifetimes we work through our karmic cycle in order to attain perfection of the soul, which is trapped within five different lower planes. Only when we reach a higher plane are we able to move forward to the next level.

The Five Lower Planes are as follows: The physical plane - this is where you and I are right now. It is also known as the Earth Plane - at this level the body is a physical one and a large amount of karma can be added or erased at this level.

Pin Pointing is the starting point of a neurosis. Every neurotic condition started somewhere. The starting point is referred to as the pin point.

The types of problems to use Pin Pointing for:

This report was sent in by Victoria, a hypnotherapist who has been working with a cancer patient with the use of hypnosis.

Less anesthetic was used due to a relaxed physical and mental state

-hunger and thirst quickly followed surgery to keep the body functions (bladder and bowel) naturally and easily

-color in her cheeks unlike the usual drained look that matches hospital sheets

-the immediate healing of the surgical wound so as to be infection free

By Rob Hadley

Up to one in ten women between 18 and 25 will at some stage suffer an eating disorder. Worse still, it will be the one in ten we least expect. Clients are mostly female, but not exclusively.

As a hypnotherapist specializing in eating disorders I often work with clients struggling with Bulimia. In many cases they consider themselves overweight, and yet are not. Like anorexics, they have little idea of how they appear to others. Yet, this is not an issue that has a great deal to do with food. Food is merely the media of expression for the problem.

Rebecca, 29, has successfully managed to quit smoking with the help of hypnotherapy so she decided to use it again to help her with her anger management.

She told me that she had always had a 'short fuse' but these days it was mostly directed towards her eldest daughter, Jessica, aged 9. Rebecca felt irritated whenever she was in Jessica's company and directly avoided spending time with her daughter, without really knowing the reason why.

Case history revealed that:

This case history demonstrates how dissociation takes place, although this wasn't the problem that Mary came to see me about.

She was troubled with an unsettled mind - could never stop thinking about things, hearing the slightest little noise and didn't sleep well. She had constant headaches which she attributed to recently having taken a course of anti-smoking medication which failed to work.

Mary told me that she had been abused as a child at the ages of 4, 8 and 11 although we didn't go into this in detail as it didn't appear to be the issue that was concerning her.