Fear of failure

I was having a conversation with someone recently who wanted to try something new, but said it would be pointless to try because they'd just fail anyway. I'm not really a fan of this viewpoint. It always seems odd to me that people can work so hard to avoid failing that they never even try - and therefore never succeed, which, to me, is the biggest failure of all.

Take public speaking for example, it's probably the biggest fear of all. Yet the actual risk from public speaking is tiny. Just the fact that you may fail in public is enough to scare people even more than death. And because they are so scared of failing, they wont even try. Worrying so much about failing isn't entirely incorrect when you want to try something new, in all likelihood you will fail. A lot. The point isn't to avoid falling, it's to learn from those failures so that your next attempt has a higher chance of success. Even experts fail a lot of the time, the difference is they learn from it and move on.

To take this kind of thinking to the extreme, how long would you give your child to learn to walk? Maybe two months before you decided they can't do it and should give up? Six? One year? Of course you wouldn't, that's ridiculous. You'll want them to keep trying until they get it, no matter how long it takes. Which is why pretty much everyone on the planet can walk. I'm not saying that you should keep trying the same thing over and over again, that's just as silly as not trying in the first place. As Benjamin Franklin once said:

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

If what you're doing isn't getting you any closer to your goal then try something else. What if that doesn't work? Then try sometimes else, and keep trying different things until you find something that does work. If you want to start up your own business, ask somebody out on a date or anything in-between - don't let fear of failure hold you back.

Hypnosis can obviously help with fear of failure, but a much cheaper way is to try following some advice from Steve Pavlina and fail on purpose. You'll save yourself some cash, and get to try some stuff you'd probably never have attempted otherwise.

If you just keep trying to avoid failure, you'll never achieve any real success.

Is conversational reframing ethical?

A fair amount of the NLP topics I've been learning about can also be used in a conversational way, rather than in the usual therapist-client manner. Often referred to as 'Covert NLP'. I find this side of things pretty interesting, but I'm still unsure of how I feel ethically about using techniques like this without the other person giving consent beforehand.

If somebody came to see me as a therapist about something, then I'd be fine about using various techniques during conversation, because they've already given their consent indirectly when they came to see me. It's the everyday conversations with people I'm unsure about. The kind of stuff I'm talking about here is mostly just reframing, but in the style described in Mind Lines (which is a great book on conversational reframing).

Is it ok for me to try and influence someone to change a habit, such as giving up smoking? What about less harmful habits such as biting their nails?

Part of feels like it's ok to try and convince someone to change using normal methods (which pretty much comes down to argument), but that it's 'cheating' to use things like conversational reframing for this. But at the same time, I know that trying to get someone to change almost never works by arguing with them, and that what you really need to do is get them to see things in a different way - which is exactly what reframing is all about.

Hypnosis CDs for quiting smoking

A lot of people try using hypnosis CDs to help them quit smoking, and it does work for some of them. A CD is a lot cheaper than going to see a Hypnotherapist in person, thanks to them being mass-produced (one of the better ones being Paul Mckenna's), which is probably one of the biggest things going for them. The problem is that it's also one of the biggest flaws. Being mass-produced also means they need to be fairly generic. The biggest benefit you get from going to see a Hypnotherapist in person is that the therapy will be specific for you. Everyone has their own reasons for wanting to stop smoking, so a generic therapy session such as you'd get on a CD isn't going to be as effective as one that focus on your own reasons for wanting to quit smoking (and fears about losing the benefits you get from smoking).

Even when it seems like the reasons are same, such as saving money, the reasons behind that will still be different. E.g. one person may want to save money to take the kids to Disney land, while somebody else may want to save money to pay of debts. The same goes for health, everyone knows that smoking is bad for your health - but that fact isn't usually enough of a reason for somebody to quit. It takes more than that, such as it becoming more 'real' to them when a family member becomes ill from smoking.

If you visit a Hypnotherapist in person they should be able to take your specific reasons (and the reasons behind them) for wanting to quit smoking and incorporate those into a comprehensive quit smoking session, or sessions, for you (there is still a lot more than just this, but it does play a big part). Basically one of the goals is to get your emotions involved, because it makes it so much easier to give up. As Doc Searls wrote a little while back:

Logic and reason sit on the mental board of directors, but emotions cast the deciding votes.

So if you try a hypnosis CD, and it doesn't work as well as you'd like, hypnotherapy still could help you give up smoking. Just do you best to choose a good Hypnotherapist, ideally a referral from a GP or a friend that has successful given up smoking with them already.

Hypnotherapy exam results

As I mentioned previously I found out the results of the practical part of my exam on the day, but needed to wait for the results of the written exam. I have those results as well now and I passed with 73% Yay! I still think choosing to see if I could pass without doing any revision might have been the wrong choice though, because I would have undoubtedly done much better if I had.

Still a good result though, so I'm happy about that :-)

Learning hypnotherapy, final exam

My final exam for hypnotherapy is over now. It was a pretty long day, starting off with a practical exam to demonstrate taking somebody into trance, some ego strengthening, then bringing them back to full awareness. As well as some 'mock' client issues to show how you would deal with a clients fears or misconceptions about hypnosis, the kind of details you would take for a case history and other things along those lines (basically everything you would cover in the pre-hypnosis interview-ish part).

The practical exam was followed by four written papers, during which I discovered that I don't actually have the ability to write anymore. Thanks to all my time using computers these days, I think this is the first time I've wrote more than a few words on paper for several years. The legibility of my writing seemed to deteriorate rapidly after a paragraphs or so. Hopefully it's all understandable.

I was a lot more confident about these papers before taking them, partly because I had decided to try and pass theses papers without any revision at all. If I do fail any of them, I'll be able to have a second attempt shortly afterwards (I did check this before hand) which I will revise for. I'll be a lot more pleased if I pass first time through.

I found out on the day that I passed the practical examination, and I'll get the results of the written papers in a few weeks. Fingers crossed.

How to have a panic attack

Recently, I've been getting some practice in finding out 'how' people know to feel certain ways, e.g. how they know to be scared of spiders. I've been trying to get the process they go through to have that fear, rather than the reason that they belive they feel scared. This is going from the NLP-type view that the 'why' isn't all that important. It doesn't matter if somebody is scared of spiders because their parents are, because they found one in their food as a child, or whatever else they belive the reason is. The idea is, that if you can get the process they go through from being calm before seeing (or thinking about) a spider, to being afraid, then you can start to change it.

The biggest problem I've had with this, is being able to ask people the right kind of questions to get the type of answer that I'm looking for. People generally aren't aware of their internal thought process, it happens automatically so they don't pay any attention to it. I tried asking a friend of mine, who has a fear of water to the point of taking a panic attack, about the thought process he goes through to get from being calm to having a panic attack. Just thinking about it is enough to make him feel anxious, so it's a fairly strong response. At first, he was mostly saying things like "I just feel my heart speeding up" or "I just feel scared when I get near to it" - but after asking some strange questions I did manage to get him to describe the process he was going through in his mind. He said he imagines himself drowning in the water, seeing it from his own eyes as if he's actually in the water, and seeing the bubbles of air going up past his face to the surface. No wonder he manages to have a panic attack when he thinks about it in that way.

After getting the description of what he does mentally, it seemed like a good fit for a technique I first read about from one of Richard Bandler's books (I can't remember which one). The technique is to get the person to go through the thought process (in this case, it would be imagining the drowning) and as they're doing it, to turn the brightness right up for the pictures or movie in their mind - just like they would if it was on TV, so that it totally whites out. So they can't see anything apart from whiteness. Then go through the same process a few more times (5 being the recommend number), each time turning the brightness all the way up. The idea is that by doing this, you're effectively brain-washing yourself so that you can't play that internal movie in the same way again. When you try it'll just white out again. A blank white movie isn't enough to scare you or cause any anxiety, so no more fear or panic attacks.

The only downside in this case was that after I explained to my friend what I wanted him to do, he said he didn't like the sound of that, and that the whiteness would just be 'nothing' which might be even worse than what he has now. So I don't actually know if this technique would have helped in this case, but from what I've read of other peoples results they've been pretty successful. No doubt I'll get other chances to practice this kind of thing, but I thought it was an interesting response to not wanting to try it. At least he didn't just say "it wont work for me" :-)

"It wont work with me"

Sometimes when people mention that they have a really bad phobia that causes problems in their life (such as being scared of heights, deep water, etc.) and I ask if they've considered hypnotherapy, they say something like "that wont work with me, so there's no point in trying". That response always seems really strange to me, if they've never tried it before how can they know it wont work? It doesn't take long to do it, so the effort required to try it is tiny. Usually I've offered to try and help for free as well, so the cost isn't an issue either.

I wonder if it's just people being scared to try hypnotherapy in general? Although I mostly use NLP techniques for working with phobias now, nobody has ever heard of that so I don't usually mention it (and I still use some hypnotherapy for ego-strengthening with whatever work I'm doing)

One of the people that said it wouldn't work did clarify that it's because she wasn't comfortable with it, so probably wouldn't do what I said. Which makes much more sense - it just bugs me when people say that it's pointless to try because they already know it wont work.

Learning hypnotherapy, weekend 10.2

The last day of the course for me, all that's left to do now is the final exam next month. The topics we covered today seemed to be mostly variants of parts therapy (which we covered on weekend 3), nothing really stood out as being especially groundbreaking - but then I have been trying to learn as much as I can in my spare time as well. So towards the end of the course I'd already come across several of the techniques being taught on my own (especially with the NLP stuff). Most of the techniques covered today could also be used for 'content free' free therapy (so the client doesn't have to let you know what the problem is, all they have to do is think about it).

Across this course we've covered quite a few content free methods, but they've all seemed a bit too 'new age' to me. I guess it's the fact that they are so undirected that feels a bit odd to me, even though that's the point of them. I think it's the geek side of me which wants things to be a bit more focused. But if I do ever have a client who doesn't want to discuss what the problem is (which would be strange enough in itself, I think) then at least I'll be aware of these methods so I can try and help anyway. I just haven't had a need to use any of them yet.

Looking back over this course, I think the most useful things we've covered has been smoking, phobias and pain control. I suspect a lot of my work will be dealing with stopping smoking - it seems to be the first thing people think of when I've talked to them about hypnotherapy, and it could be thought of as the life saving part of all this (about 106,000 deaths each year because of smoking) so it's a very good thing to help with. I also find working with phobias and pain control to be pretty satisfying, and I'm still surprised at how well (and how fast) those things work.

Learning hypnotherapy, weekend 10.1

Unfortunately I missed this day of the final weekend, but a lot of it was taken up with using hypnosis with children - which I don't expect I'll ever be doing, so it wasn't a big miss. Automatic writing was also covered on this day, which I was interested in. Thankfully, a couple of the other students took me though it. That's where you place a pen in someones hand while they're in a hypnotic state, and have them write/draw things without consciously choosing what to write or draw.

None of the results I saw from using this technique seemed to make much sense (although the people using it didn't really have any real problems to work with either). The idea is that it's supposed to make sense to the client (maybe not immediately, so it may take a few days to sink in), and that it'll help in some way with whatever problems they're trying to deal with. I doubt I'll use this technique in therapy myself, mostly because I don't really put much value in this one. But it's still an interesting idea, it just seems a bit of a strange way to go about things. There's always the chance I'll change my mind about this though, it wouldn't be the first time - and it definitely wont be the last.

Learning hypnotherapy, weekend 9.2

Another specialist area for the start of the day today, this time it was depression. We spent a fair bit of time on this one (mostly because another of the students works a lot with depression), the end result is mostly to stay away from this area unless you go for more specialist training in the area first - and not to just try and treat anything directly. Because, unless you know what you're doing, you could make things worse. So if I do get any enquires for this type of work I can just refer them on to a therapist that does work in this area. Which is pretty much what I was planning on doing anyway.

After depression, we spent some time on IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), which I had a much better idea about after reading the series of articles that James Hamilton posted recently (starting with IBS: Introduction). A lot of the work we can do is this area is to help with confidence and self esteem for people suffering from this, as well as help with stress.

We ended the day with some Pseudo Orientation (age progression), which is basically the opposite of regression - taking them forward in time rather than back. You could use this type of thing with goal setting, so you can take them forward to a time when they've achieved their goal. Personally, I didn't really like the technique very much. I'm not really sure why though, but if it seems like it'll be helpful to a client then I'd definitely still use it.