Hypnotic Pain Control

While doing some smoking cessation hypnotherapy for my friend's Dad, my friend's Mam mentioned in passing that she had a lot of pain cause by gallstones and that the painkillers didn't work very well. I said that I might be able to help with the pain, so she decided to give it a go. She isn't a very visual person, and the pain reduction method I used was mostly visual - so not the best choice. I still think it went well though, I wasn't expecting to do anything with pain and wasn't very prepared for it - but it still seemed to help. She said the pain was reduced after that session. When I went over today for the follow up on the smoking cessation, I asked her about it. She's had less pain than usual yesterday as well. So it looks like my first attempt at pain control was pretty helpful.

She was very apprehensive about trying hypnosis initially. Her only experience of it in the past had been stage hypnotists, and she isn't comfortable at all with the lack of control that seems to involve. But after seeing her husband try it for smoking, she was a lot more willing to give it a go. She's also ended up being the next person for me to help with quitting smoking. So all in all, a pretty good day.

Speaking of pain control, I've been thinking of doing some voluntary work for pain control at hospitals if possible. I'm thinking mostly of people suffering from burns, for the pain when dressings need changed and that kind of thing. They'll be lots of other people that it's useful for, and I've heard that hypnosis can help to make people suffering from cancer or HIV a lot more comfortable as well - but it was the burns patients that popped into my head first so I think I'll probably try and begin there. I'm not really sure how to start for that one though, and available time is bit of an issue as well. It would definitely be a good thing if I do managed it though, so we'll see how things go.

Fast phobia cure

I was doing some hypnotherapy for one of my friends today, and during the interview bit at the start, he mentioned about his fear of heights - I'd never known it was as bad as it was for him (even to the stage of having dreams about it). After he brought it up, I mentioned that I might be able to help with that. I'd been wanting to practice an NLP phobia technique anyway, and he said he's happy to be a test subject for that. The actual process only took a few minutes (well, less than 15). Afterwards, he wasn't sure if it had made a difference or not. So we went outside for a walk over the Tyne Bridge and he ended up leaning over the side looking down at the river, without any feelings of fear at all. He was very impressed with how well it worked, and how fast it worked. I was pretty impressed as well, given that it was my first attempt at using that technique. He's really good at visualising things, so that would have helped - but a positive result is always good.

The hypnotherapy session seemed to go really good as well, I wont know for sure how successful it is yet. It'll be an ongoing thing over a few session. But it's definitely off to a good start.

Learning hypnotherapy, weekend 3.2

Following on from the Saturday, the next day of the course was pretty interesting as well. We covered EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and some methods for helping with stress & anxiety, as well as some techniques that can be used to help with Tinnitus.

I'm not convinced on EMDR yet, it seems a little wacky to me. I know one of the lecturers on the course uses it a lot when dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder, and he swears by it. I'll probably try it out a few times, and if it doesn’t seem to be of much use I'll just use something else. It basically involves the therapist waving his fingers in front of the clients eyes, and getting them to follow his fingers as they think about their problem. The theory behind it doesn't seem very sound to me either. But if it is successful in helping people, it doesn’t really matter why it works (even in my brain keeps wanting to know why).

The things we covered on helping with stress seemed much more to my tastes. Mostly because these were back into the hypnotherapy area of things. One of the methods involved visualising your 'emotional barrier' that you have to keep stress and other negative emotional things out (in a similar way to your skin protecting your insides from dirt etc.). Once you've visualised your barrier the next step is to strengthen it to make it stronger and more able to cope with the various things being thrown at it in your day to day life. Some of the barriers people on the course had were interesting. There was an electric fence, some stone walls, even a big tower from the Rapunzel fairy story. Mine ended up being an orange and yellow bouncy castle, which wasn't exactly what I was expecting. The strengthening of it just came down to adding a bit more air. At least it was a happy barrier though :)

Abreaction goose bumps

James Hamilton pointed out that the shivering and goose bumps my friend experienced after a hypnosis session may well have been an abreaction of emotion. That makes perfect sense to me now, even back on the foundation course it was mentioned that abreactions can be experienced physically. So goose bumps are just another possible physical manifestation of that. I think it didn't cross my mind at the time because every abreaction that I'd seen before had always been an emotional release.

Learning hypnotherapy, weekend 3.1

This weekend is the 3rd at-school weekend of the hypnotherapy course I'm doing. The main thing we covered today was Ego-States Therapy, or more specifically parts therapy. This basically involves negotiating with the 'part' of you that is causing some internal conflict (which is probably resulting in undesirable behaviour, otherwise you wouldn't have sought help) to try and find a new way to achieve the goals that the offending 'part' is aiming for, but without such undesirable behaviour. This takes the stance that all behaviour has a positive intent - if it didn't, we wouldn't keep doing it. So no matter how dysfunctional the behaviour may be, it still has a positive intention. That idea is also one of the presuppositions of NLP, and it fits in with my beliefs as well. Once you've sorted that internal conflict, you can reintegrate the part you've been negotiating with and start getting the benefits of the new behaviour.

When I first heard about parts work, it seemed like a very strange idea. I've came across it a fair bit recently though (mostly to do with NLP), so the things we covered today made sense straight away. I'm pretty sure I would have found it much more difficult to get my head round if I didn't already have some knowledge about it.

We also covered dissociation techniques that could be used to help someone take a more objective viewpoint on a situation. Without experiencing all the, possibly traumatic, feelings and emotions. Again, I was already a little familiar with this type of technique from various NLP things I've been reading recently so I think that helped today, and it's always good to have more than one point of view about something.

So all in all, an interesting day.

Shivering and goose bumps

A few days ago I was doing a hypnosis session for smoking cessation with a friend of mine. After bringing her out of the hypnotic state, she started shivering and came out in goose bumps. She mentioned that the same kind of thing happened when she tried Reiki therapy. It's the first time I'd seen that happen, and I don't remember ever hearing about it anywhere either. A quick hunt around on Google only seems to show up reports of people inducing shivering and goose bumps with hypnosis, not anything about it happening spontaneously. At least I wont be as surprised if it happens again though :)

Another positive thing to come out of those hypnosis sessions is that she seems much more relaxed and calm now. She has a pretty high-stress life, so anything that helps there is a definite plus. I didn't specifically include anything to help with that side of things though, aside from some ego-strengthening (based on stuff in Hartland's) that I usually add in for everyone. Even after the first session she was much more relaxed and seemed to stay that way (although I expect it will probably wear off after a bit more time). So as well as giving up smoking, she's also more relaxed now - which is a big difference from the times when she's tried to give up smoking without the help of hypnosis.

Still smoking

Recently, I had my first bit of smoking cessation which didn't result in a new non-smoker. It was one of my friends again (I've only worked with friends so far). I went through my usual first session, which was mostly information gathering and a bit of hypnosis to get her ready to stop smoking at the next session. Then at the second session, I used the info from the first for an in-depth one, which would hopefully be enough to help her become a non-smoker. It wasn't 100% successful though. The next day she still wanted to have a cigarette. When she finally did have one she didn't finish it, and she only smoked 6 or 7 cigarettes that day, which was a big drop to what she was smoking previously. I offered to do a follow up session that would focus on her reasons for still smoking. But she said that she was actually pretty happy with only smoking a few each day, and that she thinks that's all she wanted in the first place. So even though she didn't quit smoking, I think I'll count it as a success because she achieved the result she wanted :)

This was probably also my most difficult session yet. She wasn't fully comfortable with the whole hypnosis thing, mostly concerns about not being in control (she still wanted to try it anyway), so I spent a lot more time than usual preparing that session, making sure it would be ok for her. The follow up session I'd prepared for her was also the first time that I'd personalised the whole thing right from the induction (I usually use pre-baked inductions and deepeners that I feel will work best for the person, and haven't found a need to change them very much). I never got a chance to see how well that worked though, but I do still have them. So if she changes her mind I've got another session ready to go :) She's a lot more comfortable about hypnosis in general now as well, so that should hopefully make things go a bit smoother if she does decide on a follow up.