RECENT BLOG POSTS
What is Compassionate Ericksonian Hypnotherapy?
COMPASSIONATE ERICKSONIAN HYPNOTHERAPY utilises naturally occurring trance states to help client’s overcome problems in a caring and compassionate way. Thanks to recent discoveries in neuroscience, we now understand more about how and why hypnosis works and what happens within the brain when people practice mindfulness. As a training organisation running courses in hospitals and universities we have always looked to science for explanations about hypnosis, meditation and the mechanism behind its effectiveness. Where we originally only had our assumptions and observed experience, scientific evidence is now proving that hypnosis, mindfulness and therapy based on love and compassion can affect the brain and thought process. Science is now underpinning the training we have been offering for the past 40 years. To understand how hypnosis works we need to look at how the brain processes information about the world around us. Our awareness of what is happening in the world at any given time occurs within our senses, and our sensory experience is based on past memories, future expectations and what we believe to be our present experience. These sensory experiences are evolving and changing all the time through synaptic connectivity (LeDoux 2002, Synaptic Self and Doidge 2007, The Brain That
Mindfulness and Self Hypnosis
Mindfulness and Self Hypnosis usually have different goals. Mindfulness has been developed from Buddhist meditation and is traditionally used for more spiritual outcomes. It has recently become popular as a way of relaxing and resolving psychological problems in the west, but is rarely used to achieve materialistic goals. Self hypnosis too has been used widely for relaxation and resolving psychological problems, but tends to be used for achieving more materialistic goals, like success, confidence, wealth etc. Combining both principles and practices they can complement each other is surprising ways, and this is the approach that I prefer to teach on my courses and retreats. Self Hypnosis has it's place in psychotherapy but should only be taught after considering a clients / patients personality and psychological state. Self hypnosis should not be taught to abreactive Patients or Patients receiving regression therapy. If Patients are given the tools of change to take home and apply to themselves when there is a danger of them abreacting then the therapist is acting dangerously and unethically. Even if the Patient is only receiving forms of age regression they should not be given self-hypnosis skills. Patients are willing and eager to help themselves, however the
Hypnosis for Motivation – the Best Techniques
Every therapist faces the problem of having clients with low motivation. Yet, therapists are rarely taught how to specifically motivate clients to achieve outcomes. Most training is based on using therapy techniques to overcome problems, however, if the client is unmotivated to get better then therapy techniques are not as effective. One approach to motivating clients comes from the work of Milton Erickson. His Ericksonian hypnosis approach to motivation is based on the concept of tasking clients. Tasking involves giving homework or behavioural challenges and tasks for the client to carry out between therapy sessions. These tasks are often given while the client is in hypnosis as the trance state acts as a kind of glue or adhesive to make the suggestions given by the therapist more likely to be taken on at the unconscious level. So here we see hypnosis being used to motivate clients to carry out tasks which then, in themselves, increase motivation to succeed at therapy. Tasks work by creating a change in the Patient’s routine which bring about a change in the Patient’s behaviour and therefore a change in the way the problem functions. Tasks are given to interrupt habitual patterns of behaviour or thinking.