Assessing the Depth of Hypnosis

by Tom Connelly, D.Hyp, FBSCH After practicing hypnosis for some time we gradually develop an intuitive sense that indicates to us the depth of hypnotic trance our subjects are experiencing. This impression is probably formed inside us in a number of ways but at the beginning of our training we have to rely on a mixture of guesswork and knowledge 'borrowed' from hypnosis books, videos and our tutors. The obvious way to make an estimate of the ongoing success of your hypnosis is to watch for the 'classic' indications of the deepening hypnotic state. Some of the following might be observed:

Stillness Change of breathing Pallid / waxen complexion Postural slumping REM type eye movements Eyelid fluttering Swallowing/gulping Increased Lacrimation Redness around the eyes etc.

You will be taught to watch for these signs (and others) at the beginning of any hypnosis course of tuition but accurate assessment of trance depth only really happens when the hypnotist can evaluate these signs from personal experience. An important part of this learning process takes place when the hypnotist takes the part of the subject and experiences hypnosis from the point of view of his prospective clients. After being hypnotized a many times the hypnotherapist gains an inside perspective of the mental processes that take place and an empathy for the physical nature of hypnosis. Good experience can also be had from experimenting with self hypnosis and relaxation techniques. Apart from personal experience of hypnosis it's possible to learn a great deal from verbal feedback. Don't be afraid to ask your subjects about their experience of trance, most will be happy to describe the 'feeling' of hypnosis and many interesting insights can be gained. Remember that hypnosis is a subjective experience and although there are many common elements to it there is much that will be unique to each individual. It's also possible to gather direct information about the process of hypnosis and depth of trance by using a fractionation type of induction.

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With the fractionation method of inducing hypnosis the process is broken into stages and the subject is questioned at each point for a verbal description of their particular experience. So the novice hypnotist can learn a great deal about the experience of relaxation and trance as it occurs in others. The main Idea behind the fractionation method of inducing hypnosis (sometimes known as Vogt's fractionation) is to discover the personal experience of the subject as they begin to enter trance and then to 'feed back' this information to take them deeper. Subjects are relaxed into the early stages of trance and then roused and questioned for their particular experience of hypnosis and this information is then used to help the subject to go deeper still. So in a very real sense the subject is describing the best way that they personally should be hypnotized! This type of induction is not as quick as other methods but it's interactive nature does seem to lead to the deeper trance states. This method of inducing hypnosis is outlined in most good tuition courses and books but as it is outside the scope of this article the student is advised to search this information out. Apart from methods of assessing depth of trance through observation there are also physical tests that give the hypnotist valuable information about the ongoing state of hypnosis. The most common test is for catalepsy, usually of the eyelids. Here the subject is asked to relax the muscles of the eyelids deeply, so deeply that the eyelids will not open. This is an excellent test of relaxation, susceptibility and willingness to co-operate with the hypnosis process. It is also possible to ask the patient to look upwards with their eyes (the head remaining still) as if at a point at the top of the head and when they have done this you can inform them that they cannot open their eyelids. It is typically quite hard to open one's eyelids with the eyes looking upwards and this might help to convince your subject of the efficacy of your techniques but it is also quite a well known physiological 'trick' and might just as easily arouse suspicion. Another test to gauge the level of relaxation that has the added benefit of allowing you to test for an increase in body temperature (which indicates a medium deep trance state) is the hand lift technique. After first informing your subject (who's eyes will no doubt be closed) that you are going to lift their hand, gently raise it up and let it go. The hand of a relaxed person will flop limply back. Notice how limp, warm and pliant the hand seems. Suggestions can be added to this testing technique. For example you might suggest "that as your hand falls limply down, you can go deeper and deeper into hypnosis", "as your hand falls to your lap you will go twice as deeply into relaxation." Finally a cognitive technique to test trance depth, which does not rely on observation or physical testing. Here the hypnotist tests for amnesia (an important hypnotic phenomenon) usually by asking the subject to begin counting backwards from 300 (the actual number is not too important but it must be sufficiently large to be out of the range of 'automatic' counting) and suggesting that a point will soon be reached when the
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numbers will be forgotten. If a suitable trance state exists the suggestion will be accepted and the subject will forget the numeric train of thought. This method has the additional benefit that even if the subject doesn't have the correct depth of trance at that moment, the counting process may well help to bring it about! For most practical purposes the hypnotherapist will be more concerned with establishing that there is sufficient trance depth for therapy, rather than the more academic pursuit of gauging the precise depth of trance attained. There seems to be a consensus of opinion from most learned sources that trance depth might not be such an important concern and that effective therapy can take place providing at least a light stage of hypnosis is established. This may well be the case but obtaining a medium to deep hypnotic state has two advantages:

It inspires confidence in the hypnotist, which improves personal performance and is detected, however subliminally, by the subject. it is a hypnotic convincer and while it might not be any more therapeutic than a light trance state it is more of a contrast to normal waking consciousness and so helps to persuade the subject to persuade themselves that something 'significant' has taken place.

Throughout this short article I have used the convention of dividing the depth of hypnotic trance into three stages - light, medium and deep, as this seems quite sufficient for my purposes. I should point out however that there are several systems of classification, some more ancient than others. The difference is usually one of division and nomenclature as the nature of the state must be a constant but the student may encounter the following descriptions depending on the source of information: i.e., Lethargy, Catalepsy and Somnambulism or Hypnoidal, Somnambulism, Coma / Esdaile state, Hypnosis attached to sleep. It is important to realize that the 'depth of trance' does not refer to an objective or quantifiable state but is characterized by the phenomena available in that state, thereby equating trance depth with suggestibility. For example, eyelid catalepsy is quite easy to obtain and so when this phenomenon becomes available we can label the trance depth as 'light'. Pain control becomes available as a hypnotic phenomenon only when the subject becomes more suggestible and when this phenomenon becomes accessible we can label this a medium trance depth, and so on. Full amnesia or positive / negative hallucination are among the most extreme of hypnotic phenomena and require the greatest suggestibility and so when these become available we can label this a deep trance state.

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Multiple Modality Virtually Ensures Success

By Bob Barnick, CHT This may not be a new approach, but I developed it independently. This method involves using three modalities 1. The pre hypnosis talk 2. NLP 3. Conventional hypnosis (whatever that is!?) I think that a good pre hypnosis talk is essential for establishing rapport with the client. I also use a number of handouts, click on the links that follow for some examples: What hypnosis is and is not; Self Concept; How to use the Super pendulum and 8 rules of the mind. Spend from 1/2 hour to one hour with the subject so they gain confidence (rapport) that I have the ability help them. Many times I see clients go in and out of hypnosis during the pre talk, as evidenced by their eyes getting glossy. I feel it is worth the time to do a thorough pre hypnosis talk. (We offer this initial session (pre hypnosis talk) at no charge. If we determine that we have not achieved rapport with the client, we do NOT proceed). I have a brochure that tells who I am and gives some primary information about hypnosis that I often send to a client in advance to establish my credibility. After the pre-hypnosis talk, the client is prepared and ready for the next step. I introduce the pendulum (which I call the Super Pendulum) and explain that we are going to talk to the clients subconscious mind and get answers from it. I first establish the yes/no direction by asking a question to which we already know the answer, for example, Is your name ........ (clients name)? When the pendulum answers, we can assume that is the yes direction for future queries. We then ask the following questions: Are you willing to work with us for the benefit of .........(client name)? Are you willing to change the behavior to get the results that the client is seeking? Are you willing to change that behavior without causing any ill effects? Future pace this behavior so we know it will continue to be appropriate for the future. If yes, put the new behavior in effect for a period of six weeks and if it remains appropriate continue the new behavior as long as it is appropriate. We thank your subconscious for working with us to make your life a better place. Of course you may recognize this as an NLP technique. Many times when using the above procedure, the client is amazed that they are communicating with their subconscious. On rare occasions the pendulum does not move, but I proceed as if the subconscious is still agreeing to cooperate with us, and the result will be the same. The pendulum can also become a method for inducing hypnosis, as you know. The Magic Pendulum works miracles with phobias and mind imprints. I have had a client go as far back as the birth canal to relieve a self-doubt phobia. (This is the subject of another article that is forthcoming)
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After this NLP procedure the client recognizes that a change has taken place, so I ask the subconscious if we need to induce hypnosis. Almost inevitably it says yes. (I dont understand why the sub says this, unless it wants a reinforcement with the subject). We then follow with a hypnotic induction. (I tend to prefer arm levitation as an induction technique) I then reinforce what we have uncovered with the pendulum technique. I have found this 'Multiple Modality' method to be extremely powerful. PREHYPNOSIS - WHEN THE LIGHT BULB WENT ON OR 'THE URGENCY FOR A PRE-HYPNOSIS EVALUATION' By Maurice Kouguell, Ph.D The dedication of my first book, Human Figure Drawing: A Screening and Evaluative Tool in Hypnosis, reads: 'With special thanks to the clip-on reading light in my office, perceived by a client as a SEX LIGHT with special powers, pointing to the urgency for a screening technique.' The concept for my second book DAPTH? Accessing the Unconscious in the Practice of Hypnosis and Counseling came about as a result of the following incident. I had been working for a few months with a female client who had successfully reached her desired goals. At one point, seemingly totally unrelated to the session, she pointed to a clip-on light in my office and stated that she wished that I would use that sex light again. I quickly lost my sense of humor and became actively involved in my inner dialogue trying to remember if my malpractice insurance was paid up. When asked to clarify what she was referring to, she stated very casually in her normal speech pattern that after the first session she had had a wonderful sexual experience in her bedroom with her gynecologist and myself and attributed it the clip-on light. She pointed to the clip-on light and asked if I could use it again. Shortly after that incident Dr. Bernie Siegel was one of the presenters at a convention of hypnotherapists in 1986. As part of his presentation, he referred to drawings made by his cancer patients at different phases of their disease. The experience with my client and Bernie Siegel's happened close enough together to prompt me to think of a technique which needed to be introduced for the assessment of the client. A person could be behaving normally, appear to have intact thinking processes and yet, the pathology might surface at unexpected times. While it surfaces on occasion, it is always present and one needs to find a way of being aware and prepared to deal with it. It is my opinion that before hypnosis is applied, it is wise to assess the advisability of using hypnosis. Hypnosis is becoming a recognized and popular technique in dealing with a wide range of problems related to the mind. It has been successful in a variety of categories
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ranging from habit disorders to major neurotic disturbances, psychophysiologic difficulties, problems dealing with weight, addiction and dependency, to name a few. Improving mental skills and even sports skills have benefited greatly from the use and application of hypnosis. As the mind-body connection continues to receive the place that it deserves, hypnosis, meditation, and other spiritual experiences will develop and gain more recognition in the healing arts. There seems to be little left where hypnosis is not the tool of choice. Thus, a variety of clients come to see us and frequently without having been either evaluated or diagnosed. In reviewing the literature dealing with the indications or contraindications for the use of hypnosis, there seems to be agreement in disagreement by established practitioners as to the application of hypnosis. "Psychotic individuals, pre-psychotics and patients with character disorders of an extremely infantile or dependent nature are usually not suitable subjects of hypnoanalysis" (Wolberg, 1945). While Dr. Wolberg, an established psychotherapist, psychoanalyst and teacher makes a statement which has been shared by many others, there are several other hypnotherapists who have successfully used hypnosis in the treatment of such clients. It's interesting to note that most of the literature refers to the hypnotizability of the client as part of the hypnotist's diagnostic evaluation. For instance, patients who can be hypnotized are determined to be "good candidates" for the relief of certain symptoms. The emphasis remains on the diagnostic evaluation of the client's ability to enter hypnosis and not on the advisability of choosing hypnosis as a therapeutic tool. As a teacher and practitioner of hypnosis, I had questions that needed to be addressed. When a client comes for hypnosis, shouldn't there be an assessment preceding the trance induction? Should hypnosis be used because it has been requested by the client? If hypnosis is to be used, how should it be used? Should the hypnotherapist assess the client's emotional strengths or vulnerability first? How does the therapist assess the effectiveness of a session or sessions? It appears that books written on hypnosis by psychotherapists do not discuss assessments for the application of hypnosis. Those clients have already been diagnosed. Most books written by hypnotists state that hypnosis is not dangerous. They frequently discuss how to determine one's ability at entering hypnosis but do not discuss when hypnosis should be used. One needs to question if the ability to enter hypnosis is a criteria for using hypnosis? Hypnotherapy is, in essence, a process of communication between the client and the therapist. The exchange of communication need not necessarily be limited to words. Individuals with repressed anger may present a certain faade but might feel quite differently from what their appearance shows. It is also possible that people choose to say things that they do not mean in order to protect their integrity at a given time. Repressing and suppressing one's feelings is a sign of our advanced society where as early as the infant can hear speak he/she is expected to respond and conform to the needs of society surrounding him and repress his own needs.
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Clients frequently censor verbal information. One learns early in life that many feelings are not allowed to be expressed openly and need to be repressed. I have coined the expression "the thank you syndrome" where the child learns that he may not express his true feelings, but rather reflect what is expected of him by saying "thank you," thus pleasing his parents or other authority figures. As a result, children learn that self expression is not tolerated and with that type of behavior being repeated, the 'good' child grows up with a lot of unresolved conflicts. Those feelings surface through certain unconscious behaviors (including projections of feelings or ideas) or slips of the tongue. Freud described that expression with the term parapraxis. "By parapraxis, I understand the occurrence in healthy and normal people of such events as forgetting words and names that are normally familiar to one, forgetting what one intends to do, making slips of the tongue and pen, misleading, misreading, mislaying things and being unable to find them, losing things, making mistakes against one's better knowledge, and certain habitual gestures and movements. .An analytic inquiry, however, shows with enough certainty to satisfy every requirement that these latter factors merely operate as facilitating factors and may be absent. Parapraxes are full blown psychical phenomenon and always have a meaning and an intention. They serve definite purposes which owing to the prevailing psychological situation, cannot be expressed in any other way. These situations, as a rule, involve a psychical conflict which prevents the underlying intention from finding direct expression and diverts it along indirect paths. (Freud, 1913) Why drawings as a tool choice for assessment? Communication through art preceded the development of language. The prehistoric man expressed his ideas through drawings. Those drawings expressed not only his thoughts, but also his emotions. I believe that an assessment and exploration of the client's unconscious through a projective technique will assist the therapist in accessing and exploring the causality of the formation of the symptoms. Suggestions under hypnosis geared to bringing about change while the unconscious is receptive will be so much more effective when the hypnotherapist has some insight into the underlying difficulties and strengths of the client. "He who would paint a figure, if he cannot become that figure, cannot portray it" (Dante) I had studied, used and taught Figure Drawings as well as the House Tree Person technique at the City College of New York. Those techniques were part of a projective battery of tests which included but were not limited to the Thematic Apperception Test
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and the Rorschach Test. These drawing tests were part of other projective tests helped in validating the interpretations. The interpretation of art in any form is based on recognizing that there are some universal fundamental thoughts and feelings emerging from the unconscious and recognizing that there are universal symbols. In using any kind of art medium one need not be an accomplished artist, but simply allow oneself to use that vehicle for free expression. The use of art has an important place in any type of therapeutic intervention. My two books HUMAN FIGURE DRAWINGS A SCREENING AND EVALUATIVE TOOL FOR HYPNOSIS AND COUNSELING and DAPTH? ACCESSING THE UNCONSCIOUS IN THE PRACTICE OF HYPNOSIS AND COUNSELING offer additional assessment and evaluation through the use of drawings which is indispensable in hypnotherapy. The technique can also be applied to psychotherapy and any form of individual and group counseling. The uniqueness of this work is that it also allows the therapist to evaluate his own effectiveness in the therapeutic process. With the application of this technique, the hypnotherapist will be able to gather information concerning the client's needs, fears, conflicts and goals and integrate that material in his work. Being aware of the symbolic content brought forth by the drawing will offer the therapist a direct avenue to the understanding of the client's conflicts and problems. With this information, the therapeutic intervention should become more effective for it addresses itself to unconscious material which now has surfaced. In addition, this technique will also provide the therapist with information revealing the possible pathology of the client and help decide the course of therapy. This technique can also be applied effectively as a screening tool preceding any group induction. One cannot assume that individuals attending a group workshop are necessarily free of severe pathology just because they are of part of the workshop. Should drawings reveal pathology, the induction will have to include specific suggestions geared to the individual. Experience has taught me that maladjustments are not limited to individual clients coming to our office. The fact that a group is geared to Smoke Ending, for instance, does not necessarily exclude the presence of disturbed individuals. The same harm that can happen during an individual induction who might react very poorly to a smoke cessation program. A cursory examination of the drawings, collected prior to the group induction, might be sufficient to alert the hypnotist to certain pathologies within the group membership. Therapist dealing with the mind must always be ready to deal with the unpredictable. For instance, what do you do when a client threatens to strangle you with his bare hands? Or what do you do when an adolescent, attending a discussion group in a public school setting during school hours, points a loaded gun at you and threatens to pull the trigger? What do you do when a client drops her fur coat and you are faced with her total nudity? What do you do when one of your clients commits suicide and how do you handle your own grief? What do you do, when under hypnosis, your client
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abreacts foams at the mouth, displaying a seizure-like motor activity and urinates? What do you do when, after a hypnotic session, you receive a call from your client who complains of various fears never experienced before? With the drawings administered before the induction or counseling session, the therapists would have been better prepared to deal with the incidents. The DAPTH@, an acronym for Draw A Person Tree House Test is a projective technique based on the House Tree Person test. The reader will be able to use these three themes individually or in combination. DAPTH@ combines the most pertinent highlights from various research and is applicable to counseling and hypnotherapy. The Administration of the DAPTH? is quite simple. You hand the client an unlined sheet of white paper 8 x11, a #2 lead pencil with an eraser and a support on which one can draw. The instructions for each drawings are: Draw a Person, on the next sheet of paper you say 'draw a tree' and on a third sheet you say 'draw a house'. For the first 2 drawings the paper is handed vertically, for the house, horizontally. The interpretations for each drawing are included in the manual and can be easily followed by the therapist. Specific recommendations on procedure appear in the text. The entire administration may take between 5 and 10 minutes. The analysis of course takes longer but your findings will help you beyond words. In addition to administering the DAPTH? before the hypnotic session, it can also be administered after the session. The administration of the drawings after the session provides the hypnotherapist or counselor with direction as to how successful the session was. It also gives the therapist a technique for evaluating the effectiveness of the session. Whether DAPTH@ is administered to an individual or a group, a lot of information revealed. Thus, there will be comments relating to self- criticism, reactions to the task, as well as many other behavioral patterns which would be meaningful to the trained observer. Observational skills are essential in all therapeutic relationships. They include, but are not limited to, the ability to see and interpret, hear and interpret, and go beyond those sensory perceptions. "Non-verbal behavior can be as important: watching for erasure; indecisions; length of time spent on one part of the body being drawn; inability in completing the task. All these can have a significant meaning in the hands of a trained observer. One could pick up extreme cases of obsessive behavior when the person cannot give up the drawing after a long period of time or one can note the helplessness of a person, who might not appear so at all on the basis of the interview, by needing constant support and reassurance to
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continue with the drawing. All the aforementioned information obtained without even looking at the finished product." (Kouguell, 1992) Those skills can be developed and are taught in the context of DAPTH?. Readers are taught how to interpret the drawings and get the most out of understanding the language of the non-conscious. Freud, S. Collected Papers of Sigmund Freud, Vol 13,1913 pp.166-167 Kouguell,M.Human Figure Drawings: A Screening and Evaluative Tool in Hypnosis.1992 pp.23-24 Wolberg.L.R. The Techniques of Psychotherapy. New York Grune and Stratton Hypnosis for Drawing Love and Prosperity Into Your Life By Julie Griffin, B.C.H. Certified Clinical Hypnotist Hello Reader! I have some important messages to share with you. These messages will enable you to thrive and to find your ideal love (should you be ready and willing). If you are looking to draw love and prosperity into your life (or to help others to do so) please realize that the acceptance of the following concepts will help: You are not here to suffer. There is no punishing force up in the heavens causing you suffer. You create your own despair anytime that you behave in a way that is contradictory to your manifesting your love and prosperity. Love, happiness, and prosperity are your birthright. We all have an equal shot at creating love and prosperity in our lives. Those who have found love and prosperity did so because they focused on and took steps towards the creation of love and prosperity. Everything that you have in your life is something that you have consciously (or unconsciously) drawn into yourself. Whatever is missing from your life is missing only because you have not given the proper energy towards creating what it is that you want. The misery of others is not yours to carry. Even if others around you have suffered greatly, failed at creating their own happiness and prosperity (or died) you need to realize that that has nothing to do with you because we are all on our own separate paths. While it is right and proper to be empathetic and compassionate to those around you, it is inappropriate to become so wrapped up in the hardships or failures of others that you become unable to manifest your own highest good.
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You can affect dramatic changes in your capacity to love and thrive financially simply by making the right choices in your life. How to Actively Draw Love and Prosperity Into Your Life 1. Forgive the past. Anger and hate weigh you down physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Therefore it is important to forgive yourself for anything that you have done wrong and to forgive anyone who has wronged or injured you. In doing so, you will not be weighed down by negative emotions and you will have more energy to focus on manifesting your goals. 2. Let go of the past. No matter what has happened to you in the past (in business or in love relationships) you need to imagine that you can wipe the slate clean and start fresh. Living in the past and holding onto old failures will cripple your ability to thrive. You should view the past as learning experiences from which you are now able to grow from. 3. Become a vessel of power. You can empower yourself in many ways. A few of these ways follow:

create health in your physical being by eating healthfully, exercising regularly, and avoiding toxic substances create health in your mind by consistently feeding yourself positive thoughts create health in your heart by letting love and happiness shine through you define and embrace your own spirituality.

When your physical, emotional, and spiritual sides are all healthy and functioning as one well-maintained unit you will have the energy and power that you need to manifest your goals. 4. Identify what it is that you want. Allow time for soul-searching that will enable you to identifying what life pursuits will totally fulfill you. It is important that you are truly excited by whatever it is that you are doing if you want to be successful and happy while doing it. 5. Visualize what it is that you want. Picture in your mind yourself totally fulfilled in both love and business concerns. Paint a bright and vivid picture in your mind of exactly the kind of success and love that you wish to live inside of. Continue to focus on and clarify this picture each day. Make sure you allow room inside the picture for possibilities that can enhance your life that you are not yet consciously aware of yet. 6. Set and achieve goals. Set small goals that you can readily achieve that will lead to the fulfillment of your larger goals. Congratulate yourself each time you meet a small goal. Don't sit around waiting for things to happen-make things happen. Take on the thoughts and actions of a successful person. Assume that your success is a foregone conclusion because you will consistently act in a way that creates your success.
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7. Ask for help when you need it. This help could be from a friend, a business person, a teacher, from a spiritual realm, or even from yourself. Often it is the case that others will be delighted to assist you. By asking for what you need, you open a door that allows others the pleasure of helping you and a window that enables you to obtain what it is that you need. If you are the type that feels that you have to do everything yourself and that it is inappropriate to ask others for help then you might want to take time and consider if these thoughts are serving you or harming you. 8. Like yourself and love yourself. If you want others to be drawn to you you must feel good about yourself. You will only be able to truly love another when you are capable of loving yourself. Imagine that you have the ability to draw love and energy from the universe into the core of your being. Feel yourself filling up to the brim with this universal love and energy. Imagine that there is a dimmer switch inside of you that controls your own love and joy light and that you are now actively turning up your love and joy light a little bit brighter each day. 9. Take charge of your magnetism and charisma. As you turn up your own love and joy light your magnetism and charisma will automatically surface. You may utilize your magnetism and charisma to draw loving, helpful, and caring people into your life. 10. Create a state of mind in which you will only draw helpful, loving people into your life. Project an energy field around you that prevents harmful people and elements from entering into your life or consciousness. 11. Begin to actively call love and prosperity into yourself. Get up each morning and call out to the universe (or your higher power) to send prosperity and love your way. Each night take time to identify all your blessings and to give thanks for all the wonderful things that have come into your life. 12. Have the wisdom to see that sometimes things come to you in an unexpected way. Develop the insight and vision to see what is truly a blessing and what is not. Trust your instincts. There is one important concept that I have not yet spoken to you of and that concept is that your life can be fun. Take time to have fun, to laugh, to sing, to dance, and to make friends. Your friends will help to get you through your darkest days and play with you on your brightest days. In the course of life you may have many loves come and go your friends will always be there for you. Realize too, that when you are out in life making friends and having fun that love will find you!

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THE COMPLETE HYPNOTHERAPIST

By Dr Irene Hickman Summary: This paper is an overview of the various ways hypnosis and hypnotherapy can be utilized for the benefit of those who seek assistance in dealing with problematic aspects of their lives. Introduction: There are four distinct, but somewhat overlapping areas that I use in hypnotherapy. It is my opinion, based on nearly forty-nine years of both research and therapy using several hypnotherapeutic procedures, that all four are of importance. APPLICATION 1. Directive Hypnotherapy: Most of us begin in hypnosis and hypnotherapy by learning first how to induce the hypnotic state, how to recognize the degree of relaxation, how to give direct and posthypnotic suggestions and how to return our subject to full waking consciousness. This is a very important and ideal starting place. Direct suggestions have been useful in pain control, habit change, sports performance, confidence, increased learning and in many other areas. 2. Non-Directive Hypnotherapy: For me, direct suggestion was never enough. My intense curiosity led me to explore the mind to find its potential. I did this exploring by asking questions of the hypnotized subjects. It soon became obvious that somewhere within us is a source of greater wisdom then we ordinarily have access to. I chose to call this source the "Inner Wisdom." Before long came to use this non-directive technique almost exclusively. This is a bit risky, as there is no way of determining what the answers will be beforehand. This uncertainty requires a high level of flexibility on the part of the hypnotherapist. Answers cannot be anticipated with any degree of certainty. When hypnotized subjects are asked to go back in time and find the origin of a problem, the distance they travel can be a surprise. Some will find the cause of a problem or illness in a current traumatic experience or one in childhood, or they may report finding it in a distant past time long before the birth of the present body.

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3. Regression of Past Life Therapy: Without some understanding of our true nature (the fact that we are eternal and have had earlier lives) and that events from earlier lives do impact on our present life, we will be completely lost when one of our hypnotized subjects reports this sort of information. It has proven to be very helpful to trace problem areas to their origin and release the emotion attached to the earlier event or events. One of the surprising developments having to do with past-life therapy is the consistency between the reports of one subject as compared with the reports of others. Whereas the waking belief systems my be very diverse, under hypnosis there is unanimity that is quite remarkable. I marvel that in the many years of my personal involvement in hypnotherapy, all of he information unearthed using regression techniques has been generally compatible, from one patient to another. Symptoms and problems that respond to suggestion can be quite different from those that respond to regression techniques. In my experience allergies to foods, animals or in one case an extreme allergy to cold water, relationship problems with relatives or associates, digestive, respiratory, circulatory conditions and various fears and phobias responded to non-directive hypnotherapy when more conventional treatment had been ineffective. Some problems have been alleviated in one session using regression therapy but the average is about four sessions for most conditions. There are some cases that do not respond to any of the above methods. For these we need to use---4. Spirit Releasement or Depossession: It is important to be aware that some problems are precipitated by the presence of attached spirit entities, either Earthbound or 'dark.' When such is the case, the problems cannot be resolved except be removing the attached entity that caused the problem. Spirit entities may be removed by dealing directly with the effected person using techniques developed by William Baldwin PhD and Edith Fiore, PhD. I prefer using the term and the technique of 'Remote Depossession'. This method requires two persons, a hypnotized subject who is requested to send a bit on their consciousness a short or long distance, locate the target person at a particular place and time, scan the targets body to detect possible 'presences'; and a hypnotistfacilitator, who 'dialogues' with any entity found, to persuade it to leave the host and go to a better place. When the entity leaves, the problems leave with them. A variety of problems have been resolved using Remote Depossssion. Patterns of habitual criminality, drunkenness, depression, incorrigibility, serious physical illness and Attention Deficit Disorder are a few of the cases treated using this technique.

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The techniques are easy to learn and relatively easy to use. The principal requirement seems to be a degree of assertiveness on the apart of the facilitator. Timidity would be a liability. With remote techniques, there seems to be no possibility of making the problem worse. I have helped patients in prison, a comatose person in a hospital and many who would not voluntarily seek help. The target person need not know that the procedure is being conducted. However we always ask permission from the high self of the target at the beginning. Unless we have a clear signal indicating permission, we do not proceed. Some cases may need only one of these four approaches to treatment. Others may need two, three of all four. Without knowledge about all four and some skill in using the various techniques, we may not be complete hypnotherapists. I am well aware that much of this work does not fit into the usual 'scientific' paradigm and may disturb some belief systems. I also admit that there is need for much more research in all areas of hypnotherapy. I have found all four approaches to be effective and found that most cases required more than the usual directive approach. References: Hickman, I., D.O. Mind Probe--Hypnosis, 1983 Hickman, I.,D.O., Remote Depossession. 1994 Fiore, Edith, Ph.D., The Unquiet Dead, 1987 Jarmon, Robert, M.D., Discovering the Soul, 1997 Weiss, Brian, M.D., Through Time Into Healing, 1994 Lucas, Winifred,Ph.D., Regression Therapy, A Handbook for Professionals, 1993 Moody, Raymond, M.D., Coming Back, 1994 Baldwin, Wiliam, Ph.D., Spirit Rleasement, a Techniques Manuel, 1992 This paper was presented in October of 1995 to: The Eastern National Hypnothrapy Conference and The First African Congress on Clinical Hypnosis and Psychosomatic Medicine in Sun City, South Africa.

Age Regression
by

David Weltman, M.A., M.B.A., C.Ht.

Past life regression is receiving an increasing, and well deserved, amount of attention. However, it is very important for the client, and even more important for the therapist who is in the position to select the tools most appropriate for a clients situation and goals, not to overlook that past life regression is an extension, quite literally, of simple age regression. Age regression is a therapeutic technique that, while fairly simple to initiate, is at the same time complex in its consequences and exceptionally rich in its potential benefits for the client. The search for insights, therapeutic opportunities, healing, and growth would do well to begin with the resources of this life, rather than hop scotching right past them, as so often seems to be the case at present. Further,
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age regression is not only an invaluable technique in and of itself, but lays a foundation upon which past life regression, if indicated or desired, can be pursued both more easily and more successfully. Certainly this is not the appropriate forum through which to train the therapist in age regression. Undoubtedly you can find excellent professional instruction near you or via products designed for that purpose. Our purpose in writing this article is to retrain the spotlight on this invaluable tool, as well as to explore the many issues that revolve around its use. WHY USE IT AT ALL? One of the most important decisions we as practitioners make is what tools to use, and complementarily, what tools not to use, to achieve the clients goals as well as their highest well being. That decision involves at least three factors: what we perceive to be in the best interest of the client, what we acknowledge about our own training and even more important, our real skills irrespective of our training, and finally, what we learn about the clients own preferences. One point that is essential for the practitioner to acknowledge at the outset is that even though age regression is always possible, in many cases it is unnecessary, and in others, it is decidedly inappropriate. Hypnotherapy is uniquely powerful for any number of reasons, as the reader undoubtedly is aware. One of those reasons, which distinguishes hypnotherapy importantly from certain talk therapies, is that in most cases it is not necessary to know the origin of an issue in order to resolve it using appropriate hypnotherapeutic techniques. The well known mathematical principle of Occams Razor applies equally well to hypnotherapy: the simplest solution is the best. The therapist must always keep in mind that any regression, whether a simple age regression or a past life regression, can be like opening Pandoras Box. Therefore, it is essential for the therapist to assess whether or not age regression is both necessary and appropriate. If not, it not only should be avoided, but to pursue it might present unnecessary risks to the client. At the same time, and perhaps even more the case with past life regression, we are often presented with a client who explicitly requests an age regression session or series of sessions. Again, it is imperative that we uphold our responsibility to the patient (as well as to our profession), assess whether (in the patients best interest) that request should be honored or not, and act accordingly. Just some of the cases in which age regression would be appropriate include: uncovering repressed trauma that must be uncovered in order for health and/or goals to be achieved; discovering the sources of compulsive behaviors or compulsive thinking that cannot be resolved otherwise; discovering the sources of fears and/or phobias, the process of which not only can be helpful but in some cases can be instrumental all by itself in helping to resolve those issues; and most obviously, in those instances when

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the client explicitly requests it and where the therapist then determines that it would not be detrimental to the client. WHY NOT DO IT? What we would term recreational regression is becoming more and more popular. Helping the client to explore their past via age regression can be a wonderfully rewarding experience, even when the experience is somewhat painful. However, the therapist must be aware (and has a responsibility to inform the client) of the potential for severe abreaction or at least the uncovering of past trauma that the client is unprepared to handle. The injunction, First, do no harm. applies to hypnotherapy no less than to any other therapy, and the therapist is the only party in a position even to be aware of, much less help the client avoid, the risks potentially present in any regression. In this case especially, the standard mantra that the client is responsible for the outcome is not only unfair but dangerous. It is all the more imperative, then, that the therapist first obtain the proper training and experience, and thereafter not only accept responsibility for the process, but be certain they are prepared to handle the unexpected. Certainly the client remains responsible for the processing of the outcome, but that is only provided that the client has the capacity to do that processing even in the face of an outcome that is utterly unanticipated and extremely traumatic. Thus the therapist needs three skills even beyond the skill of assisting the client in initiating the regression. The therapist must have skill first and foremost in assessing, as best as can reasonably be done, whether the process would put the client at unnecessary risk, skill in guiding the process as the regression evolves, and skill not merely in bringing the client up at the end, but in aborting the process in the face of extreme abreaction other trauma, or simply when it becomes clear that the process is not serving the clients best interest. GOAL DIRECTED VS. EXPLORATORY REGRESSION As the terms would imply, in the first case the regression is undertaken with a specific goal in mind, for example, discovering the source of a phobia. (Allow us to insert that phobia is an excellent example of a case where regression might not be necessary at all. As the reader may well know, progressive desensitization is extremely effective as a stand-alone technique in resolving phobias.) In the second case, the regression is undertaken simply to discover what it might reveal, in the hope that the experience will be helpful or even fun - hence the term recreational, which is not at all intended to be pejorative. Goal directed age regression is easier to guide and control, as well as easier to assess. Notice that there are two levels to success or failure in such regressions. For true success, the client must succeed in more that discovering the insight or event they were after. They also must succeed in processing that discovery in a way that helps them reach the goal that the regression was intended to serve. Clearly, a client can succeed
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in the regression, but still fail in effectively processing the outcome. The therapist must be aware that, while the chances of such an instance occurring might be small, there always remains some possibility that it could occur and, further, that the experience could do more damage than if the regression had not been done at all. One safeguard we would recommend is to use what we term filtering suggestions. That is, not only during the induction but even in the pre-talk, prepare the client to expect only those discoveries and experiences that will be helpful and that will be able to handle, and assure them that they will be able, easily and freely, to dismiss any discoveries or experiences that are unhelpful or are more uncomfortable than the client wishes to handle. Obviously, too, the therapist must remain alert to the fact that such filtering is effective in most cases, but not in all cases, and must always be prepared to handle a negative turn in the process. That safeguard is all the more important in the case of exploratory age regressions. In such cases there is no goal other than whatever the process will reveal. It is easy to lull ones self into the attitude that since there is no goal, the process is easier for the therapist than goal directed regression and can simply be allowed to unfold. In fact, the reverse is true. Precisely because there is no goal, the process has no direction. Therefore it is both more difficult to guide, and, let us not shy away from the proper term, potentially more dangerous for the client. Thus, while the process can indeed be informative and fun, the therapist must not only prepare the client properly with filtering suggestions, but also must be even more involved in the process, and more vigilant to negative indications, than in goal-directed age regression which is likely to be a much more narrow process. Though it might not be necessary, allow us to clarify that we are not advocating that an age regression be aborted at the first sign of negativity or trauma. We are, however, urging practitioners to be prepared for those possibilities, to stay alert for them, and to be able to abort the process safely when indicated. A WORD ABOUT GUIDING THE PROCESS As we stated at the outset, this is not the place to train the reader in the process. However, we do think it important to stress that guiding the process should follow three principles. First and foremost it should not exceed the therapists own training and ability to control. Second it should provide support for where the regression naturally wants to go. If it begins to go far afield of the goals of the session, the therapist must have the skill to guide it back gently and organically, not try to yank it back abruptly. Finally, the therapist must choose words and phrase questions with extreme care so as to avoid creating a false memory syndrome. What could serve the client worse than to have them think they have made an important discovery that goes perhaps not only to the heart of their goal but even to the heart of their being, when that discovery is in reality, an artifice produced by the process?

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SPONTANEOUS AGE REGRESSION Be aware that age regression does not only occur when that is the purpose of the session. Many practitioners, including ourselves, have seen numerous instances where age regression occurs spontaneously in the middle of a session undertaken with an entirely different goal. In our opinion, there can be no clearer sign that age regression is what the client needs at that point, and so our own choice, though it need not be yours, of course, is always to support the regression. At the same time, and obviously without disturbing the trance, we always educate the client, employ filtering suggestions, and even obtain the clients consent, either verbally or via ideomotor response, whichever is most appropriate under the circumstances. A WORD ABOUT INDUCTIONS For whatever help it may be to the reader, allow us to share our own experience regarding inductions. For a rich and effective age regression experience, it is important that the client achieve both deep somnambulism and deep relaxation (there is a difference). While effective and appropriate in many cases, we have found that rapid inductions are too abrupt to enable the client to achieve the optimum relaxation level in this particular instance. Conversely, the well known progressive relaxation induction can be unnecessarily long. What we have found to be ideal is the classic Elman induction. It has the multiple advantages of achieving deep somnambulism and deep relaxation, while doing so gradually and yet in much less time than progressive relaxation. At the same time, it has the additional advantage of having built-in tests that automatically counter any potential for the client to question whether or not they were truly hypnotized. Of course, there is never one single induction that is best for every situation with every client and the therapist should always feel free to select, adapt, or create the induction that will work best for a particular client in a specific session. THE IMPORTANCE OF FOLLOW UP No matter how successful an age regression might appear to be, or how satisfied the client may seem, it is nonetheless an extremely involved process the full impact of which may not even be known, much less processed immediately. Therefore, even in the case of a single-session regression, a second session for follow-up is imperative. It is amazing what the client may discover, process, or display after the age regression has had a week to incubate and it is overwhelmingly to the clients advantage to be able to work with the therapist at that point. Enlighten your clients to that fact and encourage even insist that they book the follow-up session at the same time that they book the age regression session. You will both be extremely pleased with the results. IN CONCLUSION Age regression can be an highly valuable and rewarding experience for the client. However it is the therapists responsibility to ensure that he/she has both the training
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and the skill not only to initiate a regression, but also a) to determine when it is appropriate and when it is not, b) when it is appropriate, to guide the process effectively, c) to assist the client in processing the outcome in the manner that best serves their highest well being, and, finally, d) to abort the process when necessary. Further, in that latter event, the therapist also needs to ensure that the client is helped through the experience and is not harmed by it. Lastly, be aware that age regression might present itself spontaneously in the course of a session intended for an entirely different purpose. The better trained and prepared you are to support the process, the more you will be able to help your clients and, of course, the stronger you will be able to build your practice. Past Life Regression, Present Life Healing By Rita C. Fichera , B.Sc, M.Sc, Ph.D
UPLOADED 25/9/2004

Past lives: fact or fantasy? Past life regression therapy raises the important question of whether our spiritual evolution on earth is attained through successive incarnations. Many oriental cultures accept pre-existence and reincarnation in one form or another. Recently these beliefs are becoming increasingly popular also in the west. An alternative view that does not embrace the idea of reincarnation is that, in past life recall, a person's unconscious may be dipping into a universal memory bank, which Jung referred to as collective unconscious , and psychically may be drawing upon a story from the past which mirrors the person's own problems. A third possibility is that the unconscious mind may be making up a story, just like in a dream. Some people doubt the reality of their experience, suspecting that their story may be a product of their imagination. Others find themselves deeply immersed in the story, and the experience they report is felt to be authentic and real. There is no conclusive evidence either in favour or against reincarnation. The jury is still out. This, however, should not detract from the value of past life regression therapy. The existence of reincarnation is not a necessary prerequisite for past life work to be successful. Also a psychic experience or an imagined story created by the unconscious can offer valuable insights to the person being regressed. The regressee is nevertheless encouraged to treat the experiences that arise as if they are real and to become involved in the story. Although a small proportion of people have some difficulty being regressed, those who succeed discover, to their amazement, how their present life appears to be influenced by events that may have happened before they were born. A healing journey Hypnosis is a useful tool for exploring past lives, since it involves the experience of an altered psychological state, which makes a person more receptive and responsive to inner experiences. In hypnosis, it is possible to tune into levels of awareness normally not accessible to the conscious mind. Once a client has achieved hypnosis, an induction is used to facilitate past life recall.
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Hypnosis is by no means the only method that allows information about past lives to surface. Woolger (1992) uses bridge techniques, which don't require hypnosis. With these techniques, a client is encouraged to delve into an experience, sensation, feeling or image they report, and to become totally immersed in it to the point that it triggers past life recall. These methods can be used when a symptom or feeling is clearly expressed by the client during a session, often repeatedly. For most people, however, past life recall is facilitated by being in a hypnotic trance. The past life journey may begin with the client's identification with a past life character. The first experience reported may be that of being in a physical body. The narrative may begin with self-description or the description of a neutral scene. Alternatively, it may begin with a sequence of events as the past life drama unfolds. If the client is not grounded early in the therapeutic session, s/he is likely to report the experience of floating and observing the scene from the outside. While, on one hand, it is helpful to experience the past life first hand, on the other, being an observer can act as a protective mechanism and can reduce, at least initially, the emotional impact of any past life traumatic experience. A significant component of past life therapy is the re-experience of a past life trauma. This is done differently with different therapeutic methods and ranges from the temporary removal of the client from the painful situation to the intensification of the stressful experience. Some therapists believe that the emotional stress associated with a past life trauma should not be attenuated but should be experienced fully, and possibly intensified, by abreaction so that it can be released. Woolger (1987) believes that a trauma is deeply lodged in the body and needs to be re-lived in order to be released. Therefore the past life story needs to be experienced fully in the body, not from the viewpoint of a detached observer. Both the somatic release and the emotional abreaction are thought to be crucial to the full healing process. The full release of repressed emotions may not be achieved in a single session. Subsequent therapeutic sessions may also be cathartic and may result in further release of physical and emotional symptoms. Many physical complaints, fears, phobias, compulsions, preferences, dislikes and personality traits in the present life have been shown to originate in former lives (Fiore, 1978). My client Adam discovered that his mistrust of people and paranoia in this life appeared to be linked to the experience of fear, betrayal and suffering in a past life. The age of onset of a specific symptom in the current life may be significant, and may correspond to the age when a trauma that is related to the current symptom took place in a past life. Often people re-enact past life experiences; therefore details of the current problem and of the age of onset may provide valuable clues for accessing a past life. If a client experienced a past life as a victim, previously repressed anger may be expressed during the regression. The expression of anger must be encouraged by the therapist, since the experience of this stage is therapeutic for the client and can help transmute the negative feeling into understanding (Weiss, 1992). Other emotions, such

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as fear, grief, sadness, guilt need to be similarly experienced during the regression, in order for the person to be able to release them and become free of the past. Re-experiencing the original fear inducing stimuli in a past life regression can bring relief from a present life phobia. My client Alexandra began to free herself of an inexplicable fear of large spiders when she was regressed to a past life as a man in South America and re-experienced a death caused by a poisonous spider. Going through the experience enabled her to become desensitized and detached from the fear. The recall of a traumatic event is not a sine qua non of past life regression. People often recall pleasant past life events, tranquil scenery, bucolic lifestyles or information about past life skills and abilities. These experiences can offer clients valuable insights on what may be missing in their current busy lives and what they might do to enhance their physical and mental well-being. Several of my clients have made a fresh start in life as a result of gaining this knowledge. The past life death experience and the after-death are valuable tools for transformation. This stage begins the process of dis-identification with the past life character. There are individual differences in the way the past life death and the inter-life are experienced and reported. Most people describe sensations of floating above a scene, moving towards the light and experiencing the spirit world. Almost everybody going through this stage describes bodily sensations of lightness and floating, and an experience of inner peace, joy and freedom. None of my clients has ever found the experience unpleasant. On the contrary, a number of them have overcome their fear of death though this process. The after-death experience offers the opportunity to review the life just re-lived and to look at the experiences in that life from a different perspective. The client now can experience being more detached and dispassionate towards the events just re-lived. When the perception of a past life traumatic situation is changed or reframed, its impact on the current life is reduced. The opportunity now exists to identify patterns in the current life that may originate from the life just revisited. It is useful to establish what physical, emotional and mental residues a person may take from the life being explored into the current life. Past life residues can occur at all levels of experience (somatic, emotional, cognitive) and they need to be cleared at all levels. Residues may originate through several lifetimes, so it is important to examine each one in turn to build a picture of the possible causes of present life problems. Becoming fully aware of how past life residues relate to the present life and making a conscious decision to let go of them can be a life changing experience. Forgiveness of others and self-forgiveness also enable a person to let go of the unfinished past and to make a fresh start. Tremendous insights can be gained into current behaviour patterns from exploring past lives. A lot of healing may result from releasing blocked emotions and from forgiveness. A turning point in the current life direction is made when a client fully understands how
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past life experiences may have shaped the present life and is prepared to let go and start on a new path. When past behaviour patterns which operate unconsciously, compulsively and rigidly are understood and released, the opportunity is there to experience freedom from the past and to become the master of one's own destiny. Case of Past Life Regression by Barry Laine D. Hyp, MBSCH
UPLOADED 1/3/2005

Introduction There are two main beliefs when it comes to past life. According to some people we existed in another human body or another life form before we inherited our current human body. To others this is absurd and not worth considering. The truth is we do not know how we came to inherit our current human body form. Charles Darwin thought he had found the answer in the Galapagos Islands when he came up with his theory on evolution. The Catholic and Protestant Churches have for centuries led us to believe we came into being via Adam and Eve and a multi-billion pounds industry has been built around that religious belief. White Missionaries left the comfort of their European homes and wondered into the unknown territories of Africa and other sub-continents with the sole aim to convert the heathens and in the process some were boiled alive and eaten and some survived and planted the roots of their belief in far away lands. The religious theories of our origin cannot answer even the basic questions when challenged except to say, God works in mysterious ways. The scientific theories of our origin are revised each time a University wants a new grant or justification is sought to spend a few billion dollars on another probe to another distant planet. The latest scientific theory that we evolved from a fish in the sea and came to live on the land and our body changed to adapt by first walking on four limbs like a dog then standing up to walk upright like an ape has no real proof of evidence. Every theory is flawed with unexplainable questions and inaccuracies. The truth is we do not know. The limit of our current imagination and acquired knowledge does not allow us to accurately establish how we came to inherit our current human form. It is therefore important to keep an open mind when it comes to past life existence. Regression during hypnotherapy Under hypnosis the body relaxes, the conscious mind takes a back seat and the subconscious mind takes control of the thought process. Under such a condition it is possible for the mind to concentrate because all external disturbances and distractions are removed. The person can go back into the present life and look at events as far
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back as the memory can recall. Some people can go as far back as when they were in their mother's womb and recall hearing sounds, which they interpreted then and can vividly recall now many years later. Now, why is it not possible for some of us to have the ability to go beyond the womb and into another world we lived in before we inherited our current life form. Who is to say this is not possible? If you believe this is not possible then ask yourself how do you know this is not possible? Are you an expert on theories of probabilities and where do you get your reference point for such knowledge? You can say it is as absurd as believing we came from Adam and Eve or from a fish in the sea? We just do not know and perhaps we will destroy ourselves before we have the opportunity to establish our origin. Case Study Caroline, like many others I have helped, came to me with a number of thoughts that kept haunting her mind and in many ways kept disturbing her current life. She found it difficult to sleep and do her job properly because so many flashes of past images kept coming to her mind and she felt she had to do something about it. We agreed to keep an open mind and for me to record on paper whatever she said and whatever reaction she experienced during the sessions. We began with present life regression and this lady could recall events as far as the age of one year old when her mother placed her on the settee and she could see her brother Robert playing on the floor. She could see her brother feeding her. First Past Life Intelligent life form When asked to go beyond her present childhood her body curled up slightly as she tried to gather the towel covering her body. When asked what could she see she said she could see lights, whiteness, flames coming from the sun and she is an intelligent life form. She said some old people were there also in the form of lights, there were millions of them and they form the creator, bits of the whole, one light merging into another forming part of the eternal light. She said this world was coming to an end then she released the towels she had clutched tightly and her body relaxed. Second Past Life - Materialisation When questioned further she said she could feel her friends around her, she was walking on air, gliding but she was not an angel. She was in material form not spiritual form, she could see people being born and coming out of their mother's womb, new born babies mainly boys, lots of white towers and stones. When asked what was she doing she replied that she was going to be a healer and teach healing. When asked to share some more information she said she was being called back and she must go back. She doesn't want to say any more. Then her body curled into the fetus position. Third Past Life Indian Warrior
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When asked to move further back beyond her current life there was a pause and then she had an abreaction. Her body became rigid, her face took the appearance of sternness and she turned her head slowly from side to side as if looking for someone. Although her eyes were shut I could see her eyeballs moving vigorously under the closed eyelids. When asked what she was doing she said she was looking for her braves. When asked, who are you? she replied an Indian warrior and protector of my people. Asked if she was a Red Indian Chief she replied I will be chief when I have my bride but she has not said yes to marriage yet, she went on to say he (the Warrior) still needs to prove his bravery to his bride then the old chief will step down, he will marry his bride and be chief. Following further questioning she went on to explain how beautiful her bride-to-be was and that he was out hunting with his braves and none of the other braves were as courageous as he was so he will win her hand in marriage. Then her body started shaking and when asked what was happening she said, we are surrounded by the enemy and they are killing my braves, I must protect my people and tears started to flow from her eyes. She said I must go now into the desert to save my people her legs started to shake and then there was silence. When asked what was happening she said she was dying in the desert having failed to save her people. She started sobbing and sighing to such an extent that I wanted to stop the session but then she recovered and just lay there looking fairly pale. Fourth Past Life Holding Camp I asked her to relax and take a few deep breaths which she did then I asked her whether there was another life before this one and she said yes, so I asked her to move further back into the life before this one and tell me what she could see. She had another abreaction. Her body started to curl up and when asked what was happening she said she was in a camp with lots of frightened and dying people dressed in medieval clothes. She said she was not frightened and when asked why she said because she was the boss's woman and she was allowed to wear a sack of cloth but she was not allowed to see outside. She said she had a baby by the boss and one of her own before she came to this camp. Her husband ran away from soldiers and left her on her own with the baby. They shot her father and now she only had her mum, baby sister Ria and they were making pots out of metal. Asked how did she managed to get away and she said she died in the camp. Then her body went limp and her eyeballs lowered as if she was closing her eyes and she remained very still.

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I touched her neck for sign of pulse and her pulse was remarkably low less than one per second and her skin felt clammy and cold. I let her rest for a while without any further questions. Fourth Past Life - Baby After a few minutes I asked her whether there was another life before the one she has just left and she nodded yes. I asked her to take herself to that life in her own time and not to rush. This time she remained calm and after a while she said I am a baby and when asked where she said somewhere in Northern Europe" and when asked what she was doing she said she was left under a pine tree, it was cold and no one cared for her except from time to time her mum would come and look at her and sometimes her sister Ria would come, she said Ria loved her and Ria would pick her up and play with her. When asked to explain what happened to her she said she died feeling very cold and when asked whether there was any more past life she said no so I brought her back to present day and out of hypnosis. Conclusion Another session was arranged to bury the past lives and a third session brought her treatment to a close. She now reports that she is not troubled by past images, she feels like a new CD has been placed in her mind and the old CD has been removed and destroyed. She said she feels happier and now she just want to lose some weight. I am sure that if you had witnessed this lady under hypnosis you would have concluded that it is best to keep an open mind when it comes to past life existence. At the end of the day the treatment was successful.

The Mirror of Our Emotions

By Ursula James, BA, DCH An overview of the treatment with hypnosis of non-viral/bacterial dermatological conditions The skin is a mirror of the inner self, and we frequently use phrases which reflect this; getting under your skin, thin skinned, thick skinned, itching to do something for example. These all reflect the fact that it is recognised as a measure of our vulnerability. We use these phrases without thinking about them. It is only when the skin begins to malfunction that these expressions really start to have a meaning. To understand where non-viral or bacterial skin conditions come from, it is appropriate to look at where the skin develops when we are in embryonic stage. The epidermis and nervous system originate from the ectoderm, and as such, when the embryo fully develops a strong series of connections exist between the two. Therefore, an imbalance
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within the nervous system may frequently be reflected in the epidermis itself. It can be a signal of an implicit vulnerability to a situation, or a response to that initiating trigger itself. Therefore, treating the symptom alone for psychogenic disorders is not as effective as treating the trigger as well. This is why hypnosis for skin conditions can be so productive. Hypnosis is effective for the treatment of dermatological conditions in three specific ways. Firstly, treatment of the root cause; secondly, remission of the symptom, and finally through treating the conditioned response to the symptom. It is very important to be aware of the very distressing effects which these types of condition have on the individual, and their sense of self. An initial consultation would consist of, among other things, finding out what the patient enjoys doing, and what they do to relax. This information is then fed back to the patient in hypnosis to establish biofeedback connections with positive associations. When talking about something we enjoy, we begin to come out of ourselves, and take our mind off things which are a concern. This demonstrates that there are times when the patient is not so aware of their problem, and this they do naturally by becoming occupied in something else. This is done also to establish that the symptom is not always constant, and therefore manipulable. One of the most important questions which the therapist must ask before treating the patient with hypnosis is to find out which of the three component parts of the problem, the cause; the symptom; or their reaction to the symptom is the thing which is of most concern to them. The emphasis here is on which element of the condition they wish to take control of first. Control With any condition with a psychogenic component, the patient suffers from feelings of being out of control, this is made worse by the visibility of the symptom. This visibility has social implications and can hold the patient back from forming the social bonds which in themselves can take them away from the problem, i.e. manipulate the symptom. Unlike standard treatment, where the patient is booked in for a course of sessions, the patient is asked to initially come back after a three week period. This is the length of time usually considered for an idea to become sufficiently fixed in the mind. The patient will then designate the speed and frequency of subsequent sessions. This is to allow the patient another area of control which strengthens confidence in themselves and their commitment to the therapeutic process. Stress Stress increases the vulnerability of the autonomic nervous system and this has a direct effect on the epidermis. This increases the dermatological symptoms and sets the patient into an anxiety loop. The worse the external stress becomes, the more the autonomic nervous system reacts in response, the worse any dermatological reaction.
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One of the most effective ways the therapist can help in alleviating the symptom is to teach the patient self hypnosis for stress reduction. This allows the patient to regain a level of control of certain autonomic functions of the system, such as breathing and regulation of the heart rate. This serves the twofold process. It demonstrates that autonomic functions can be manipulated using hypnosis, and by reducing the stress component of the problem, the symptom itself will reduce. Treating the trigger There are two categories into which individuals with a problem fall. The first is those who need to know why they do something before they can move away from the problem, and those who feel they have already dealt with that aspect of the problem and simply require a remission of the symptoms. Those people who need to know why they have their problem require treatment involving analysis or regression. The aim of these techniques is to give an insight into the root cause of the problem. This work can be done in a context free manner, so it is not necessary in hypnotherapeutic treatment for the material to come to consciousness, only that the emotional content is released in a cathartic manner. The underlying principal is that the release of the emotional component will eradicate the need for the symptom. For those whose primary concern is the eradication of the problem, i.e. those who feel that the initiating reason for their condition is not relevant to them anymore, the trigger still needs to be dealt with. In these instances, dissociation techniques are often used. These techniques concentrate on a resolution or re-integration of a problem part the part which caused the problem. With dermatological conditions which provoke a conditioned reflex such as scratching, the most distressing aspect for the individual is the feeling that they are scratching without any conscious awareness, such as in their sleep. The principal of dissociation brings back the part which scratches, and reintegrates it into the whole, therefore eradicating the need for the symptom, and bringing the trigger under conscious control. Dealing with the symptom As the symptom provoked can itself cause additional problems, such as poor self image, and a lack of confidence, this aspect is addressed through ego-strengthening techniques. This reduces the stress and helps take the patient out of themselves, and away from focussing on the condition. As some dermatological conditions respond well to exposure to ultra violet light, creative visualisation in hypnosis can be used to take the patient to a warm beach, where they can safely experience the healing effects of the sun. If the patient is receptive to imagery, the same physiological and psychological changes will be produced as if they were actually experiencing it. Changes in skin pigmentation corresponding to sun exposure have been seen in this therapeutic application of visualisation. Finding out
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what the patient uses effectively to ease the symptom can also be fed back in hypnosis, and therefore amplified on the unconscious level at which the problem has been operating. A final aspect in dealing with the symptom in this type of hypnotherapeutic intervention is the generation of new, healthy skin. This can be done in one of two ways. Either the patient is asked to remember a time when their skin was healthy, i.e. a time before the condition occurred, or imagery is used of how they wish themselves to look when their skin is healthy. Coping with the reaction to the symptom In addition to the symptom itself, the conditioned response needs to be extinguished. Scratching or itching, which gave temporary relief to the patient from the condition, itself becomes a habit. Even when the trigger has been removed and the new dermatological response generated, the reaction still remains in place and must also be deconditioned. If this is not done, at any time in the future should the individual become stressed or their immune system depleted, the habit can resurface and cause an apparent reoccurence of the symptom. Once the patient becomes aware that their skin condition is deteriorating, they begin to focus on that area, they become more stressed, and the pattern becomes a vicious circle until the condition starts afresh. The scratching or itching can be dealt with by hypno- desensitisation, a gradual process which weans the individual off the behaviour. Glove anaesthesia Glove anaesthesia is a hypnotic technique which can also be used in hypnosis to allow the patient to alter perception of sensitivity. A specific technique which uses suggestions of cold and numbness is used for dermatological conditions. This is used to produce vaso-constriction for a numbness or coolness to reduce sensitivity to the itch itself. This is done by teaching the patient how to produce analgesia in their hand. They are then taught how to transfer this lack of sensitivity/numbness or coldness to any part of the body they wish. This stage of the treatment reduces the physical need for the itching or scratching, and allows the skin to begin to heal until the habitual element of the behaviour is extinguished. In certain instances, warmth can be generated to produce vaso-dilation to increases the blood supply to the area it is needed, and speed up the physical healing process. Case study A twenty five year old female patient presented with severe eczema, particularly on her hands. Her condition occurred periodically over nine years and she had tried various treatments from steroid treatment to homeopathy. When asked what her main concern with regard to the condition was at that moment in time, she responded that she was currently working on a high pressure project which she found particularly stressful. Her primary concern was that she should be able to get
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through the project without undue associated stress which caused her palpitations and trembling. In the first consultation she was taught self hypnosis which she was to practise every evening and whenever she felt the need during the day. This improved her ability to go into a hypnotic state, while also allowing her to take direct action to control her main area of concern. Once the project was completed, she returned to continue her treatment. She was aware of when the condition started and felt that this was no longer relevant to her. A dissociation technique was used to re-integrate the part which took over when she scratched, and re-integrated. This was done to bring the trigger back under conscious control. In a subsequent session, imagery of relaxing warm beaches was used, as she had stated that exposure to sunlight alleviated her symptom. As part of the post-hypnotic suggestion she was asked to look for changes in her skin condition, and to become as involved in her environment as possible. The redness of the skin was by this time reducing, and she noticed that the more severe thickening of skin on her hands was also lessening. Continued use by the patient of self-hypnosis during this time, as well as positive egosuggestions increased her ability to take control of herself, and she noted that her confidence was increasing in social situations. As the timescale and number of sessions was also under her control, she indicated that she felt confident to discontinue with the sessions and would continue to practise her self hypnosis. At this stage it was suggested that should she wish to return in three months time, or if she felt the need to contact the therapist during that time she could. This was done as a safety net proviso, and allowed the patient ongoing security should anything come up in that time. After four months the patient returned to show what she called her new self. The skin was healthy, and only the more severe areas around the finger joints still showed slight discolouration. The patient was happy with her progress and discussed all the things which she now felt confident to do. Conclusion Working with dermatological conditions is one of the most rewarding types of treatment in hypnosis. The changes which take place can be viewed directly, and as the condition improves, so confidence increases, and the patient gets into a positive mindset about themselves and their future. If you wish to undertake a course of hypnotherapy for dermatological conditions, go to your medical practitioner first to check that there is not a physiological basis for your condition. In the UK, practitioners of these techniques can be found by telephoning the British Society of Clinical Hypnosis on 0171-499 2813.

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Hypnotherapy, Therapeutic Psychology and the Healing Process

by Del Hunter Morrill, C. Ht. I have been a hypnoanalyst through a good part of my life as a counselor and hypnotherapist. I began writing this paper as a means of confirming my work, expanding my views, and deepening my own convictions about the use of hypnosis in the healing of the physical body. To do this, it has been helpful to review the basics of understanding psychological behavior beyond the "norm." For this reason, a large emphasis of this particular paper is on the psychological underpinnings of the mental health field, and the hypnotherapist's crucial role in this field. In order to be effective in using hypnosis for mental and physical issues that have as their basis more psychological problem than habit, it is important to become familiar with basic psychology. Therefore, covering the definitions of the most basic psychology terms can be helpful to hypnotherapists, even if they choose to never work in the field of psychology directly. The Various Forms of Neurosis Neurotic persons are those who can function quite well in society despite having some mental problems. They have neurotic behaviors which interfere with parts of their lives and may incapacitate them to some degree, but they can usually keep them somewhat under control, therefore functioning fairly well in society. They may be unhappy with themselves, preoccupied and self-centered, easily upset, over-reactive or compulsive, and it may take little to get them upset; but they are rarely any harm to themselves or others. At the risk of being overly simplistic, there are many different kinds of neurosis: Disassociated neurotics are persons who will usually go to extremes of forgetting in order to avoid their problems, and are quite easily swayed by other people. It should not be surprising, therefore, that they make good hypnotic subjects. Phobic neurotics have heightened fears about people, objects or situations, which they cannot face. Obsessive-Compulsive neurotics have to follow certain routines and actions out of some deep fear of disaster if they do not. Depressive neurotics are those who continually feel low, most often with many complicating symptoms like poor sleep, negativity, deep anger, self-deprecation, and even physical problems of a chronic nature. Hypnochondriacal neurotics seem to take enjoyment in poor health, which brings attention to the self. While openly complaining about their symptoms, they actually use them to hide their problems.

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 Neurosthenic neurotics often have many physical symptoms, especially those of fatigue, headaches and other physical problems. These often stem from deep anger or resentment, or being unable to escape from an unhappy situation. Conversion neurotics actually take on a real incapacity or handicap, such as paralysis or blindness, in response to great feelings of inadequacy or a severe trauma. The Psychotic Person In contrast to the neurotic, who may be unhappy and have difficulty in dealing with his/her surroundings but is able to function, the psychotic is helpless in coping with life. Psychotics have frequent delusions, which affect any decision-making. Their emotions can shift rapidly, often from passivity to violence, without apparent reason. They are incapable of dealing with the strictures and demands of society. They can sometimes be of danger to themselves or their communities. Unfortunately, many psychologists feel such people cannot be helped. There are several types of psychotics, again, defined simply: Simple Schizophrenics still have a fairly good contact with reality, but can slip out of reality now and then. Having regular unchanging routines minimizes this to some extent. Although many are indifferent to their appearance or to other people and show few emotions, this is not always the case. I had two suspected schizophrenic clients who heard voices and felt threatened by those around them. Both were well dressed and tidy. The greatest anger I have ever seen in my practice was displayed by one of them. I have found some paranoia often accompanies such schizophrenia. Paranoiacs have all the symptoms of the simple schizophrenic but with more intensity, delusions of grandeur, moodiness, and a strong distrust of other people, even to the point of believing that people are after them. Hebephrenics have hallucinations and delusions, and are continually moving from one subject to another, and from one space to another. Catatonics usually act as if they are afraid of any movement at all, and can stay in one position for very long periods of time unless physically moved by another person. They rarely will communicate verbally. However, occasionally one might suddenly become violent. Effective psychotics can move, in a moment, from being hyperactive to being extremely depressed. In the past, psychotics usually would be confined in some way. Today, in most states, only those who are of extreme danger to themselves or their community are in mental facilities. Unfortunately, many of those released from institutions, or who have none to go to, live in adverse circumstances, often the streets. When I lived in New York City, it was not uncommon to see deranged people throughout the city, in streets, on buses
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and subways, behaving in very odd ways, even threatening or otherwise abusing passerbys. They had no home of their own except what they made in or under the streets. They received no mental health assistance unless it was drugs furnished by welfare. It is an increasing tragedy of extreme proportions. Therapies for Working with Neurotic Conditions There are several effective means of dealing with the mental health of those clients who either come for assistance, are sent to a therapist, or who are in contained situations where therapists are part of the staff and its healing processes. Behavior Therapy, primarily founded by J. B. Watson, and brought into popular use by Carl Rogers and others, along with client-centered approaches, does not limit itself to any single technique. Its focus is to change behavior, rather than focus on getting to the source of the symptoms, such as psychoanalysis does. It is, therefore, a countertherapy to Freud and other psychoanalytic masters' approaches. Some of the behavior techniques popularly used are counter-conditioning, also called "de-sensitization;" observational learning, in which the client is urged to watch the more healthy responses of someone else; aversion in which electric shock or drugs may be added in order to get rid of inappropriate behavior; and positive reinforcement. Behavior therapy may get very good results, but it is questionable how permanent those results may be, if one has not dealt with the source of the symptoms or inappropriate responses. Group Psychotherapy is very popular these days in helping many people cope. Its advantages are in helping people relate to others in more effective ways, in helping an individual understand he/she is not alone (or crazy), and in having peers assist in the healing process. The down sides are: time for proper healing is indefinite, it is often difficult to know when healing has taken place fully, and the reasons for problems vary so considerably from person to person and may not be reached in a group setting. From a behaviorist's standpoint, the outer action is more important; therefore, its change is what is looked for, rather than its source. Obviously, there are many other methods and ways of doing counseling than are covered here. Mental Health and the Hypnotherapist Although the above methods have their place, and many people are helped in dealing more adequately with their lives through such means, there is no question in my mind that the most effective therapeutic method available today is that of hypnosis. Its use helps people get to the depth of their problems quickly, and brings about solutions in far more pleasant ways than most other mental health methods. This does not exclude the other mental health methods. They can be important additions to one's "tool kit'' in helping people deal with their lives. Psychotics make poor hypnotic subjects for several reasons: they are less likely to seek hypnosis as a solution; they do not trust others; and they can become violent even toward someone trying to help them. It is important to be aware of occasions when a
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person has stepped over the line from neurosis to psychosis. If someone is suspected to be psychotic, they need to be referred to a psychiatrist or psychologist immediately. Under no circumstances, should a hypnotherapist (or anyone) untrained in dealing with severe mental illness attempt to assist, on their own, such a person. Although it is wise to avoid using hypnotherapy with a psychotic person, unless doing so in tandem with a qualified psychiatrist or psychologist, the same is not as true in dealing with the neurotic individual. A client's neuroses can be effectively positively redirected with the use of hypnosis by a skilled and well-trained person. Most hypnotherapists who work with such issues would refer to themselves as hypnoanalysts, or hypnotherapists who work with psychological analysis and therapy. It is very important that, if any hypnotherapist wishes to go beyond doing inductions and giving the subconscious self suggestions for change, that he/she seek the training to do so. Lacking this training, they should at least be able to identify neurotic problems, and recognize their own limitations as therapists. They should then send the client to someone who is properly trained to handle such issues. It is my belief that most hypnotherapists are not trained to deal with mental issues beyond those which perpetuate simple habits. If someone is desirous of working more broadly with deeper, more complex issues, then it is important to get additional training in the basics of psychology, especially Abnormal Psychology. It is helpful to be able to quickly determine whether you can be of assistance to someone, or whether they will need more specialized help by other resources. Also, I would recommend to any hypnotherapist, whether or not they plan to do hypnoanalysis, that they include the reading of books of counseling and psychology along with their hypnosis bibliography, especially those which focus on methods of change. The Counselor and Hypnosis I find that being a knowledgeable counselor expands my ability to respond more effectively to what arises within the therapy sessions. However, I am amazed at the number of counselors who have been trained in hypnosis who rarely use it. I personally believe that there are some definite reasons for this, both conscious and unconscious: (1) Because they are so ingrained in the traditional counseling process with its general conviction that any mental healing takes a long time, counselors have great difficulty making the necessary paradigm shift into understanding the value of hypnosis as a primary tool in the counseling system. Even behaviorists seem convinced that changing a behavior takes a relatively long time-granted, not in relation to the time taken in psychoanalysis, which is usually even longer. Most of the counselors with whom I have discussed how they handle clients, use a two-year time period as a normal counseling process, especially with addiction issues. (2) Hypnotic training which either does not make use of and encourage the counselor's particular abilities and experience; or gives the impression that it is enough to know inductions and suggestions.
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(3) The unconscious belief system underlying the counselor-counselee relationship, which implies dependence. Creating the helper-helpee relationship is more possible with a longer time frame. (4) The natural lack of confidence in using hypnosis if it is not used immediately and frequently-that is, use it or lose it! I think some don't use it because they feel insecure with it or have not experienced enough success with it to intensify its usage in their practices. There are programs which offer courses that focus on training counselors in hypnoanalysis. But when I have spoken to some of those who have taken the course, I am amazed at how little these same counselors seem to use hypnosis with their counseling clients to any great extent. It sometimes seems like more of an adjunct, used when all else fails, rather than the primary tool. This is where my practice differs. The Hypnotherapist's Role in the Body's Healing Although I do not feel a hypnotherapist must be an anatomist to understand the body in order to help a client heal themselves, it is helpful to at least have some overall view of both the anatomy (structure) and the physiology (interior processes) of the human body. If we are made up of this fantastic complexity out of the merging of two single cells that kept dividing (including the nucleus with its total encoding of the uniqueness that is each of us), then it makes perfect sense to me that every cell has its own intelligence, whether it is located in the specialization called "the brain," or it is located in some other gland or organ or vessel. It is with this intelligence that the hypnotherapist does his/her work when dealing with the body's healing. When using hypnosis for the process of helping the body heal itself, it is important first, to recognize that our bodies have their own miraculous and natural abilities. I like the image given in class of the "community" of cells, each group of cells having their own particular roles and tasks in assisting the whole. If for some reason, any group fails in their prescribed task and the community as a whole is unable to respond to cover the lapse, then an imbalance occurs, and illness can arise. The unconscious mind handles all the automatic functions of our bodies, helping all the community to do its work. Since that unconscious mind is the major catalyst of these functions, and keeps the body's equilibrium, then it makes sense that it would also be the force that brings the body back into balance. Thus, the hypnotherapist becomes a doctor, whose arena is the "mind." It is important for the therapist, and the client, to view the body in its healthy, balanced mode, rather than focusing on the illness or imbalance, when dealing with its healing. Remember that we are made up of atoms of energy just like everything else in our universe. And that energy can be creative and positive or it can also be destructive. The hypnotherapist understands the power of that energy and encourages the unconscious mind to direct it for "good."

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Our thoughts are energy, as well. Our bodies respond to what we think about ourselves as well as how we treat ourselves. The images and belief systems we carry around within us affect how we look and how our bodies operate. So, part of the hypnotherapist's job is to help the client shift their belief in themselves, their situation, and other people. The hypnotherapist must also deal with the hypnotic spells that have been inadvertently or overtly placed upon the client. These include: (1) Authority: acceptance of what some authority has said, i.e. parent or doctor (You'll get ill if you go out in the rain; You have a weak heart, so you must be careful; There is nothing anyone can do, so live with it); (2) Imitation: unconsciously taking on family and societal attitudes and surroundings (Everyone in the family is obese; To be a woman is to look after the man at all costs; Boys get to do more in school and sports) (3) Association: taking on that which resembles other ideas one has previously accepted, even if there is no real conscious agreement (Just seeing rain and getting a sore throat; Getting the latest "TV news Health Watch" disease). The hypnotherapist's job includes combating these old "spells" and breaking them, and replacing them with more "healthy" hypnotic spells. It is therefore necessary to know the images and beliefs out of which the client is currently operating. Conclusion Many physicians will now support the understanding that 90%, even more, of all illnesses arise out of the unconscious mind-that is, they are psychosomatic. Therefore, the 'physician of the mind' has a wonderful opportunity to be of service in the healing process, helping people to be released from whatever either causes or supports their symptoms, while assisting them in moving forward in positive, helpful, and joyful ways. Amazing results can come from simply guiding the unconscious or subconscious mind to help the body, and all its parts, do its job perfectly and completely.

Quantum Hypnosis
By J. Ben Fisher CI, CMH For the hundreds of years since Descartes freed scientific investigation from the dogma of the church with his famous philosophy of dualism, our worldview or paradigm has been based on material realism or scientific realism as it is sometimes called. Dualism divides the world into an objective sphere of matter (the domain of science) and the subjective sphere of mind (the domain of religion). Put simply, objects are independent of and separate from the mind (or consciousness). This can also be referred to as the principle of strong objectivity. Due to the pressure
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of increased acceptance of scientific investigation the church agreed to this principle and Descartes scientifically enshrined his idea of the world by the contributions he made to the laws of physics. In the eighteenth century Newton further instituted the view of material realism with the principle of causal determinism, which is the idea that all motion can be predicted exactly given the laws of motion and the initial conditions on the objects (where they are and with what velocity they are moving). To understand the Cartesian-Newtonian view of the universe let us use Amit Goswami's example of the cosmic billiard table: "Think of the universe as a big bunch of billiard balls, large and small, in a three - dimensional billiard table that we call space. If we know all the forces acting on each of these billiard balls at all times, then just knowing their initial conditions, their positions and velocities at some initial time, enables us to calculate where each of these bodies will be at all future times or where they were at any previous time." Albert Einstein discovered A third principle of classical physics. The theory of relativity demanded that the velocity the "billiard balls" move, must be limited to the speed of light, this implies that all influences between material objects in space-time must be local, that is, they must travel through space a unit of distance at a time with a finite velocity. This is the principle of locality. The success of material or scientific realists in predicting and controlling the environment, and the subsequent decline in the power of the church, soon caused the material realists to question the mind, or spirit side of Cartesian dualism and break the long standing pact with religion. Thus a fourth principle was added. The principle of material monism: which holds that all things, including mind and consciousness, are made of matter. However, since it is not known how to derive mind and consciousness from matter, a fifth principle was added. The fifth principle is called epiphenomenalism and theorizes that all mental phenomena can be explained as secondary phenomena of matter because of antecedent physical conditions. Consciousness is viewed as "the ghost in the machine", merely a property of the brain when the brain is viewed at a certain level. For most, in western civilizations, our view of reality is determined by these five principles of material realism: 1. Strong objectivity 2. Causal determinism 3. Locality 4. Physical or material monism 5. Epiphenomenalism

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At this time it should be noted that these five principles are metaphysical postulates about the nature of reality, and not conclusions arrived at by experiment. If observation and experiment produce data that contradicts a postulate or theory, then by the rules of scientific investigation, it must be discarded. In addition, if rational argumentation points to a weakness, the validity of the theory must be questioned. Due to recent advances in observational and experimental techniques that allow us to view the quantum or micro properties of matter, all of these theories that have so long dominated the worldview of who and what we are, must be discarded or called into question! What quantum physicists have discovered is; all that we behold as material and real is created from tiny waves that appear as particles when we place our attention on them. These wave/particles can be in more than one place at a time and can communicate instantaneously (faster than the speed of light) thus they are non-local (outside the limitations of time and space). Another reality shaking observation of these experiments is future events can affect present actions and so then by extrapolation, present events can affect the past. These attributes can be observed and experiments repeated in the most rigorous of controlled settings, and the data has the scientific realists ignoring the facts and the quantum physicists seeking transpersonal solutions. It is the end of material realism and the beginning of understanding our true nature and connection to the universe. Even though mind boggling from our material realist paradigm, the universe does not seem to exist without a conscious observer. Not only would the tree in the forest not make a sound if no one was there to observe it when it fell, it would not fall. The evidence can only be reconciled at present with a complete reversal of our present view of the nature of the universe. Consciousness, not matter is the ground of being. What these new discoveries imply is that we are at once the writers of the play, the play, the actors in the play, and the stage. Where we focus our attention and intent is what creates the world we meet. Does this sound familiar? Most of our sessions deal with all of these elements. The entire art of hypnosis is based on focused attention. In the practice of hypnosis we continually see the participant's unaware, unconsciously created universe. Acting out of conditioning and laboring under an untrue worldview, they continue to recreate the same scenarios and false theories of mind, reconstructing the same sabotage resulting in ego dystonic behavior and wrong relationship.

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The universe does not meet them in abundance. Once they are made aware of their behavior and conditioning at a meaningful level, and given tools to change it, the results can be quite astounding! The advances in quantum physics and the subsequent paradigm shift this invokes, gives us an accepted scientific and mathematical mechanism to explain why this comes about and how hypnosis works. Thought and focused attention are what create our universe. This attention can be at the aware or unaware level. When we change our attention, our consciousness, we change the way the universe is manifested. Gives a whole new meaning to Ghana's "to change the world change yourself" statement. It was a literal statement not a metaphorical one. Now in the face of new evidence we must come to fully recognize humans are not material beings, rather, we are spiritual beings. Has one of your forays into the hypnotic realm been a material one? Each time we draw a being to us to be healed, we travel in the space of the no thing and the no time, the worlds where the Shaman tread. We are there in that weave of source, helping to pull the threads of the universe so that it might show it's true abundant self. Ours is a spiritual traverse. Even the psychologists and therapists are again traveling this road, recognizing it is the spirit that must be addressed in order for the human being to return to wholeness. We can no longer afford to dress hypnosis in the trappings of the now defunct scientific realist worldview. We must embrace the new science and present hypnosis for what it really is: the vessel in which the knowledge of self as source was kept. In western religious traditions it was taught that source or universal consciousness was outside ourselves, and the way we accessed it was through an intermediary. Hypnosis was where the records were stored, the reminder that we are source, without end, abundantly resourceful, extending in every direction.

Hypnosis and the Laws of Natural Healing

By Del Hunter Morrill This particular paper has to do with understanding the natural and universal healing laws and how hypnosis and hypnotherapy relate to them. Its intent is to express the ways in which the mind affects our body and its health; and how hypnosis can be used to free people from imprints, or memories, that have been set in their minds from experiences, beliefs, images, and what people have said or projected -- real, or perceived as real. What causes illness? What causes illness, no doubt, is still one of the major questions of life that, for the most
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part, remain unsolved. To the strictly Western medical mind, whatever hasn't been discovered through a laboratory to be a cause, remains an insolvable medical problem, without cure. Drugs can merely help the patient tolerate their condition. To the doctor of the Mind, however, something lies behind whatever specific physical matter or cause-effect the laboratory scientists search for. What produces illness? There seems to be substantial evidence that it is caused by frequent negative statements and/or experiences, especially in one's early life; warnings given by authority figures; prolonged anxiety or stress, and fear from incidents based on strong emotions; or fed by an active and creative imagination. These participate in creating an unhealthy body. Frequent negative messages can affect the body. In other words, an unhealthy mind can create an unhealthy body. Conversely, a positive, healthy mind can creative a healthy body. And, there is much evidence that a positive mind can actually cure an unhealthy body, as well. Generally, when that happens, especially if the condition has been serious, we call it a "miracle." What is a miracle, anyway? Jesus was seen as a healer and miracle worker. The blind saw, the crippled walked, and demons were exorcised. Sometimes, before he healed them, Jesus asked a person if he/she really wanted to get well. Other times, he just went ahead and healed. Perhaps he had some perception of the readiness of a person to release their natural ability for internal healing. Or, perhaps it was an innate instinct about how dependent that person may have been upon the benefits of being ill. It is not unreasonable to expect that some people harbor, either consciously or unconsciously, some benefit to their illness or handicap. Therefore, they may not respond to any therapy that can help them obtain wellness, whether it is traditional Western medicine, naturopathic medicine, hypnosis, or even Jesus. Take, for example, the "man at the pool" who had been crippled, lying on his mat by the pool for years, waiting for an angel to heal him through the water. He complained that he couldn't get anyone to take him down to the pool. Now, here is a person who had decided to be the ultimate victim. No wonder Jesus asked him if he really wanted to get well! Look at the benefits to staying on his mat. If he gets healed, there will be no one to pity him. He will have to go to work instead of depending upon alms. He willhave to pick up his smelly, dirty mat and carry it with him. Perhaps people will even think he has been play-acting all those years. He has a lot to get through, if he is to be healed. However, he doesn't seem to hesitate. He says he wants to get well, and well he gets! He believes it, and in Jesus' ability, and it happens. And people afterwards considered it a miracle. Was the miracle that Jesus touched this man? Or, was the miracle that he willingly gave up whatever benefits and degree of
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comfort he had with his illness, to step out into a new way of life, which was unknown to him? So, what is a miracle? I believe it is a miracle that we have satellites in the heavens, which can send images and messages to us all around the globe at the same time, making us a "global village." It is a miracle to me that in a few short years, human beings have found a way to lift an object, weighing tons, up into the air, and have it remain there and even travel across this earth without falling! It is a miracle, even more, that such a heavy object can be lifted up beyond this earth's gravity. After all, for a large part of my life, I had understood that we were limited in how far our communication could travel; that time factors made it impossible to talk to anyone else across the globe except in the middle of the night; and that gravity held us to this earth -- that was the way it was and would always be. Yet, not only could a huge metal object go beyond that force, it could carry people to an orbiting moon thousands of miles away, and could land on that moon, and let human beings walk on it. And everyone got to participate in that experience through the strange miracle of communication waves... at the same time! Even today I still don't understand how voices and music can carry to my ear over a radio, let alone television, and through satellites, at that. Recently, I watched a program on the history of computers. It was unbelievable to think of a document from one computer being broken into little packets, sent through satellites, and then reconstructed on another computer across the globe by those little packets fitting together like a jigsaw puzzle to create that document once again. And yet all of this, which we oncewere convinced was impossible, has been made possible by discovering the laws of the universe which could make it happen. At one time, it seemed a miracle because someone traveled around the ocean without falling off the edge. It seemed a miracle when the first four-minute mile was run, because no one had ever done it before. These were miracles only because, seemingly, it wasn't possible before. Now it is possible to travel frequently and easily around our globe; and many athletes can run a four-minute mile. And our children are being raised as if satellites and computers had always been in existence. As soon as it becomes commonplace, it no longer seems a miracle at all. Thus it is with our own healing processes. We don't understand them all. But our body clearly knows how to heal us. A broken bone knits. A cut closes up. An abscess breaks and releases its fluids and heals without us doing anything. We might have our bones realigned so that they will knit together better, but the actual healing process is not done by us or by a doctor; it is done by our own body. How do nature's laws apply to healing? One first might ask, how do we know that there are laws that govern the universe? If you look into a powerful telescope at night you will see thousands of stars, each of
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which is the center of some system. As the earth rotates, those systems may change slightly, but they will look as if they are in the same place the next time you want to find them. The law of nature holds them in place. Gravity holds us in place on the earth, unless we choose to lift off from it by rocket. Gravity is only one of the many laws of nature, consistent, except when we find mechanical means of breaking those laws. Atoms in a drop of water look much like a universe. Every crystal is formed according to some beautiful geometric pattern. Every seed gives birth to its own kind. All creatures expect their young will be of their own species. There is no such thing as dead matter. The laws of nature uses everything over and over in creative ways to keep everything alive and dynamic. An entire human being is made up of the division over and over from one single union of two cells. The operating systems of the body perform millions of minute tasks to assure our daily life. These examples, and many others, remind us that there are laws in nature. We can actively or passively participate in them. There are consequences that come from breaking those laws or interfering with their designs, just as there are consequences that come from following them, or tapping into their power. Jesus healed, or found ways to use the natural laws of the universe. People called them miracles, and yet he told his disciples that they could do the same. And when they had trouble with that, he told them that they were "men of little faith." Many of the righteously religious complained about "who" he decided to heal. They felt some were not worthy to be healed or forgiven, or that someone like Jesus didn't have the right to determine such things. The laws of healing are exactly that -- LAWS. Laws are objective. They are for everyone. They don't judge who is bad or good, right or wrong. They don't apply to those who follow the rules, and not apply to those who don't. If you push a "good" citizen and a "bad" citizen off of a 20-story building at the same time, probably they will both experience gravity, and the sidewalk, in much the same way. People all around the world in every culture and religion create their own kind of philosophy that can try to deal with the seeming unfairness of life. We as human beings want very much to believe that we have a better advantage in life by following the rules and by being "good." But when we get our blinders off and really look at life, we can see that it doesn't turn out that way. Good people and bad people seem to be just as likely to experience enjoyable and horrible things in life. Both good and bad people experience early death, or living to ripe old age. Because of this, we have to create some special place, after we die, in which judgment can be made and proper justice meted out. And then, we must create places that can sort out people based upon that judgment, called, in our culture, heaven and hell.
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Questions of "good and bad" and "right and wrong" are irrelevant when it comes to healing. It seems clear to me that what we are left with is: are we willing to discern and use the laws that are in place in our universe for every single human being? Healing is a matter of enabling our whole mind and being to be focused on releasing our body's abilities. Hypnosis can help with this in a powerful way. How does hypnosis fit in? I find it absolutely fascinating that a religious evangelist can create a spellbinding atmosphere of belief and expectation, and thus merely bring about healing by touching a person. Yet, that same evangelist will proclaim to his congregation that "hypnosis is of the devil." It is that congregation's own faith and expectation that releases their very own power to heal and be healed. This is exactly what happens in using hypnosis. Hypnosis reaches underneath that part of the mind which doesn't understand, and may not even believe, to that part of the mind which can understand, and believe. The hypnotherapist uses altered-state methods to get at that deeper part of the mind, which can have the faith to be healed. The therapist, just like the disciple, must have faith in order to use hypnosis to help another person be healed. The therapist is not doing the healing, but is assisting that person to use more of their own inner resources to release what is already given to them. However, if therapists aren't convinced that hypnosis can help heal (or, more likely, worry that they might be too audacious in suggesting that a client can be healed), then they may betray their own lack of confidence and expectation, and thus affect the confidence and expectation of their clients. What's the mind got to do with healing? If it is a fact, as many physicians and scientists claim, that probably more than 90 percent of the diseases and disabilities we experience stem from our minds, then it seems reasonable that our minds can also heal us from them. I do not really agree with some of my colleagues that 100% of those diseases and disabilities come from our minds, but I certainly do believe our minds are greatly involved in whether we let those diseases and disabilities take over our lives. (If it were true that 100% were caused by our minds, then I would have a difficult time understanding why small children should be afflicted, or why animals get diseases that have no human source.) Be that as it may, there is enough evidence that we largely create our own environment, whether it be external or internal. Our belief systems make a difference in how we relate to life, and how we relate to our minds and bodies. We can create a healthy or unhealthy external environment; and, we can create a healthy or unhealthy internal environment. In other words, it is our thoughts, or ideas, that create both our external and internal environments. Another way to describe it is that an incident or accident by itself is not

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the problem. Rather, it is the relationship we take to an incident, and the story we tell about it makes it either a problem or not a problem to us. The relationship and story we tell about what happens to us in life is received by the unconscious or subconscious mind. Negative programming has been accepted for one reason or another -- trust in a person or situation, threat and other trauma, misunderstandings, repetitive comments or events, protection in order to get through situations, etc. Such programming could be considered to be made of "negative hypnotic spells." Anything the unconscious mind accepts as fact will be carried out in the body. The unconscious part of the mind doesn't distinguish the different between what is real and unreal, what is imagined and what is fact. The stronger the impression on the subconscious/unconscious mind, the more certain it will be carried out. The stronger the emotion, the more effect it has on the body. The more frequently said, implied, or experienced, the stronger the suggestion. As a child, how many times were we told that we would catch cold if we didn't wear a coat or boots on our feet. As adults, the assumption by many is, that if you are around someone with a cold, you will probably "catch" it. If someone merely says the word "cancer," a sudden rush of fear can take over our bodies. As children, when healthy, we might do something wrong and be punished; however, if sick, we would be comforted. Being well brings discomfort; being ill brings comfort. Which would you choose? Consciously we want to be well, but unconsciously, we want to be comforted. Words and attitudes from an early age make a difference in how we perceive health and illness. Since illness is not to our benefit, then anything said that promotes it could be considered creating a negative hypnotic spell. You mean, that what I imagine is what happens? When you believe something, your subconscious mind accepts it whether it is real or not. Whatever the conscious mind believes in, it is accepted as fact by the subconscious mind. It doesn't differentiate between what is being imagined or what is actually happening. The unconscious mind doesn't distinguish between what is real or unreal, true or false. Whatever our unconscious or subconscious mind accepts as fact will be carried out in our bodies. The imagination has a powerful effect on the body. There are written case studies and medical records, which show people who have died from the fear of being poisoned, when there has been no trace of it within their systems. When totally convinced that an onion is a delicious apple, over 50 percent of blindfolded people will eat the onion as if it was a delicious apple. In an episode of the popular series M.A.S.H., the doctors, who had run out of the supply of morphine, created placebo capsules, which they gave to their very uncomfortable patients. The only requirement was that the doctors had to present a posture of total belief in the placebo as actual
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morphine. Well over 50% of the patients were relieved totally of their pain, and most of the others, alleviated considerably. There is a great story of the King of Orange whose troops were trapped behind enemy lines without any access to proper food. Scurvy abounded, so that most of the soldiers were seriously ill. Upon word of this, the King sent a special messenger to get through the enemy's lines to his troops. The messenger carried two vials of colored liquid. The message from the King was that those vials were very costly medicine, which was to be put in buckets of water, a few drops at a time. Each soldier was to have one ladle from the bucket daily. This would heal whoeverdrank the water. After all, the King, himself, had sent these very expensive vials at great risk to his messenger. Within a very few days, all signs of scurvy had totally disappeared. The vials, of course, merely held plain colored water. Using one's imagination is crucial in any field or situation, including medical. We think, therefore, we respond. If a doctor tells a patient that they will never get well, then the combination of the authority of the doctor and/or the public's attitude toward the disease can create powerful images in one's mind which convince the patient of that suggestion. In other words, the suggestion, unless consciously rejected, is received and imagined to be true. And the patient will never get well, unless convinced otherwise; that is, unless their imagination is changed about that prediction. If we believe that illness is inevitable, we will respond considerably differently than if we believe that illness and physical handicaps are NOT normal. It is a known fact that whenever a new "illness" is reported by the public media, the incidence of that illness amongst the population suddenly and dramatically rises. In other words, what we imagine is what happens. Such people have accepted a new hypnotic spell. There are many instances in which people have been convinced simply by word or implication. A diagnosis creates a label, such as "bi-polar." At first, this may be very freeing to a person struggling with manic and mania responses within themselves. They realize that they are "not alone" or "going crazy." But that diagnosis can also serve to continue to convince that person that they are "locked in" to that condition for their lives. They carry the label forever, until it is removed. It is, therefore, important for the counselor or hypnotherapist to be aware of what labels a client carries with them, whether they were put there by themselves, or by others, even if those other people are part of the medical community. And then, the therapist, through hypnosis and counseling methods, helps the client "peal off" those labels and replace them with the more positive ones of health and wholeness. There are people we tend to allow as our authorities-teachers when younger; peers when teenage; doctors when older. How much we believe in what other people say makes a big difference in how much of a hypnotic spell we allow ourselves to be caught in. In this light, it is understandable why parents are often concerned about with whom their children play; or, whom their teenage children are dating.
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In the same way, a counselor or hypnotherapist ought to be concerned about whom their clients decide to let influence them. When I am working with an addictive client, for instance, I encourage them to get away from negative energy in which they are immersed, and get among those whose energy is positive. There is a high attrition rate in those who go through addiction programs, for at least two reasons: 1) the work is done primarily at the conscious-mind level; and 2) the patients go out into the same old environment they came out of. Physical and social "geography" does make a difference in how quickly we respond to positive growth and healing. Our external environment, just like our internal one, has become part of our imagination. How can hypnosis help change the "environment"? To overcome problems, the negative information in the mind (or old hypnotic spells) has to be reversed. It can be changed by hypnotic suggestions, by watching positive action, and by using the imagination. The unconscious responds to the strongest impression. Only if the previous impression is less in strength than the new impression, can reprogramming with new ideas take place. Hypnosis has to get rid of the previous imprint, and provide sufficient reasons and benefits to the unconscious mind for that new imprint. This is what reprogramming is about. An example of this replacement is with a client of mine who had come for weight control. Consciously, he wanted to get rid of excess weight. However, despite proper suggestions for changing unhelpful habits, nothing occurred. In trying to discover the reason for the block to getting rid of the enormous amount of excess fat he was carrying on his body, we encountered his childhood experiences. In his younger years, he was sickly, exceedingly thin, and had trouble eating. His parents and other relatives were so worried for him they told him many times, "You've got to eat, or you'll die!" It is not difficult to grasp the power of that type of suggestion, which was, no doubt, accepted literally by the unconscious/ subconscious levels of my client's mind. As he began to recover from his illnesses, he began to eat enormous amounts of food, thus adding far too much weight to his body. It took (1) regression and releasing methods concerning those early memories; (2) suggestions to the "child part" of himself that he no longer had to fear dying from not eating enough because he had become an adult and so obviously hadn't died; and (3) suggestions to the adult self that he was alive and well and could now eat normally. It worked. The client's "deeper" mind accepted this new fact, and it became the new imprint. He was now willing to change his poor habits; and began to shed the extra pounds. Ideas can be positively or negatively accepted, depending upon previous "programming;" emotions surrounding the ideas, and whether those ideas are understood or mis-understood. Hypnosis is a method used to suggest positive ideas, which, if accepted by the unconscious mind, affect the body and cause a positive response. It is a powerful tool that can convince the mind to create a healthy environment -- outside or inside. Hypnosis helps clients overcome problems and get rid of self-defeating images, by breaking the old "hypnotic spells." the negative information in the mind has
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to be reversed. Negative programming can be changed. However, the "manager of the mind" awaits instructions before getting rid of negative programming. Until then, it goes on using the same program until told otherwise. It is like a computer which, despite all the hardware, cannot run until you enter a program. And that program cannot operate until you touch the keyboard. Entering a new program is like adding a new dimension to the imagination of the computer, or tapping into more of its potential "mind." For the client, whatever has been believed is imprinted on the mind. Proper use of hypnosis can change those imprints into something more positive and effective. There is also the possibility of previous incarnations providing imprints. The question becomes: with whose illness are we actually dealing? In such a case, it is necessary to treat that previous incarnation as the client who is seeking relief from that "hypnotic spell," or imprint. Whether it is this existence, or a past one, or even some kind of incarnate attachment, that "person" is the actual client, or patient, and the one who needs the healing. Can our minds really heal our bodies? Some force within us is capable of repairing the body. This fact is acknowledged even by the medical community, as evidenced most strongly in the use of placebos in scientific medical studies. As mentioned before, it isn't the doctor who mends the broken bone who heals it. The doctor places the bones in proper alignment, and puts something around that area to keep it stable. But, that doctor does not do the actual knitting of those bones. The body has an instinct to send whatever is necessary to that site to stimulate the cells, fluids and chemicals to do whatever is required for that healing to take place. You could say that this very fact of nature supports the belief that our body's "natural" state is to be well. The hypnotherapist, or counselor using hypnosis, will not set bones in place or wrap them for adequate support, nor do the job of the body. What it can do, is to send signals to the mind of that body to help that healing process respond more rapidly and completely; and to help the patient through it all with an easy, positive mind. The body and the mind are made to be completely whole, completely healthy. They are meant to be continually recreated with new cells and ideas. But sometimes something occurs which blocks that continuous process of regeneration, or misdirects it. Hypnosis can be used to get to that part of the mind where some "disconnect" has occurred, and release it, so that the healing and regeneration process can continue as nature intended it. Because hypnosis has the capacity to call forth this ability of the mind to "re-think" how it is operating the body, the hypnotist or counselor who works with hypnosis would be well advised to study the human body's anatomy and its physiological principles. By having a clearer idea of how the organs, glands, and various other systems operate, the hypnotist can encourage the client's practical imagination in helping the body promote its own health by thinking of that area of their body as healthy and operating perfectly.
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Besides hypnosis and medical care of various kinds, there are other helpful tools for enhancing healing, such as humor, healthy sexual contact, harmonious relationships, good friends, and anything else that provides a positive atmosphere. Summary:

The universe has been created with laws. Laws are objective. They apply to everything and everyone. The subconscious (or unconscious) mind controls all systems and processes of the body, including its healing processes. The body functions according to thoughts, ideas, and beliefs accepted by the subconscious/unconscious mind. "We are what we think." Thoughts filter from the conscious mind into the subconscious mind and affect the body positively or negatively, depending upon the types of messages received. Ideas don't have to be true to affect us; they need only to be accepted by our minds as true. What we imagine occurring is what occurs. Positive emotions are instrumental in producing good health. The body can usually withstand temporarily unpleasant emotions, but unpleasant emotions over a period of time can cause a negative effect on the body. Destructive emotions can have a definite effect on the health of the body, just as they do on the mind. Since it is basically "thoughts", or ideas, that determine how we respond, then thoughts and ideas can be changed in order to determine different responses. Hypnosis is a tool that can demonstrate the effect the mind has on the body. It can show how ideas formed by a person can affect the body positively or negatively. Hypnosis can be used to replace negative programming with positive programming, negative thoughts with positive thoughts. Hypnosis can be used to release blocks to the natural healing processes, by strengthening the imagination regarding healing. Hypnosis can seek out inappropriate imprints on the mind and change them to ones that are more beneficial to the client.

(Ms.) Del Hunter Morrill, Counseling Hypnotherapist Office: (253) 383-5757; (888) 663-5757 (toll free)

SUGGESTIBILITY AND SEXUALITY

By Chaplain Paul G. Durbin, Ph.D.

* For books by Dr. John G. Kappas Professional Hypnotism Manual, Your Sexual
Personality, and Improve Your Sex Life Through Self-Hypnosis, and information on their very excellent video extension courses go to http://www.hypnosismotivation.com/ Use of material from these book are used with permission of George Kappas, son of Dr. John Kappas. George Kappas, M.A. M.F.C.C., is Executive Director of the Hypnosis Motivation Institute.
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Suggestibility Questionnaire and Sexuality Questionnaire and how to score them can be found in Professional Hypnotism Manual and Improve Your Sex Life Through SelfHypnosis. The Sexuality Questionnaire can also be found in Your Sexual Personality. I use the Suggestibility Questionnaire with all out/patients and clients. I also ask a few question from the Questionnaire to get an idea of the suggestibility of the in/patients that I work with. You can write for information to the following address: Hypnosis Motivation Institute, 18607 Ventura Blvd. Suite #310, Tarzana, CA. 91356 or Phone: 1-800-6345620. SUGGESTIBILITY No matter what objective use is made of hypnosis, whether it is in therapy, clinical research, relief of symptoms, or merely for amusement, we cannot get away from the fact that none of it would be possible without the use of suggestion. Suggestion is used to induce the hypnotic state, suggestion is used to control the responses while the person is hypnotized, suggestion is used to attain responses after the session has been completed, and suggestion is used to get the person out of the hypnotic state. (NOTE: If something happened to the hypnotherapist before the count out, the client would come out of the hypnotic state even without the suggestion by the therapist.) Except for the exception give, the entire procedure of hypnosis, from pre-induction to attainment of the goal one is seeking to attain after being hypnotized, is all founded on suggestion. Therefore the proper use of suggestion is the most important aspects of hypnosis. The word "suggestion" used in the hypnotic context, is the acceptance of an idea or belief to the point of causing changes in an individual's actions, body responses, attitudes, emotions, or characteristics. Over the years, I have discovered the power of suggestion. Stop for a moment to consider the power of words as one method of conveying suggestion. By words, the preacher proclaims the Good New of Faith. By words, the politician conveys his agenda. By words the sales person sells his goods. By words, the teacher teaches. By words, thoughts are imparted from one person to another or from one generation to another. There are words that make us laugh and words that make us cry, words that bless and words that condemn, words that wound and words that heal. The old saying, "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." is a false statement. Some people respond better to direct suggestions, while others respond best to indirect suggestions. Most of us can respond to both direct and indirect suggestions but generally have a preference for one or the other. Because I believe in the importance of an individual's suggestibility, I have everyone who comes into my office for counseling fill out the John Kappas suggestibility questionnaire which will generally give an indication of that persons dominate response. Dr Kappas calls the persons who responds best to direct suggestions, a physical suggestible person. The individual who responds best to indirect suggestion as an emotional suggestible person. I use the terms direct suggestible and indirect suggestible because I believe that the client is more familiar with the meaning of these terms than they would be with physical suggestible and emotional suggestible.
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Some hypnotherapist say that only a certain number of people can be hypnotized because they use on direct suggestions. To the question, Why do some subjects respond to hypnotic suggestion and depth, while other do not? The answer was discovered back in the 1967 by Dr. John Kappas and published in his book Professional Hypnotism Manuel which is still in print. He recognized the existence of two distinct types of suggestibility physical and emotional which I call direct and indirect. Before that Dr. Milton Erickson had shown that some people responded better to direct suggestions and others to indirect suggestion. He was such a master at using indirect suggestions that many of his disciples tend to go to the extreme with indirect suggestions and use them exclusively. Dr. Kappas was the first to show how to use a persons suggestibility to get the best results. Our suggestibility usually comes from our primary care giver (usually our mother). If the child experiences his mother as saying what she means and meaning what she says, he will usually be more responsive to direct suggestions. If the verbal and non-verbal parts of her communication does not express the same thing, the child begins to search for the real meaning. She begins to look for the implied meaning rather that what is actually said. Balanced suggestibility comes when in certain areas, the mother is consistent in what she says while in other areas, she gives conflicting messages. I tend to be close to the middle with a slight dominance for direct suggestion for when my mother told me to do something, then I believed should do it. If she told me not to do something, I knew she meant it. There was a cause and effect. Mother laid down the law and I followed it or I reaped the consequences. On the other hand, mother could be indirect in her request. She might say to me, "Paul, don't you think you should go visit Mrs. Smith. She is sick and she gave you a Christmas present last year." Now that sounds like I have a choice but I did not. She meant for me to go see Mrs. Smith and if my answer to her was "No", she would let me know in no uncertain terms that I was to go. An interesting aspect of our suggestibility is that there is a tendency for a person who hears direct to speak indirectly and for the person who hears indirect to speak direct. I learned this with my communication with my wife. Bobbie and I have been married since 1958 but it was not until the 80's that I learned about suggestibility. When I began to study how people communicate in regards to direct and indirect suggestions, I remembered an incident that had occurred a few years before. Bobbie was cooking supper and we were having meatballs and spaghetti. She was preparing the french bread by buttering the bread and putting garlic salt on top. I dont like garlic salt on my toast and she knew that I did not like dry toast. I always wanted my bread buttered before it was toasted. When I saw her putting the garlic salt on the toast, I said, Dont put any thing on my toast. When we set down at the table to eat, I noticed that Bobbie had put dry toast by my plate. I asked Why do I have dry toast? Bobbie said You told me not to put anything on your toast. I said, We have been married for more than 20 years and I have never wanted a piece of dry toast. She said Well I just did what you asked me to do. She hears direct and speaks indirect.
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Bobbie likes the room temperature warmer than I do. She may say Does it seem cold to you? For many years, I would say, No. and in a short time she would be angry at me and I would not know why. I would say What is the matter? and she would respond, Nothing! You seem to be upset about something. What is the matter? You know. No, I do not know. After we went through that exercise for a while, she would say, I asked you to turn up the air condition and you didnt do it. Well, I finally learned that Bobbies questions were really request. Now when she says, Does it seem cold to you? I respond, No, but if you would like for the air condition to be turn up, I will be glad to do it. Or I say, No, can I get you quilt so you can be warmer? HUMAN SEXUALITY Much of the following are from Dr. Kappas books: Professional Hypnotism Manual, Your Sexual Personality, Improve Your Sex Life Through Self-Hypnosis, and my own experiences and interpretation of the those resources. Ever since the beginning of time, sex has been one of the most potential means for pleasure and pain. It is our most intimate of human relationship and used incorrectly can be among the most degrading experiences. It can be used for recreation, procreation, and fun. At other times, it can be uncomfortable, painful and degrading. Sex is an enormously powerful force. In our responses to the sexual drive there are conscious and subconscious factor at work. To some degree social and religious beliefs influences our response to the sex drive. The way an individual responds to the sex drive is dependent on his or her own personal history, environmental impute, social standards and religious influences. Sexual activity can bring joy and pleasure, birth, or pain and destruction and death. As therapists, people come to us to help them overcome problems. Included in these problems are those which are sexual in nature. Many times the presenting problem may be something else, but when the real problem is discussed, it turns out to be a sexual problem. To be better prepared to help those people, we should aware of physical and emotion sexuality. As there is physical (direct) and emotional (indirect) suggestibility, there is physical and emotional sexuality. I will use physical and emotional in reference to sexuality because sexuality differs from suggestibility. A physical suggestible may be an emotional sexual person and an emotional suggestible may be a physical sexual person. When I was in college, I read many books on sexuality and how to please the female sexually. Most all the books dwelt with the physically sexual female. Of course, at that time I was totally unaware (as were most experts on sexual behavior) of the sexual behavior of physical and emotional sexuality. An illustration of misinformation is revealed in that all those books said that when the sex act was over, the female wanted the male to continue to touch, caress and be affectionate. As we shall discuss later in this article, one of the characteristics of an emotional sexual person of either sex is that when the sex act is over, he or she wants to go on to other things such as going to sleep, go to the bathroom, get dressed, etc. Well, it so happened that I am a physical sexual person and my wife is an emotional sexual so that when I wanted to continue the
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courtship, she wanted to go on to others things. My response to her reaction was that I felt rejected. When I learned about physical and emotional sexuality, I understood her reaction was not rejection but just her built-in response. There are a lot of other differences between physical and emotional sexual people which if know can prevent a lot of misunderstanding between sexual partners. The two categories of emotional and physical sexuality, with the one subcategory called intellectual sexuality, fits all human beings. As mentioned earlier it is important to recognize that a person will not necessarily have the same type of sexuality as they do suggestibility. An emotional sexual man or woman can be either physical or emotionally suggestible, and vice versa. We have found that suggestibility has a strong effect on sexuality, but the two should not be confused. Suggestibility is created by the mother; sexuality is created by the father. As a rule, a child will develop physical sexuality if he raised in a home where the father is more outward and open in his demonstration affection. If the father is passive and undemonstrative, or if he is absent all or most of the time, the child tends to become emotionally sexual. Physically sexual persons project their sexual responses outwardly. They dwell on sex and desire and need physical sex often, usually as a token of acceptance or to prove that they are adequate. They cover up or repress negative emotions with this extreme sex drive. Emotional sexuals, on the other hand feel their sexual responses inwardly. They protect their physically body by projecting emotions such as fear or embarrassment to defend or repress physical feelings. Many marital and relationship problems are really about sexual misunderstandings which, in many cases, lead to a total lack of communication between men and women. In the beginning of the relationship, when the newness and excitement of sex are present in both male and female, each seems to communicate sexually. They build expectation, stimulating the suggestibility to sex. As their honeymoon stage wears off the tendency for their dominate sexuality come to have a greater influence. Their true sexual response is then evident. Communication sexually and verbally becomes less and less frequent until the inevitable takes place - they look for something new or close their minds to sexual response with their partner. It is generally acknowledged that 60% of all females lean toward emotional sexuality and 40% toward physical sexuality. It is interesting to note that among men, this same 60/40 balance seem to exist in the opposite direction. 60% of all males that have been tested prove to react to physical sexuality and the other 40% were more susceptible to emotional sexuality. It is also interesting to note that the old saying that opposites attract is certainly true of human sexuality. In discussing the characteristics of the physical and emotional sexuals, I will discuss the extreme behaviors (from 90% to 100% physical or emotional). Of course, the closer to 50% one comes the more the extreme characteristics change. It is important to keep this in mind and to be aware that the majority of people have a combination of physical
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and emotional sexual characteristics and do not fall into extreme categories. However, if you are aware of the extremes, some of the experiences you have or your sexual partner have or your clients share with you can be better understood. Understanding your own, as well as your partners sexual response factors can improve your relationships, enhance your sexual relationships and reduce the possibility of misunderstandings. When the understanding of your clients sexual response factors are needed in the therapeutic situation, the knowledge can improve your counseling. A proper understanding can and will allow you and the people you counsel to change direction from a possibly disastrous pattern to a happier and more successful way of life. It can also help you to improve or eliminate certain sexual traits that have caused you to lose or to hurt in a past relationship. To be a physically sexual female does not mean that she does not feel emotions, but that she places her physical body in front of her to protect her emotions and therefore requires a great deal of physical attention. There are basically two reasons why a female becomes a physically sexual person. If she receives a lot of affection from her father and a lot of physical attention, she becomes a physical sexual person. On the other hand if she is abused or feel emotional rejection, she tends to become a emotional sexual person. The information that follows are for extreme personalities. That means that they would rate between 70 and 100 percent either physical or emotional on the Sexual Barometer. The purpose in sex therapy is to lead them to a downward adjustment of this extreme sexual temperament to the safety zones close to the fifty yard line on the playing field of sexual activity. When a person effects an alteration of their sexual personality to a lower percentage point on the same side of the Sexual Barometer we refer to this as a personality adjustment. These conversions should not swing all the way from one end to the other like a pendulum. Sexual personality extremity is just as unhealthy and unhappy at either end of the scale. Even though a person during a period of adjustment therapy may cross over the 50/50 dividing line he, or she, should strive for an ultimate converted rating as close to the midpoint as possible, no matter which side of the scale it be on. Some special aspects of the physical sexual: 1. She has a free and easy social attitude and is easy to know. 2. She is outspoken, frank and forthright in stating her opinions. 3. She is an interesting, often witty conversationalist. 4. She is generous, often to a fault, but usually in ways she dictates. 5. She is physically attentive, back-rubber, foot-massager 6. She is demonstrative of her affections, i.e., hand-holder, patter. 7. She flatters her man continually and caters to his sexual ego. 8. Being possessive, she craves marriage and emotional enablements. 9. She is quick to apologize if she thinks she is wrong or has hurt. 10. She will often use sex as a means of making-up after a fight or argument.

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11. She revels in the role of sex slave to her mate but will often demand the same attitude from him in return. 12. She is versatile, as well as prolific in her sexual activities. 13. She is readily available, even after a fight, rejections and periods of neglect...none of which she can cope with. Some visual characteristics of female physical sexuality: 1. In standing, or walking, her toes generally point outwardly, duck-like, rather than straight ahead or pigeon-toed as observed in some emotionally sexual females. This outward pointing of her feet represents her outward acceptance of the physical. In effect, it indicates that she is completely opening herself up sexually as would be the case in a physical attitude to accept intercourse. 2. Perhaps because her heartbeat is faster and her circulation more rapid than her emotionally sexual counterpart, she is usually a deep breather. She gives readily discernable indications of this by the fact that she is often a mouth-breather, gulping in air through her open mouth, or by the fact that her nostrils will dilate perceptibly each time she inhales. 3. Her skin and body temperature are higher than that of the emotionally sexual female. Her hands and feet are warm, sometimes even damply so. The soft fleshy areas of her breasts and buttocks are usually warm, rather than cool to the touch. During hot weather she tends to display tiny beads of perspiration, notably on her forehead and upper lip and in the valley between her breast. 4. During even the most luridly suggestive conversation she will lock eyes with the male, rather than dropping her gaze, self-conscious, as is the habit of the emotionally sexual female. 5. When she is the recipient of little attentive gestures, such as refilling her glass she will tends to stare directly into the face and eyes of the male who is offering these attentive gestures rather than at the glass which he is filling, as is the subconscious habitual physical reaction of the emotionally sexual female. 6. During even the most innocent and innocuous conversation, the emotionally sexual female will look at her male companion and divert her eyes when he answers; the physically sexual female will do just the opposite. She will stare directly at her male companion, often scanning his face, while he answers her or speaks to her. In so doing she is, subconsciously, desperately seeking signs of his acceptance of her and fearfully alerted to any possible danger flags indicating potential rejection Some of the characteristics of the emotional sexual female: 1. The emotionally sexual female has a slower heartbeat. 2. She has lower pulse rate than the physically sexual female. 3. Her body temperature is lower because of the reduced activity of the circulation. 4. She perspires less than the physical. 5. Her hands and feet are almost always cold. (Is this where the old saying, Cold hands, warm heart. originated? 6. For the emotionally sexual female, sex is far more a function of the heart and the mind than it is between her legs. From arousal through simulation plateaus to
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climax, it is all a function of the mind since her habitual emotional protection of her physical body shields her from actual physical arousal which could lead to a more satisfying climax. 7. Often her buttocks and breast will be cold to the touch. Her restricted circulation which causes the skin to be cold, likewise indicates that insufficient blood is bought to the skin surfaces that cover the sensitive nerve endings of the thirteen erogenous zones of her body. 8. Because the skin is cold, any rubbing of it may create irritation. This can cause frustration to set in and may cause a negative reaction to the matess attempts to crate a positive sexual reaction. 9. Most emotionally sexual females have an inner feeling of sexual inferiority and inadequacy. 10. Once she has experience a climax further stimulation results in irritation. She usually want no more touching. (What had all those sex manuals told me which I read to become a good sex partner? They told me that the woman wanted to continue to be touched after her climax as a means to show her that her mate loved her after sex as he had before. I happen to be a physical sexual male and my wife an emotional female. As mentioned earlier we have been married over 41 years. For over 20 years, I questioned my abilities as sexual partner because when sex was over with, she wanted to stop all touching, kissing and caressing. It was like she was saying, kiss me and go to sleep. Once I knew about physical and emotional sexuality, I knew that was just the way emotional sexuals react. Know I can say, Gee that must have been good for her because she just wants me to kiss her and leave her alone.) 11. Like the emotionally sexual male, the emotional female is more prone to participate in sports than to observe. She prefers an element of excitement or danger in her hobbies or sports. 12. She dresses more conservatively than her physical counterpart. 13. She tends to bottle thing up inside her. When she seems to be upset about and her mate ask her what is wrong, she will say, Nothing or You know. The mate may not have an idea of what is wrong. He may be completely surprised when she finally tells him what is wrong, she will say, Nothing or You know. The mate may not have an idea of what is wrong. He may be completely surprised when she finally tells him. 14. Emotional sexual females have a sexual cycle. Her individual sex urge sex urge may assert itself every 3 days, every 7, every 30. 15. The emotional sexual female may have some difficulty in expressing verbally her love for her mate. Remember the play and movie, Fiddler on the roof. In that play, the wife could not say, I love you. Her husband says something like, You never say, I love you. Do you love me? She replies something like, Of course, I do. I cook your food, I keep a good house for you, I have your children. Of course I do. She was obviously an emotional sexual female and he was a physical male Do not let these basic facts cause you to jump to the conclusion that the emotionally sexual female is frigid. The emotionally sexual female is often capable of a high level of
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sexual suggestibility and sensual arousal. She must, however, be led into the mood for sex - she cannot be pushed into it. In many cases she is infinitely more susceptible to verbal suggestibility as an overture to sex than to physical stimulation. Unless and until she becomes emotionally aroused to sex she will prove almost totally passive and unresponsive. Because of this and as further defense mechanism against emotional hurt, she will often resort to faking her orgasm. Characteristics of a physical sexual male: 1. Has a tremendous sex drive and thinks about sex most of the time. 2. His partner is almost always the dominate member of the partnership and he seem content to let her assume that role as long as she responds to his sexual needs. 3. He is very attentive to his mate. He will open doors or pull back a chair for her at a restaurant. 4. He likes to express public displays of affection.He is less likely to be unfaithful than is the emotional sexual male. 5. He tends to be very possessive of any female with whom he enjoys sexual intimates. Characteristics of the emotional sexual male: 1. 1. He is more career oriented than the physical sexual. Career tends to be more important than his mate or children. 2. It is not unusual for the highly emotional sexual male to have one or more mistresses. 3. He has a tendency to display a totally selfish attitude towards his sex relations. 4. His sexual desires runs in cycles. 5. The highly emotional sexual tends to pursue a seemingly endless procession of sexual escapades. 6. In the early stages of relationship his desire for sex is strong and frequent, but the passion diminishes rapidly as the newness wear off. 7. Once he climaxes, he has no more desire to continue the touching, petting, kissing, caressing. 8. He often experiences resentment when his mate becomes pregnant. 9. He see children as a deterrent to his business or professional objectives. 10. He usually follows a carefully schedule and regulates his life to an appointment calender. 11. He feels a compulsive need to carry an excessive amount of cash to provide him with a sense of security. 12. He is financially generous with himself while being frugal with mate and family. 13. He is more than likely interested in sports that he participates rather than spectator sports. 14. In his sexual relations he is inclined to blame his partner or partners for his own physical and emotional sexual shortcomings and inadequacies. 15. The emotional sexual may have some difficulty in expressing verbally his love for his mate.
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Some years ago, I was working with a couple and one of the main problems was the husbands difficulty in saying, I love you. He was a good husband and father who helped her with watching the dishes, taking out the garbage and such things. He brought her flowers on special occasions and surprise gifts from time to time. She said, Do you love me? He said, Yes, of course. She responded, Well, please tell me so. He replied, You should now I love you because I wash the dishes, I take out the garbage and bring you flowers. They had completed the suggestibility questionnaire and the sexuality questionnaire. She responded better to direct suggestions and was a physical sexual. He was a physical suggestible and an emotional sexual. I suggested to her, Every time he washes the dishes, hear I love you. Every time he takes out the garbage, hear I love you. Every time he brings you flowers or a surprise gift, hear, I love you. I saw them several months after they had completed counseling and they were much happier. Intellectually sexual men and women functions essentially like emotional sexual in the sex act, but with one added trait; they see their sexual experiences as experimentation to point where sex becomes almost a mental exercise. The intellectual sexual individual usually end up with an intellectually sexual partner. Characteristics of the intellectual sexual person: 1. 1. Intellectually sexuals of both sex function like emotional sexuals with the exception of one trait: they see their sexual experiences as experimentation. 2. For the intellectually sexual, sex becomes almost a mental exercise. 3. The intellectual sexual individual usually ends of with an equally intellectually sexual partner. 4. They tend to think that they have a superior attitude about sex than others who are controlled by the animalistic need for sex. 5. They tend to substitute the physical aspects for some form of meditation. 6. The focus on the mental is an excuses for their inability to function well sexually For information on homosexuality and sexual personality, I refer you to Dr. Kappas books: Professional Hypnotism Manual, Your Sexual Personality, and Improve Your Sex Life Through Self-Hypnosis. I will say that the majority of male homosexuals are physical sexuals and the majority of female homosexuals are emotional sexuals. Dr. Kappas once said that he was asked, Do all gay people come to therapy for the purpose of getting out of the gay life? He said that something like 70% come to work out personal and emotional problems and to learn to function in a healthier manner in their relationship. Only about 30% come in for conversion to heterosexuality. Another question that is asked, Can anyone who is gay go straight? My answer to that question as was Dr. Kappas is Yes. [Durbin: There may be a small percentage of homosexuals who have internal organs of the opposite sex or who have a hormonal imbalance that would make it difficult to change, but they are few in number.] The first consideration must be the homosexuals own personal attitude toward her/his homosexual tendencies and practices. In any consideration of conversion or adjustment, the homosexual must first arrive at the moment of truth in which she/he makes the personal decision and commitment to either abandon or embrace a future life
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of homosexual activities. If the wish of the client is to go straight, she or he can be helped to do so with proper therapy and the understanding ones personality. A therapist should work with a homosexual to change his/her sexual orientation only if that is his/her desire. At any rate one under hypnosis can not be made to do anything against her/his will or desire unless you use hypnosis as a brainwashing tool and as far as I am concerned that is unethical.

Am I Really Hypnotised?
By Matthew Favaloro Dip C.H., M.A.S.C.H. Sometimes you will discover that an induction may not work and more than that, the client may not tell you that it is not working and pretend to be in trance. The client leaves your office thinking you are a bad hypnotherapist, and more than that, that they can't be hypnotised. What hypnotherapists most want to do, is to create change within the client. To work towards a positive outcome. Many people have a misconception about hypnosis, especially new Hypnotherapists. Sometimes you may try several induction's and still find the person not entering trance and this at first can be most frustrating, as you, the therapist may think "oh God, what do I do now" The more you fail at inducing trance the less likelihood of them in believing that you are a competent hypnotherapist and consequently, your suggestions are measurably weakened as you appear to possibly stumble and find other ways to hypnotise. Usually, you have an hour or so to work with the client. Some of the mistakes that new Hypnotherapists make are to:

Rush into an induction first, always build rapport. What does rapport mean? : Affinity, agreement, understanding, harmony, empathy, compatibility, partiality, unity. Take your time with the client, listen and set the ground rules of hypnosis (what it can or can't do). Fail to observe. You must observe the client. Some that know the techniques of N.L.P. can build rapport by matching breathing, pacing and leading (for those unfamiliar with these terms, a good NLP book will explain). Read the clients body language, around 70% of all communication is non verbal. Notice their breathing, if they sigh when talking about an issue. If their communication is contradictory to body language. Notice and observe. Fail to test the hypnotic induction . You know what hypnosis is, and maybe what a hypnotised person looks like. But the client does not. Once you are satisfied that the client is hypnotised, test it. ALWAYS test it. You're not proving to yourself that they are hypnotised, you are proving it to them. A good test is : "Your eyes are so relaxed you can't open them, when I say open, they will remain shut ---if you open them, I will just click my fingers, and you will close your eyes and relax deeper. Failure to deepen the trance. Use everything to deepen. Take the above command. Your eyes are so relaxed you can't open them, when I say open, they 58

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will remain shut ---if you open them, I will just click my fingers, and you will close your eyes: then add, and as you close your eyes, you will triple your level of trance, going deeper and deeper. Notice that I use the word Trance, Trance is specific, relaxation is not hypnosis, if you say and you will go deeper and deeper into hypnosis, or the hypnotic state you lose them as they do NOT know what that is or feels like. Failure to utilise. When taking a case history and listening to the clients problems, jot down the words and phraseology they use. You can utilise them in subsequent suggestions. This creates a bio-feedback loop to them, and easily targets the problem. An example: say the client said (in history taking) well he went bananas and trashed the place. If you said to her in trance, Notice your boyfriend wrecking the place as he went berserk it does not fully connect with how they have mentally stored the experience or memory. If, however you said as you notice that when we went bananas and trashed the place it more specifically targets. If the person's phraseology for warm and good is the word special then say you can now feel special and as you do so you feel warm and good on every level. Failure to utilise Non Specifics / Specifics . When you want information from them, ask specifically. When you give therapy commands, use non specifics example: How specifically did it affect you? When giving therapy, not always but when necessary, non specific suggestions such as. now make all the changes within yourself that you know you need to make to create the healing that you need" Failure to be professional. A trend I have noticed lately is how new hypnotherapists 'de-value' what they do. They say to the client all hypnosis is self hypnosis, I am only your guide, you do it all. Well, the client might then think what the bloody hell am I seeing you for then? They don't want a guide, they want a professional. Now you can't do it for them but you can build expectation power and you lead them to the results that they want. Sometimes, you have to avoid the word Suggestion and replace it with the word "command" If I suggested that you wear a blue outfit on Thursday, it does not mean that you will. But if I said As you hear my voice, obeying my positive healing commands at all times You find that you have a willingness and motivation to dress well it has more power to help create the change needed. Failure to use post hypnotics. Post hypnotic commands are necessary when you work with a client. A simple post hypnotic, "And each and every time you are in my presence, you will instantly and automatically feel safe and secure. The moment you sit in the chair and I direct the words deep asleep to you; your eyes will close over lightly and you will drift to an even deeper state of trance than you are now in.

I hope that these guidelines help you remember and maintain the level of professionalism that is expected from a Hypnotherapist.

Mind - Body Communication

Using Unconscious Learning to promote Health and Well being
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By Jaime V. Pitner, MICP, RHC

uploaded 22/6/2002

Your mind is much like a computer, what you experience shows up on the monitor of your consciousness, without a thought of where it came from. But, like your computer, much work happens behind the scenes, processes, programs, electrical pathways of information and direction, and the vast storage of memory. You may think that you have one mind, but you actually have two, or perhaps better put, you have two parts of one mind: the conscious and the unconscious. The conscious mind, like the computer monitor, allows you to experience whats going on, gives you choices, and brings awareness, allows you to interact. When you use your computer, occasionally you get automatic messages that pop-up on the screen. Most of these messages are routine prompts from the computer to perform a routine action, and others come with immediate warning, and may bring a sense of confusion and frustration. These messages come from the computer program or processor, from behind the scenes, just like the thoughts and feelings which appear in your mind, seemingly out of nowhere. Ever wonder where your thoughts come from? Some are directed by the conscious process of concentration, initiated by a focus of directed thought. But, most thoughts throughout the day seem to just pop into your mind. If you're like most people, you then feel the obligation to begin pondering on those thoughts, sometimes right out to the bitter end. The conscious mind is your monitor for the world, it gives you information for your consideration and action. Before you take action you must choose, using your critical thinking, will power, and judgement all, important facets of your conscious mind. Your unconscious mind, however, is void of judgement. Like the computer processor, it performs its functions dutifully and without question. A computer will run a bad program, just as well as it does a good program. It does what it believes you want by the direction it is given. Unwittingly, you give direction to your unconscious mind every day. Each time you repeat an action, each time you use a common word or phrase, and even the emotions you feel most often become direction for your unconscious mind. This direction we can also call learning. As a computer is programmed, so to is your unconscious mind through all of your life's experiences. The unconscious mind, running all body systems and automatic functions, takes in all of your experiences, all sensory input from sight, sound, touch, taste, smell, and so on. It also records events, images, thoughts, and feelings over your entire life span, and stores them in the form of memory. It has been estimated that the human memory can store billions of bits of information each second, and by the time you're eighty or ninety you still will have only used about two-thirds of its capacity. Your memory seems virtually limitless.
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The problem is, you don't need all that information. It would be system overload if all of your life's experiences came flooding through. When you're on your computer looking for a file or searching the web for information, you don't want all the data your computer has stored, you just want the information you need at this moment. Therefore, the unconscious mind must have a way to process information, and to prioritize and retrieve what it believes you need, when you need it. It must learn. In fact, one of the prime directives of the unconscious is to gain learning. As the unconscious has no judgement, it regards everything as learning. Your learned behaviors can be good or bad for you. We all possess both good habits and bad habits, but you may not be aware that they are formed by the same process of unconscious learning. Consciously you can determine, or choose what is desired and not desired. But your conscious mind isn't always given the choice before the unconscious has acted upon it. The unconscious mind provides a short cut to all of your inner resources; memory, recall, creativity, and body functions. Everything you are good at, every talent, skill, and ability follows this same path of learning. This unconscious learning occurs in three primary ways: repetition, association, and emotion. Repetition - the more you repeat a behavior, the more you are likely to repeat the behavior, as your unconscious mind develops an easy pathway for it. Your mind believes you want this frequently used behavior by the very fact that you keep on doing it. Actions sometimes speak louder than words. Look at the smoking habit, what more than smoking does a smoker do each day. A pack a day smoker repeats this behavior 20 times a day, every day. There's a lot of repetition there. That's why practice makes perfect. Even things you start out doing bad, in time become easier as you master the behavior, talent or skill. Because your unconscious runs all your body systems, it can help you develop in the repeated behavior. Every smoker will tell you that in the beginning cigarette taste terrible. But, in time, with practice and diligence, repeating smoking over and over, an amazing thing happens. The cigarette that tasted terrible now becomes enjoyable. The unconscious mind, taking in all the information from your body and all the senses, makes it easier for you by adjusting the sensory information to make it more enjoyable. This is how you acquire tastes for things. The unconscious mind helps you do what it believes you want, without judgment, even if its bad for you. This is a good example of the difference in conscious and unconscious processing. The conscious mind knows all of the dangers and problems of smoking, yet, the unconscious mind, connected to the body, drives the smoking habit.

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Even if you don't smoke there are plenty of examples in your life of this process. Have you ever worked at a place for several years, driving your car the same route every day? Then, one morning you drive to work, park your car, and as you close the door thinkhow did I get here? While your conscious mind was wandering in dream, worry, or thought, your unconscious mind and your body were driving the car. They know the route well. Or, have you ever been anxious to get home, and suddenly look down to find that you are speeding. Your foot has unconsciously pressed down further on the pedal. Just the thought made your body react, without any guidance from your conscious mind. Association the unconscious mind works primarily by association. As one behavior is associate with another, there is a double bind. That's why even the aroma of coffee can bring about an urge to smoke a cigarette. Have you every noticed that when you turn on the TV you suddenly feel a bit hungry? When you are with friends telling jokes, does that trigger you to suddenly think of some funny things yourself? Since your unconscious mind and your body are in constant communication, your body reacts to these triggers. Emotion - emotion is the most powerful form of communication from the unconscious mind. Isn't it true that your strongest and most vivid memories are those linked with strong emotion. Emotion drives the most fundamental programs for your survival, the fight or flight response. Think about what emotion is helpful for a fight anger. Anger can mobilize powerful resources in your body to help you fight with power and fury. An emotion that is helpful to flee from a threat is fear. Fear will put an extra skip in your step, allowing you sprint like an Olympic athlete. You can run pretty fast without fear, but with it your body springs into action automatically, you don't even have to think about it. Emotion helps the mind distinguish between events and information from your life's experiences, which it thinks is important for you and your survival. Those things without emotional value are lost to conscious recall. The unconscious minds ultimate priority is to assure your survival. Keeping automatic functions like your heart beating and respiration going is a job it takes seriously. Since the unconscious lacks judgement, it interprets any negative emotion as communication to mobilize the body for action. That's why when you're anxious, stressed, worried, or depressed, you feel that unconscious muscle tension in your neck, shoulders, or back, your heart race, and that pit in your stomach. These sensations are your body speaking to you. This communication is important for you to be aware of as your body can be used to communicate messages back as well. A tense muscle calls for more support and energy from the unconscious mind. The unconscious responds with the release of stress hormones, sympathetic nervous system response and quickened pulse. It all happens automatically, but, if a tense muscle calls for the stress response, then a relaxed muscle will reverse the request and call for relaxation.

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Breathing is another powerful mind-body communication method. Breathing is important because it is an automatic system run by the unconscious mind, yet it can also be consciously controlled. Breathing provides a valuable and effective bridge of communication between conscious and unconscious mind. During stress you breathe shallow and rapidly, sometimes even holding your breath. But, when you're relaxed you breathe deep and slowly, like when you sleep. When you consciously change the rate of your breathing, a chemical change occurs in your body. Stress hormones begin to stem their flow, and the parasympathetic nervous system is engaged with all of its calming effects. You communicate direction to your body and mind with the words you use. What words do you use in that running commentary of your inner thoughts? Are those words supportive or punishing? Words are electric, you must choose them for the emotional voltage that they carry. Remember that emotions are the most powerful driver of unconscious processing. Words stimulate emotion, and emotion is the source of all motivation. Begin to think of your thoughts as magnetic. Whatever you hold in your predominant conscious view, will simply attract more of the same. Worry and self-doubt will come as easily as confidence and focus. The unconscious mind will give you what it believes you're asking for by association. You get what you ask for, so choose only good things. Certified in Holistic Living, from Lourdes Institute of Wholistic Studies, Board Certified in Hypnotherapy and Hypno-Anesthesia, a Shiatsu Practioner, and Martial Arts Instructor. Associate Director of a Mobile Intensive Care Unit Program providing Advanced Life Support Services to the largest regional health network in New Jersey. A practicing MICU Paramedic for nearly 20 years, President of the NJ Association of MICU's for two terms, and the first elected Chairperson of the New Jersey State Emergency Medical Services Council. Holistic Health coordinator for Virtua Health, Former Associate Director of the Mobile Intensive Care Unit. A nationally accomplished speaker and published author of EMS and Stress Management topics, Jamie Pitner also provides instruction on Wellness, and Workplace Violence & the Management of Assaultive Behavior, Tai Chi, and Self Defense. jpitner@virtua.org

Motivated Weight Control

By Jaime V. Pitner, MICP, RHC
(UPLOADED 8/7/2002)

You know that saying "you are what you eat", It could also be said, "you eat what you are". What are you? You are your lifelong collective experiences , how you've grown, experienced, and learned everything in your life. Your collective experiences are kept in the vast storehouse of your memory. Deep in the in the depths of your unconscious mind everything about you is recorded. Scientists have calculated that your memory has the capacity to store billions of bits of information
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every second of your life. This virtually limitless memory collects your life's experiences with all the sensory data of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell, and emotion, back to your birth, and perhaps prior to birth. Theres so much information there that your unconscious mind must have a process to determine what you need. Everything you've learned in life lies in your unconscious waiting for you until you may have a use for it. With certain cues it can be accessed to automatically engage your body, or given to your conscious mind for you to act upon. Your unconscious mind has ways to access information that it believes you need, but lacking judgment it may also be accessing unwanted behaviors. This process is called unconscious learning. In fact, all learning occurs in your unconscious. There are three primary pathways to unconscious learning; repetition, association, and emotion. This is how the unconscious mind sorts out needed information and initiates certain behaviors, or habits. The more you repeat a behavior, the more likely you will repeat it, as the unconscious mind makes a easy pathway to it. Think about the repetition in eating, something you must do everyday, and several times a day. Like many often-repeated behaviors you don't have to be consciously active in the behavior. Your unconscious mind and body do all the work for you like when you eat while watching TV, reading, talking, or working at your computer. When the behavior is associated with other events, or sensory cues, those events or cues can become triggers for the behavior. Association links them. That's why when most people sit down and turn on the TV, they automatically feel like snacking. The third primary pathway of unconscious learning is emotion. Emotions can access dynamic and powerful mind-body resources. Isn't it true that your most distant memories are brought forth by emotion. The experiences in your life that have no emotional value are long forgotten. Behaviors tied to strong emotions are the one's most engrained. Thats why many people describe their unhealthy eating as emotional eating. The behavior of eating goes back to the day your were born. Your unconscious mind learns as you are held close to your mother's warm body. No words are needed; the powerful communication of this sensory experience is understood. Your mother holds you, as you feel her unconditional love and acceptance while being fed. The emotions and sensations during nursing form powerful associations that may affect your eating behavior later in life. Theres a lot of meaning behind the familiar phrase comfort food. Soon your parents begin to introduce solid food. They guide you as you learn to eat. Parents offer praise to motivate you: "that's a good boy that's a good girl". You now learn the ability to gain praise and make your parents happy just by eating.

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As a toddler you enjoy your birthday celebrations. And what is a birthday, but the mere acknowledgment of your existence. A profound experience of your own self worth. Birthdays are celebrated with sweet and high caloric foods. Associating sensory cues to the event. On your birthday you don't even have to eat a proper dinner, you can dig right in to the cake and ice cream. With a confident feeling that you can do no wrong, you get to smear it all over your face while loved one's clap and take pictures. As you get older you find that every significant event in your life is celebrated and acknowledged with food. Eating is there at all the happy times. And its there when everyone else has abandoned you. Is it any wonder that your unconscious mind now associates food with comfort, love, acceptance, self worth, confidence, happiness, and being in control. Yet food doesn't really do any of these things. There are many sensory associations that trigger certain eating behavior. Perhaps it's that feeling after dinner that you just got to have some ice cream or chocolate. You feel full, maybe even very full, but you have a strong compulsion to have something sweet. It may be that after you eat something savory, that that taste on your palette triggers an association for something sweet. You may have unwittingly connected these sensory cues every time you followed eating savory food with a sweet food. That's why when youre full you have that urge to complete the unconscious pairing of sensory information. When most people think about food it brings about certain thoughts and feelings. Most of those thoughts and feelings could be summed-up in one word; pleasure. But you know that food is really fuel for your body. Sure food should taste good, but that's only part of it. The top priority for food is to fuel your body. When your car needs fuel you take it to the gas station. If you want your car to run optimally you fill it up with super. Conveniently your car has a fuel gauge which tells you when you need fuel and when your tank is full. Youd never let it run past full into the trunk or back seat. Just because gas may be cheap or available, doesnt mean you should stop at the station more often, or take any more than your tank is designed to hold. If you own a pet you know how to feed it. Dogs eat dog food, cats eat cat food, and birds eat bird food. Youd never feed your parakeet dog food. Intelligently you know that every animal has its own type of food to keep it healthy and sustain long life. You even know that if you have a dog thats a little older you may need to feed it that special fit and trim dog food. Isnt it a fact that most people take better care of their cars and pets than they do themselves? These examples provide the mind with powerful metaphors for your life. When you associate the same feelings of how necessary, important, and wonderful it is to take care of you car and pet, with how you take care of yourself, this is a powerful learning for your unconscious mind.

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Isnt it true that you only do what youre motivated to do? Anything done begrudgingly doesnt last long. Just using will power doesnt work either. Thats because when you start a diet, the unspoken truth is that you know its only temporary. By will power you can follow just about any diet no matter how difficult or strange, because deep in your unconscious mind you know it wont last long. Thats why dieting doesnt work. There are many things you do in your life in which you have great motivation. You have certain standards that youve set for yourself, lines that you will not cross, and strong feelings on important areas of your life and the world. When you think of those things you hold dear to you, that are the driving force in your character, you will find a feeling behind those thoughts. That feeling in your heart and mind is emotion. Emotion is what creates motivation. It is the origin of motivation, and it is lasting. You have positive and negative emotions, and they both have great power. Negative emotions drive the stress response, and can be linked to bad habits and unhealthy behavior. No one ever finds the answers they need in the height of anxiety or the depths of depression. But positive emotions bring that feeling of accomplishment, comfort, energy, and happiness. The fact is that any sound nutrition and fitness plan will work to lose weight. The key to getting started and sticking to it ismotivation. The question is how do you become motivated to eat healthy? I believe that knowledge is power. Once you have all the facts you can make the right decisions. The knowledge you gain leads to forming opinions. Opinions bring forth the way you feel about something. That feeling is emotion. So as you can see, knowledge has the power to initiate emotion. Sources of knowledge can be from empirical data and facts, or from your belief. When you believe something strongly it has the power of fact. To establish belief you must think that it is possible. So ask yourself, is it possible for me to lose weight and maintain my desirable weight? Now begin building a case for why it is possible. Your unconscious mind will help you with its power of association. Think of your thoughts and emotions as "magnetic" whatever you hold in your predominant conscious thinking will simply attract more of the same. Your unconscious mind regulates your bodily systems, it will access resources to help you. The next thing is to list why it is necessary to control your weight and be healthy. Develop a clear understanding of why you must do this. Your unconscious mind will establish priorities, because it is responsible for all your automatic functions of survival. Once it understands that something is necessary it will devote more resources to make it happen. It doesn't waste time and resources on things that have little importance. Understand that its in you. You have all the resources as a human being to make it happen. Your power of mind over body is available to you for your benefit.

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Know that at times it will be challenging. These times of decision will form your destiny. Overcoming old patterns of behavior and moving through difficult times can be hard. But the things that come easy in life arent really worth much. It's those things for which you work hard that make a difference in your life. You know its worth it to overcome challenges. That feeling you have when you know its worth it, is the feeling that keeps you motivated. Here are some steps to employ your power of mind over body for Motivated Weight Control: 1. Know what youre eating. Keep a food diary and write down everything that you eat each day for one week. Remember knowledge is power; this will make your conscious mind aware of what you are eating. You want to eliminate unconscious eating. Also, do research, read food labels, articles, books, and information about the content of food. Know what youre eating and why its good for you. Discover all the delicious and nutritious foods available to you. The unconscious mind is the center of all learning, when it knows whats good for you it will pull forth resource to help you achieve your goal. 2. Eat regularly, starting with a good breakfast. This communicates to your body that food is plentiful and theres no need to slow your metabolism to conserve energy. Breakfast is particularly important. Living in the wild, humans would have to begin each day searching for food. The body tries to conserve energy until food becomes plentiful. The body understands that food is plentiful when you eat early in the day, which means youve gathered enough perhaps for several days and its readily available first thing in the morning. 3. Eat five meals a day. This keeps your metabolism in high gear all day. Your metabolic rate will improve to allow your body to burn more calories. Eating one or two big meals later in the day tells the body that it took awhile for you to find food, so it better hold onto the calories to protect from potential famine. 4. Eat fruits vegetables, grains, and fish, but limit red meat. Hunters are at the mercy of available game, but when humans cultivate food they have it in greater quantities and for longer period of time. Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach him how to fish and he east for a lifetime. 5. Retrain your palette. Ever have the feeling that you just have to eat that chocolate, cake, or ice cream, even when youre full from dinner. It may be that your unconscious mind has linked certain flavors and sensory data to initiate this behavior. Sometimes when you eat something with a savory or spicy taste, it can be a trigger to eat something sweet. You can retrain your palette to eliminate this unconscious association by breaking the link. Interject other behaviors instead of eating the sweet, like drinking water, brushing teeth, eating a bite of something savory or spicy, or engage in a desirable activity. After a few weeks your palette will be retrained and the old unconscious link will be eliminated. 6. Use your emotion. Eliminate any old unconscious negative emotions that may be associated with eating. You only do what your motivated to do, anything done begrudgingly doesnt last long. There are some things youve prejudged with a
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negative emotion. Let them go and be open to allow your mind and body to adjust to new healthy foods. Youre retraining your palette and acquiring new tastes. For lasting results, attach positive emotion to foods that you know will achieve your goals and long-term health. Consciously chose the emotions you want, and soon you will begin to feel them. You are programming your unconscious mind the way you want. 7. Visualize. Build a case for what you can do. Think, imagine, and visualize the foods that are nutritious, and meet your goals for health and weight control. There are many foods you currently enjoy that are good for you, start with these first. Let the memory fade for those old foods that you know are no good for you. If you longingly linger on old desires for unhealthy food, thats the direction youll be sending to your mind. Remember your thoughts are magnetic. Visualize all the good things happening to your body as you eat what it needs for energy and optimal health. See yourself getting slimmer and stronger, buying the clothes in the size youve imagined, and doing all the things your doing as you achieve your goals. And most importantly, attach the positive emotion you desire to your visualization. Here are two words to help and guide you on your path of success in motivated weight control: Delicious and Nutritious. By word-association your unconscious mind will use these words to access all its resources to help you while shopping, preparing, and eating food. All things nutritious are delicious to your body. Theyre the perfect fuel and energy source for your optimal health and weight. And all things delicious must be nutritious, for why would you eat anything else? Poetry as Hypnosis: An Ericksonian Approach to "Song of the Open Road" By James Whitlark, Ph.D., and Lynn Whitlark
UPLOADED 05/03/03

Although hypnosis is nominally recognized as both art and science, books on it regularly begin with Mesmer (i.e., its history as science). They content themselves with only the vaguest references to its history as art (e.g., as practiced by ancient Celtic poets). The only extended analysis of poetry as hypnosis has been Edward D. Snyder, Hypnotic Poetry: A Study of Trance-Inducing Technique in Certain Poems and it's Literary Significance, originally published in 1930 and thus radically out of date. A reason for recovering the artistic history of hypnosis is that it provides extensive models for induction techniques. One area where this is particularly needed is in NLP ventures to extend Ericksonian patterns into writings that both sound literate and communicate with the unconscious of the readers. Doing the two together is sufficiently difficult so that time-honored models should be welcome. The following article has the modest purpose of beginning this process by calling attention to similarities between Ericksonian hypnosis and Whitman's poetry. Before Milton Erickson, hypnosis tended to be more authoritarian and stylized in its conspicuous, repetitive patter. In the history of poetry, a comparable figure was Walt
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Whitman, who broke from the stylized, regularly repetitive, fixed verse forms that had previously dominated poetry. What was Whitmarn's purpose in this break? As he writes in an 1891 version of the poem "Spontaneous Me," his aim is: To have the feeling to-day or any day I am sufficient as I am. O something unprov'd! something in a trance! To escape utterly from others' anchors and holds! Whitman's metaphoric use of "anchors" (as holds on the mind) here partly anticipates the NLP sense of it. His fragmentary syntax displays various tricks later in the Milton Model, including Whitman's way of embedding the affirmation "I am sufficient as I am." By such techniques, he is moving the readers away from consciousness, which has to "prove" everything and into "trance," which accepts on faith or knows intuitively. Like Erickson, Whitman's ultimate purpose is to interrupt the audience's previous conditioning and thereby liberate them. To demonstrate an Ericksonian analysis of poetry, we have chosen Whitman's "Song of the Open Road," because it well exemplifies this simultaneous opening of poetry and the mind by way of hypnotic techniques that have previously escaped notice. For instance, because of the limited awareness of hypnotic devices when Snyder was writing, that critic contends, "Whitman's best poems, despite their general neglect of some obvious hypnotic stimuli, contain, nevertheless, passages of peculiar interest to this study" ([italics mine] l. 82). Actually, not merely when he resembles pre-Ericksonian hypnotic patter of the sort Snyder knew, but pervasively, Whitman relies on hypnotic techniques. Pacing Current Experience Although Snyder does not mention it, already in the old hypnosis (and continued in Erickson's), the practitioner commonly would describe the subject's on-going experience, e.g., "You are sitting here in this rather soft chair listening to the sound of my voice." Because the patient finds this true, s/he is more likely to accept the hypnotist's next remarks, which begin to lead rather than merely describe the patient's consciousness. Furthermore, in the whole process, the patient can only evaluate the truth of the remarks by introspecting, an activity that moves him or her inward to a slightly more withdrawn, dreamlike state. Whitman is sometimes almost as blatant as this in his pacing of current experience. For instance, in the short poem "I Sit and Look Out," he begins "I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all oppression and shame." The reader is likely to be in the same position, sitting, while thinking the sorrowful images that Whitman provides. Thus, Whitman establishes a bond or even a subconscious merger between them. His use of "I" (instead of "you)," anticipates Erickson's sometimes pretending to

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talk about himself or others as a less intrusive way of reflecting the patient's experiences. "Song of the Open Road" constitutes a more advanced example of this. The trip where the readers join Whitman is in the free verse itself. He is willing to leave at any time the "public road," i.e., all routines, including the "ruts" of well-worn metrics-ruts he jumps incessantly, thereby creating his strident/striding rhythms. His "Song of the Open Road" celebrates this polyrhythmic voice in terms of a complex metaphor - Whitman's way of life, his poetry, and the poem itself as an asymmetric journey through and beyond "You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides." Although, as he later notes, this journey is larger than the individual poem, the irregularity of that poem is giving his readers an experience of one part of it. In its rhythm, the very line "You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides" is an iamb (or, since the meter is so very irregular, possibly a spondee) is a microcosm of the irregularity that pervades the poem and most of Whitman's oeuvre - the "roughness" to which he repeatedly refers in "Song of the Open Road," e.g., "I will toss the new gladness and roughness among them" (l. 67) and "I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer rough new prizes" (l. 142). Being self-descriptive, this poem has self-similarity on various scales, like a fractal. What, though, is the function of this? Although popular at present, discussions of poetic self-reflexivity tend to sound as if self-referential poets were so locked in introspection that they had little to say about anything beyond their own art or - ultimately themselves. Actually though, Whitman's personae as American or Everyman are used to increase reader identification in the manner of Ericksonian hypnosis. In "Song of the Open Road," Whitman calls his persona the "voice" of that road - a voice that forms the medium where the readers and he share a road. This harmonizing with subjects is an essential part of hypnosis, for without it, they would simply leave. What would drive them away is that the rest of Ericksonian hypnosis consists of the following patterns of disorientation (to prepare for suggestions that would not be accepted unless normal habits of thought were unsettled). Among the most pervasive of these are ambiguities. Ambiguity In his Seven Types of Ambiguity, William Empson classifies ambiguities ranging from "a detail [that] is effective in several ways at once" to contradictions within the author's mind. He understands these as means to "beauty" through the resolutions of tensions into unity (l. 235). This is certainly the aesthetic aspect of ambiguity, but ambiguity is also an agent of confusion, which Erickson used to induce trance and encode suggestions within it. Since ambiguity is such a familiar topic in poetic analysis (e.g., William Empson's Seven Types of Ambiguity), consider merely the first few lines of "Song of the Open Road." AFOOT and light-hearted, I take to the open road, Healthy, free, the world before me, The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose. Henceforth I ask not good-fortune - I myself am good fortune.

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The phrase "Healthy, free" may apply to the road, to "I" or "the world" (which obviously includes the readers). It thus relates all these together in a way that Ericksonian therapy would (to suggest that, like the speaker, patients can become healthy and freely in control of their lives if they follow the path into which the therapists is leading them). The clause "I ask not good-fortune" may mean either that he asks not for good fortune or that he does not ask something from a personified good fortune. The latter possibility prepares for good fortune to be a person - himself, as he posits after the dash. Identifying himself as their goal is a gesture to bind readers to him - a necessary part of hypnotic induction. Since the readers are to identify with him, they are being told that they too may be their own fortune-a notion that moves them toward the self-reliance and freedom that is Whitman's ideal (as well as that of effective therapy). Multiple Negations The "not" in "I ask not good-fortune" is itself a device of disorientation, both because of the odd word order and because it occurs among so many negations. Even if multiple negations are not syntactically ambiguous, they tend to daze readers. Particularly read aloud (as Whitman's poetry ought to be), they may exceed the powers of many hearers' attention. In its 231 lines, "Song of the Open Road" employs "not" forty times, "no" fourteen times, "never" four times, "nothing" twice, and "none" four times. Making their occurrence periodically very dense, they come in clusters, e.g., "Wisdom is not finally tested in schools; Wisdom cannot be pass'd from one having it, to another not having it; Wisdom is of the Soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof" (78-80). He is fond of negating verbs of negation, e.g., "not denied" (l. 18) or "none can be interdicted" (l. 22) or "cannot be countermanded" (l. 213) or "not detain'd!" (l. 221). The net effect of these frequent negations is more than confusion; it is also fusion: Again to merge them in the start of superior journeys; To see nothing anywhere but what you may reach it and pass it, To conceive no time, however distant, but what you may reach it and pass it, To look up or down no road but it stretches and waits for youhowever long, but it stretches and waits for you; To see no being, not God's or any, but you also go thither, To see no possession but you may possess it-enjoying all without labor or purchase-abstracting the feast, yet not abstracting one particle of it (ll. 172-177). In the ambiguity of the syntax all and nothing merge, as the load of negations strip away all details ("no beingno possession") and convey a vague plenitude. Readers are in the midst of what lies below those surface details-the secret, repressed unconscious, which offers much potential but becomes dejected if left unexpressed: Behold a secret silent loathing and despair. No husband, no wife, no friend, trusted to hear the confession; Another self, a duplicate of every one, skulking and hiding it goes,
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Formless and wordless through the streets of the cities, polite and bland in the parlors (ll. 202-205). Again and again, he evokes images only to cancel them, so that they linger in the memory as specters of what remains entirely potential : "Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the shelf!/Let the tools remain in the workshop! let the money remain unearn'd!" (ll. 223-224). This stylistic device-this positing and canceling removes the images from the logical, conscious meaning of the discourse and consigns them to unconscious processes, which are thus elicited and entered. Universal Quantifiers and Nominalizations A very similar effect to multiple negation comes from universals, e.g., "every part," "the kernel of every object" (l. 89), "every day continually" (l. 111), "every one" (l. 203), "everywhere" (l. 207) and from Whitman's nominalizations, e.g., "fortune" (l. 4), "Freedom" (l. 53), "realization" (l. 86), "adhesiveness" (l. 92), "Nature" (l. 118). The more abstract discourse becomes, the more likely that people can imagine they are agreeing about it. Admittedly, each reader brings private denotations and connotations to Whitman's universals and nominalizations but this simply makes more probable that they will find his words agreeable (because they are seeing their own meanings in them). In contrast, Whitman's repetitive lists of non-universal details are the least entrancing portions of his poem (though they do not completely break state). They are only specific and disturbing enough to weaken trance, which abstractions and other disorienting techniques then restore. Their repetitions keep the reader from coming completely out of it, as does their listing partly abstract types, e.g., "the felon, the diseas'd, the illiterate person (l. 17). As previously mentioned, decreasing trance and then reinstating it is a stylistic device of Ericksonian therapy, meant to deepen hypnosis. For instance, once the reader is reassured that, despite the negative connotations of the above list, Whitman does accept all these types-indeed, everyone-the poem has reinforced its allinclusive abstractness. Readjusting Sensory Systems The essence of Ericksonian therapy is to teach patients to replace traumatic with supportive anchors-an activity that requires a readjustment of their habitual ways of processing sensory images. Comparably, Whitman deranges the senses. For instance, he writes "the certainty of the reality and immortality of things, and the excellence of things;/Something there is in the float of the sight of things that provokes it out of the Soul.." (l. 82) Sight is rendered not fixed but floating to reveal the unchanging depths. For a more complex example, consider, "Why are there trees I never walk under, but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me?" (l. 100) The pairing "large and melodious" makes parallel syntactically size (usually sensed visually) and sound (sensed auditorily). This synaesthesia is complicated further through the ambiguity of whether he always or never undergoes the kinesthetic experience of walking under the trees in order to think thus. Like Erickson's deliberately making symptoms worse

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preparatory to ameliorating them, Whitman renders sense and sensation vertiginous in order to help readers find the stable depths, the "kernels" of things, as he calls these. Selectional Restriction Violation On the foundation of its pacing current experience as well as on that of its creating an all-embracing vagueness and readjusting sensory systems, the poem can suspend wariness so effectively that the readers are willing to react with almost childlike trust. Consequently, they accept primitive even animistic thought patterns. The aforementioned line "You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides," for example, is but a small part of Whitman's long conversation with the road, i.e., a selectional restriction violation. Because personification is further from businesslike consciousness than the previous devices, Whitman introduces it gradually. In the third line, for example, "The long brown path [is] before me, leading wherever I choose." Although the road's "leading" involves a personification, it is such a conventional one that it is very inconspicuous. The second section of the poem starts with a clear-cut apostrophe to the path: "You road I enter upon and look around! I believe you are not all that is here;/ I believe that much unseen is also here." So large a departure from normal conscious as an apostrophe is appropriate to this suggestion that readers move beyond the conscious contents of the path to the "unseen," unconscious ones. His subsequent examples ("the felon, the diseas'd, the illiterate person") are not what cannot be seen but what society often avoids seeing, i.e., the repressed. Claiming Clairvoyance and Embedding Presuppositions Although Whitman sometimes uses personifications as a mask for delivering suggestions, he has other means including claims of clairvoyance and the embedding of presuppositions: "I know they [the constellations] are very well where they are;/I know they suffice for those who belong to them" (ll. 7-9). Instead of saying that he has heard or imagined these stellar situations, he alleges that he knows them. Thus, he implies that he has clairvoyant knowledge of how much of the universe functions. How detailed is this knowledge? His reference to "those who belong to them" presupposes that there are such beings. Moreover, the verb "suffice" implies that "those" are living beings (since it is seldom employed for inanimate objects). He would thus have magical knowledge about the health and welfare of otherwise unknown species. Although somewhat buried in a commonplace, these are large claims. If the readers accept them, they then have a relationship to him like a young child who takes for granted that parents simply know what they say they know and need not be questioned how they learned it. If the readers are willing to play at this, they thereby enter a childlike state of mind. Paradoxically, Whitman deepens it by interspersing references to what he does not know-a charming modesty designed to endear him to readers so that they will be more willing to grant the large assertions that accompany his admissions of ignorance. For example, "They [souls] go! they go! I know that they go, but I know not where they go;/But I know that they go toward the best-toward something great" (ll. 193-94). His
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denial of discerning where they go also has the effect of pushing aside the most controversial part of the matter: salvation and damnation. Instead, he vaguely sends them "toward the best." "[B]est," for whom? For God? For them? For us? We are not told. At that abstract level, both this section and the previous one imply that all is well and progressing. They function on the same nebulous plane as the hypnotic dictum, "every day in every way, everything is getting better and better." That was a product of the openly repetitive old hypnosis, but its use of "every" (like all the cosmic generalizations of Whitman) anticipates Erickson's very conscious and skillful reliance on abstraction in hypnosis. Perhaps sensing the net effect of all his generalizations and distortions, Whitman near the end of the poem feels so confident as to assert, "I know all" (l. 198). This, of course, contradicts his previous modesty, but he is famous for the words, "Do I contradict myself?/Very well then I contradict myself,/ (I am large, I contain multitudes). (Leaves of Grass, 48). One of the ways that readers can accept such contradictions is if trance has proceeded to considerable depth. This does not mean that they have simply become mindless but that that they are proceeding in terms of an unconscious logic such that double binds and other paradoxes can be resolved in very healthful manners. Paradoxes Perhaps the most extreme disorientation comes from paradoxes. For instance,"The long brown path [is] before me, leading wherever I choose." (l. 3) Whitman's is led, yet chooses. This paradox is, of course, parallel to that of the readers' being led by Whitman's commands, yet brought into freedom-or the paradox of therapy that follows a similar course. Consciously, it can be resolved by thinking of the leading as an initial stage, the choosing as an advanced one (e.g., the progress from child to adult). The truth, however, is that we are always being led, as well as always choosing. The relationship of the two is so complex that, in being brought to consciousness, one or the other seems to dominate. The unconscious, though, is aware of their entire constellation of interactions. Whitman makes this kind of complex, mutual dependence explicit in the lines: (Still here I carry my old delicious burdens; I carry them, men and women-I carry them with me wherever I go; I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them; I am fill'd with them, and I will fill them in return.) (ll. 11-14) Beginning with the oxymoron (self-contradictory phrase) "delicious burdens," this ambiguously enmeshes "men and women" with the burdens, either as their contents or his addressee. In lines 11-14, the burdens may be people, the relationship of the genders, or practically anything else, since his preceding remarks are about knowing that the constellations are in their proper place. At any rate, he both fills and is filled by
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this pleasant yet burdensome something. Almost empty of clear meaning, lines 11-14 form a pattern into which the readers can place their own ambivalences. These lines can serve as generic expression of any situation where mental contents shape the thinkers yet are shaped by them in a feedback cycle. Such complexity - associated by Whitman with the outdoors and nature - is presented as larger than logic and theology: "Now I re-examine philosophies and religions, They may prove well in lecture-rooms, yet not prove at all under the spacious clouds and along the landscape and flowing currents" (ll. 83-84). In this larger context, he notes the necessity of change and adaptation: "Now understand me well - it is provided in the essence of things that from any fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth something to make a greater struggle necessary" (210). His related paradoxes - that opposites are implicated in one another and that everything contains within itself its opposite - tend to undermine ordinary assumptions about each entity as a separate individual (i.e., undivided essence). From his undermining of separateness comes recognition of "adhesiveness" - a feeling he wishes to promote. From internal contradiction comes acceptance of the unconscious, where contradictions co-exist. Both these insights are central to hypnosis: the "adhesiveness" of rapport, the unconscious that is foregrounded during trance. Consequently, his bardic/hypnotic method is absolutely congruent with his message of "adehesiveness" and paradoxical wisdom. Hidden Suggestions (particularly in Quotations and Questions) That message is delivered in a series of suggestions or commands. Commands, however, are structures people are particularly prone to find offensive - especially in a democracy - a political condition Whitman accepted wholeheartedly. In particular, there is a limit to the sheer number of times a reader can be commanded without becoming annoyed. Consequently, in addition to such open imperatives as "Listen!," or "Be not discouraged - keep on - there are divine things, well envelop'd," Whitman mutes many of his commands, e.g., "Alons," an imperative, but in French. Also slightly cloaked are the lines, "You shall not heap up what is call'd riches, You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve" (ll. 144-145). These hover between future tense and imperative (as do his 13 other uses of "shall"). Comparably, "we must not stop here!" (l. 121) gives an order without being an imperative per se (as do his six other employments of this modal). Milton Erickson was particularly expert at disguising his commands. Usually, he buried them in non-imperative syntax. His trick was to pronounce each sentence with a command buried in it, not as the surface structure of the sentence required, but as if the embedded group of words was a separate command. He would speak them more emphatically and drop the pitch of his voice at the end. Whereas, for instance, questions are expected to end with a rise in pitch he would frequently lower his pitch at the conclusion; thus, he pronounced them as orders for the unconscious mind. His experience was that this had a subliminal effect on patients.
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Although the printed word does not offer precisely this option, the poet's mastery of rhythm and sound can incline the reader toward such a delivery. Consider, for instance, "Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me? Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?" (ll. 230-231). These are, at the very least, rhetorical questions, expecting the answer "yes." As rhetorical questions, they are already disguised commands, in that they expect agreement and adherence, despite politely asking for it. In these examples, however, Whitman comes even closer to the imperative than this in that the first two words of each question are unaccented, so that the accent emphatically falls on the verb, setting it off like a command. Previously, in an even more elaborate wrapping, Whitman expressed this desire that the readers and he "stick with each other": "Do you say, I am already prepared - I am well beaten and undenied - adhere to me?" (l. 44). Here, "adhere to me" is undeniably imperative, yet it wears more than one disguise. First, it ends in a question mark, which confuses the eye into thinking it an inquiry. Second it is a quotation of the supposed words of the road. Erickson found that embedding commands within ostensible quotation was a technique that delivered instructions effectively, yet kept the patients from thinking him blatantly authoritarian. Thus, Whitman here masks his demand that we adhere to him behind the persona of the road-a road that is ultimately his road, his paradoxical path for leading us into freedom. Nonetheless, he is pretending to disagree with it, in that he is saying that he will sometimes step beyond it, but, since it is the road to freedom, such transcendence is, in another sense, an adhering to it. Ranging from the clearest imperative to these less evident examples, Whitman weaves orders into most of the poem's sentences. Rather than employing the indicative to describe an experience, he is leading the readers into one. It is through suggestion rather than logic that he convinces: "I and mine do not convince by arguments, similes, rhymes; We convince by our presence. Listen! I will be honest with you." Superficially considered, he may seem to be saying that, having been a wanderer, his body has shown its health by surviving the open road. Even if we accept this doubtful contention, it hardly will "convince" that he has been "honest" and knowledgeable about "divine things." (Do we trust vagabonds immediately as ministers?) But as he maintains, instead of employing "arguments," he relies on his "presence." How, though, is he present in his poetry? Having abandoned "arguments, similes, and rhymes" (intrusive devices), he has fashioned the rhythms and sounds of his verse into evocation of a living voice - the voice to which we are to "Listen!". It is "the cheerful voice of the open road" - a voice that persuades not through the conscious means of logic but through an unintrusive induction comparable to Erickson's. Inevitably, such induction will not be equally effective on everyone. Erickson had to fit his techniques to each patient, by calibrating their response to it and engaging in much trial and error. Sometimes he had to mutter for hours before the patient's slight change in breathing or some other physiological sign showed Erickson that he had succeeded. With equal persistence in "Song of the Open Road," Whitman is trying to suggest his lesson over and over, each time accompanied by a different arrangement of inductive
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devices. To succeed, he must establish rapport. In his day, his verse at first seemed abrasively rough and untraditional. Because of a revolution of tastes to which his work significantly contributed, he now seems the opposite. Nonetheless, in the Ericksonian tradition, a hypnotist will sometimes say to a patient, "Just pretend that you are under hypnosis." And the pretence will induce that state - not an old-style hypnosis with the victim a Mesmeric slave but with subject self-hypnotized and ultimately in control. We are suggesting - and you certainly do not have to accept the suggestion - that you pretend to let Whitman's suggestions permeate your consciousness. You might find the experience worthwhile. Sources Chari, V. K. Whitman in the Light of Vedantic Mysticism. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1964. Empson, William. Seven Types of Ambiguity. Revised Edition. London: New Directions, 1947. Erickson, Milton. "The Method Employed to Formulate a complex Story of the Induction of an Experimental Neurosis in a Hypnotic Subject, Journal of General Psychology, 31 (1944): 67-84. __________. "Hypnotic Psychotherapy," The Medical Clinics of North America, (1948): 571-583. __________. "Pseudo-orientation in Time as a Hypnotherapeutic Procedure, " Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis 2 (1954): 261-283. __________. "Naturalistic Techniques of Hypnosis," American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 1 (1958): 3-8. __________. "A hypnotic technique for resistant patients," American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 7 (1964): 3-82. __________. "Pantomime Techniques in Hypnosis and the Implications," American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 7 (1964): 65-70. __________. The Collected Papers of Milton H. Erickson on Hypnosis. 4 vol. Edited by Ernest L. Rossi. New York: Irvington Publishers, 1980. Erickson, Milton, and Elizabeth Erickson. "Concerning the Character of Posthypnotic Behavior," Journal of General Psychology, 2 (1941): 94-133. Erickson, Milton, and Jay Haley, and J. Weakland. "A Transcript of a Trance Induction with Commentary," American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 2 (1959): 49-84. Erickson, Milton, and Ernest Rossi. Experiencing Hypnosis: Therapeutic Aprroaches to Altered States. New York: Irvington, 1981. ________. "Varieties of Hypnotic Amnesia," American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 16 (1974): 225-39. _________. "Varieties of Double Bind," American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 17 (1975): 143-57. _________. "Two-level Communication and the Micro-dynamics of Trance," American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 18 (1976): 153-71. _________. "Autohypnotic Experiences of Milton H. Erickson," American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 20 (1977): 36-54.
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_________. Hypnotherapy: An Exploratory Casebook. New York: Irvington Publishers, 1976. Erickson, Milton, Ernest Rossi, and S. Rossi. Hypnotic Realities. New York: Irvington Publishers, 1976. Grinder, John, J. Delozier, and Richard Bandler, Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, M.D. 2 vols. Cupertino, California: Meta, 1977. Haley, Jay, ed., Advanced Techniques of Hypnosis and Therapy: Selected Papers of Milton H. Erickson, M.D. New York: Grune and Stratton, 1967. ________. Conversations with Milton H. Erickson, M.D. 3 vols. New York: Triangle, 1985. Edward D. Snyder, Hypnotic Poetry: A Study of Trance-Inducing Technique in Certain Poems and it Literary Significance. University Park: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1930; rpt. New York: Octagon Books, 1971. Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass: His Original Edition. Ed. Malcolm Cowley. New York: Viking, 1959. ______. Walt Whitman: Complete Poetry and Selected Prose. Ed. Justin Kaplan. Revised edition (New York: Library of America, 1996. Notes In particular, almost no connection has been made between Milton Erickson and literature. Although he began publishing in the 1940s, the sole literary application of him listed by the MLA bibliography is Timothy Dennis Lynch's 1990 dissertation, "Quantitative Analysis of the Use of Humor in Psychotherapy: The Strategic Humor Model of Ericksonian Psychotherapy." As the title suggests, this is not an examination of poetic devices but of only one Ericksonian practice: humor. Furthermore, Whitman's most characteristic subject from the first Leaves of Grass onward was apophatic experiences, which V. K. Chari and others have identified as mysticism (i.e., perception during paranormal consciousness). Of these experiences, Whitman proclaims "I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell" ("Song of the Open Road," l. 119). Not literally communicable, such mysticism requires the poet to evoke a comparable altered consciousness in the reader throughout the poem. All references to "Song of the Open Road" are to Walt Whitman: Complete Poetry and Selected Prose, ed. Justin Kaplan, revised edition (New York: Library of America, 1996). People's willingness to enter into rapport differs according to temperament. They range from those who crave agreement to what some psychologists call "mismatchers," those who relish difference. If we are to judge from Whitman's position as self-declared rebel, breaking free from all institutions, his public persona at least sounds like an extreme mismatcher. Consequently, he was familiar enough with this position so that he would expect and find ways to circumvent mismatching readers. In Ericksonian hypnotic induction, such circumvention is essential, because disagreement equals resistance and thus failure to hypnotize. Whereas the old-style hypnotists reveled in trying to force

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each subject into acts s/he would never commit normally, Erickson made his words as much as possible match the patient's attitudes and predispositions.

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