Hypnotic Pro

Hypnosis is a very powerful tool for working on self or others. Hypnosis is not a cure all. There are some things that need to be dealt with before hypnosis can be used to do its work. There will be times when someone has physically related medical problems. These should be taken care of prior to doing the hypnotic work.

I liken this to when I was working in the alcohol and drug recovery field. Once a year My boss and I would go to the county mental health facility and give trainings on how to recognize alcoholism and drug addictions. Sometimes these alcoholics or addicts would be referred to the mental health clinic showing signs of some diagnosed condition.

The clinicians would interview them as usual and these clients would not give the full truth about their usage  of substance. The clinician would then start treating the client for the diagnosed condition and wonder why the treatment was not working over time. The client was still drinking and/or using like usual for them and were never going to respond appropriately while still drinking and/or using.

By training the clinicians to watch for certain  minimizing phrases and some physical clues given by alcoholic/addicts the clinician could go deeper into that area and then refer these clients to a rehab facility, ours or other private facilities. Then if the client was willing to actually participate in their own recovery and still exhibited symptoms of mental health problems, then they could go back to mental health. Usually though once they got clean and sober the apparent mental health symptoms disappeared.

So if you or I encounter a client with other physical/medical problems, have them get checked out by a medical doctor and follow the MD’s prescription for health and then go for the hypnotic treatment. Even Milton Erickson knew that there are limits as to what we can do with hypnosis. There are certain people who can not be helped, he talked about one sociopath who murdered five people and he knew that there was nothing that he could do to help rehabilitate this person.

So there are some limits as to who we can help to cure themselves. Start out giving them the best you can to help them improve, but if you are working harder at their recovery than they are,  that might be a clue that you need back off and possibly refer them to another practitioner who might be more qualified in that particular area. If that does not work then bless them and send them on their way.

The sad truth is that we can not always help all of them.

Be in health,

Keith

P.S. Comments are always welcome.

This post is a bit different in that I found a program that I feel many of us can use at some time. Now to the story.

I have been working at writing a report on hypnosis for about two plus weeks. Last Sunday night about midnight I was finishing my editing of this piece, and it was excellent! I was using MS Word 2003 as my writing platform. I was at the place where I had completed a very productive and inspires session and was ready to head to bed.

I hit the save button and up came all sorts of error messages and when the dust cleared what I had was a very corrupted temp file of all of my work and the original file that I had edited was gone! It was not in the recycle file, it was gone! I was frustrated to say the least. I figured the best course of action was to get some sleep and setup a mind search for a solution to my predicament.

In the morning I started by going into command line DOS to use UNDELETE. XP does not have UNDELETE. OK go to plan B. I was starting to install the electric, lighting and phone systems in a new house that morning with my electrical contracting company, so off I went to work on that. When I got back to my office I was back at finding a solution to my missing files.

I went to  Google and searched file recovery. Multiple pages of offerings were presented. I started by checking out various programs. Many would take lots of time searching my drive for lost files, then present a list and then want $50 -> $75 to recover them. Then there were the ones that would attempt to recover the file and only get the corrupted unrecoverable file.

This was getting frustrating yet I knew that my file was on my drive somewhere, at least my last pre-edit file. More Google and more programs. I then got to one from SoftPerfect, Recovery, a free download. It was a relatively small file as I down loaded it. OK here we go, press open. It started with its opening page asking what drive did I want to search and what tpe of file. I entered my drive and .doc as the file type, press continue and in seconds a page of .doc files was displayed, I think it was 147. None of these were in the file tree or recycle folder, just loose and hidden on the drive.

I selected the file I felt was the best most recent before disaster and pressed recover and waited with held breath. Three, four, five seconds and there is my lost and recovered file! I immediately stored it on two different drives, don’t want to have to go through this again.

I am totally impressed with this program, it is small, fast, it works and it is free. SoftPerfect has other programs at reasonable prices, check them out. I think everyone should have their Recovery.exe in your utilities folder for when that special file goes missing, especially since MS no longer has UNDELETE available.

Be in health, physically and on your file storage.

Keith

I use regression techniques while working with clients a lot. Past Life Regression is a very interesting area of work.

When doing basic regression we are staying within the confines of the clients actual life experience, from early childhood to present. This work is with the “real” experiences of the client whether easily remembered or deeply probed for. These are “real” world experiences.

Past life regression is a different experience. I have worked with clients doing past life regressions and they were able to achieve some very positive, useable results that benefitted them greatly. As to whether this experience is an adventure in a real past life or something like a dream, I can not say for sure.

My belief is that most of the time past life regressions are an adventure in the subconscious that frames the information as past life. This can be entertaining and it can also be a beneficial story being told by the subconscious mind. The object of the experience from the subconscious is to achieve the goal or objective that the client is looking to  come to terms with or gain healing from. Again I go back to Milton Erickson who was a great advocate of stories for healing.

There are many people who use this technique and many who study it in great detail. Yes it can be very beneficial to the client. Most of the studies determine that the great majority of these experiences fit into the realm of stories or imagination and a very small number might possibly be real past life regressions.

I am not going to debate real versus story. My concern is, is it beneficial to my client and does it help them in their healing. I think that many of the other hypnotists using this technique feel the same way. We want to help the client to health.

Feel free to add your personal comments to this post.

As always, be in health

Keith

About three weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending a workshop with Betty Alice Erickson, the daughter of Milton H. Erickson. I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago.

While there I was introduced to an excellent book –  Milton H. Erickson, M.D.  An American Healer. This book is edited by Betty Alice and Bradford Keeney, Ph.D.  This book is about Milton Erickson the Healer and the person. Betty Alice only had a couple of those books and I had to order it to be shipped to me. I received a great treasure.

This is a very good read, especially if you would like to learn more about Milton Erickson the person. Yes, he was an excellent therapist and hypnotist yet that part is not the main focus of this book. There is a bonus DVD of one of his sessions from 1958, very interesting to watch him actually at work.

The preface is written with very deep personal insight by his wife Elizabeth, citing some of her memories and  joys of being with Milton the person and healer.

The introduction is written by Bradford Keeney while chapter one  and the closing chapter are written by Betty Alice.  There are chapters each by his daughter Roxanna and son Allan. All of these are written in a way to allow us a glimps into the very human person that was Milton Erickson.

This book gives a very deep personal insight into Milton Erickson, the person, husband, father, friend, communicator and healer. There are pictures and some of his letters. The book is a treasure trove of information. A great addition to my library of other books about Milton and techniques of therapy and hypnosis.

The book is available at bookstores both on and off-line.

I invite my readers to add comments with your thoughts on Milton Erickson and his work.

Be in health

Keith

I am looking to write a new E-book about hypnosis. What I need from my readers is this. What are your biggest questions about hypnosis, such as “how does it work?”. ‘Is it safe?”. “will I be made to do things I would not normally do?”

You would not be reading this site unless you have some interest in hypnosis. Here is your opportunity  to get your personal questions answered. All questions have value.

What is it about hypnosis that you are questioning or unsure about? My getting to know what your concerns and questions are will allow me to tailor this E-book specifically for you. Each one of you that sends me your input will receive a free copy of the E-book when it is done. You give me your input and I give you a new E-book. Win win.

The best way to do that is to go to my Main Page and submit your name, e-mail and place your questions/comments in the comments field. Then send that information to me so that I can get a better understanding of what you need from me.

Also, feel free to leave additional comments here too.

Be in health

Keith