Blogs

I love TED Talks. If you haven't discovered them yet, you are in for an amazing treat. You can find them at TED.com, on YouTube, and now bundled into like-topic "seasons" on NetFlix.

In this TED talk (see below), the speaker mentions three ways we have had available to change the brain's operation: the therapist's couch, drugs, and the knife. He then says that this way of using real-time brain MRI imaging as the most advanced bio-feedback machine yet created will be the fourth way we can alter the brain's operation and wiring.

I'm guessing he is bundling hypnosis into the 'therapist's couch' method, though that is a bit like bundling swimming into the physical therapist's office. Hypnosis is something anyone can do, even by themselves once they know how. We all visit various levels of trance each day as part of the normal operating of our minds and bodies.

We've certainly come a long way. Or have we? Ever wonder what basic tenants of hypnosis are the same as they were a century ago? Can you spot hypnosis disguised as other "miracle modalities" from the nineteenth century? Are you able to discuss the development of hypnosis through the decades, what they had plain "wrong" back when, and why the modern shifts in models and techniques are more effective?

If these kinds of questions have ever crossed your mind, and if you have a few minutes until your next client appointment, you might want to check out all of the free ebooks on Hypnosis available on Google Books. You can read them on your desktop, laptop, and now also on your iPad or phone using the Google Books app.

http://books.google.com/ebooks?q=hypnosis&as_brr=4

Explore centuries of hypnosis literature, discover where some of the most persistent (and annoying) myths about hypnosis originated, and brush up on your fodder for sparkling party conversations by browsing scores of books dating from the early 1800's through the 1970's. Newer titles are available for purchase as ebooks, too.

AAPH now provides online in-take forms for members! You can offer instant online and downloadable (to print) in-take forms to your new clients. This service is FREE for all AAPH members!

The sequence goes something like this:

1. People looking for a hypnotherapist search our referral database to find hypnotherapists in their area;

2. Your AAPH Office Page (an extended version of your Professional Profile) comes up in the search results;

3. They read about you on your Office Page, then decide to get things started by completing an in-take form right online. The completed form gets emailed to you, and you contact the client to schedule an appointment. Their contact information is included in the form.

You can also refer people to your office page when they call you or when you meet them. "Just go to my web page and fill in the online in-take form anytime before your appointment," you can say.

Now you can easily offer online tools for your clients through AAPH's FREE member services. No webmaster needed!

Last week (Jan 4), the Better Business Bureau released its list of the top ten most common scams of 2010.

PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

My professional services consist of a wide range of therapy modalities: Jungian, Gestalt, Cognitive, and the specialized TIOT modality, for example.

As long as there has not been any surgery performed to the area involved there is a good chance of resolving most issues regarding mental / physical health. Whether the issues concern grief, depression, addiction, anxiety, insomnia, insecurity, or low self-esteem chances are they can be resolved within a short period of time. What will hinder or advance progress is sometimes based on whether or not one is taking heavily prescribed medicine.

STRESS REDUCTION

Among some of the worse health issues are those debilitating conditions, such as emotional disorder, mental strain, and / or the lack of physical dexterity. Indeed, physical flexibility has a profound effect on how the mind / brain enables, or restricts the body from functioning.

ISSUES RELATED TO STRESS:

I use visualization techniques a lot to get rid of niggling complaints like headaches and other minor pains, for stopping colds before they develop, and to clear up minor infections. But I've also used visualization to get rid of an allergy to cats and to handle IBS.

I'll tell you both of those stories in brief.

I worked on the cat allergy years ago, when I was living temporarily in a cottage that came with a cat. She was a sweet creature, but she really kicked up my allergies. I worked with a friend who was skilled in visualization techniques to clear up the problem. Meeting in a setting that contained no cats, he guided me into a hypnogogic state and had me imagine holding the cat in my lap and burying my face in her soft fur. I started to sneeze! That's when I realized how even allergies can have a mental component. He helped me discover that as a child I had been inadvertently "programmed" to respond allergically to cats. He had me work with the image of the cat until I could imagine having my face in her fur and not sneeze. After that I had no more problems with the cat.

If you haven't been to a HypnoSummit conference, this might be the right time to check one out. You don't have to fly anywhere, make hotel reservations, rent any cars or eat out. It's 100% online with a web site that is dedicated to ongoing improvement of online conferences.

It all happens live with video and chat rooms, and all the sessions are recorded and available to attendees for 3 weeks afterward. So if you need to jump out for part of the day, you can and still get terrific value.

The value is really where it's at, too: for $99, you get 24 hours of seminars, workshops and programs specifically for hypnotherapists. Two tracks this time: technique and business. Learn advanced hypnotherapy techniques from leaders in the field. Get up-to-date business information specifically for professional hypnotherapists.

I became a healing coach after experiencing undiagnosed chronic pain for six years. With or without a diagnosis, I realized that the medical profession had only one cure for my pain—PAIN PILLS. I made the choice to find my own cure! Eighty to Ninety thousand dollars later, I decided to start my own business helping people to heal, and with faster and less expensive methods for changing their health.

So, what is a Healing Coach?

A healing coach is an educational-resource-person who helps clients explore their health holistically and to design a “life plan” aimed at eliminating disease, chronic pain, depression, migraines, weight issues, and much more. A healing coach will help you examine your health and teach you about the physical, mental-emotional, and spiritual aspects of yourself that can, and do, aid in your healing.

A hypnotherapy session always begins with a client sharing their concerns, problems, or issues at hand, just as one would do to begin a regular talk-therapy session. The hypnotherapist listens and takes careful notes to insure that key words or phrases spoken by the client be used during the trance-state portion of the session. By attending to the exact verbiage, it takes the client deeper into their emotions where their real work begins.

An induction into a state of hypnosis can involve many different techniques, however, the goal is to bring the client into deeper and deeper states of relaxation. It’s common for a client to feel like they are not hypnotized, as the conscious mind remains active throughout the entire session. The more a client allows themselves to let go into deeper states of relaxation, the more beneficial the session. The ironic thing is, though, most clients don’t call a hypnotherapist unless they are ready to do the deep work of their soul. So relax and enjoy!

The spring 2010 Hypnosummit was this past weekend, and once again, it was another very worthwhile event. I'll highlight some of the sessions I enjoyed the most. Those of you who attended with a Gold pass, you can go to the Library Archives area and view recordings of any of the sessions for the next three weeks.

I mostly concentrated on the live sessions this year, so I could interact with the speakers and ask questions. The technology is slowly improving, and in his Key Note, Scott Sandland, founder and key organizer of the Hypnosummit, promised many more improvements before the fall summit. I was a bit disappointed that the software hadn't evolved more, and there were some annoying audio-dropout problems. Such is the lot with new technology, however.

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