New Technology

Oregon Live ran this story about a new technology being used at the Oregon Burn Center at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center in Portland: virtual reality hypnosis for dressing changes for burn victims.

Dressing changes are extremely painful but need to done multiple times per day, sometimes for weeks. They are definitely the "sore spot" in burn care, elevating the stress and tension in patients that slows healing and has patients thinking of ways to avoid it, bringing on compliance problems.

Patients are distracted by flying and performing tasks using a computer mouse in an immersive virtual world called SnowWorld with hypnotic scenery, music and pacing.

Patterson's group has received a grant from the National Institutes of Health for a controlled clinical trial of virtual reality hypnosis for chronic pain.

Read the story of Randy McAllister, a patient that has used the technology, in the Oregon Live article.

Deciding what, when and how much to do on the Internet for your business
Tuesday March 1, 2011, 6pm-7:30pm Eastern Time / 3pm-4:30pm Pacific
This is a 90-minute conference-call format Q&A and workshop.

2009 research revealed that when searching for products and personal services, 83% of shoppers in the USA will search the Internet before checking the phone book. We've been hearing over the last three years that the results from phone book ads have been strongly declining for hypnotherapists. Some blame the economy or believe hypnotherapy is declining as a personal service, but in reality, all that really changed is that people shop differently for personal services now.

Still, the Internet is a boggling and complex thing. Internet marketing is the new "get rich quick" peddle, and thousands of people claim to be selling you the secrets to it.

Scott Sandland is the founder of Hypnothoughts.com and the co-founder of the HypnoSummit conferences. He's also a hypnotherapist and hypnotherapy instructor. He's making great contributions to the industry - Thanks, Scott! - and we found his new YouTube channel.

It's a new channel, so it isn't loaded with content yet, but he's got a great start and a fascinating video on Covert Pain in Hypnotherapy that gives you a great sense of Scott's style and the great wealth of background knowledge and ongoing study he brings to students, clients and the industry.

The 21st century is all about lifelong learning, and YouTube channels are becoming an excellent resource for continuing education and learning. As an example of the "video encyclopedia" power of YouTube, check out the impressive related videos list (right-side column) when viewing Scott's video on covert pain hypnotherapy in the native (non-channel) YouTube interface. This is a significant improvement over just a year ago.

A little more about YouTube