May 05 2022

Why do parents distrust their kids? Vol. 550, May 19, 2022

Do you feel that the world is an unsafe place for your child to play outside without adult guidance? Do you worry that your child will be kidnapped or worse? What about feeling the need to always protect your child from the natural consequences of their behavior be it in school, driving a car under the influence, etc?
 
I have a friend that came from a very overprotective family. Her parents were immigrants to the US from Japan. When it came to dating her parents kept her on a very tight leash. That was until she became an adult, moved out on her own, and got involved with a man who was selling cocaine and had unlicensed guns in his possession. She paid the very high price of going to jail for a year being involved with him. She stated to me that she believed that had she had the chance to interact with guys from a younger age she would have been able to better assess this man before getting involved with him. She was just too naive to make a better choice for herself.
 
I have had many clients who have complained of the fact that their parents have never allowed them to have the freedom to explore their world in the manner that their friends have. Often we would consider this ‘over protection’ by the parent of their child.
 
Why does this happen? Many times this happens because of the fear and perhaps even paranoia a parent experiences. Given the over-representation in the media of the world being unsafe for children, the parent feels that the only thing they can do to counteract these notions is to keep their child close to them or involved in adult-supervised activities.
What is the result of this over-protection of the child? With the lack of trust that the child feels from the parent in some cases they will go out and do things that the parent would not want them to do. In other cases, when it comes to the time of dating many of these individuals have no sense of how to protect themselves from relationships with abusive partners or friends because they never had the chance to experience anything outside the safety of their own homes.
 
It is normal for children to individuate themselves from their parents as they go out to explore the greater world. When this is not allowed to occur, the child will grow up never understanding how to protect him/herself from the people who could be harmful to them.
 
How do we overcome this situation?
 
One needs to learn to let go of their suffocating their over-protection while allowing them to explore the world around them. Being able to play with their friends allows for creative problem-solving. Exploring their world allows them to develop a healthy curiosity around them, while maybe even building their natural immune systems by playing in the dirt while they are at it (for younger kids). If you are having a difficult time with this idea, it is time to get a bit of help to understand where your fear is coming from and to let it go. Your child deserves that much from you for your child’s healthy development.

May 05 2022

What is the difference between psychotherapy and hypnotherapy? (Learn how the hypnotic trance is created physiologically) Vol. 578, May 5, 2022

A person on Quora wanted to know the difference between psychotherapy and hypnotherapy. Contained in the answer there is an explanation of the physiology of the hypnotic state so you can better understand what happens in the brain while in the hypnotic state. Here is how I answered the question:
 
I am answering this from the perspective of having come to hypnotism and neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) after working in the world of conventional psychiatric as a non-licensed counselor so I believe I can give you a fair appraisal of the differences between the two.
 
First psychotherapy is based on diagnosing dysfunctional thoughts and behavior based on the DSM 5 for the mental health professional to be able to submit insurance claims to their patient’s health insurance company to receive payment. It is how the system is set up. Not all therapists even share the diagnoses with their patients having had a few hypnosis clients come to me after having had conventional therapy for decades in some cases without knowing their diagnosis and wondering why their therapist never told them. Hypnotists and NLP practitioners are not licensed to diagnose so we don’t.
 
Psychotherapy comes from the point of pathology – meaning that there is something wrong that needs to be ‘managed’ which they do with medication in many situations with the help of a psychiatrist who is licensed to dispense medication and talk therapy in which the patient is to speak about what is going on with them. The therapist will use different types of therapeutic interventions such as family systems work, which is actually very helpful in the situations where I saw it demonstrated, Cognitive Behavior Therapy which relies on the patient being aware of the problem and making different choices that are more healthy for them, EMDR which is a form of hypnotism where the patient is to focus on the therapist’s finger as it goes back and forth as the patient recalls traumatic events to the point where there is no emotional charge left on the event, and of course talking about situations, in general, to work through them gaining a better understanding of what happened and learning from the events. There are many types of therapy, but all but EMDR are done in the conscious mind making it more difficult for many patients to release their issues because the conscious mind allows for reasoning, rationalization, and judgment. When a patient has had traumatic events from childhood that person is recalling these events from the perspective of a child who will not necessarily be able to understand the situation with the other person involved their prefrontal cortex not fully developed until the age of 25 for females and 26 for males. That is physiology folks!
 
Hypnotism includes neuro-linguistic programming as both are bypassing the prefrontal cortex into the emotional mind. According to Dr. Speigal, Associate Chair of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Director of the Center on Stress and Health, and Director of the Center for Integrative Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine: The 4 Key Elements of Hypnosis are 1. Breathing 2. Vision 3. Bodily states 4. Directed mental focus
The Neurobiology of Hypnosis:
 
There are 3 things that happen when we enter into a hypnotic state: – First, there is a turning down activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (DACC), which is a brain region that subserves cognition and motor control. The DACC is like a salience network or conflict detector. The DACC tells you to pay attention to potential danger. It helps you decide. It turns down activity in the DACC making it less likely that you’ll be distracted.
 
Second, there is a higher connectivity between the DLPFC (Left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex -key region in executive control functions-) with the Insula (mind-body control system, involved in emotion processing and arousal including awareness of one’s own bodily states as well as decision-making and other executive processes).
Third, there is an inverse functional connectivity between DLPFC and the posterior cingulate cortex (area that decreases in meditation). You put things outside of conscious awareness. You are doing something but not thinking about what it means. This is the dissociation that happens with hypnosis.
 
I can tell you with over 20 years of working with my clients that instead of merely ‘managing’ symptoms of depression (which is a sign like pain, there is something wrong that needs to be addressed), anxiety, grieving both of lost loved ones and lost abilities through disease processes, eating disorders, sex addictions, OCD, and somatized pain, that hypnotism works very well when you have a practitioner who has an understanding of the physiology of the brain and body, as well as a good understanding of psychological and psychiatric issues.
 
Do note that there is nothing that I can do for those with personality disorders, those with an IQ under 70 (because they can’t focus on the processes), and those with psychotic features such as schizophrenics. So there are limitations, but for the majority of people who are desiring to be rid of their emotionally based issues once and for all hypnotism can be the answer they are looking for. Because hypnotists do believe that our clients have all of their own answers in their own minds, in their UNconscious minds they are able to heal. However, they need the facilitation of an outside party to access it and know which processes to use to help to let go of the issues. From my own training, it is very important for the client to have a ‘compelling future’ that is more alluring to them than holding onto their problems in which to work toward. My clients work on bringing their compelling futures into their lives as we do the work making it worthwhile to go through the process of dealing with any negative issues that will be dealt with during the work.
 
However, we hypnotists also love to make the work as fun as possible, only being really serious when it is necessary.
Thank you for this question, because it is important for people to realize that we do indeed now understand the actual workings of the hypnotic state, as well as being able to truly help our clients where everything else they tried has failed them.

Apr 28 2022

What can I do about my anxiety? Medication isn’t helping. Vol. 577, April 28, 2022

This was a question by a person on Quora who was working with a conventional therapist and on psychiatric medication for his anxiety.

Hi, Thank you for this question. I am answering it from the perspective of a hypnotist and neuro-linguistic practitioner who came to this work from the world of conventional psychiatry as a non-licensed counselor. I have 30 years of experience in mental health and 20 in the use of hypnotism and NLP.

Let me be really clear with you regarding anxiety and how to BEST handle it because is sure as hell isn’t through medication for most.

Anxiety arises because of fear, which means that until you let go of the underlying fear that is behind your anxiety it will not ever go away. So, the best way to handle anxiety is to get into the unconscious mind to find out where the fear is coming from and to help you release it (as well as desensitizing all of the traumatic events that have caused it – in other words taking the negative emotional charge of anxiety off the events so when you think about the events your response is one of “So what, it doesn’t matter any longer.’

There are many neuro-linguistic techniques that help to desensitize the fear in a matter of minutes, so it can be let go very quickly.

For those who have been diagnosed by licensed mental health professionals with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), it would help you to realize that this is also a form of anxiety based on a fear that is causing you to have the compulsive thoughts and compulsive behaviors such as constantly checking that the stove and oven are off, the faucets are off, checking that your door is locked, washing your hands constantly, etc. We are not talking about those thoughts and behaviors that fall under addictive behaviors, those being a way of depressing the negative thoughts that one does not want to have, leading to negative feelings about one’s self – that is a whole other set of issues.  I have found very effective ways to help those with addictions as well over the years – eating disorders and sex addiction being my areas of expertise as these are the clients that were called into my practice to get help with their problems. 

If you want to find out more information on any of the issues above, go to the menu on the right side, scroll all the way down and you can put in a search word to have all the articles, podcasts, and testimonials that are connected to the search term show up for you. 

 

Apr 21 2022

Do people tend to view themselves as one-dimensionally while in therapy, or does the therapist? Vol. 576, April 21, 2022

This was a question that was asked on Quora and this is how I answered it:

I don’t believe there is one answer as there are many types of therapists out there as well as many types of patients.

If someone is truly depressed or has another type of situation where they have lost their sense of self, maybe their hope of ever achieving whatever life goals they had, they most likely will have the one-dimensional view of themselves as being not good enough, unlovable, whatever it is that they have come to believe about their situation.

On the other hand, there are many very functional clients who have great insight into their issues and they are able to see the hope and with that understand that there is more than one perspective from which to view themselves. They mainly need help putting different things together to better understand where they are and better choices they can create for themselves going forward.

In terms of therapists, there are many who are ready to diagnose their patients and never allow them to have an identity other than that diagnosis which is a shame because at least from my 30 years in the business of mental health the great majority of my clients have been able to let go of the underlying causes to the symptoms that got them the diagnosis moving on to constructive fulfilled lives. I had a client ages ago who was told she would always need antidepressants though they never helped her, only gave her a bunch of really frustrating side effects. Turned out that the symptoms of depression she showed were due to heavy metal damage, leaky gut, a genetic problem she received from both sides of the family – she needed supplements to help her to develop the serotonin, dopamine, GABA her body was unable to do for her, to have her leaky gut repaired, and the heavy metals got out of her body. No amount of therapy or antidepressants was going to help her. I referred her to an integrative doc to help her with these issues.

There are other therapists who understand that one is not their diagnosis and do everything in their power to help their patients overcome whatever needs to be overcome healing the traumas, getting out of negative relationships and environments to be free to move on with their lives as an example.

The bottom line is that it would be doing everyone who is a part of the field of mental health to put everyone in. the same boxes as each is individual bringing their own experiences, abilities, and understanding to the process.

Mar 31 2022

How can I open up to my therapist without feeling strange about sharing embarrassing things about my life? – Vol. 575, March 31, 2022

A person on Quora asked this rather important question and this is how I answered it: 

I am going to answer this from the perspective of having been on both sides of the couch and being a hypnotist and neuro-linguistic practitioner so I have a different paradigm and different techniques to use than a conventionally trained therapist:

First, there is no growth without the trust between you and your therapist being created. You do this by allowing your therapist to demonstrate that s/he is capable of holding your confidence. You may start with less deep issues and build up over a span of time.

Understand that the therapist can only help you to the point where you are willing to be open and honest. I tell my clients that it is ONLY when they tell me everything that needs to be cleared that I can indeed clear them of their issues – as a hypnotist and neuro-linguistic practitioner as we use different techniques inside the subconscious mind that allows us to achieve this goal.

Any therapist that is worth working with is there to help you which means leaving the judgments for someone else to make – that isn’t inside the job description. Therapists will indeed give you new perspectives in how to understand events or communicate more effectively if they have any ability in the field, but that is much different than being judgmental. One has a negative tone while the other is truly helpful guidance.

So, how do you overcome this need to edit or take back words? You say your truth and let it go. You may find that you are able to get much more help in this fashion then worrying about what your therapist may be thinking of you, for this would be the most likely reason why you would be worrying about such things in the first place.

Mar 24 2022

Does Therapy Make Cause People Too Much Time Focusing On Their Own Wants & Needs Too Much? Vol. 574 – March 24, 2022

This was a question from a person on Quora and this is how I answered it: 

This is an interesting question.

Therapy is about helping people to discern what is necessary to make their lives happy and fulfilled. In so doing one will necessarily need to focus on the patients’ emotions, wants, and needs.

However, for therapy to actually work, the client needs to focus on how it is that their own thoughts and behaviors are creating the issues that they have employed the therapist to help them work through. Because no person is acting in life as a singular entity. Communication needs to be learned to better interact, behaviors need to be shifted to no longer cause the problems, and in so doing the needs and wants of the client can be achieved.

Too often in therapy, too much time is spent on going over and over the same old stories – the stories that the client has created to make sense of the problems being experienced. However, one needs to understand that just because we may have a story, does not make that story true. Our unconscious mind is very good at deleting information and in so doing distorting those memories, so one needs to be able to reframe the occurrences of the present based on what is actually happening, not the story as to why it may be happening.

 

Mar 24 2022

Why is it that you can’t hypnotize somebody to go against their moral code? – Vol. 574, March 24, 2022

This was a question from a person on Quora and as is usually the case, I had a very different take on this question than those who state endlessly that people will never act against their moral code. Here is my answer to that question: 

As usual, I have news for you all!

Though it is quite right that someone seeking clinical hypnotism to heal will not do something against their moral code – they will pop out of the hypnosis most likely or just refuse, and volunteers in stage shows will refuse to do the act requested if it is against their moral codes, there are plenty of times in human history when people did many terrible things against their inherent moral code.

We have something going on in the Western World called ‘mass hypnosis’ presently, where opinions are being stated as facts, medical and researchers who go against the narrative are being censored (being deplatformed) where people become part of the ‘in group’ while foisting terrible statements against those who have made a different choice for themselves based on their own medical histories – which is a personal and individual situation for each of us – people with chronic health issues have different needs than those who do not. People with a history of cancer, MS, etc have different requirements than those who do not. So, we can’t assume that we know what is correct for anyone else because we don’t know their health history.

Hitler was able to use his charisma and outcasting of anyone who wasn’t a part of the population he considered the ‘supreme race’ with many people taking part in inexcusable behavior. Most people do not realize that the Germans thought that they were winning the war, even as they were losing, as Hitler never allowed the truth to come out. This was easy to accomplish because the war was happening in the surrounding countries not in Germany proper so the Germans had no idea what was really going on during that period. When the Versailles treaty came out with all the war reparations being placed on Germany causing hyper-inflation – and the country itself split in two weakening its power, the average German citizen realized the reality of what happened to their country.

Anyone who remembers the story of Jonestown remembers Jim Jones, a white minister who preached unconventional socialist and progressive ideas to a predominantly African-American congregation called the Peoples Temple. At the height of its popularity during the 1970s, it had over a thousand members. By 1977, Jones had grown paranoid from the media scrutiny over the Temple’s suspicious activities, so he and his numerous followers moved to an agricultural settlement (a.k.a. Jonestown) in Guyana, the remote country east of Venezuela.

U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan visited Jonestown in November 1978 being concerned for the people who were a part of the Jonestown. Ryan was shot to death along with four other people by Temple gunmen at an airstrip after he checked it out. After those murders, Jones commanded his followers to drink cyanide-laced punch, starting with the children first. In all, there were over 900 who died in Jonestown, including Jim Jones, who with a gunshot to his head.

Learning:

When we are repeatedly told the same information it goes into our unconscious mind where it becomes as good as ‘fact.’ It is in this way that many terrible events have happened throughout history because people did indeed overrun their moral values as a result of these occurrences.

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