This was a great question from a person on Quora and something that I do believe many people may have a concern. Here is how I answered the question:  

I will do my best to answer your question as a hypnotist that works with repressed memories in my practice (only for 19 years now!).

First of all, it is totally possible for repressed memories to be triggered – though, from the way you asked the question, I think you are really asking if one can find out about their repressed memories from counseling. I don’t believe that regular counseling has the ability to help one to do this because they don’t have any idea how to work in the unconscious mind since this isn’t taught in their curriculum and few of them get much training in hypnotism should they be interested in adding it to their profession. I say this having had many clients come to me after their conventionally trained therapist tried to hypnotize them and had no idea what they were doing. It is indeed a separate profession that requires much study and practice to do well.

However, what I can also tell you is that I had a few (not many) clients come in to see me who had therapists tell them they were molested or sexually abused. Not one of them had suffered any of this abuse, from what we learned from the session that I did with each of them (it only took one session to regress them back and find out) so these ideas were implanted for no reason. Disgusting I know, and yet it happens.

My suggestion to you is to stop worrying about what ‘may have happened to you’ and focus on what is going on in your life currently. I would also suggest that you spend less time thinking about yourself and heal yourself by helping others. I learned this most poignantly while working with a woman who suffered from severe bipolar and generalized anxiety, way before I ever got into hypnosis. I was working in elder care at the time. She got herself a volunteer job working with people with cerebral palsy many of them deformed, developmentally disabled (what used to be called mental retardation) who had no way to alter their lives because of the nature of their disabilities. What she learned was that she could indeed take control of her situation – in her case, it was a matter of a medication change and taking control of her own life instead of deferring it to her sons – and found herself in a much better situation nine months after we started working together. It was at this time she was ready to terminate our work together. She moved out of the area, closer to her youngest daughter, and helped to raise her two sons. She met a lovely man who loved her for who she was and they had a lovely life till his death 15 years later (she was 61 when we ended working together, so we are speaking of an older couple here). She was very good at keeping in touch with me on an annual basis which I welcomed. It’s always great to know how one’s clients are doing as their lives move on.

My point to you and anyone else reading this particular answer is to stop sweating those things that you ‘think’ may have happened and instead concentrate your energy on those things that you would like your life to be about. If my client was able to do this given her serious mental health situation, I would say anyone can should they choose to put their time and energy into doing so.

Thank you very much for your A2A for all those who may have a similar situation that they are dealing with. Remember that our thoughts are what create our lives, so concentrate your thoughts on what your life to be and you will be amazed by how great it can be.

This was a question from someone on Quora had asked in the exact manner in which I titled the post. It is a question that I get fairly often from Quorans, so is worth posting on the weblog. This is how I answered the question:

Thanks for the question.

Happiness is certainly something that comes from inside ourselves by being authentically who we are as we navigate our way through this world. By doing those things that we enjoy and mostly doing many things that are a bit our of our comfort zone where learning (growth) occurs. If you do these things, you will spend much more time being in a ‘happy’ place than otherwise.

That being said, I would not expect any human to always be happy because there are frustrations and challenges that occur in life. It is more a matter of how we respond to these things, which can keep us more in balance emotionally.

Instantly reacting to many things will be less than helpful, though, with a little thoughtfulness, we can usually find a manner in which to contend with the more challenging areas of life and receive the solution to the issue at hand.

For those sad times in life, because they do indeed come, allow yourself to feel the sadness and then reframe the situation in a manner that will help you to get a positive outcome. So, for instance, you lost a person close to you. What beautiful moments or insights did that person bring to your life? Gratitude for that person being there will help to heal the loss.

This was a question that I received from a person on Quora.  This is how I answered it: 

Thanks for this question. I am going to answer it from the point of view of the practitioner instead of as the client to give you what I believe is a better answer to your question as a Hypnotist/NLP practitioner.

First, do understand that folks who work in the world of mental health realize that their patients are there because of the difficulties that they are dealing with – so there will be times when the patient may get upset, angry, overwhelmed, whatever. It is to be expected quite frankly especially if the therapy is headed in the direction of dealing with core issues for the problems – giving ‘reality checks’ as I like to call them, for if the patient had the ability to understand what the larger scheme of things was, they wouldn’t need to employ a therapist, would they? It is the therapist’s job to show the patient better ways of understanding those things that are going on in their lives and sometimes that means telling them things they ‘need’ to hear instead of those things they want to hear.

I have mentioned it on Quora a few times, that even before I hire a client, I let them know that there will most assuredly be times when they may dislike me, for those things that I may say to them. Sometimes it is because I got something wrong that they were trying to explain to me and sometimes it will be because I am telling them truths that they don’t want to hear about themselves or those they love (as it came from their own subconscious minds from the hypnotic perspective). In either case, it is through the processing of these events that the client is better able to go out in their own world and interact more confidently and honestly. Those clients who understand that this is the reason for the therapy and are open to this dynamic are those that I am more readily willing to hire on as clients. Because, one can’t grow if one isn’t willing to take responsibility (and yes, there have been many, many times when I had to own my own shortcomings during sessions with my clients). I let them know that if I do or say something that causes them to feel negative to tell me so that we can work through it because it is bound to happen. Humility works in both directions.

So, no, your therapist ought not to be offended because of your feelings – instead, your therapist is there to help you to deal with whatever happened and help you heal it, and hopefully strengthen your trust in the process.

Thanks again for the question, because I am guessing that there are many others who have this concern and needed to get an answer to the situation.

Due to the large amount of fear and upset, many more people are becoming depressed than before the COVID-19 issues arose. Because of this higher incidence of depression, I thought I would upload the video interview that Paula Kalik did with me back in 2019.

The interview runs for about an 1.5 hours, and includes a hypnotic induction to help clear any survivor’s guilt from those who have lost loved ones due to suicide. This was something that she had been dealing with at the time of the interview, so instead of just talking about it, I helped her to clear it. All you need do when the interview gets to that point, is close your eyes and follow along. 

Here’s the link: 

I sincerely hope that this will help anyone who needs it!