Indicators of Trance I help out in training people interested in hypnosis from time to time. It is often useful to think back on how I used to feel about going into hypnosis, and how strange it can be for people doing it for the first time. It helps if you can recognize the indicators of trance. Indicators of trance: Increased heartbeat One newbie said to me "I was listening to a hypnosis CD the other night. I often find it quite difficult to get into trance, and I wonder if I'm doing it right. With this recording, I found myself sinking into what I thought was a trance, and feeling very pleas ..read more

Low Fat Diet Mental Health About two thirds of your brain is actually made of fat. Ponder that for a moment. Is there  a Low Fat Diet Mental Health connection?  For more than 40 years scientists and dietitians have told us that eating fat is bad. The message has been that all animal fat is bad, and you should avoid it when you can. They urged us to eat light oils derived from plants, such as sunflower, safflower and soybean oil. Dietitians told us to replace butter with margarine. The origin of  the low fat diet fad And now it turns out that this advice was completely, tota ..read more

Paranormal beliefs What do you do when you meet a client with strong paranormal beliefs? My policy has always been to accept the client's beliefs as real and valid and work with them. For example, a client might come to me to me and say that they believe that their current problems are because of what they did in a past life. In that case I'm quite willing to accept their beliefs. And even tell them that I agree with the belief. I will then go on with past life regression. My job is to  help to identify whatever is bothering them, in a way that is acceptable to them. A client who wants to ..read more

Automatic drawing as hypnotherapy This is an unusual way of using hypnosis to explore your own unconscious mind. Automatic drawing hypnotherapy is fun and creative. Sometimes you get nothing much from it. Oftentimes what  you draw will surprise you and give you an insight into what is happening in your unconscious mind. The setup Decide where you want to do the drawing. You will need something to draw with, a pencil, a ballpoint pen, a crayon – it really doesn't matter, whatever you feel comfortable with. And then you need something to draw on. This can be a notebook, some printer paper ..read more

False consensus effect the false consensus effect is a cognitive bias that leads you to assume that other people think the same way that you do. It is natural, and inevitable, and leads to problems in therapy. It is both good and bad. It is bad when extremists of any sort find confirmation of their own views in the general population. It is good when it allows you to feel more comfortable in a social group. The self reinforcing effect The false consensus effect causes you to overestimate the extent to which other people share your own beliefs, values, morals and behaviors. Once you b ..read more

Caffeine Addiction and Stress I had a client today with a caffeine addiction. This man is driven, intense, and stressed out at work. He runs a cleaning business. He says he must be addicted because he can't stop drinking V, a strong caffeinated drink. Actually, he can give up V, but then he starts drinking Coke or Pepsi. But those don't give him the same satisfaction, so he always goes back to drinking V. He drinks V when he is stressed. He gets stressed by work, by family matters, by staff problems, by irate customers.  It is a  a physical need to drink it. He does not get any menta ..read more

Workplace bullying I had a client today who came in complaining of stress. She said that she was grinding her teeth at night. And much more worrying to her she had got into the habit of drinking a bottle of wine each night when she got home from work. She said that she had an unhappy childhood. She could never do anything right, according to her mother. Her mother always made her feel like a failure. For most of her life she had low self esteem. But after she got out of her home situation and began working as an engineer, her life took a better turn, and she felt on top of things. Workplace bu ..read more

Smoking Diagnosis I had an email today from a client who wants a smoking diagnosis. Good morning Dave! I’ve just made an appointment with you for two weeks’ time, and wanted to check in with you about it ahead of time.  I see that appointments are about an hour long. Does this session include a bit of a ‘diagnosis’? As you’ll know better than anyone does, people smoke for a variety of reasons and I want to make sure that my reasons to smoke would be taken into account.  For example, I had a hypnosis session yesterday, but it didn’t work because it was about hypnosis to relax instead ..read more

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