The Transparent Hypnotist

It is a typical fall Saturday afternoon. I have been swamped with holiday catalogs and a partner who is into remodeling (yikes). I have never put much stock in the aesthetics of my office bathroom, instead focusing on creating a unique and comfortable environment for my session rooms. But I think maybe, the bathroom really is important, not just the cleanliness factor but how it makes one feel.

I am reminded of a recent expedition to a doctor’s office (I blogged about her acceptance of hypnosis a few weeks ago). She had just moved her office into a new building. It was well done, upscale doctor decor, but the bathroom - the bathroom was phenomenal. It was fabulously designed with an arty looking sink and faucet. It is actually nicer than my home bathroom.

So, I am also thinking faucet design now. I am totally drawn to the cleanliness of the Hansgrohe Stratos. It is completely simple, not daunting. It comes in a few finishes (brass underneath), but I am thinking along the lines of brushed Nickel for less finger prints. It seems quite affordable for the modern look. I found this one at faucets.com. Seems very straight forward, and I suspect my partner could even install it (since he is the one who got me into this mode).

If you cannot tell, I really hate sterile environments, but do crave professionalism. This is sometimes paradoxical.

Last weekend’s Esoteric Saturday subliminal software really caught on in my mind. LOL. Actually, I have been playing that software in the background of my machine since then. Not sure if it is doing any good, but there have been times when I wonder if it makes me a tad bit more aggressive - just a tad. But there are several other factors that could be contributing to that as well. I would need a therapist to help me decipher it all.

hypnotist (which we may go into at some point), she was a base-line for Speaking of therapist (do you like the segway?), I thought we would go into a blast from the past and bring out Eliza. Remember Eliza, the cyber-Rogerian psychotherapist? She was a computer program created in 1966 by Joseph Weizenbaum. Though she is not a cyberartificial intelligence. The program is rather simple in that she more or less just rephrases your comments into questions. She has been called a “parody.”

Here is a short conversation:

Ellie: What do you think of hypnosis?Eliza: Does that question interest you?

Ellie: Very much.

Eliza: Please go on.

Ellie: It is the most fascinating therapy ever.

Eliza: Please go on.

Ellie: Do you have any thoughts about hypnosis?

Eliza: Oh, i have any thoughts about hypnosis.

Anyway, thought she was something fun to explore. You can visit her here.

Today the coffee maker was reset after a short power outage. This morning the brew is dark and heavy (serving of coffee beans ground was maxed at ten and water was only six cups).

And as I am awakening much more abruptly (thank you coffee maker), it seems like the concept of adding in the random “In the News” segment is perfect.

So, lets talk about heights. Last Sunday (October 21) at the Edinburgh International Climbing Arena, Ratho, in Scotland, there was a pretty exciting event. The center hosted mass hypnosis for people suffering with acrophobia. Edinburgh-based Brain Train, Dawn and Gary Flockhart, did the hypnosis and NLP work. Once that was done, participants were taken 100 feet off ground level to the arena’s aerial assault course. Though harnessed, volunteers had to step off the platform (remember 100 feet off the ground level) into air, then face a twisted zip-slide, not to mention an obstacle course at the end.

There were 50 volunteers aged 11 to 56. Only three of the 50 did not attempt the aerial assault challenge after a thirty minute session. Using a method that involved imagining a picture of themselves in a frightened state, these volunteers were then told to focus on the fear that they experienced with this frightened state. Suggestions were given so that they would chant “sit and float” under their breath as a reminder to remain calm.

I had hoped a few of the participants would have blogged about the experience, but I have as yet to find them. The arena says that there were several success stories that came from that day. It also looked like a few people went through with it, but their phobias were not completely gone when they did the aerial Assault .

I invite any of the participants to comment and share their story (good or bad or if any of you have stumbled onto this blog). Also, if anyone else has any comments or knowledge of the event, please feel free to also post them as well.

Sources:
news.scotsman.com
www.adventurescotland.com

So, I sit there listening to the group discuss weight woes. The tea pot has boiled the water hot and I have offered this small group of hypno-weight loss devotees each a cup of green tea (and it is not as if I am being uncivilized, there is skim milk, lemon, honey or even pure sugarcane to top it off). Yet, here I sit, drinking my green tea black, alone, while one drinks a diet soda, one has a large litter-like, disposable, fast food beverage, one has a loaded energy drink, and one, bless her heart (and praise be) has bottled water - with saccharine flavoring.

They are bonding over their common issue - the need to lose a few pounds and honestly, if they could just watch their diet a little more and say, well, exercise every so often they would all be in great shape. Yet, these are the stereotypes who seem to come to my weight loss hypnosis programs. As they continue their struggle, and a struggle it is, it beginning to sound like a commercial for Subway. My big but comes from having a nine to five that binds me to the chair and all those fries go straight to the butt. My love handles? I love the extra burger and side order of grease on my sandwich. And if I eat cottage cheese, won’t the cottage cheese on my thighs be worse, cottage cheese is a cheese after all.

I am not sure which at this point really would be more helpful to them - twenty minutes trancing out to my voice or just playing with the new Subway site. It has more rapport and commonalities with them than my skinny-legged self. As they continue to bond and share the horror stories (and when the hurricane hit, I couldn’t even get a candy bar at the convenience store), I actually pull up the site.

There is the familiar drive through. There is the hysterically appropriate “Burger Town” guy to take the order. As they talk, I click on the menu for an order of “badunkadunk but” and out comes the dripping sarcasm. The group, once chatty, now becomes very quiet. I click randomly on the menu for a dish of condescension. There is actually a moment when I feel guilty. The group looks appalled, faces war torn from fad diets and exercising binges.

“What are you doing?” one of them finally ask and I turn the laptop around and show them. They crowd around, and initially after a hair raising moment, smile, then laugh. One writes down the site URL. Ice broken. Luckily, the site also offers some good advice on healthy eating and exercise. Jared is their hero and I wonder briefly about the likeliness of him coming to hang out with us.

Now they are pumped, ready to go, all committing to this program. I wonder if I really even need to give self-esteem or decreasing craving suggestions during the hypnosis or perhaps sharing the site was enough. At first, I feel a little threatened. Why come to me when there is always a Subway down the street?

Then I realize what an interesting tool it makes. The session ends. They all say they feel so relaxed and inspired. They agree that after the next meeting, they will have lunch at Subway and then go power walking in the park.

Goodbye badunkadunk but.

About a month ago, I posted about a Halloween party I was thinking of hosting for my clients. I have progressed with that and sent out snail mail invites (you know, the real invites that are tangible). I believe this is really personally and that is not a bad thing to embrace as a small business owner.

There have been a few people who mentioned that it would have been just as good to send out the invites as an email invite. I could have used an email marketing program that could handle it all, like Email Express Direct. This would have meant handling the party as a marketing campaign, which ultimately I guess it is. Rather than hand addressing the envelopes (which the intern did), I could have uploaded them into the program, created a graphically enticing message (rather than the glossy paper I used), and I could have tracked the response, as in who opened the email, who responded, and more.

I see the corporate look with the email, but I see the personal touch with the invite. Which would you have preferred to receive? Would one influence you decision to attend?

Last night I in indulged in a pumpkin-spiced latte (sans whipped cream). It splashed out of the cup and oddly, it was orange. I figured it would just be coffee with pumpkin-pie spice added to it. Apparently not. It is not often that I actually indulge in much other than coffee and tea, but I have been craving this for a few days and it was one of those times where one really needed to indulge in something positive.

As far as positives go, I guess when you learn something or have something reinforced this is positive in itself, but sometimes it just does not feel that way. I know you are probably thinking, “Ellie, get to the point.” And you are right. Ellie has become a little lax in her intake procedures again.

What I have been doing is just scheduling appointments. I talk to people on the phone or via email, get the information I need there to outline their upcoming session. And that is that.

What happens when you do you schedule appointments this way? You get no shows.

How should it be done? Basically at the time of the phone call inquiry, when I make the appointments, I need to immediately also send the perspective client the intake form to fill out and send back before the appointment. This really cuts down on the number of no shows.

What else could help lessen the no shows? Do as the medical world does. Call a day before and confirm that the client will be there. I used to think this was like baby sitting or policing, but it is really not. In the hectic, overbooked world we live in, it never hurts to send a reminder.

Do you have any tried and true methods that help decrease the number of no shows?

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Today’s wandering pondering is ongoing from yesterday’s conversation with Michael about subliminals. You cannot but help love all this stuff we learn about the mind and consciousness. One year, one thing is true. The next it is not. Then three years later it is true again. Perhaps this is why I did not do well in science classes when I was younger. There is too much that we do not know. There seems like there is little truth and a whole lot of hypothesis (I did better when we were allowed to do our own hypothesis). And that becomes a question of - is there ever truth? For one second it could seem so, but then reality shifts and bam, what was true is no longer.

Yes, I have been reading metaphysics again, well maybe not metaphysics, but about metaphysical concepts. I just finished Carlos Constanza’s Road to Ixland. And I am now beginning The Tibetan Book of the Death and Dying. How odd to find that you might be Buddhist if…But I digress.

Well, as I took my first sip of morning tea, a thought struck me about subliminals (okay tapped me, it is to early for a knock-down-drag-em-out mental conversation). The first ideas about them seemed to indicate a positive consumer response to visuals. Is it possible that indeed the old “put an image in the ice cube” type really did work well. Perhaps in those few years since then, our minds have adapted, subtly evolved? Perhaps we evolved enough for it to no longer be so effective. Now we are left with heftier tricks of subtle manipulation like the flashing of the image of a pretty girl and a one word command.

Just a thought.

The great cover-up. Literally. One of the most useful items I have in the office is a blanket. I throw it over a chair and if clients want to cover up, they can. And it always surprises me as to who actually does this. Sometimes it is the high school quarterback who wants to improve his concentration, the blue collar worker who is kicking smoking, or it could be madame CEO herself.

Always in a state of keeping the office fresh through the idea of redecorating, I have come up with another interesting concept. Since I have gone the route of digital picture frame inductions (for some), it might be fun to coordinate the images into other parts of the office, thus perhaps stimulating and reinforcing the suggestions. For instance, one of the pictures that makes a quick pass through the picture frame is now also framed in my rest room.

But what about the blanket, the cover up? This gives certain people a feeling of security, so would it not also make a great reinforce? Visionbedding.com offers such a product, the Photo Blanket . They reproduce your image onto a micro-suede fabric and the back is solar fleece (which means soft and comfy). They are machine washable and dryable.

I have to be careful thought…too many flowers might make the office too girly. I do not want the session room to look alike a teenage girl’s bedroom. Perhaps a landscape might be best.

Good morning! Another fine, fall morning and that is making me crave some sort of pumpkin-flavored concoction, but tea it is.

If you have not read the comments, Gloria and Kathyrn both had some good advice on receptionist verses DVD verse personal response to clients. Michael offered an interesting method of subliminals in response to the Sunday Question. Thanks!

Also, you maybe happy to learn that the client I mentioned last week with the lost key, found her key the very next day. She came in to tell me the good news. One of the suggestions I gave her after getting to the bottom of her block with the key was that when the pressure was off, she would remember where the key was. She said it was in a place she had not looked before and was very complimentary. I am just glad it all got resolved.

That is the thing about doing clinical hypnosis, often as a hypnotist you have no idea how the story works out. Do clients lose the weight? Do they stop smoking, using drugs, drinking alcohol? I believe I may have talked about this before, perhaps even making a plea for those of you working with hypnotists to actually check in and let he or she know how hypnosis is working out. The silence is often misinterpreted, I believe. I know hypnotists who use the silence as a positive indicator that the hypnosis worked and count those clients as successes. Then I know some who do not credit it at all because maybe the client is just fed up, feels taken advantage of, or it is no longer important to the client. Which do you think is true?