The Transparent Hypnotist

Yesterday I had a new client and something happened that has not happened to me in a very long while. I lost a half hour somewhere during the session. I had allotted two hours for her, a half an hour for my own regrouping and had another client scheduled after this. After going through the basics with the new client, as she sat in the big comfy chair, every time I was about to start, she would suddenly come out with a new story.

“Just thought it might be relevant,” she said.

And I complied, allowing her to get her bearings and dispel some nervousness. Looking at my watch, I still had an hour with her.  No problem.  And so I began with an eye fixation. Her eyes became heavy and seemed to want to stay closed, but then suddenly, back she was with another story. I began to think this might not be the time for this session and asked if she would prefer to schedule another one (wondering the whole time if I should charge her for the time she had already taken - not to be money-hungry, but the problems she unloaded at my feet were pretty awful). She said she wanted to continue the session and I explained that she would need to focus on the idea of the hypnosis, letting go of comments and information, we would get to that soon enough in the client-based session.

She settled back into the chair and I began again. I looked at my watch - 45 minutes left.  Fifteen minutes for the induction and deepener and 30 minutes for the meat of the session. No problem. We would get somewhere, I felt confident. I used the Seven Plus or Minus Two induction. Then I began to do some depth testing, she was responding nicely. Looking at my watch, I realized it was 3:45 pm (fifteen minutes before my next appointment). I totally lost the time when I am fairly sure it should not have taken me that long.  How strange. (I do have the tape of the session and plan to listen to it to double check everything).

Unfortunately, at that time, I could only leave her with suggestions of relaxation and entering into a hypnotic state faster on the next go round. Then I brought her back and let her have a few minutes to collect herself. In some ways I feel bad because we did not accomplish what she had come for, but she had planned to do other sessions with me. In talking to her as she walked out the door, she said she felt good about the session in general and felt much better for being able to talk to someone in confidence.

I remember reading an article in one of the hypnosis journals about how hypnotists should never pay attention to the babble of a client before a session. If need be, he suggested, we just fake and interest and in our mind rehash a movie we had just seen. I have to think that this is both good and bad.  We should never trivialize a client’s story, yet not allow ourselves to get bogged down in it. Sometimes what they say may indeed be cathartic.

I have a confession to make. I am a Disney fan. When I write about standard network shows that include episodes involving hypnosis, chances are I have not actually seen the show. Ever. It is true I rarely watch TV these days, but you know what? When I do turn on the tele, I am very apt to watch the Disney Channel. It is much less stressful than the news or even the addictive prime time shows (I used to watch Grey’s Anatomy, but had to give it up because I would cry for hours after it finished). With Disney, its interesting to see what is influencing the generations of tomorrow. It is sort of like a head’s up

So, it has not escaped my notice that Radio Disney is doing free concerts at Morey’s Pier in New Jersey. I mentioned to a friend that if it were England’s Jersey Shores, I would be sorely tempted to go (nothing against New Jersey - there are plenty of Things to do in New Jersey). Then I laughed and she looked mystified. It turns out she has been to Morey’s Pier and had the willies over the giant ferris wheel that is beside the Radio Disney Stage. In jest, I mentioned that there were other Wildwood events she and her children could embark on while I went to the concert (if we actually went on July 26, we could go to the grand finally at the convention center featuring Raven-Symone - see no ferris wheel). Granted when we had this conversation, we were at dinner after a fairly grueling day. But once a hypnotist, always a hypnotist.

The conversation wrestled its way back to phobias. No light, silly Disney-washed conversation for me. In the end, I did the expected sales pitch for hypnosis. And like so many before her, she mentioned another phobia - the fear of what would come up during the session. I disarmed her with talk of confidentiality, of being nonjudgmental, and that any unpleasantness met in the session would be dealt with then and there, giving her the opportunity to work with it so that it would become something that would not cause issue again.

We have our appointment set. She wants to see how well it will do by road-tripping to New Jersey. Heck, she has even looked into Wildwood nj motels. Good grief. I’ll have to miss one of our Monday In Our World to go to a Disney Magic Monday ( July 7th, 14th and 21st). At least these are free, as opposed to the finale. But, I am not opposed to paying for the ticket, finding the adolescent within, and going. With the bought ticket, we would get great discounts on the Pier entrance or water park. Hmmm…

So, maybe then, this Disney fetish will get me a free trip (and a new client). So, why does that feel really odd?

Hypnosis has so many applications within modern medicine that it I often think most hospitals should have a hypnotist or two on staff.   The effectiveness of hypnosis for managing pain has been well documented, but there is a lot more than just that going on in an average hospital that could keep a staff hypnotist busy.

Case in point:  the well-known Magnetic Resonance Imaging, or MRI, test.  It’s a pretty intimidating procedure.  You lie down on a sliding table, get inserted into a narrow tunnel inside a huge round machine, which then begins to make loud chunking noises all around you — while you’ve been admonished to remain absolutely still.  Some patients are so unnerved by the noises, or by the close confines of the tube, that they panic and technicians have to pause or redo parts of the test.  In extreme cases the patient has to be sedated to keep them calm long enough to take the images.

A few weeks ago a dear friend of mine was scheduled to undergo an MRI exam of her pelvic region.  She was fairly experienced at being hypnotized and wondered whether I could give her some suggestions that would help her to remain still and calm during what she knew from prior experience would be a relatively unpleasant process.  Of course, I told her.

We arranged a Skype voice chat for the evening before the test.  I took my friend into hypnosis and we walked through the procedure in her mind:  arriving at the hospital, changing into the usual little gown, getting on the table, being slid into the machine, hearing the noise, etc.  Then I used the noise, which she could remember from prior MRI sessions, and made that noise a trigger for her body to become totally relaxed and still.

My friend got through the exam quickly and easily.  The loud clunking of the machine, which had been unnerving and startling to her before, became a welcome trigger into a state that made the imaging time pass very quickly for her (hooray, hypnotic time distortion!).  I won’t claim that hypnosis made the MRI experience pleasant, but she did feel pretty good during most of it.  And the test results were happy ones, so everything worked out well.

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Yesterday I mentioned doing a post on the “AH HA” moments and psychologists, so as promised here is the skinny

The first time I knowingly hit an “Ah Ha” moment with someone else, I actually had no idea. In fact I felt terrible about it. It was during a group session and I had not gotten very far in the process. We had done a basic progressive relaxation (relaxing body parts from the top of the head to the tips of the toes). Then I even did the standard (maybe not so creative, but often effective, stairway of relaxation as a deepener - on each step the object is to go into a deeper state of relaxation). At the bottom of the stairway, one would get to place of complete tranquility, a sanctuary. There was nothing in my words but peace, relaxation, and suggestions for obtaining more of each.

But, this was to be a moment of abreaction (so early). I noticed one of the participants sobbing away in the background. I did suggestions for the rest of the group to allow the sounds in the room to fade into the background. Then I had them concentrate on doing a countdown to 100 internally. Quietly, I moved over to the crying man and put a tissue in his hand. He opened his reddened eyes and whispered that he would like some water. So, I escorted him into another room, gave him a glass of water and asked him to wait before leaving. Then I continued the session for the others.

At the end, when everyone else had left, I sat down with the now composed gentleman. I asked what he experienced and he told me the stairs led him to a place of great sadness, where once he reached the bottom, he saw his deceased grandmother in a coffin. And then he repeated several times that it was just so sad. I asked him if he wanted to try doing a one on one hypnosis session and either work through that or take a different approach to the original reason he was there. At the time he said he would let me know.

Enter my relationship with his psychologist. She called me a few days later to give me a follow up. She wanted to let me know that the misery he had experienced in my office had led to a big break through for him. They had talked about it and it led to his dealing with grief he had never allowed himself to experience before. At the time of his grandmother’s death, his had been living with her as his parents had died when he was very young. This led him into a world of instability (governmental bodies got involved and it was all very unfortunate). In turn, he had felt great relief at being able to finally loosen his disappointment from losing his grandmother.

This was similar to the other case I had, where the client had a breakthrough with childhood issues during a weight loss session. I think it is the group sessions that make these abreactions more difficult and harder to see any “ah ha” moments. When doing individual sessions, they seem to happen pretty regularly.

But anyway, that is one of my very positive psychology stories.

I’d love to hear about your “Ah ha” moments?

And so synchronicity strikes again, much like a random lightening bolt illuminating during a hot spell. Yesterday’s client story about success with an up and coming psychologist came about at an interesting time. As I continue to shift through past files, I came across two stories from the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal. I suppose writer Michaela Gibson Morris has an interesting sense of irony. In this case, on May 9, she published two stories about hypnosis

One was a very personable article about two hypnotist, one a social worker who uses hypnosis for dealing with traumas (Melissa Ratliff) and one who does smoking cessation and phobia work (Steve Dunn). The article talks about their methods and philosophies.

But interestingly enough, on this same day, Morris wrote another article titled “Hypnosis not always best choice.” It is based on an interview with a clinical psychologist. This particular professional is a bit skeptical about using anything but “cognitive” approaches. The article does wisely point out some of the ideas that are important with work in hypnosis, such as it is not an instant, miracle cure for things like weight loss (you still have to do the work). On the whole, it is not a bad article and does state some good points, but it is just oddly titled perhaps. What a strange piece overall.

I should note that there are time stamps on the articles. The negative one actually appeared before the positive one. Perhaps the positive one happened because the paper wanted to show both sides? If so, bravo Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal.

Over dinner last night, my partner and I discussed these articles. His take on hypnosis and psychology is that it would not be productive often in a psychology setting because it would mean less time seeing the same patients. It would mean a decrease in appointments, hence a potential decrease in income. That may be a good point. I would love to know Melissa Ratliff’s, the social worker first mentioned in this post, take on it.

And these articles are synchronistic because of the unusual session I had with a psychologist and her ideas that hypnosis can cut to the case in certain therapy situations. It can often lead to the break-through “ah ha” moment. Now I know I cannot really say such things, not being a psychologist myself, but I have heard this from other psychologists who have recommend clients my way. Maybe that will be a story for tomorrow.

Time for another Ellie Client Story.

She walked in, not really seemingly nervous, just really tired. This is was to be expected, though. It was only a few days before she had to defend her psychology dissertation. Not really junking out on stress, she was most fearful of catching a cold. The long nights, coffee, and wine (whine) had made her feel as though illness was lurking right behind her, ready to mug her in the next dark alley of susceptibility. The problem it seemed is that her schedule was so out of whack, she could no longer sleep.

Her aunt had come to see me for help getting past insomnia and had become a devotee to hypnosis. Her niece was skeptical (what are they teaching in those high-fluent colleges out there?), but desperate times mean desperate measures (so she said as a greeting). I gave her a choice between traditional hypnosis or client-based methods. Her frown deepened. She struggled with the choice even after several minutes of dissecting them with her analytics.

“You are doing therapy,” she finally said, not hiding the indignation she was experiencing. Who was she? The hypnosis police?

“I most certainly am not. I am not licensed,” I said in my calmest voice. Smiling a her (doing my best not to be condescending - I hate condescension), I continued, “Any therapeutic benefits you get out of this will come from within you, your own doing. I just guided you around the landscape of your mind to help you make inner changes.”

Ah, enter the philosophical debate.

“Isn’t that what therapist do?”

“You tell me.”

And she sputtered around a bit. A childlike expression began to twitch on the surface of her cultured and intelligent face.

Before she completely crumpled, I explained, “Hypnosis is all about suggestion. In traditional hypnosis, we tend to make a cognitive choice before the session begins about what suggestion we will induce. In client-based systems, all the suggestions come from your subconscious mind, you create them and we put those to work for you.”

This lightened her mood substantially.

“Let’s do client-based, then.”

So, the session passed by and before either of us knew it, we had come to a close. She looked somehow lighter, as though our hour together in the session had taken much weight off of her mental backpack.

“Wow,” said she,”that was amazing. It is like cutting to the chase with therapy. It gets to the heart of the issue and opens it right up.”

I smiled indulgently, “Your words, not mine.”

“Tou ché,” she answered.

My budding psychologist just emailed me this morning. She has had four nights of restful sleep.

It has been a really long time since I have experienced an alcoholic hangover. But I learned this weekend that pulling an all-nighter at my age produces similar results. Though I have caught up on sleep, as I sit here typing this, several cups of Darjeeling later, it feels just like I have over indulged.First let me thank Josh for the wonderful posting yesterday, who managed to get out the posting even when he had his own things of which to deal. In honor of his question about rapid inductions, I thought I would actually center today’s post around it a little more and perhaps clear up the question of why anyone like me would pull an all-nighter. LOL.

Hiking - I have a certain affinity for it. I love it - the feel of the world around you, a sense of balance with nature, and the quietness of the soul. But, I am also often open to adventure. A friend suggested that we try night hiking in the mountains (an easy hike, no real climbing or need to belay). Our guide was experienced in night orienteering, so I am not sure I would recommend newbies to try this on their own.

Now you maybe saying to yourself, I am reading this post because I want to hear about hypnosis, not hiking. Good point. So here is the twist in the story. Around 3 am, one of my other friends who had come along developed blisters (for God’s sake, when you hike, take the time to invest in a decent pair of well-fitting hiking boots), really gruesome and seemingly painful blisters. I hung back with him on a down hill, and offered to try to help him with the pain until we could get back to civilization to properly care for his feet. Now this is no stranger to me, and someone who has helped me a few times when I have needed help.

It was as though he had not even heard my offer. He continued talking about what he would do once we were done with the hike. So, I left the subject for a little while.

Enter the real dilemma. At 5:30 am, we arrived at a junction. Most of us had chosen this hike for the idea of watching the sunrise off a particular ridge. We had time it to get there about twenty minutes before the anticipated event. At 5:30 am, we could continue to that point or take a short route back to our vehicles. Needless to say my blistered friend was all in favor of aborting our plans (I cannot blame him). But…the question was to go on anyway, leave him at the junction (he would have had trouble navigating the short cut), or throw away our hours of dark meandering and head home.

Another friend suggested that I do a quick induction and a little pain relief hypnosis at this point, as the caterwauling about the blisters was reaching a peak. I smiled and stepped forward. I had pretty much decided even with the hypnosis, though, walking a lot more might not be smart for him.

He was still a no go, totally ignoring the idea. Others in the group have used me for various things so they prodded him. And yes, he and I had discussed the reality of hypnosis many times. So, I finally stopped the whole thing by telling everyone to just leave him be. If he did not want to use hypnosis, that was fine (I resisted the passive aggressive urge to add in that if he wanted to be in excruciating pain, so be it). I was about to agree to hang back with him while the others went ahead, but then a kind soul, who was a paramedic, came forward and offered to stay with him. He had a few supplies he thought would help. And so, I continued to my sun rise, a little miffed at my friend’s resistance. I take it for granted now that hypnosis is a fabulous tool and forget that others may feel differently (insane, though they are…LOL).

As I watched the subtle tones of the sun beginning its ascent, another friend sat down beside me and said, “Remember last year when we were on holiday and I got that horrible rash? Well, when you did that funny little hypnotic thing (rapid induction and suggestions to decrease the itch until again, we were back in civilization), it was really great. Buddy is just trying to be macho and impress you with his forbearance of manliness.” We both laughed and I felt better.

Upon returning to the junction, we found the paramedic reading and Mr. Manly sound asleep under a tree. Apparently, the paramedic had used progressive relaxation to help my friend stop obsessing over the pain (the paramedic had taken an emergency hypnosis class, and had used the pain tranced-state to just relax my friend). The paramedic said it was one thing to miss the sunrise; it was another to listen to the constant complaints.

Sometimes no matter how much you plan in advance, it’s necessary to improvise.

Case in point: I’m getting a late start in my guest blogging stint because of the need to keep up with my day job (yes, I’m one of those part-time hypnotists) and a flurry of extra housecleaning in preparation for a visit from some friends. So while I’ve been thinking about blog topics for a week now, assembling a coherent post has proven more difficult than expected.

A friend of mine, Dick Dyzel, had a similar problem during his show last weekend at The Comedy Spot in Arlington, VA. Dick has been an entertainer and TV personality for … well, longer than it’s polite to say, and in the past year or so has branched out into stage hypnosis.

This past Saturday there was supposed to be a large bachelorette party attending his show, which should have made for a lively crowd and a very entertaining show. As show time approached, though, he had maybe 10 people in the audience and 8 chairs for volunteers on stage. A few more people wandered in as he was getting started, but the bachelorettes never did show.

So Dick adjusted. After his opening he asked for volunteers and got about five people, most of whom came from a group seated in the second row. He began doing a progressive relaxation induction, and people on stage began to relax and settle down. He moved into a modified Dave Elman mode, having the volunteers open their eyes and then close them again in the classic fractionation exercise. As the volunteers opened their eyes, though, their friends in the second row started waving and giggling and catching their attention. Four of the five came completely out of trance and left the stage, leaving Dick with a single teenage boy to work with.

So Dick adjusted. He pointed out, in a very professional and upbeat way, that the show would be a lot better with at least a couple of volunteers. A couple of people responded, and he ran through the induction again. This time all three of his volunteers worked out and he was able to complete the show.

This sort of thing is not limited to stage hypnotists, though. One day I was well into a smoking cessation session. I’d regressed the client to that first cigarette expecting him to remember coughing and choking and hating the taste, only to find that he was that one person in a thousand who actually enjoyed his first cigarette. Oops! So much for that negative anchor I was going to use; time to adjust.

Then there was the time I agreed to do a telephone session. I’d worked with this person before and she just needed some reinforcement and was out of town. So I made sure she had a headset for the phone and began my induction. A minute or two into it, as she was dropping nicely into trance, I heard a thud! and became aware that I could no longer hear my client breathing — she’d dropped the phone and in the process pulled out her headset cord! I had to wait for her to realize I was no longer there, come out of trance, and find the dropped phone before we could try again. This time she put the phone on an end table and we had our session successfully.

We’ve all had things like this happen to us, yes? I’ll admit that I even enjoy them sometimes, after the challenge has been meet and the desired result achieved. That need to deal with the unexpected is what makes working with the mind so much fun, after all.

And sometimes we get lucky. Dick, for instance, had a friend in the audience who was a hypnotist, someone he knew would go into trance easily and be very responsive, and who was willing to change his own plan by volunteering when the first wave abandoned the stage. Considering the other volunteer was my 14-year-old son, it seemed like the least I could do.

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One of the hardest things to do when maintaining a transparent blog is to admit mistakes. Sometimes it would be much easier to not mention them and let them go unannounced (with the false ego-based assumption that I remotely appear infallible -lol). However, mistakes are a necessary part of life and are not really that negative in some realms. Rather they are opportunities for learning. Learn I did and maybe my experience will stop this from happening to someone else, maybe even you.

I totally missed the boat with a potential smoking cessation client this week. Often I get calls from people who seek my services for smoking cessation. Many do not make appointments directly, instead they tell me they are going on holiday the following week, giving a dissertation, or going to court and they chose to make the appointment following whatever event. So this time, I was asked if it would be better if they waited until after after the stressful event next week. Rather than creating a positive suggestion and saying “no, you will be tobacco free by next week,” I said “Let’s do it the week after.” (And I am booked this week, which I neglected to say as well). So, they promptly told me they would call me back later the schedule the appointment - which they have not.

I am not beating myself up over this, but in hind sight, I think they were looking for reassurance and I did not give them anything to boost their confidence and I may have made them lose some belief about hypnosis that may have been important to their success. Lesson learned.

One of yesterday’s sessions ended in a very odd way. There was nothing very unusual in the request - smoking cessation. My client was a young man who had quit before using hypnosis. It had last a few months until a crisis happened and he started up again. Also he had quit during his wife’s pregnancy with no effort, then when the child was born, he started again. But, before he turns 40, he had wanted to be rid of the habit. No problem.

We went through the pre-talk. I asked him what he remembered about his first hypnosis session. He did not remember too much. Again, no problem. I always ask about people’s other hypnosis experiences to get a feeling where they are in comprehension of hypnosis and what differences to expect from me.

He did great when I put him through a few paces to see how he processed information and to get an idea about how our rapport was working out. And so I believed it would be a good session (I am still pretty sure it was - it was just odd) and worked with a permissive, traditional approach. Induction, deepener, depth test and convincers before beginning the suggestion work. Excellent, textbook responses.

At the end, once he had opened his eyes, he looked at me and said that he had heard every word going on in the office below me, as well as the outside street noises. I explained that some people experience a hyper-awareness of the senses. Then he said I needed to get what his other hypnotist used - a sound system where the client wears soundproof earphones and I do the session speaking through a microphone that is connected to the earphones (yikes, more wires everywhere). This means there is no opportunity for outside noises to be a distraction. I see the point. But I come from the school of philosophy that says hypnosis does not require sense deprivation or total silence other than the sound of my voice. I work the background noises into my patter and allow the client plenty of time to acclimate to the various noises around us.

Then my client remembered his whole first session. It sounded like a lovely guided visualization. But I found myself on edge a bit, as though I was about to be criticized. I know there was a comparison process going on within him, but it felt like he was going to be not so favorable to my version (now mind you, I suspect this was an internal thing within me and not him). Before he could start to unravel the work we had just done, I remembered I had given him a post hypnotic suggestion to lose a certain number when counting. I suddenly asked him to count and the number was gone. I snapped my fingers twice (which was also suggested during the session) and the numbers came back. He looked very startled. He said he had thought it impossible, he knew the numbers, but then just could not say the one I suggested he lose.

He left with the standard - hope I never see you again line. (Me too.) Then as he was walking out the door said he would be calling me in a few months to work on weight loss.