The Transparent Hypnotist

As he spoke about the break-up, he looked off into the distance, eyes looking a bit upward to the right. Before his eyes began to leak with painful tears, I handed him a tissue and let him talk.

“Why did she leave me?” he asks, “Why?”

I pause and let the silence speak for me. He blows his nose.

“Why do you think she left?”

What followed were actually a few words I would rather not repeat on this blog. They were mean, showing the rough edges of his anguish. That alone spoke volumes. The amount of blame that issued out of his statements was hard to hear, even for me.

Once that tirade had petered out a bit, I asked, “What was your role in the loss of that relationship?”

His eyes again looked faraway, this time focusing toward a point to his upward left, “My role was that of being betrayed. She was sleeping around with other people.”

Before he could launch into another diatribe, my inner adviser suggested I ask, “Did you ever sleep with anyone else during your relationship?”

He shifted in the chair, again looked up and left, finally denying it. I even detected a slight nodding of the head during his denial.

He never saw it, but I actually smiled inwardly at this, realizing that indeed there might be something to NLP eye cues. These are based on the difference between memory and what is created (the right is remembered, the left is created). Notice the chart above. The eyes look one direction when remembering and another direction when creating content. But the truth for me was not in whether he was lying about his faults in the break-up (we would explore some of that during his hypnosis experience), but in how he processed information.

This is what Mark Pummell was talking about in his answer to his favorite techniques:

…always try and ally to patient’s dominant sense modality…

Why is it important to know about a client’s way of processing information? Well, if a person is not visual and you use guided imagery, well, the client is left behind and usually frustrated. You need to know if a person is more visual, auditory, kinesthetic so that you can help them process the information you give them during the session. If you want to take a client to a pleasant day at the beach, if they are visual, they will get more out of visual descriptions: you see the waves lapping against the shore. If they are auditory: you hear the sound of the surf as it comes and goes with the tides. Or if they are more kinesthetic: you feel the warm of the sand under your feet and the coolness of the water as it playfully laps against your toes. Also, kinesthetic is interesting because it can also encompass thinking. This would be: you think about what it is like being on a beach. Think about the experience of sand, surf, and sunshine.

In early NLP (neuro linguistic programming) circles, the above eye cue chart was thought to help practitioners understand how their clients accessed information - visually, audibly, kinesthetically. However, several studies have been done that seem to show this methodology is not completely accurate. But it is fun to play with (codicil here - this method is for entertainment purposes only).

Now the question becomes how do you tell how a person processes information. Stay tuned. We will continue this discussion in a day or two (after tomorrow’s 10 Questions).

Sources:

Eye Cue Chart
Kevin Hogan’s NLP Research Project

(Queen Fabiola shaking the hand of dr. fil. Paul Kempeneers )

In looking back at the past week of notices that arrived in my email, I must admit to a certain relief that there was nothing ugly to report. Yes, of course there are those out there who relish the ugly, but I am not of that ilk (or do my best not to be). Maybe that makes me bland. Maybe it makes me less sad. But, it was good not to be tempted to put my notions into practice, notions that we should not condemn others until they are rightfully proven guilty. I would like to say after they are proven guilty we should act compassionately towards them, hoping they will find enlightenment and use their issues to become better people. I know, I sound naive and it is much harder than it sounds and sometimes the healing process takes awhile before we can do that later (if ever). We grow, they grow…maybe.

Go ahead, roll your eyes. Take another swig of luke warm coffee and continue slogging along with the hypno world.

The Good

You know hypnosis is not just for the everyman, it is for royalty, too. The matriarch of Belgium, Queen Fabiola, recently under went surgery for a thyroid problem and used hypnosis as anesthesia. She had this done at the University Hospital of Liege, which called the hypno procedure hypnosedation. Accordingly, they have used this method 4,000 times (www.monstersandcritics.com).

Good Articles About Other Hypnotists

Musically minded Mark Pummell is both fascinating as a hypnotist but also for his prowess’s in sound engineering or recording. He was interviewed in the Shanghai Daily.

I Can Make You Thin star Paul McKenna, a hypnotist who can make you feel jealousy one moment (if you are a hypnotist) and have you thinking “brilliant” the next, had a lively piece done about him by Sarah Hampson of www.theglobeandmail.com. I am beginning to think his book is a must read.

Judy Dean of La Porte, Indiana has a wonderful business called the Spirit Within (thenewsdispatch.com).

The Bad (as in kinda good, kinda bad)

Trying to sell something? Trying to get that person in front of you to make a purchase? Would it not be nice if you could instantly hypnotize them to buy your product? Ah, the myths (how we so love them) - making someone else bend to your will. Yuck. However, there are a few NLP type things you can try that might help the sale go more towards your liking. A recent article in the www.examiner.com provides some suggestions for using NLP and hypnotic suggestion to your benefit. These concepts are from the book Power Persuasion: Using Hypnotic Influence to Win in Life, Love and Business by David R. Barron and Danek S. Kaus. Before you get all hot and bothered by this, let me remind those who are not so experienced with hypnosis, you only do what you are inclined to do. If indeed you are at a car lot (as the example given in the article), you are probably inclined to buy a new car or at least desire one. So, you are not being terribly manipulated into buying one. You are just being encouraged to do so.