Clinical Hypnotherapy

What is Hypnosis?

There are many ways people have defined hypnosis.  The way most people describe the experience of hypnosis is as a pleasant state of deep relaxation, where external stimuli are greatly diminished so you can focus more deeply on your own helpful internal resources.  In this relaxed and focused state, you can more easily contact those aspects of yourself which may need to be healed, or find your own answers, or even rediscover and reclaim important parts of yourself which you may have lost.

Hypnosis can be a little like daydreaming, or like a guided fantasy, with you doing most of the guiding.  The hypnotic state is one you induce because you want to; because there is something you want for yourself and you have decided to be open to using this tool.  Like many skills, going into trance becomes easier, more profound, and more enjoyable with practice.

You can remember anything you experience in this state that you decide to remember, and your experience can be as private as you wish.  It is entirely possible to withhold information, or even to lie under hypnosis.  You can decide to terminate this experience at any time simply by indicating that you wish to do so.  You are in control of how you wish to utilize this experience.”

My work with hypnosis is rooted in three applicable methodologies: Transpersonal, Ericksonian, and Medical. 

Transpersonal Methodology 

Utilizing the Transpersonal methodology, Hypnosis is applied to the imagination to achieve changes in perception, sensation or behavior.

Some techniques utilized in Transpersonal methodology include: 

Ritual is a ceremony or series of symbolic acts focused toward the fulfillment of a certain intention.  Rituals are often used to help us with some sort of transition or change.  When using ritual in hypnosis, the client can create anything s/he desires.  Often clients seek higher energies, which may include a Higher Power, an Elder, Mythical Figure, Power Animals or something or someone indigenous to one’s culture.

Journeywork – is a process whereby the person becomes aware of a greater self depth.  Along the journey, resources and guides emerge to help an individual move along his/her path of healing or change.  This process is often used to connect the Child with the Self and utilizes mythic and archetypal mothering and fathering and a “family nest” in which the Soul is born.

Soul Retrieval – is a process whereby the person goes back in personal history to heal old wounds and pain, recovers lost power, and accepts responsibility for nurturing the part of the Self that is recovered.   In Soul Retrieval, the person recognizes, recovers, loves and integrates essential aspects of the Self.

Circle Integration – is healing and integrating the “fractured” parts of the personality.  Included in the concept of Circle Integration is work with the Shadow Personality.  The Shadow Personality is that part of ourselves which we hide, and is often rejected, projected and punished, but which also contains powerful energies for transformation when acknowledged and integrated.

Ericksonian Methodology

Milton Erickson’s ideas about what to do to change people set him apart from all other therapists.  He focused on the presenting problem, did not ask about past traumas, and did not encourage the expression of feelings.  His intent was to change the past. For example, when treating phobias, Erickson’s view was that the phobic situation must be entered with the client distracted and experiencing a new set of emotions and expectations. He focused on a change in action, the client’s symptoms, especially the details of the symptoms, and observed his client very carefully.

Erickson emphasized the discovery of the positive. He emphasized the resourcefulness of the client and the inherent capacity of the client to change.  Erickson demonstrated that change could occur without people having any understanding of why they had the problem or how they got over it.  Erickson used stories to communicate with metaphor. He always had a strategy for working with a problem on an unconscious level. He planted seeds in the client’s unconscious mind while he kept the conscious mind busy.  Erickson pioneered the use of Indirect Suggestion.

Medical Methodology

The medical methodology makes uses of various hypnotic protocols to address a variety of medical ailments and issues.  Medical applications for hypnosis include: Pain management, and headache reduction, hypnotic “first aid”, smoking cessation and treatment, phobia reduction, weight management, anxiety management, improved immune system response and function.