Traditional vs Modern Hypnosis

There are two very distinct forms of hypnotherapy taught in this country - the traditional, often script-based approach, and the modern Ericksonian approach. They are sometimes better known as the direct or authoritative hypnosis, and indirect or permissive hypnosis.

When you watch stage hypnosis with a hypnotist directing their subject with statements like “you will feel completely relaxed and go deeper and deeper,” then you are looking at traditional hypnosis.

Traditional hypnosis tends to be very directive, and despite being largely unchanged since the 1930s, it is still the dominant approach taught in Australia. Itʼs about telling the client what to do in hypnosis, and works on the premise that you can simply instruct the unconscious mind and it will follow willingly. And in some cases, this will work because the client thinks it will work. This form of hypnosis has been referred to as a “non deceptive placebo” because the client feels better about the situation without any new skills or significant or lasting intervention taking place.

The plethora of hypnosis tapes and hypnosis scripts available on the web are also predominantly traditional hypnosis. This form of hypnosis lends itself to standardised scripting because it is not so concerned with addressing the individual needs of the client, but rather, a generalised symptom removal.

Some studies claim that this form of hypnosis rarely achieves more than a 30% success rate, and has a higher relapse rate because although the client may feel better, they may not always do better the next time something similar happens.

Modern or Ericksonian Hypnosis is a completely different approach. Each intervention is tailored to the individualʼs needs and as a result, this approach tends to achieve much higher success rates. A raft of research points to client factors as being pivotal in any therapeutic outcome (see the work of Scott Miller). This approach is built around understanding what the client needs, and what is unique about their situation. In modern hypnosis, you will assist clients to change the way they perceive a situation and even build better cognitive skills around challenging circumstances.

Moreover, the modern approach has another advantage. Modern hypnosis is non directive. Where traditional hypnosis tells clients what to do, modern hypnosis offers possibilities for the client to consider. Traditional hypnosis was a product of a social environment that accepted authority easily. Those days are gone. Even when what you are telling a client what is the right thing for them to do, direct instruction tends to create resistance that gets in the way of client outcomes.

This is why the Australian Institute of Clinical Hypnotherapy focuses its attention on modern Ericksonian and solution-oriented forms of hypnosis. It just gets better results!

Learn more here:

• Make an enquiry
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• 2 day Hypnotherapy Certificate
• 10450NAT Diploma of Clinical Hypnosis and Strategic Psychotherapy

Managing Anxiety - Getting Your Head Around It!

Managing Anxiety – Getting Your Head Around it!

Using internal powers of thought and reasoning to fight anxiety gives the anxious person the strength to be in charge of their own recovery.  Gordon Young outlines how it’s possible to control anxiety from within if you’re willing and able to use the mental tools you already possess. 

Regaining Control over Catastrophes

A common issue for those who suffer anxiety is differentiating between what they can and can’t control. 

The truth is, we can control very little outside ourselves. At best, we can influence others, or the course of events we are directly involved in (in a small way).  The world is far too big and unpredictable for a single human to have power over it. 

Many parents understand this when they realise they don’t even have control of the small human they created, and yet some tie themselves in knots trying to control every experience and situation their child is placed into.  Sadly, this behaviour often has the effect of making the child anxious too.

Learning that you don’t have control of external events is a tough lesson. But there is good news.  And it’s this:

Anything inside us IS within our control.

We may not control our every random thought, but we do control what we focus on, listen to and engage with internally.  This is an immense power we should embrace.

·       We choose which thoughts, feelings and voices we give attention to.

·       We choose our actions and our inactions.

·       We choose what we focus on and what we ignore in the world around us. And nobody and nothing controls us without our compliance.

·       We choose the risk assessment and decide whether we're comfortable with the uncertainty in the situation.

·       We choose whether or not we listen to our fears.

A Convenient Truth
Anxiety is generated from within.  It is not an external force. It is important to help sufferers recognise they are creating their own anxiety.

Recognition and acknowledgement that we can choose what we worry about and decide what concerns we are going to take seriously can change the way we think.

Teaching an anxious person they are in fact, able to control their internal reactions to the events life throws at them can be a reliable antidote to anxiety.

Uncertainty isn’t always bad

The anxious person sees a lack of clarity for the future as a bad thing.  They wish to know everything that will follow so they are never caught off guard. 

But in reality, a life of complete certainty would be boring.  It is the uncertain spaces where novelty and surprise exist. A certain life would be devoid of newness and variety.  It is also the uncertain spaces that harbour all of our potentials.

It may be hard to convince an anxious person that there is good in uncertainty.  But it’s an important step to take. 

People who are not anxious accept it is virtually impossible to create a life where there is no uncertainty.  In contrast, an anxious person has a tendency to catastrophise the future.  That is, everything that can go wrong will go wrong.

In reality, the future the anxious person is so very worried about will be both good and bad but it will mostly be neutral.  Just life, normal and boring. To predict and fear only negative experiences is a distortion.

A negative future is usually no more likely than a positive future, and ultimately, neither has happened yet. It is unwritten.

A way to manage this fear is to plan for the worst.  Ask yourself, if the situation I’m worried about does go badly, what will I do?  Formulating a plan to deal with the worst-case scenario takes away the fear and the feeling of helplessness. 

Making a plan answers the ‘what if’ question anxious people constantly ask themselves diminishes the unknowns and they lose there poignancy if there is a plan to combat it. 

Useful thinking versus over analysis

Being able to clearly think though a problem is a very valuable skill.  In contrast, stewing for hours on a problem and overanalysing every potential outcome is not a good habit to form. 

It’s hard to tell how much analysis of a problem is good, and when does it become over analysis? Dr Michael Yapko suggests that useful analysis leads you to a decision or an action. Over-analysis or excessive rumination tends to loop you back in to the problem.

Overthinking a problem is also a concern because it can blur the assessment of risk and blow it out of proportion to the problem. 

Of course, telling an anxiety sufferer they think too much is not helpful.  Instead, be constructive by assisting them to come to a conclusion or an action and (this is the hard part) to move on once this is done.  Returning to the problem will result in more over analysis. 

One thing you can do is cover off all the factors that you can have some reasonable certainty about.  There are usually very predictable outcomes for particular actions, and only a limited range of likely responses in a given situation.

By considering these options, we may not cover of all the uncertainties but we can minimise much of the ambiguity around a future event.  Knowing these likely outcomes can help the anxious person feel more comfortable about the future and break the cycle of overthinking.

Learn to compartmentalise

This is simply when you recognise there is a time and place for everything.

It is the ability to let go, to park events and thoughts that are not going to serve you in the situation that you’re currently in (eg. a meeting, trying to sleep) and be able to pick them up again if necessary.

Before a line of thinking takes you too far from where it started, stop and decide whether it’s appropriate or timely, considering your location and companions.  If not, stop.  Put it aside for later.  And when you come back to it, you may find it’s not such a problem after all. 

The way forward? Recognition, acknowledgement and gentle guidance.

Recognising the entrenched habits and thought processes of someone with anxiety is a much more productive way of helping them deal with their struggle.  An anxious person thinks very differently to a non-anxious one.  Their priorities and concerns stem from different places. 

Acknowledgment of this will allow the family and friends of the anxious person to validate their loved ones concerns and then, to begin to help by re directing or rechanneling the anxious thoughts in a more constructive direction. 

[Insight SBS] Hypnotherapy: Fact or Fiction

I was recently invited as the hypnotherapy “ expert” on SBS’s Insight Programme. It was a programme about phobias, and different approaches were canvassed. The dominant push was clearly for Exposure therapy - a CBT based approach.

However, during the taping of the show the three psychologists featured claimed there was no evidence to support the efficacy of hypnosis as a treatment option. I was flabbergasted. “None” I wondered. That would mean that one would have to be very certain that one was across all of the literature. And clearly, as I will demonstrate below, they were all absolutely wrong.

What this reminded me of is that although modern hypnosis is now well established overseas, we are still lingering behind here in Australia. The AICH is the only school to my knoweldge that teaches a true moidern technique, and we simply need to get the message out there that modern solution oriented hypnosis desires recognition because the evidence is in

So I thought I would post a quick summary of the credibility and research from overseas:

1) Some of the most prestigious universities in the world have hypnosis research labs. The most famous are Harvard and Stamford, which as been in operation for over 60 years. You could start with researching the work of Dr Dan Siegel and Dr William Kroger.

2) The American Psychological Association Division 30
Its mission: “is to educate the profession and the public, to develop new and innovative clinical interventions and research methods, and to evaluate current treatment approaches. These activities advance our knowledge about basic psychological processes and foster practices designed to improve human well being. Division 30 encourages research into the area of hypnosis and develops regional and national continuing education workshops on clinical applications of hypnosis.

The Division publishes Psychological Hypnosis: A Bulletin of Division 30 three times a year. The Division sponsors awards for outstanding contributions to scientific and clinical hypnosis"

The APA is the leading, most respected association of its kind in the world. Not known for entertaining fringy fluffy stuff.

3) The leading Journal in the field is the International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis. It is actually considered among the leading peer reviewed journals not just re hypnosis, but in the therapeutic space. The 2007 journals summarised the research to date.

4) Dr Michael Yapko, is a hypnotherapist, my supervisor, and arguably the most decorated therapist in the world. Dr. Yapko is a member of the American Psychological Association, a clinical member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, a past Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine’s Division of Hypnosis and Psychosomatic Medicine (in England), a member of the International Society of Hypnosis, and a Fellow of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis. He is a recipient of The Milton H. Erickson Lifetime Achievement Award  (2007), twice a recipient of the Arthur Shapiro Award for the “best book of the year on hypnosis” from the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis for Treating Depression with Hypnosis (2001) and Hypnosis and Treating Depression (2006), and the 2003Pierre Janet Award for Clinical Excellence from the International Society of Hypnosis, a lifetime achievement award honoring his many contributions to the field.

Dr. Yapko wrote the authoritative sections on "Treating Depression" and "Brief Therapy" for the Encyclopedia Britannica Medical and Health Annuals, an honour not usually bestowed on a therapist who indulges in non evidence based approaches.

5) What about the research?

What do you want to know? Go to google scholar and search for your particular angle. Hypnosis and pain, anxiety, depression, phobias etc etc.

I hope this clarifies a few things.

If you are interested in the SBS Porgramme or posting a comment on their discussion board, go to:

http://www.sbs.com.au/insight/episode/overview/586/Phobias