To The End of Another Year!

As you reach the end of 2009 what have you learned?  Have you found the opportunity in every challenge? Have you loved often and laughed always? Are you excited about what the New Year has to offer?

Some say when the New Year comes around I am going to loose weight, stop smoking, go back to school, spend more time with family the list is endless.  I say start NOW don’t put off to tomorrow what you can do TODAY.

Changing your limiting beliefs is one of the most powerful things you can do.  Your limiting beliefs will sabotage almost any endeavor you attempt.  Your thoughts become things so you need to choose the good ones, consider the patients who heal from cancer they believed they would heal. You have to be aware of your thoughts at all times because they determine how you day is going, you may be watching sports on television upset that your team is losing you have all that negative energy  “because a team is losing?” You need to change those thoughts to positive thoughts.  

Start now knowing that you respond internally to what you see, hear, and feel, it makes sense to have your internal images match what you want to have.  If you want to be a slim, healthy person you have to have an internal image that represent that outcome. Hypnosis and NLP help you to change your limiting beliefs so you can reach your maximum potential.

To a great tomorrow!

You already train your body.
It's time to start training your mind…

Hypnosis and NLP are excellent tools to help an athlete achieve their maximum potential during performance.  Being in a relaxed state during play can mean the difference between success and failure.  Through the application of Hypnosis* or NLP* one can create an environment in the subconscious mind where stress, anxiety and fear cannot coexist concurrently with calm, positive, relaxed energy that each individual needs to reach their maximum potential.

Whether it is from teammates, coaches, opponents or the athlete themselves, hypnosis “weeds out” any negative or counterproductive thoughts that get in the way of achieving their performance goals.  Hypnosis is a valuable tool that will teach the athlete techniques to perform confidently therefore better utilizing their skills gained through training. Thus giving athletes a new level of self-assurance in their performances, and ultimately allowing them to ask “what’s next”!

~~~~~~~

“I believe that the difference between good athletes and great ones is that little edge mentally. When an athlete is confident in his abilities, he can do just about anything.”-Howie Schwab ESPN

Stress Free Holdiay

Stress Free Holiday ~ Begins Within

With Thanksgiving just two days away many individuals are rushing to get everything done ~ baking, shopping, decorating and thinking so much to do and so little time.  To enjoy a stress free holiday look within you and ask some very important questions.

1.    Have you made a plan?  If not make a plan that works for you, set time aside each day to review your plan and make changes as needed.

2.    Find ways to give without spending a lot of money.  Make coupons that family and friends can redeem later in the year, which may include a movie, shopping, and hiking, whatever your imagination comes up with.

3.    Laugh often ~ listen to inspiring music and enjoy the beauty of the season.

4.    Volunteer it is a great way to meet new people.

5.    Most important of all it is okay to say NO.

The Holiday seasons brings back memories of years past, some wonderful some not so wonderful, find the opportunity in the obstacles, create new memories to share with family and friends.

“Love what you do and do what you love”

WILL YOU ENJOY YOUR HOLIDAY?

A time of year for many that is filled with stress, sadness, financial insecurity and very little happiness.  While for others it a time of joy, happiness, and dreams that come true.  Why is that some people have everything and others struggle to get through the day?

THOUGHTS ~ many people muddle through their days hoping that with luck or some other mysterious unknown force their lives will change.  You don’t realize that is already within you and waiting to give you anything you want.  A far-fetched idea? NO! A scientifically proven fact.

·      **The Law of Attraction:  Your thoughts (both conscious and unconscious) dominate your reality. Choose the good ones!

·      ·**The law of Repetitive Effect: The more often a person is exposed to a specific input, the more likely it is to be accepted and acted upon by the subconscious.

·      **The law of Dominant Effect: The strongest emotional urge tends to override intellectual reasoning.

Once an idea has been accepted by the subconscious, it remains until it can be replaced by another idea.  The longer this idea remains the more opposition there is to replace it because our subconscious mind needs to be right.

While many people believe this concept, there are also many who would reject this concept.  My belief is that individuals that have everything usually have a very positive thoughts while those that have little have a very negative thoughts. 

You decide ~ are you ready for change?

What is Noesitherapy?

Taking passionate interest in pain management I enhanced my studies by training under the world-renowned vascular surgeon Dr. Angel Escudero, in Valencia, Spain. Dr. Escudero is the creator of Noesitherapy, a technique which produces psychoanalgesia and psychoanesthesia in patients prior to surgery, hence, eliminating the need for chemical anesthesia. This method of pain erasure also has been successfully transferred to the area of maternity and childbirth, allowing pregnant women to give birth without feeling labor pain in a most natural state and in the absence of analgesics.

becoming the person you want to be – 6 part series

Intuition Part 6

Instinctive knowing (without the use of rational processes)

an impression that something might be the case; "he had an intuition that something had gone wrong" 
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Our "sixth sense" is how many individuals would refer to this.  We have all at that moment when we meet someone and we instinctively know whether that person has positive or negative intentions and we react immediately.  It is about listing to that small voice within us that responds to the situation around us and guides us to act accordingly.    It is hard to imagine what our lives would be like without this.  It is another way that our “subconscious mind” is always working to protect us.

In developing your intuition you can see through all the chaos around you and learn to detach form any negative energy around you. 

Hypnosis and NLP help you to develop methods that develop higher levels of awareness and intuition.

Becoming the person you want to be!

A break in the series as I share the following story ENJOY!

October 20, 2009 A Conversion Leads to a New You by Rick Warren "Your name will no longer be Jacob . . . From now on you will be called Israel" (Genesis 32:28 NLT).

You don't have to stay the same! In a conversion, we're given a new identity. Once Jacob confesses his need to be in control, God's loving and gracious response is to give him a new identity. Now the transformation begins! Notice three things happen: - God gives Jacob a brand new identity. God says, " Jacob--manipulator. That's the old you. We're not going to call you that anymore. We're going to change your name to Israel, which means Prince with God." Essentially, God says, "I know you've blown it; I know you're conniving, but I see in you a prince. Beneath all your emotional hang-ups, all your insecurities, all the stuff you don't want anybody else to know, I see a prince." God is saying that today to many of us, "Beneath all of your hang-ups, I see a princess/prince. Beneath all the sins, all the things you've done wrong in life, I really see the potential in you. You can be something great. You can be what I made you to be. Not what you are now, but what I made you to be." - God blesses Jacob/Israel. "Then he blessed Jacob there"  (Genesis 32:29 NLT). If we want God's blessing, we've got to take the steps God requires of us. - God gave Jacob/Israel a limp. Remember when they wrestled, God dislocated Jacob's. The Bible says for the rest of his life, Jacob walked with a limp (Genesis 32:31 NLT).  It served as a daily reminder to depend upon God. From that point on, Jacob was going to have to stand in God's power, not his own. Jacob leaves the encounter both stronger and weaker--stronger in that he's not the same person any more,  but weaker because now he must depend on God for his daily walk. God does His deepest work in your life when He deals with your identity: who you are, the way you see yourself, your self-perception. You will always tend to act according to the way you think about yourself. So God does His deepest changes in your life by changing the way you see yourself. He says, "Let me show you how I see you."  When you see yourself the way God sees you,  it's going to change your life. And you can start acting in a whole new way. You don't have to stay the same: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"  (2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV).

Becoming the person you want to be – 6 part series

Perception  Part 5

Whatever the definition has been, (see below) the process of getting the mind into a relaxed state and working with the power of our sub-conscious mind, allows for an individual to change their perception and begin living the life they want!

As a Hypnotherapist fear is the enemy for many individuals because of the perception in the field of Hypnosis.  Once this fear is removed, the rest is easy.  The more the pubic knows about how hypnosis access the power of their own subconscious mind, you are able to learn how to awaken new possibilities, create new realities and new beliefs and wonderful things begin to happen!

Perception as defined by Wikipedia:

In philosophy, psychology, and the cognitive sciences, perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of sensory information. It is a task far more complex than was imagined in the 1950s and 1960s, when it was predicted that building-perceiving machines would take about a decade, a goal which is still very far from fruition. The word comes from the Latin words perceptio, percipio, and means "receiving, collecting, action of taking possession, apprehension with the mind or senses."[1]

Perception is one of the oldest fields in psychology. The oldest quantitative law in psychology is the Weber-Fechner law, which quantifies the relationship between the intensity of physical stimuli and their perceptual effects. The study of perception gave rise to the Gestalt school of psychology, with its emphasis on holistic approach.

What one perceives is a result of interplays between past experiences, including one’s culture, and the interpretation of the perceived. If the percept does not have support in any of these perceptual bases it is unlikely to rise above perceptual threshold.

Becoming the person you want to be - 6 part series

Imagination! Part 4

What you visualize or imagine is what you accept into your mind as reality. Therefore, you create your reality by what you choose to see or imagine. The more relaxed you are the more you can visualize allowing your subconscious mind to change behaviors and habits that prevent you from becoming the person you want to be.



When individuals are deeply relaxed it allows the mind to follow images that are positive in nature and become a reality for the individual who is seeking to change their limiting beliefs. If however, you allow the negative thoughts or images in they will become your reality.



Your energy becomes thought and thoughts become energy. So choose your thoughts wisely

Becoming the person you want to be – 6 part series

Will Part 3:

This is your ability to hold an image, thought or idea in your conscious mind until it has time to connect itself into your subconscious mind where it begins to manifest itself into your life.  Because your subconscious mind is your perception of reality and is formed usually between the ages of five and nine it is the center of your habits and emotions, it is your permanent memory and it is very protective.  This permanent memory can be a major factor in your success or failure in achieving your goal, especiaally if strong emotions are involved.  As a child when something happed to emotionally upset you such as your mom or dad, or older siblings telling you that you can’t do that you’re not big enough! This statement plants a seed in you subconscious mind that you are too small to accomplish anything.  When anything happens in your life that makes you feel stress, emotional or just not capable because of your size your subconscious mind remembers how you felt at the moment and thinks this may be harmful to you and thinks it is helping you and doesn’t know that it is really working against you.  It becomes a conflict for the conscious and subconscious mind that makes becoming the person you want to be very difficult because they are meeting different needs. 

Hypnosis and NLP work directly on the subconscious mind to help you make the changes you need to make to be the person you want to be.

Becoming the person you want to be – 6 part series

Memory Part 2:

Why is that we tend to remember only our failures and dwell on them for a very long time?  At one point everything was new to us when we started to walk we would stumble get back up and try again.  When we first learned to ride a bike without our training wheels we may have faltered a bit but we kept on going. The expectations at that time was a given we would most likely “fail” but we received the encouragement to keep on going.  Then as we got older expectations may have changed and we may not have had the same encouragement as a small child and instead of “keep on going” we gave up and started to doubt who we were.   We need to remember to use our memory to recall previous events and experiences when we were successful, regardless of how small the success was it was still a success and by focusing on your successes, you build your self-confidence and become the person you want to be.

NLP and Hypnosis can help you change you limiting beliefs.

Becoming the person you want to be – 6 part series

Our six intellectual skills are:

Reasoning, Memory, Will, Imagination, Perception and Intuition.


Reasoning Part 1:

Reasoning is our ability to make sense of “our” world around us.  Much of our beliefs and reasoning begins at a very early age usually between 5-7 years of age created by ISE (Initial Sensitizing Event/s) a good example of this is when a child in called to go up to the chalk board to answer a question, the child may spell CAT as KAT and everyone laughs, at the moment the child at the board makes a decision based on their belief/reasoning that they are stupid, class clown, it could be anything.  This reasoning will continue to become a part of our environment due to part by repetition of the thought, peers that continue to laugh, authority figures who tell the child you know better than that, etc. this is sending a message to our subconscious mind that will start the process of protecting us from situations like this which many times leads to fear of public speaking. That part of us, which instinctively makes our heart pound at the thought of speaking in front of a large group of people.  As we get older we may learn that there is deductive reasoning (relying on our current understanding) and inductive reasoning (true thinking based on observation).  As a young child the environment around you created your perception through deductive reasoning.  As an adult you can use your inductive reasoning to create new images and ideas to become the person you want to be. 

Maximize your potential with Hypnosis and NLP

Being Grateful

The most important part of change in our lives begins with forgiveness and expressing gratitude, 
forgive the individuals that have hurt you and start expressing gratitude for everyone in your life.




IT IS AN INCREDIBLE GIFT TO YOURSELF!


BE THANKFUL

Be thankful that you don't already have everything you desire, If you did, what would there be to look forward to?

Be thankful when you don't know something
For it gives you the opportunity to learn.

Be thankful for the difficult times.
During those times you grow.

Be thankful for your limitations
Because they give you opportunities for improvement.

Be thankful for each new challenge
Because it will build your strength and character.

Be thankful for your mistakes
They will teach you valuable lessons.

Be thankful when you're tired and weary
Because it means you've made a difference.

It is easy to be thankful for the good things.
A life of rich fulfillment comes to those who are
also thankful for the setbacks.

GRATITUDE can turn a negative into a positive.
Find a way to be thankful for your troubles
and they can become your blessings.
~ Author Unknown ~

Do you procrastinate?

Many individuals put things off for many reasons lack of self-esteem and a feeling of failure.  Hypnosis can help you to begin identifying and dealing with the cause of your procrastination.  Through motivation hypnosis and NLP will work with your subconscious mind to unlearn old patterns and attitudes and begin to relearn new positive thoughts and attitudes, which becomes a new subconscious belief and behavioral way of doing things.

What are you waiting for?

Sports Performance

Have you reached your peak performance?

Hypnosis and NLP are excellent tools to help an athlete achieve their maximum potential during performance.  Being in a relaxed state during play can mean the difference between success and failure.  Through the application of Hypnosis or NLP my goal is to create an environment in the subconscious mind where stress, anxiety and fear cannot coexist concurrently with calm, positive, relaxed energy that each individual needs to reach their maximum potential.

This is done by “weeding out” any negative or counter productive thoughts that get in the way of achieving their goal.  Whether it is from teammates, coaches, opponents or themselves. I teach them techniques to perform confidently by utilizing their knowledge gained by hours of repetition during practice and training.   Giving Athletes a new level of self-assurance in their performances and ultimately allows them to ask what’s next!

Dr Michael Yapko

Resources Clinical hypnosis can be used to treat depression Dr Michael Yapko has, for the last thirty years, specialized in the treatment of depression with clinical hypnosis. In a climate where anti-depressant medication is still physicians' first treatment choice, Dr. Yapko's approach to clinical practice still represents cutting-edge work. Clinical hypnosis has been directly influenced by the current push for empirically supported treatments, and in recent years substantial high-quality research has assessed the effectiveness of hypnosis and its contribution to improving therapeutic outcome. There is also a growing body of evidence demonstrating that, when hypnosis is part of the treatment process, it catalyses positive clinical outcomes and generally increases the benefits of established treatments. "Hypnosis offers a way to conceptualize how human beings construct their individual realities, and how to interact more effectively with others; in clinical hypnosis hypnotic processes are employed as agents of effective communication and change," says Dr. Yapko, who was chosen to write the sections on Treating Depression and Brief Therapy for the Encyclopedia Britannica Medical and Health Annuals. "Our knowledge of depression has greatly improved in recent years, firmly establishing the essential role of psychotherapy in treatment. Whenever psychotherapy is indicated, so are specific identifiable patterns of hypnotic influence, since the two are fundamentally inseparable." It is estimated that at any one time almost 10% of the UK general population are suffering from depression. Worldwide the figure rises to over 100 million (Paul Gilbert, Overcoming Depression 1997), and the World Health Organization estimates that by the year 2020 depression will be the second most burdensome illness in the world. Financially, depression costs the British nation more than 8 billion annually; included in this cost is provision of health and medical care, lost production and social security benefits." (Depression Alliance 1999). BIOGRAPHY Michael Yapko, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and marriage and family therapist based in Solana Beach, California. He is internationally recognized for his work in depression and outcome-focused psychotherapy, and has had a special interest spanning nearly a quarter century in the intricacies of brief therapy, the clinical applications of directive methods, and in training therapists to treat the disorder of major depression. He is the author of numerous books, book chapters, and articles on these subjects, including Treating Depression With Hypnosis: Integrating Cognitive-Behavioral and Strategic Approaches; Psychological 911: Depression; Hand-Me-Down Blues: How to Stop Depression From Spreading in Families; Breaking the Patterns of Depression; and Hypnosis and the Treatment of Depressions. Dr. Yapko is a member of the American Psychological Association, a clinical member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. Dr Yapko is a charismatic and engaging speaker, whose recent London master classes (February 2004) elicited high praise from delegates. Formal Education * Doctoral: Ph.D. in Professional Psychology, Clinical Specialization, United States International University, San Diego (1980). * Masters: M.A. in Psychology. United States International University, San Diego (1978) * Bachelors: B.A. in Psychology. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (1976). Received academic class honors.

Why Natural Childbirth?

For a very long time, hypnosis has been a natural tool used instinctively to give birth. Hypnosis is a natural, very pleasant state in which people can achieve phenomenal levels of focus, peace, joy and anesthesia.

Today with the medicalization of childbirth, many have moved away from our natural instincts to enjoy a peaceful and natural childbirth. Luckily, many expectant mothers are looking to get more involved in the birth of their baby and are motivated to accomplish this with the least medial and pharmaceutical intervention necessary.

The achievements of hypnosis, when combined with modern medical knowledge will provide individuals the most comfortable, safe, and fulfilling births for couples.

The future holds great possibilities - it is within your grasp.

Call 720-279-8726 for your free consultation.

Why Hypnosis?

Because it works!


Hypnosis which is natural yet altered sate of mind where our critical factor is relaxed and our selective thinking is maintained creates a deep relaxation of the body and conscious mind, creating a highly focused state that allows you to get in touch with your subconscious mind. You are able to gain access to a deeper understanding of your limited believes, behaviours, and emotions and begin to change these to a more positive and productive way of life.

So they saying "Have you suffered enough are you ready for change?" gives you the opportunity to explore this atlernative modality and begin to change the limiting belief that is holding you back.

To scheudle your next session call 303-919-8876

Great Article

Posted April 2008

Media constantly astonished whenever hypnotherapy is shown to be clinically successful
When British hypnotherapist Alex Lenkei in April 2008 underwent bone surgery without conventional anaesthetics it made headlines and webcasts around the world.
Reports suggested doctors at Worthing Hospital in West Sussex were “amazed” or “stunned” – describing with awe how hammers, chisels and saws were used without the patient feeling any pain.

Undoubtedly it was a remarkable achievement. But what most news reports ignored was that this was the second time Alex Lenkei had experienced a major operation while in a hypnotic trance. Surgery using hypnosis is very far from being unique.Almost twelve years earlier Mr Lenkei underwent a hernia repair at Kingston Hospital while fully conscious. The main difference being the first time he was assisted into trance by a colleague while the second time he induced himself.So though it is highly unusual for surgery to be performed with hypnosis rather than conventional anaesthesia, it has been done many times.
Nevertheless, whenever hypnosis is shown to be effective, even proved to be efficacious in helping within certain clinical situations, it is consistently presented as though this was something bizarre or new. It is though the media were trapped in a time warp. A journalistic Groundhog Day.
You've got to hand it to 'em
Hammer in hand, consultant surgeon David Llewellyn-Clark with bandaged patient, hypnotherapist Alex Lenkei
Surgery under hypnosis – heart rate and breathing remained constant
For instance less than a week after worldwide coverage of Alex Lenkei, the American media reported with apparent surprise how Chicago surgeon Dr. William S. Kroger hypnotised a patient undergoing breast cancer surgery at St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan and she had felt no pain.
The demonstration was watched on closed-circuit TV by physicians attending an international meeting of anesthesiologists in Manhattan.
But the US media felt it necessary to quote Dr Kroger as insisting this was “no stunt but a serious demonstration of the wider use to which medicine should make of hypnotism.”
Reports of the Worthing operation described how Mr Lenkei could feel the surgeon pulling and manipulating him and how he heard the cracking of bones but was undisturbed. In the past he has taught students at the Royal College of Nursing to induce hypnoanaesthesia.
His surgeon, David Llewellyn-Clark confirmed Mr Lenkei showed no reaction during the operation and explained: "If he had been grinning and bearing it we would have known - but his heart rate and breathing remained constant throughout.
That corresponds closely to the way many other hypnotised patients have responded during surgery. It is exactly how a hypnothised patient is expected to respond – except it seems to most of the media.Nor is it only when hypnosis is employed within surgery that it tends to be reported as something new and surprising.
Fairly regularly research teams publish reports on the successful use of hypnotherapy to help with conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome.
Each and every time it is reported as though this was brand new, extraordinary or astonishing. It's a pity but what is really astonishing is the constant surprise shown by the media at any and every successful use of clinical hypnosis.

2008 James Braid Society

Brain imaging studies investigate pain reduction by hypnosis

Although hypnosis has been shown to reduce pain perception, it is not clear how the technique works. Identifying a sound, scientific explanation for hypnosis' effect might increase acceptance and use of this safe pain-reduction option in clinical settings. Researchers at the University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine and the Technical University of Aachen, Germany, used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to find out if hypnosis alters brain activity in a way that might explain pain reduction. The results are reported in the November-December 2004 issue of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine. The researchers found that volunteers under hypnosis experienced significant pain reduction in response to painful heat. They also had a distinctly different pattern of brain activity compared to when they were not hypnotized and experienced the painful heat. The changes in brain activity suggest that hypnosis somehow blocks the pain signal from getting to the parts of the brain that perceive pain. "The major finding from our study, which used fMRI for the first time to investigate brain activity under hypnosis for pain suppression, is that we see reduced activity in areas of the pain network and increased activity in other areas of the brain under hypnosis," said Sebastian Schulz-Stubner, M.D., Ph.D., UI assistant professor (clinical) of anesthesia and first author of the study. "The increased activity might be specific for hypnosis or might be non-specific, but it definitely does something to reduce the pain signal input into the cortical structure." The pain network functions like a relay system with an input pain signal from a peripheral nerve going to the spinal cord where the information is processed and passed on to the brain stem. From there the signal goes to the mid-brain region and finally into the cortical brain region that deals with conscious perception of external stimuli like pain. Processing of the pain signal through the lower parts of the pain network looked the same in the brain images for both hypnotized and non-hypnotized trials, but activity in the top level of the network, which would be responsible for "feeling" the pain, was reduced under hypnosis. Initially, 12 volunteers at the Technical University of Aachen had a heating device placed on their skin to determine the temperature that each volunteer considered painful (8 out of 10 on a 0 to 10 pain scale). The volunteers were then split into two groups. One group was hypnotized, placed in the fMRI machine and their brain activity scanned while the painful thermal stimuli was applied. Then the hypnotic state was broken and a second fMRI scan was performed without hypnosis while the same painful heat was again applied to the volunteer's skin. The second group underwent their first fMRI scan without hypnosis followed by a second scan under hypnosis. Hypnosis was successful in reducing pain perception for all 12 participants. Hypnotized volunteers reported either no pain or significantly reduced pain (less than 3 on the 0-10 pain scale) in response to the painful heat. Under hypnosis, fMRI showed that brain activity was reduced in areas of the pain network, including the primary sensory cortex, which is responsible for pain perception. The imaging studies also showed increased activation in two other brain structures - the left anterior cingulate cortex and the basal ganglia. The researchers speculate that increased activity in these two regions may be part of an inhibition pathway that blocks the pain signal from reaching the higher cortical structures responsible for pain perception. However, Schulz-Stubner noted that more detailed fMRI images are needed to definitively identify the exact areas involved in hypnosis-induced pain reduction, and he hoped that the newer generation of fMRI machines would be capable of providing more answers. "Imaging studies like this one improve our understanding of what might be going on and help researchers ask even more specific questions aimed at identifying the underlying mechanism," Schulz-Stubner said. "It is one piece of the puzzle that moves us a little closer to a final answer for how hypnosis really works. "More practically, for clinical use, it helps to dispel prejudice about hypnosis as a technique to manage pain because we can show an objective, measurable change in brain activity linked to a reduced perception of pain," he added. In addition to Schulz-Stubner, the research team included Timo Krings, M.D., Ingo Meister, M.D., Stefen Rex, M.D., Armin Thron, M.D., Ph.D. and Rolf Rossaint, M.D., Ph.D., from the Technical University of Aachen, Germany. University of Iowa Health Care describes the partnership between the UI Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine and UI Hospitals and Clinics and the patient care, medical education and research programs and services they provide. Visit UI Health Care online at uihealthcare.com.

STORY SOURCE: University of Iowa Health Science Relations, 5135 Westlawn, Iowa City, Iowa 52242-1178

EXCELLENT ARTICLE

The Mind Prepared: Hypnosis in Surgery

David Spiegel

Correspondence to: David Spiegel, MD, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, 401 Quarry Rd, Ste 2325, Stanford, CA 94305-5718 (e-mail: dspiegel@stanford.edu).

The first 10% of the full text of this article appears below.

In 1846, a Scottish surgeon named James Esdaile reported 80% surgical anesthesia using hypnosis as the sole anesthetic for amputations in India. His work caused sufficient stir that when ether anesthesia was demonstrated in what is now called the Ether Dome at the Massachusetts General Hospital on October 16 of that same year, a surgeon strode to the front of the amphitheater and said, "Gentlemen, this is no humbug," to distinguish hissurgical team's demonstration from Esdaile's report. It has taken us a century and a half to rediscover the fact that the mind has something to do with pain and can be a powerful tool in controlling it: the strain in . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Parts of the Mind
Subconscious or Unconscious - that part of our mind which is the seat of imagination, emotion, artistic abilities (and other skills), and which takes care of bodily functions without our conscious awareness, such as automatic functions of our organs, etc. Everything is learned by association and identification. The subconscious mind stores images, thoughts, ideas, concepts, and emotions.
Conscious - generally regarded to comprise qualities such as subjectivity, self-awareness, and the ability to perceive the relationship between oneself and one's environment. The conscious mind can reason, judge, analyze and criticize. It can accept or reject information based on the beliefs held within the subconscious mind. The conscious mind is where a person has willpower.
Critical Factor - An area of the mind that is part conscious and part subconscious. (If a suggestion is given to a client that is detrimental to their well-being or in total opposition to the client's beliefs, it will affect the critical area of the mind, and the client will reject it by abreacting.)

What conditions can be addressed with hypnotherapy?

Hypnotherapy can be a tool to address a number of issues.  Listed below are some of the most common reasons people seek to do hypnotherapy.  

• Abuse/Co-Dependence
• Acute/Chronic Illness
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Fertility
• Pregnancy
• Birth Preparation
• Post Partum Adjustment 
  
• Grief/Loss
• Healthy Body Image
• Health Self Esteem
• Life Transitions 
• Personal/Spiritual Growth
• Relinquishing Habits/Addictions
• Surgery/Medical Procedure Preparation
• Trauma Release 
  
• Women's Health
  
• bed wetting (children)
• nail biting
• self confidence
• And Much More!

If you do not find the specific issue(s) you would like to address listed, please feel free to call with any questions you may have.  I am more than happy to speak with you.

What are the benefits of therapy?
As a result of therapy, clients have experienced

• Change in physical, mental, and emotional patterns that leads to greater peace and happiness      
  
• Increased self awareness and acceptance
  
• Forgiveness of the past
  
• Greater connection to the Self
  
• Increased calm and confidence
  
• Improved clarity and creativity 
  
• Feelings of being “lighter” and experiencing more self love 

WHAT IS HYPNOSIS...

Hypnosis is a natural, yet altered, state of mind where the critical factor (which facilitates communication between the conscious and subconscious mind) is relaxed and selective thinking is maintained. Once you have open communication with your subconscious, you can discover any limiting ideas/beliefs that may be holding you back.

Many people fear hypnosis because of the way hypnosis has been portrayed in books, movies, and television and by stage hypnotists.   Medical Hypnosis is very different from those portrayals.  In fact, using hypnosis the way it is sometimes presented in popular media would be a violation of a therapist’s ethical standards.  

Hypnosis is very similar to daydreaming or being so completely engrossed in a book or TV program that you will pay no attention to someone speaking in the same room.  Yet when a person is in hypnosis they are aware of their surroundings and at a moments notice are able to cope with an emergency if one was to come up.   

Hypnotherapy is a modality for communicating positive ideas and understandings. That is, the client, hearing the words and delivery by the practitioner, begins a line of thought and forms new associations. Each set of association is then further linked and associated to new ideas, understandings, and possibilities. Consequently, bypassing or breaking conditioned clusters of negative experiences and beliefs help the client construct a new map of reality and facilitate cure. In the words of Milton Erickson, “It is this experience of reassociating and reorganizing his own (Client’s) experiential life that eventuates in a cure”.

What is NLP? 

Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is a theory of language, communication and thought together with an associated therapeutic method, which holds that people can improve the way they interact with the world by means of certain principles and techniques concerned with their use of language. People can use NLP’s principles and techniques to represent their world better, learn and communicate better, and ultimately have better, fuller, and richer lives.