Direct Therapy

I have been doing a lot of thinking about hypnotherapy since I began exploring hypnosis for pain management a few weeks back.  I have also been listening to hypnotic tracks on YouTube for deep sleep and relaxation.  This, too, has got me thinking.

Allow me to clarify.  The hypnosis is helping me get some rest which is nice, and it’s not that I’m concerned with, it’s the fundamental basis behind it that intrigues me.

As human beings, we are hotwired to need.  It doesn’t matter what the issue is, we don’t go after something we don’t want.  When we want it, we can come up with a million reasons to go after it without even blinking.

Think about it.  There’s a piece of cake on a plate at a wedding and the person it belongs is happily occupied on the dance floor.  You want it but society tells us that we already had our piece and taking someone else’s is wrong and although we never use the term, it’s actually theft. 

But they’re elsewhere occupied, they must not want it because they didn’t eat it, they’ve hit the dance floor so have effectively abandoned the slice, and (if you’re from my generation) there are starving children in Africa so wasting food would be a moral crime and a sin that would send you straight to hell without passing ‘go’.

Having come up with all these rationalizations, we have diminished the situation so that we look innocent if we take the slice and even heroic for doing the right thing in not letting it go to waste.  In fact, the rightful owner of that slice is some kind of twisted bully if they have a problem with someone else taking it and besides, “it’s only a piece of cake, what are you carrying on about?” 

We reframe the situation so our misdeed is now ‘correct’ and the injured party are a ‘bully’ for ‘beating up’ on someone else over some ‘so trivial’.  Did yu pick up on the underlying read on this situation?

If we see and want, we take and we are brilliant at diminishing the situation to almost nothing as it makes our needs then look far more righteous and the objector looks to be in the wrong for making a big deal (however correctly) and no matter who the wronged party is, we diminish THEM as well in order to satisfy our needs, so it’s no wonder people feel they’ve been sold out or stabbed in the back by those who are supposed to care about them as this happen most often with people we know – family, friends and co-workers.

Too many hypnotherapists dive in without understanding the motivation behind the behaviour.  If you don’t address the root cause, you cannot affect long lasting change.  Any doctor can operate and diagnose a lump as cancerous but if you don’t remove the whole thing and treat the cause, it’s going to come back and pop up in a lore more places.  This is also true of hypnotherapy.

If the therapist doesn’t do their due diligence and identify WHY the unwanted behaviour is occurring, they haven’t a hope of producing long term change and of course, a client who doesn’t experience the desired change soon loses faith in the modality.  Alas, a lot of therapists want the quick fix and would rather not waste time and energy investigating the deep issues behind the problematic behaviour.

It doesn’t have to take long.  A good client induction questionnaire, some good, insightful questioning, and a bit of consideration of how these things got started and how to change the status quo in a meaningful way, and you’ve got all you need to be a real help to the client. 

I find it disheartening that many do not choose to take that approach and I wonder what THEIR motivation is for failing to do so.  As close as I can intuit, it’s about money.  There is no care if the change is long term or not because if a client ceases therapy, there are always new ones to fill that session on the calendar, thus continued income.  I find that approach to be very cold and unfeeling.  Being in the game to fleece sheep and amass a big bank account doing a job that looks fairly easy, is the wrong reason to engage in ANY work, let along therapy.

I have also been exploring the issues around the sub-conscious and motivational equations.  I think with a bit of work, that could be developed into a viable therapy on its own, but I’d hate to see these leech therapists grasping onto it and setting up a ‘smoking cessation’ business and using it as a lazy tool to make a quick buck.  On the other hand, I know it could work. 

We’re creatures of habit and absolutely everything we do fills a need we have – even if we don’t want to admit it and less again if it’s something we’re not proud of.  But we do it.  All of us.  An I mean – ALL.  I’m sorry to break it to you but you’re not the one special individual on this planet is the one in over 7 billion people whose exempt from this.

If you want a donut and one is available, you’ll come up with all kinds of reasons to give yourself permission to have it.  You’ve not had anything since lunch and you’re hungry.  You’ve been eating only good food lately and deserve a treat.  They’re not expensive.  They’re there and it would be a waste not to have one.  It goes on and on, and the next thing you know, you’re over there shelling out your money for a yummy treat.

Nobody is standing there talking themselves OUT of it.  If they were, then they really didn’t want the donut to begin with.  If they DID want it, they’d have talked themselves into it by diminishing all objections to the contrary.  That’s just how human beings work.

So, can hypnosis actually change unwanted behaviour such as smoking cessation and weight loss which are two of the primary reasons people turn up in a hypnotherapists office and which are basically an hypnotherapists bread and butter.  The short answer is yes, it can work very successfully but the therapist has to invest time and effort into the client to properly address the issue.

That begins with training.  Ask the therapist what kind of training they did and the duration thereof.  That will tell you a massive amount right there.

Tad James advertises a “learn NLP / Hypnotherapy” and it’s a 3-day course.  By the end of it, in most places across the globe, you can legally hang out a shingle and legitimately call yourself a practitioner.  No membership with any recognized Association or ongoing training.  Just a “one and done” event over the course of a weekend.

If you were going in for abdominal surgery, would you be satisfied with a surgeon who had done just 3 days of medical training in total?  I sure as hell wouldn’t be. 

My own training was over the course of a year with both written and practical assessments along with continuation of training with a supervisor who consults with the therapist for years after to ensure ongoing development.

We had to join a recognized Association to obtain insurance, register our business with ASIC, and continue to attend ongoing training courses under POD (personal ongoing development) as a requirement of continuing to hold Association membership.   Let me tell you, the course was anything but a cheap and shallow 3-day dive into the barest of basics.  However, at the end of it, I have a decent qualification which will stand scrutiny and a good understanding of what brings people to do what they do.

For our 3-day flyers, they can induce a superficial trance in most cases, although they really have just one technique and if that doesn’t work, they’re at a loss.  Some people are resistant to gradual relaxation and the therapist has to get past that barrier in order to induce proper trance.  Flyers, never learn that.

Their primary therapy imposed is to use a control room which is where you guide a client so they can see the issue visually whether it be with screens, buttons or even a hologram.  The client is then guided to use these representations to ‘dial down’ the issue to a comfortable level.  For most flyers, that’s it, therapy completed.  In fact, it’s barely the beginning.  I personally regard a control room as the equivalent of putting just a band-aid on a gushing wound.

A good therapist has an excellent understanding of psychology, both the conscious and subconscious and how they can work together to effect change in the real world.  I have always felt it’s as incumbent upon the client to question the credentials of the therapist as it is for the therapist to explore the client issues in depth. 

I would really love to conduct a course on how we can use the subconscious to best effect.

Again, consider, it’s really the equivalent of a person doing an 8-hour first aid course and announcing that they’re now fully qualified to hang out a shingle as a General Practitioner to see genuinely sick people.  There are reasons why GPs need to go through all those years of school and training under supervised practice.  We all know that there is so much more to treating a patient than justs looking at the obvious wound or symptoms.  If you’re going to ignore the rest, then you’re going to do far more harm than good.

My ultimate goal is to create an effective hypnotherapy program for those in chronic pain because lord knows, they need whatever relief they can get.  While drugs are helpful, they require very strong drugs to make it through the day and eventually the body builds a tolerance so increased doses are needed to obtain the same relief.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was a therapy that didn’t require drugs would could also offer relief?

My feeling is that simple affirmations are not going to be enough.  I will need to delve deeper into the causes and behaviour which are not unhelpful to the situation and why they are ongoing when the client clearly knows they are obstructive to the situation.

This will take time and a LOT of careful thought and consideration.  Being in chronic pain myself, I have an excellent reference for what does and does not work.  I know how medications can impede and detract from regular treatment and why standard techniques are thus, unhelpful and non-resultant in an favorable outcome.

My current research and conclusions are pointing me towards therapy directly and entirely targeted to the sub-conscious bypassing the active brain altogether.  It might work.  I will have to do more research.  But wouldn’t it be lovely if those in massive pain from which thye cannot escape, could be helped in a meaningful way to create a better existence? 

Trust me when I say that 24-hour pain every single day of your life for years on end is a misery NOBODY should ever have inflicted upon them.  I’d so love to help those thus afflicted.

Qualifications

Call me old fashioned, but I fail to see how people who’ve done just 3 DAYS of a course with Tad James can seriously call themselves a qualified hypnotherapist.  It appals me that people think themselves ready to see clients after the most shallow and basic of training which seems best suited for self-hypnosis and not client work.

Don’t get me wrong.  He’s good at what he does.  He just didn’t learn it in 24 accrued hours.  What he’s really good is marketing.  He wants to sell his product and have people sign up for his courses, and they do.  Doesn’t give them a professional qualification.  Never will.

I did a year training on a well-structured course which contained assignments, practical assessments and 40 hours of clinical practice before I could get my Cert IV Certificate and it’s a nationally recognised qualification.  I then went on to do my Diploma which is another year of advanced training and each one cost over $7k. 

Tad James’ website makes it sound like you can learn it all and be ready to set up shop after just 3 days – which you can’t.  It’s like someone thinking they can work as a surgeon in a hospital after doing a first aid course.  The skills take time to learn and feedback is essential to best practice.

I sincerely doubt that Tad (or any of his staff) are going to teach about micro signals to identify when you’ve triggered an issue in your client, let alone how to handle it to not just manage the crisis but work with it to a good outcome. 

His website talks about Time Line Therapy and NLP.  Well, great.  Both are very helpful tools to have in your kit.  However, I’ve found Ego State Therapy to be massively more effective and even woven both Time Line and Ego State into a combination of my own making to achieve a better resolution for my client.

And what happens when your client is resistant to classic hypnosis?  What is the recommended solution for that according to Tad?  To address such things, you need a vast array of techniques to fall back on and experience in using them in order to move seamlessly through your session.  You may be paddling like crazy underneath the waterline, but the therapist must always remain calm and in control above it.

And what about confidentiality and ethics?  What training is there in these things?  Or are they too busy teaching just 2 techniques to touch on such a crucial element?  What if a client is disclosing something deeply personal such as child sexual abuse?  What are your legal obligations?  What is the best form of therapy to address it?

And how old should a client be before you agree to work with them?  If they’re underage and want help with focus to study, what are your legal requirements?  Is it appropriate to work with a child the way you would an adult?  What are the boundaries you need to set in place and ensure are observed to make the session safe for everyone?

It seems to the height of hubris for people to seriously think that because they did a paltry 3-day course, that they are ethically and legally qualified to hang out a shingle.  In my opinion, they are without a doubt, dangerous. 

It’s all very well to suggest that you tell someone they can float high in the sky above their time line until they find the first time the issue occurred.  And if you didn’t ask the right questions up front, you could be sending them into a panic attack if they have a fear of heights.

And isn’t it lovely that in most cases, when a client abreacts, it is recommended to tell them to float above the feeling so they can observe it but not be touched by it.  Marvelous when you’re telling them to float was what set it off in the first place.  How do you respond when you’re in a bad situation that you created and you have to fix on the fly?

Is there any guidance offered about identifying a medical history to determine if the client may have issues you need to deal with during a session such as shortness of breath?  And what if your client is on anti-depressants or anti-psychotics and has an unexpected reaction?  If you don’t know to ask all that stuff up front BEFORE you start induction, you could be asking for a massive amount of trouble and it’ll be the client that wears it.

I also find myself wondering if there is any mention of memberships to industry Associations or the need for Liability Insurance.  In three days, with a huge amount to cover, I doubt it.  Would any Association or Insurer agree to cover anyone with such limited training?  I doubt that also.

If you don’t understand the triggers and reasons behind a pathology, how can you hope to address it, let alone resolve it?  Would you seriously let someone work on a wound you have with a scalpel when they’re not a doctor and have no comprehensive and legally recognised training?  I wouldn’t.  Not in a pink fit.

And yet, there are those who have the hubris to give themselves the ‘el cheapo’ training and think they’re ready to mess with people’s mental and emotional wellbeing.  I find that highly disturbing at best and terrifying at worst.

If you’re that serious about being a hypnotherapist, forget the quick fix cheap courses and invest in some bona fide training that will give you a proper qualification and one which is reputable.   Sure, it costs more, but if that’s your goal, why not give yourself the best opportunity for success? 

Save the 3-day courses for learning a hobby.  When you are trying to learn a whole occupation, that takes time and ongoing effort.  Even when you accept a new job, there’s a training period and 3-month probation to see how you do before they agree to keep you, and nobody thinks that’s stupid or unreasonable.

If it’s fine for all other occupations, why should it be any different for this?  Training.  Effort.  Documented clinical hours.  Written assignments and practical exams.   These things matter.

And nobody gets all that in just 3 days.  Ever.