Expectations

In doing hypnotherapy it's always important to manage expectations. This was brought home to me this week when I had an ideal candidate for a stopping smoking. I had a great session with him, and then the very next week an e-mail to say that he had returned to smoking the day after the session. I was baffled. Normally people who go back to smoking after hypnotherapy didn't really want to stop smoking (often persuaded by someone else to try it), were in an unusual situation (like in a nightclub when they almost never go clubbing and the scenario wasn't covered in the session), or in the event of a major stress (like bereavement).

On questioning my patient he had expected to go to sleep in the session for an hour, and wake up to find he had no thoughts of cigarettes. I had given him the usual explanation that: 'hypnotherapy isn't sleep,' 'it isn't magic,' and 'you'll hear every word I say.' However, his prior beliefs were so strong he hadn't really heard all that.

After a further discussion of how hypnosis can be experienced and further discussion of what cigarettes mean in his life; we had another really good session where the patient really engaged with the subject of the role of cigarettes in his life. It's always really useful when things don't really go to plan. As a therapist you learn a lot.

Whilst managing expectations is always necessary; most patient know it's not some sort of magic sleep, it's good to be reminded from time to time that most people are not informed about the subject.

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Depression and Religion

Dorothy Rowe was an interesting speaker. A lecturer in psychology and psychotherapist she had some very interesting things to say about depression. For instance, depression is a noun, a thing; but actually depression is not something you have, it's something you do. Depression is a set of behaviour traits.
According to Rowe a contributor to depression is the teachings of the great world religions. They all teach, in their own different ways that good behaviour is rewarded and bad behaviour is punished by God. This of course is a belief that people have in the teeth of the evidence. Bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. She explained that Protestants and Catholics do depression differently. I found this fascinating. She didn't elucidate how, i shall have to read her book.

Last weekend I attended the First European Conference on Happiness and it's Causes. It was very interesting, a series of lectures and discussion panels from psychologists, psychotherapists and so on. These included Richard Layard: 'the happiness tsar', Dorothy Rowe: celebrated psychotherapist and a representative from The New Economic Foundation a left wing think tank who are involved with the Kingdom of Bhutan's project to measure 'gross national happiness'.

A fantastic weekend, stimulating and informative. One thing really struck me: it was a very intense weekend, the speakers and audience alike were passionately compassionate. so much so that it was almost exhausting. The buddhist monks in the saffron robes on the other had carried their world view so very lightly. Whilst being down to earth, charming and also passionate, they lacked the draining intensity of many of the speakers. I considered this an interesting paradox. The delegates desired to be heard; whereas the monks, even though they were the ones who did not need to be told 'what it happiness' they had a clear point of view, had no such need. I found this at odds with a life of rigorous asceticism. There is no reason for this other than my very own prejudice.

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QWERTY

Ever wondered why the QWERTY keyboard is like it is? If you don't know what I'm talking about, I'm referring to your computer keyboard, which, instead of having the letters lined up alphabetically, ABCDE they are random, starting with QWERTY. The reason for this is that when typewriters were invented, it quickly became so fast to write, the arms of the typewriters got jammed. The QWERTY arrangement was developed to slow down the typists and prevent this. However, this is no longer necessary as one can type on a computer as fast as is humanly possible and the keys don't jam. We still have the QWERTY because we are used to it. Getting used to a more efficient keyboard isn't worth the effort.

Habits and behavioural quirks are a bit like this. Perhaps during angsty teenage years eating biscuits to distract yourself from the agonies of puberty doesn't do too much harm. After all, you still are forced to do sports at school and a high metabolic rate means that the extra calories are dissipated quickly. But then, you might find that twenty years later, the habit remains but the results of those extra calories are really showing. For these people hypnosis is a great way to rearrange their emotional keyboard into something a little more efficient. Helping people to face, accept and deal with life's daily anxieties rather than distracting themselves with food can be a much healthier way forward.

The biscuit analogy is a very easy one to understand, but everybody carries habits and quirks over from their early years. There are people who fly into a rage when they talk to a sibling, for no reason at all. Possibly sibling rivalry from a very early age makes them react in this way. It is a simple matter under hypnosis to coax people into reacting calmly to hitherto highly charged emotional triggers. Maybe there is no reason to find. There are people who, for instance, are scared of talking to people at a social gathering. They have always been this way; again under hypnosis this can simply be changed.

The QWERTY keyboard is here to stay, we are so used to it now, even though it is deliberately inefficient, it is part of the culture and too entrenched to change. Human habits are a different matter, they are malleable. People grow and change all their lives and hypnotherapy is one of the tools that can make this easy for them.

Breech Presentation

I recently attended a HypnoBirthing study day. For those of you unfamiliar with HypnoBirthing it is antenatal teaching deep relaxation, visualisation and breathing exercises which allow mothers to birth their babies calmly and comfortably. For more information please see my website. www.apexpractice.co.uk

One of the lectures was from a wonderful midwife called Mary, she must have been in her sixties and her midwifery stories dated back over the last thirty-five years. Mary works as an independent midwife caring for mothers in their homes and will confidently deliver babies known to be in a breech position. That is head up rather than head down. Her approach is rather unusual these days, many health trusts will do an elective caesarian section of a breech presentation and will discourage mothers from a normal vaginal delivery of a breeched baby. Please note though, that if a woman wishes to have her breeched baby delivered vaginally the hospitals have a duty of care to provide a midwife who will deliver her. Though in practice, pregnant women are vulnerable and are easily swayed towards a caesarian section.

The reason for preferring a caesarian section is that it is deemed safer because the umbilical cord never gets squashed. Let me explain, when a baby descends head first through the pelvis and vagina, the cord which is attached to the placenta in the top of the womb, is trailing behind. The cord, supplying oxygen to the baby only emerges with the baby's body which is very much smaller than the head and at no time is the cord squashed. If the baby descends body first, the cord is up past the head and if is it squashed by the head the oxygen supply to the baby is cut off. Usually, the time without oxygen is short and the baby is fine. There are rare occasions that the cord can be squashed long enough to harm the baby. To avoid this rare occurrence hospitals do caesarian sections, which unfortunately are much more harmful to the mother than a normal vaginal delivery.

So, a midwife undertaking to deliver a breeched baby at home is unusual these days. However, Mary's attitude is that, if the baby is descending nicely then there is nothing to worry about; the baby can be delivered safely at home. And, if the baby is not descending nicely there is no rush, the mother needs to be taken to hospital for a caesarian section; in neither case is the baby endangered. The preference for elective caesarean section has meant that now few midwives are confident and skilled in delivering breeched babies. This is something that Mary is trying to redress with her training day on breech presentations entitled 'A Day at the Breech'.

The Triune Brain

I spent the weekend reading ‘A General Theory of Love’ by Tomas Lewis, a psychiatrist. He writes beautifully; it’s the sort of engaging, readable popular science book that I just find irresistible. Fortunately there seems to be a never ending stream of these books; enough to keep me satisfied for a long time.

Lewis describes the brain as ‘triune’. That is to say, split into three parts, the reptilian, the mammalian and the human brains.

The reptilian brain is the brain stem: this part of us has existed, in evolutionary terms, before we even became mammals. It is responsible for the regulation of our bodily systems, heart rate, breathing rate, hormone levels and so on.

The next part is the mammalian brain. This is the limbic system wrapped around the top of the brainstem and tucked underneath the big outer part. The limbic system is the bit that is difficult to make sense of in diagrams of the brain and is responsible for our emotions. This part allowed emerging mammals to care for offspring and form communities.

The final part is the human brain which is the largest part. The big outer layer of grey cells with its delicate convolutions and complex white matter is the image that people think of when they think ‘brain’. This is the thinking part, the part that gives us language, maths and abstract thought.

Ever wondered why one can think one thing and feel another? Why they seem so separate? The answer is because they are. They are entirely different sections of the brain. It is the emotional, mammalian brain that gives rise to our emotions. ‘Emotion’ is derived from the Latin word to move. It is our emotions, not our thoughts, which generate our actions on the whole. This is why self-help books rarely work (reading is a human brain activity) and strategies like hypnosis really do. By appealing directly to the emotional brain under hypnosis it is possible to bring about change in behaviour quickly.

Amnesia

Following my interview in a lovely glossy accounting magazine I was contacted by a gentleman who wanted my help. The magazine featured different businesses every quarter, all business related; as I treat people for a variety of things related to business, aversion to cold calling, performance anxiety, procrastination, decision making and so on; I was featured. This was a real boon, most of the other articles are about employment law and accounting and other very dry stuff; I was in there to leaven the mix. It was a really great article form my point of view, really reflected what I do very well.

Anyway, someone who saw this article contacted me for help. He was a businessman who was approaching retirement age though had no intention of retiring at all. He had handed over the reins of his business to more junior staff and really enjoyed being the company’s ambassador. Everyone kept asking him when he was going to retire; it was really getting him down. I have to confess it was one of the first things that crossed my mind when I met him.

Not only was his problem unusual, I don’t expect to encounter this one ever again; the treatment I chose was unusual as well. I installed amnesia. This is something I never do. I don’t see the point of it, as a rule. This time however it just seemed sensible to add to the ‘It doesn’t matter to you one bit that people ask you when you are going to retire’ a suggestion of ‘and as soon as they have asked about your retirement you forget instantly that they have’. And then ‘It seems that people seemed to have stopped asking you when you are going to retire’.

So, there you are, all techniques have their place sooner or later. Unfortunately, this is just the sort of patient who when you ask whether their treatment worked they say, ‘no’; because they have amnesia.