Classic NLP tips: 1. How to identify your sensory preference the easy way!

The aim of this exercise is to find your preferred modality so you can use this knowledge to increase the power of the NLP exercises that I am going to teach you in the coming weeks. This is my first blog on the use of classic NLP techniques as taught by Richard Bandler that you can use to elicit powerful and long lasting change in your life! Maybe you want to achieve a goal, feel more comfortable about distressing past events, feel more motivated or simply feel good! The classic modalities we use are either auditory (we can imagine sounds), visual (we see images) or kinaesthetic (imagine feeling or touching something), olfactory (the use of smell), gustatory (taste) when thinking about a past or  future event. Most people will have a preference for using one of the 3 senses of visual, auditory or kinaesthetic to describe an experience. So are you prodominantly visual, auditory or kinaesthetic? Let’s find out!



You can do this exercise with a partner or by yourself. If you are alone, it helps greatly to speak out loud, possibly into a voice recorder so you can review your experiences later.

1. Imagine as clearly as you can a walk along a beach. It can be a beach you know or an entirely imaginary one. Your goal is to describe in as much detail as you can the experience, running through each of your 5 senses. First describe everything you see, the colour of the sky, the ocean, the seagulls in the air, the white foam flying into the air as the waves crash into the black rocks, maybe you think about colours of the clothes people are wearing on the beach, the sand and so on. The move to another sense such as hearing, describe everything you can hear, the sound of the seagulls, children playing...the sound of the ocean... and so on, next move on to feelings and touch, taste and smell until you have completed your description.
2. Now review your description and notice whether it was easier to make pictures, hear sounds, or feel sensations such as the temperature, the texture of the sand under your feet, was it the salty taste of the air. One of those senses will dominate. This is your sensory preference.

Having a preference for one sensory modality doesn’t mean you do not use the other senses or that you use your preferred modality in all situations. We tend to use all our senses when processing information but you will find that one modality will dominate over the all the others. So if you are a visual person you will classically think in images, moving pictures perhaps and may also use a lot of visual language which we refer to as predicates so you may use phrases such as 'I see what you mean' or 'that looks good to me'!

Overcome your driving test nerves and pass your test the easy way!

Find out how one intrepid reporter who had previously failed her driving test 4 times succeeded with the power of hypnosis! Read this interesting article from the Telegraph.


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Receive the best in accredited hypnotherapy, NLP and stress management training

The Academy of Advancement in Hynotherapy and Life Solutions offer fully accredited training in clinical hypnotherapy, NLP and stress management as well as offering the prestigious Hypnotherapy Practitioner Diploma award which recently received a credit rating from the Open University. Course dates are now available for 2010. You will also receive full support from the AAH group in practice group sessions and CPD training. Visit http://www.aahgroup.co.uk for further details

Hypnosis Brings Benefits during Pregnancy and Childbirth

Article from Natural News by Monday, November 16, 2009 by: Steve G. Jones, M.Ed., citizen journalist

Hypnosis has been used during childbirth for approximately 100 years. Many research studies have been conducted to study the effects of hypnosis on pregnancy and labor. Hypnosis has been used on women during labor to help reduce pain. Hypnosis can be used as a natural analgesic to not only reduce pain but reduce use of pain medication. In addition to pain management, self-hypnosis has been used to control breathing during labor. Other studies show that hypnosis has a psychological benefit to mothers and to newborns.

A meta-analysis of studies conducted involving hypnosis with pregnant women was compared to non-hypnosis intervention, no treatment, and placebo. Primary measurements in the meta-analysis included analgesia used during labor and also pain scores during labor. The meta-analysis included 8395 women who had used hypnosis during pregnancy or labor. The analysis concluded that fewer women needed to use a form of analgesia during labor. Women who received hypnosis reported less severe pain than those in the control groups.

In another study, 60 pregnant women participated. The participants were divided into two groups based on their suggestibility; all received childbirth education and tips on pain control. These two groups were then subdivided with half receiving a hypnotic induction and the other half learning breathing and relaxation exercises. Women in the hypnosis group and in the high suggestibility group reported less pain. Those who used hypnosis reported using less medication and had a shorter stage 1 labor.

Another meta-analysis looking at various studies performed using hypnosis with pregnant women showed that hypnosis reduced the level of medical intervention during labor and reduced risk to women and newborn babies. One study showed that women who were trained to use hypnosis during childbirth very rarely experienced postpartum depression. Hypnosis can help manage both depression and anxiety related to pregnancy, labor, and becoming a new mom. This shows that hypnosis can have many benefits on both women and their newborn babies.

One study found that women in their second and third trimester of pregnancy were more suggestible. The study showed that as women became further along in their pregnancy, their suggestibility increased according to the Harvard Hypnotizability Scale. Pregnant women also scored higher on the Creative Imagination Scale. This study researched women at two time periods, when they were pregnant and not pregnant. The research shows that if women are more suggestible during pregnancy, there is more of a reason to use hypnosis for pregnancy and childbirth.

Sources

Alexander, B., Turnbull, D., & Cyna, A. (2009). The effect of pregnancy on hypnotizability. American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis.

Cyna, A.M., McAuliffe, G.L., & Andrew, M.I. (2004). Hypnosis for pain relief in labour and childbirth: A systematic review. British Journal of Anaesthesia, 93(4), 505-511.

Harmon, T.M., Hynan, M.T., & Tyre, T.E. (1990) Improved obstetric outcomes using hypnotic analgesia and skill mastery combined with childbirth education. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 58(5), 525-530.

Michael Newton's Interview on Past Lives and Life Between Lives

Michael Newton is a world renown past life regressionist and particularly famous for his life between lives techniques which allows people to regress between their past lives into the spirit world. View this interview to find out how Michael developed his interest in this fascinating technique.

Treating depression with hypnosis

What happens when you have a client that is so severely depressed they are unable to effectively motivate themselves to produce the homework you set them or focus their attention on cognitive questioning? Unfortunately, with some clients this is the reality of depression which quite often can be present with or be the byproduct of anxiety. Whilst cognitive behavior therapy is the psychotherapy choice of treatment for this condition, little is researched into the effectiveness of using hypnosis with depressed patients. American psychotherapist Dr Michael Yapko has written several books and training courses on how we can successfully use hypnotic interventions with depressive illness. Although CBT is a highly effective treatment for depressive disorders, hypnosis can certainly support the client particularly to bypass the severe anxiety and negative thinking styles that lead to paralyzed thinking and inactivity. Hypnosis works by reprogramming negative ways of thinking that can lead to anxiety and depressed thoughts. The outcomes of hypnotherapy treatment can include feeling more motivated, feeling more relaxed and being able to concentrate and orientate to towards the future instead of the past. The magical quality of hypnosis is in its ability to communicate with the unconscious mind where we store all of the negative thoughts that influence our feelings and behaviors. I have seen many clients who after just a few sessions of hypnosis are wondering why they no longer feel bad and can start to look forward to the future instead of living in the past. Although hypnosis is not a magic wand over time if used skillfully by an experienced therapist, it can yield positive results.

For more information on how hypnosis can be used with depression see Dr Michael Yapko's article below on treating hypnosis in treating symptoms and risk.


Hypnosis in Treating Symptoms and Risk - by Dr Micheal Yapko

Learn the Swish!

The Swish is a classic NLP technique that can be used for a wide variety of issues such as any fears, negative thoughts, traumatic events or phobias.  Its main function is to densensitise how you feel about a particular event or thought and re-direct your thinking enabling you to change the unwanted response such as anxiety or panic to a positive feeling such as peacefulness!

In the Swish we replace the unwanted thought or response with a more useful and appropriate one because the Swish re-directionalises thinking. It is an instruction to the brain No, not that - THIS!

Use it for yourself - and others

By using the Swish in your own life you develop your ability to maintain resourceful states, manage your responses to stressful situations, and engage in the behaviours you want.

How to use the Swish



1. Select a replacement image



First select your Replacement Feeling - ask yourself How do I want to be instead.


Having selected the Replacement Feeling see and hear a detached and associated version of yourself experiencing this feeling. It is quite important that this image is dissociated. Enhance the detail and the quality (submodalities) of this until the image is quite compelling.


2. Find the trigger for the unwanted mood


What is it that you respond to? How you know when to have the unwanted response or reaction?


Ask yourself What occurs just before this negative or un-wanted state begins? This time, you want an associated image of what is going on immediately before you engage in the unwanted activity.



3. Put the replacement in the corner of unwanted image



Imagine a small postage-stamp sized version of your replacement picture in the bottom corner of the unwanted picture.


4. Swish the two images


Now you want t make both images change simultaneously and with increasing speed. (Experienced NLPers will select two critical submodalities to use here. However simply making the images change size and distance from you will work most of the time.)


Have the 'negative' image become smaller and shoot off into the distance. At the same time have the 'positive' replacement image become larger and closer until it replaces the negative image completely. Imagine a "swish" sound as you do this - hence the name. That's one Swish sound.

(Do this fairly slowly at first taking, say, 5-10 seconds to do it. Then continue, doing it a little faster each time, until you are swishing almost instantaneously - in less than a second!)


5 Clear your mind


After each Swish round blank your mind, fully! Think of something else or visualise your favourite colour. Breathing easily as you do this since some people tend to hold their breath while concentrating on doing the Swish. It is crucial to the success of the Swish to clear your mind or turn your attention outside before you do each next round.


6 Practice 5-7 times


Repeat steps 3 to 5 up to about seven times until you have difficulty in maintaining the unwanted image.


‘I don’t visualise’


This is a common belief. You can do an Auditory or a Kinaesthetic Siswish, too. So if you (or the other person if you are assisting someone else) believe that you have difficulty in visualising you could accept this belief and use a kinaesthetic or auditory swish.


Alternately, and often more effectively, you can act 'as if' you are visualising - i.e. you pretend that you visualising and simply follow the steps listed above. Curiously, this will often work just as effectively!


Skill with the Swish



Like all NLP techniques the Swish is best learned "live" in a workshop where you are able to interact with the facilitator and with other participants -- and where you learn the background steps before you get to actually do the Swish. However you can still get good results if you carefully follow the above tips.


Incidentally, the six steps listed above represents the "standard" Swish traditionally used in NLP. It works very well for many people, especially if it is used alongside lots of other NLP skills such as the use of language patterns, anchoring, and a keen of awareness of non-verbal responses.

Reiki - from emotional healing to selling your house!

As a seasoned reiki practitioner, this gentle form of healing never fails to amaze me in how it can deal with a multitude of problems from emotional problems to common physical ailments. Reiki since its arrival from Japan has become a popular therapy in the Western world, with more NHS trusts starting to include reiki as an alternative form of therapy alongside acupuncture and reflexology.

Reiki as a form of healing energy has always existed since the beginning of time but was discovered by a Japanese monk named Mikao Usui in the 1800s who went on a 21 day retreat to Mount Karuna, Japan. During Usui's visit to the mountains, the magical symbols were revealed to him that we now know as the reiki master symbol, power symbol, distance symbol and mental/emotional symbol. Usui is said to have cut his knee whilst climbing one of the mountains and used the healing energy on the wound which miraculously healed. As to whether the cut really did heal, does it really matter? No, not really but its a good story, not that different to a biblical tale!

When I heard this story I was somewhat skeptical until I was attuned to the energy myself. I wanted proof this therapy really did work! Attunements to reiki energy involve being attuned by a reiki master who will imprint the symbols on to your nervous system allowing the energy to flow through you. Once attuned I immediately felt different,all of a sudden, I had this tingling sensation flowing through my fingertips as if everything I touched had a surge of energy running through it. It was a strange sensation and I really felt like I had received a mental and emotional spring clean! That was several years ago and since then, I have used reiki on many different occasions from healing my pet dog, helping members of my family, friends and clients with their arthiritis and emotional problems to perhaps the most bizzarre of all,  moving house! I used my distance symbol to help the sale of my then property in Birmingham and the purchase of my new home in Yorkshire. At the time my property just was not shifting I had received several viewings but no buyers until I eventually I did get a buyer, they were originally putting in very silly offers that were no were near the asking price. I also had troublesome neighbours and the whole area had deteriorated with the arrival of problem families, drug dealing and a rise in crime. Not a great area to have to sell a property in! I used my reiki symbols night after night and fortold my property would sell and we would move into our new house on 8 July. My prophecy ended up being out by a day as we moved into our new home on 7 July and got the asking price we wanted which was incidently bought by the same family who had earlier gone in way below the asking price! Move over Phil and Kirsty!

For more information on reiki, visit www.whitelighthypno.co.uk

Depression - How to follow the road to recovery

Depression remains a very serious health issue in the UK with statistics showing that 1 in 4 Britons will suffer from a mental health problem within a given year. Most sufferers will commonly experience a combination of anxiety and depression. Between 8 and 12 percent of the population will struggle with depression and the effects on home, career, relationships and personal esteem are enormous.

Many people who present and are diagnosed with depressive symptoms by the time they reach the stage of contacting a therapist may have exhausted many avenues of treatment, such as their GP, taking SSRIs, self help books with varying degrees of success. Quite often sufferers may feel reluctant to try alternative therapies fearing they may not work or may do more harm than good and a whole host of other reasons.

The road to recovery for depression can, however, be experienced in a positive light if people are willing to view the illness as something that is there to inform them that something needs to change. As a former sufferer of the illness, I can confirm that the turning point to recovery for me was in understanding what it was that made me depressed, as a problem well stated is one that is half solved. I learned that how I thought about myself and the things that had happened to me in my past were affecting my feelings and my actions towards others and myself. The way we think about ourselves, our experiences and how we view the world forms a map which we construct from our own interpretations of what is said to us and what happens to us. Often as children we soak up all of these messages and make a number of errors in our thinking along the way. For example a child may have had a father who he constantly sought approval from but due to the father's own limitations was unable to give him the approval he so craved. The child may grow up to constantly seek approval from others in jobs, relationships and friendships. Once we learn that the map we constructed all those years ago can be reconstructed, we can travel on unchartered territory and enjoy that feeling of liberation as we shake off old limiting beliefs that have held us back from progressing forward.

If you are affected by depression you may want to start by looking at the negative thought patterns that are going through your mind right now, how are they are affecting you in your life? How are they limiting you? Where do you think they came from and how can you challenge them? Sometimes we can be totally unaware of these thoughts until we start to make an effort to focus on them, if it helps write them down.

Future orientation is also another part of the journey, what is it that you really want to achieve in your life and what will it feel like when you have arrived there? Can you think of a time when you felt really good, what it looked like, sounded like, felt like?

Motivation can often be a major obstacle to moving forward when depressed as we can often feel lethargic, tired and everything can feel like an enormous effort. The best way to improve general motivation is to learn how to relax this might the route of self hypnosis or meditation. Meditation is an excellent way of becoming at one with yourself and making peace with the mind. Simply learning how to watch the breath as we inhale and exhale the very breath that gives us life, or lighting a candle and becoming emersed in the flame can quiten the mind. When practiced daily, meditation can become a source of relaxation, enjoyment and a chance for us to experience feeling good again.

If you would like to know more about how to overcome depression and anxiety contact me at 01484 328 622 or visit www.whitelighthypno.co.uk

Cognitive Behavior Therapy Helps Older Adults With Anxiety Reduce Worry, Improve Mental Health

Older adults with generalized anxiety disorder who received cognitive behavior therapy had greater improvement on measures of worry, depression and mental health than patients who received usual care, according to a study in the April 8 issue of JAMA.

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is common in late life, with prevalence up to 7.3 percent in the community and 11.2 percent in primary care. Late-life anxiety predicts increased physical disability, memory difficulties and decreased quality of life, according to background information in the article. Late-life anxiety is usually treated with medication, but associated risks (e.g., falls, hip fractures, memory problems) with some drugs and patient fears of adverse effects limit their usefulness. Two previous studies suggested benefits of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) in primary care for late-life GAD, but the studies were small and the conclusions were limited. Older adults most often seek treatment for GAD in primary care.

Melinda A. Stanley, Ph.D., of the Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, and colleagues conducted the first randomized clinical trial of CBT for late-life GAD in primary care to examine whether CBT would improve outcomes relative to enhanced usual care (EUC). The trial included 134 older adults (average age, 67 years) in two primary care settings, with treatment provided for 3 months. Assessments were conducted at the beginning of the trial, posttreatment (3 months), and over 12 months of follow-up, with assessments at 6, 9, 12 and 15 months. Patients were randomized to either CBT (n = 70), which included education and awareness, relaxation training, cognitive therapy, problem-solving skills training and behavioral sleep management; or EUC (n = 64), in which patients were telephoned biweekly during the first 3 months of the study by the same therapists to provide support and ensure patient safety. Therapists reminded patients to call project staff if symptoms worsened.

Levels of anxiety, worry, depression and physical/mental health quality of life were measured via various tests or surveys. The researchers found that CBT, compared with EUC, significantly improved worry severity, depressive symptoms and general mental health. In intention-to-treat analyses, response rates defined according to worry severity were higher following CBT compared with EUC at 3 months (40.0 percent vs. 21.9 percent).

"This study is the first to suggest that CBT can be useful for managing worry and associated symptoms among older patients in primary care," the authors write. "This study paves the way for future research to test sustainable models of care in more demographically heterogeneous groups."


What is Anxiety?

For more information on what anxiety is and what to do about it, please visit the Whitelight Hypnotherapy Centre website for more information and a free consultation or call 01484 328 622.