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Archive for the ‘Psychology’ Category

In their opus magnum “Personality Disorders in Modern Life”, Theodore Millon and Roger Davis define personality as:
“(A) complex pattern of deeply embedded psychological characteristics that are expressed automatically in almost every area of psychological functioning.” (p. 2)

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM)) IV-TR (2000), published by the American Psychiatric Association, defines personality traits as:

“(E)nduring patterns of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and oneself that are exhibited in a wide range of social and personal contexts.” (p. 686)

Laymen often confuse and confute “personality” with “character” and “temperament”.

Our temperament is the biological-genetic template that interacts with our environment.

Our temperament is a set of in-built dispositions we are born with. It is mostly unalterable (though recent studies demonstrate that the brain is far more plastic and elastic than we thought).
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Before anyone experiences hypnosis and starts using it to make wonderful, beneficial changes in their life, this article is designed to perhaps to answer a few questions you may have and also to dispel a few myths and misconceptions about hypnosis.

You know, I still meet people that believe that experiencing hypnosis is like being unconscious. I always reply, “What would be the point of that? Spending money and time to be unconscious in someone else’s company?? If I wanted you to be unconscious we would simply bash you over the head!” So it is important that you also know that hypnosis is not about being unconscious and that you have the correct expectations about the hypnotic experience that you are going to have, should you choose to invest in one of our products or experience hypnosis for yourself with a hypnotist.

In order to understand hypnosis, it is important to understand and differentiate between our minds. By that I am referring to our conscious mind, where we are now and just below that level of awareness is our unconscious mind (also known as the subconscious mind, for the purpose of easy understanding they are the same thing).

The conscious mind is where we usually spend most of our waking time, you know that internal dialogue we have that thinks “hmmm, what shoes shall I wear today” that is your conscious mind. Your conscious mind basically does four things;

Firstly, your conscious mind analyses. What is that? Well that is the part of us that looks at problems, analyses them and tries to create solutions to those problems. It is that part of us that makes decisions all day every day “shall I open the door?”, “Shall I have something to eat”, even though they are automatic behaviours, we make a conscious decision about whether or not to do these things.

The second part of our conscious mind is our rationale, the part of us that, especially in western cultures, always has to know “Why” things happen and “Why” we behave in particular ways. This can cause us so many problems as we give any problems more and more credence and power. More conventional and traditional methods of counselling or psychotherapy are often very much concerned with looking at causes of our problems and it is my opinion that all this does is teaches us “why” they happen as opposed to giving us the skills required to changing unwanted habits and behaviours. The more we think about “why” we do things the more we seem to embed the unwanted behaviour into our psyches!

The third part of our conscious mind is will power, that teeth-gritted determination that so many of us are proud to demonstrate. How many times have we used our will power alone to make changes and found that our will power weakens and that change is temporary or non-existent.

The final part of our conscious mind is your short-term memory. By that I am referring to the things that you need to remember to function on a day-to-day basis, so that when your phone rings you know to answer it rather than stare at it wondering it is, or ensuring that you cross the road without being run over.

That is the conscious part of your mind, it is logical, rational and analytical, a bit like Mr Spock from the Start Trek series and as much as it pains me to say it, our conscious mind is frequently wrong about things.

Your conscious mind is wherever you happen to be pointing it at any given time. I am sure you have been in a busy, noisy environment, such as a restaurant or a bar and have been engaged in a conversation with another individual, and all the sounds going on around you just seem to blend into the background. Then someone else ten metres away can punctuate their sentence with your name and you pick it out as if it was being spoken to you. This illustrates that unconsciously, you are aware of many, many pieces of information every second of your life, sounds, colours, thoughts etc, yet your conscious mind allows you to focus upon what is pertinent or relevant to you at that moment.

If you take that conscious awareness and point it inside of yourself instead of outside into the world, you begin to become aware of your inner self, your unconscious self, which is the part of you that we work with in hypnosis.

Your unconscious mind is tremendously powerful and automates as much behaviour as it possibly can so that we do not have to think about it. For example, there was a time in your life when you had to be shown how to tie your shoelaces, and you concentrated on doing this. I suspect that by this stage in your life you know how tie your shoelaces very well and you don’t even think about doing it, you just do it. I have a lonely Auntie who as a boy, my mother would ask me to phone on a weekly basis as she thought this would make her happy and I vividly remember hearing her lighting up a cigarette and heavily exhaling the smoke while on the phone, she didn’t even think about what she was doing, she just associated smoking with being on the phone.

We are amazing learning machines and we learn behaviours and habits and then our unconscious mind automates them and does them on auto pilot so that we do not have to think about doing them.

Your unconscious mind has within it all your long-term memory. Just about every blade of grass that you have seen in your entire lifetime is stored away in your long-term memory that serves as an amazing storage centre. These memories affect us in varying ways, some more than others. Sometimes our ability to remember them is not as fluid as we need, as it is often not necessary to have all our memory in the forefront of our minds. For example, right now you are unlikely to be thinking about everything that happened to you on your last birthday, however, me just mentioning it, you can dig into your unconscious, long-term memory and remember.

Another example is if you have ever seen a live stand up comedy show. You watch the comedian and laugh (or not as the case may be!) heartily as you listen to lots and lots of jokes. Then when you leave the venue, you can remember none of them, or one or two at best! Then, a week later, a friend that you were with can say to you “do you remember such and such a joke from last weeks comedian” and you think “oh yeeeaaah!” as you bring that information out from your long-term memory. You know that you know the joke, it was just not at the forefront of your conscious mind, it was tucked away in the deeper unconscious.

Your unconscious mind knows more about you than you consciously that you know. Sound confusing? Well, just think, you are currently breathing, your heart is beating (I do hope!) you are digesting, your body is regulating its body temperature, it is doing a range of wonderful things without you having to consciously think about it. You are not sat around thinking “I really must remember to breathe”. We are not machines, there is an intelligence within us that knows how to do these things, and it is that intelligence that we tap into with hypnosis.

Your unconscious mind is where you get your gut feelings, your instincts and intuition that communicates with you sporadically from time to time. Like when sometimes, someone can be saying all the right words to you, but you get a different feeling about them.

Your unconscious mind is a bit like a computer. Throughout your entire lifetime it has been programmed with all your experiences, relationships, interpretations of the world, influences and all this has culminated in your computer functioning with that programming. Hypnosis is simply a way of accessing that computer and updating that programming so that it becomes instinctive and intuitive for you to make the changes that please you.

Your unconscious mind is the seat of your emotions and where your behaviours exist and it is the part of you that we work with in hypnosis. Hypnosis is a way of us stepping over your conscious mind and accessing the unconscious mind to make powerful and profound changes.

Now, I am sure that you have experienced natural trance states many times before, in fact I know it. For example, when you have been driving in a car and thought to yourself “ooh, how did I get here?” or when you have been reading a book and you’ve turned the page and thought “I have no idea what I have just read, I am going to have to read it all again”. I can remember being at school watching my history teacher teach me, yet my mind was a million miles away wishing I was doing something else. All common experiences, daydream like states that we all experience, many times a day. The only difference between these naturally occurring states and those that we use in therapeutic hypnosis, is that with the hypnosis, you intend to enter the state, you are in control of it and it is just like a slightly amplified, deeper version of the state. That is it. Sometimes it is simply like sitting in a chair with your eyes closed, not the magical mystical or unusual experience that some people are led to believe it is.
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Psychotherapy
Psychology is the study of human behaviour. It seeks to look at the motivational drives within an individual and offer an explanation to the behaviour that is demonstrated.

Psychotherapy is the use and application of psychological knowledge to help people understand themselves and begin to make appropriate changes, or to be comfortable with who they are.

Psychotherapy has several different theoretical models that have developed over time, the most commonly known being psycho-analysis. The therapy that I practise uses some of the best ideas from these differing schools of thought in order to help people achieve not only a rapid rate of improvement but also a lasting one. It has its basis in a cognitive–analytical model that seeks to look at the process behind thought, and understand how it has developed, and of course how to change negative thought processes into positive ones.

Hypnosis
Hypnosis is a very effective method of treatment. It is a state of altered consciousness with increased and heightened awareness, which is often accompanied by deep relaxation; this in itself can be beneficial. Contrary to popular belief it does not involve becoming unconscious and has nothing to do with sleep.

Hypnosis cannot be forced upon people, but it is a state which people allow themselves to enter.

It is important to understand that, during hypnosis, people cannot be forced to do things that they would choose not to do. Hypnosis or “trance” as it is often referred to is similar to the experience of day dreaming, when you lose a sense of time and may without thought continue a task that routinely requires concentration, such as driving from one place to another but not actually remembering the journey. This is an example of an altered state of consciousness that we experience every day of our lives.
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Most people have heard of most phobias. Mention claustrophobia, social phobia, or arachnophobia and everyone pretty much knows what you are talking about. Mention agoraphobia, and most people will just shake their heads.

Because of this, many people who get agoraphobia often take a year, and in some cases, many years, just finding out what is wrong with them. Since the panic and anxiety symptoms that come with agoraphobia are so physical, people who get agoraphobia commonly visit a succession of doctors trying in search of a diagnosis. Since medical doctors are not usually trained to diagnose agoraphobia, let alone anxiety disorders, agoraphobia has had time to become deeply rooted in most people before they know enough about the disorder to seek the proper treatment and being recovery.

In light of this, here are some basics about agoraphobia:

Agoraphobia is “anxiety about, or avoidance of, places or situations from which escape might be difficult (or embarrassing) or in which help may not be available in the event of having a panic attack or panic-like symptoms.” (DSM-IV)

Agoraphobia is a type of anxiety disorder. The term “agoraphobia” comes from the Greek words agora (?????), meaning “marketplace,” and phobia (?????), meaning “fear.” Literally translated as “fear of the marketplace,” people with agoraphobia are afraid of open or public spaces.
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