Thanks Milton ........

Milton Erickson's Wisdom ....

Erickson and the girl with large feet .....

For many decades, people have been fascinated by the therapeutic techniques of Milton Erickson, and rightly so, he was indeed a genius.

He manipulated words and phrases in such as way as to bring about change in the listener; whether they were in a formal hypnotic state, or not.  He is known as known as one of the most creative and interesting therapists of all time.

Here's a short audio clip highlighting one of those techniques.

listen to ‘The girl with large feet .....’ on Audioboo

PTSD and other such things .......

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is common. In more recent times it's been recognised by more and more people; mainly due to it's mention in conflict related effects on war veterans, or, those people caught up in the maelstrom of modern day terrorism.

However, there are many other situations which may impinge upon our lives which can create such issues. Those events often include either experiencing or witnessing a severe accident or physical injury, receiving a life-threatening medical diagnosis, being the victim of kidnapping or torture, or to a natural disaster, exposure to other disaster (for example, plane crash), being the victim of rape, mugging, robbery, or assault, enduring physical, sexual, emotional, or other forms of abuse, as well as involvement in civil conflict.

The symptoms are complex, but generally speaking, those afflicted will experience some, or all, of the following: Sleep problems, trouble concentrating, irritability, anger, poor concentration, blackouts or difficulty remembering things, increased tendency and reaction to being startled, and hypervigilance (excessive watchfulness) to threat. Avoidance of places, people, and experiences that remind the sufferer of the trauma or a general numbing of emotional responsiveness. Recurrent re-experiencing of the trauma (for example, troublesome memories, flashbacks that are usually caused by reminders of the traumatic events, recurring nightmares about the trauma).

The numbing of one's emotions is troublesome indeed. It can have dire effects upon many factors in a vicitim's life, and of course those closest to them.

According to a reliable source, at least one re-experiencing symptom, three avoidance/numbing symptoms, and two hyperarousal symptoms must be present for at least one month and must cause significant distress or functional impairment in order for the diagnosis of PTSD to be assigned. PTSD is considered of chronic duration if it persists for three months or more.

Of course, there are many online tests for this particular issue, but the following seems to be straight forward and logical to me. If you're concerned about your mental health, give it a try.

Brief (simplified) Test For PTSD

If you're concerned, seek help, the condition can improve, or may be totally resolved with a good regime of pertinent therapy. NLP techniques utilised within Hypnotherapy have proven to be excellent tools in this respect.

Hypnosis and Pain ......

Explainer: how does hypnosis relieve pain?

By Allan Cyna, SA Health and Marion Andrew, SA Health

Hypnosis in one form or another has been around for thousands of years, but until recently, evidence to support its biological and clinically powerful effects have been lacking. Today hypnosis is used by clinicians around the world to help manage pain, childbirth, phobia and anxiety – particularly in children.

What is hypnosis?

Hypnosis is thought to be a state of conscious awareness which most people experience transiently many times each day.

Hypnotic experiences and responses tend to involve:

• absorption or a state of focused concentration or attention;


• dissociation, where the patient’s perception of the external environment diminishes; and


• suggestibility (the ability of an individual to respond, in a non-volitional way, to a verbal or non-verbal communication).

People describe the hypnotic mindset in different ways such as, “being beside oneself”, “out of body experiences”, “daydreaming”, “tuning out” or a meditative state.

Until the 19th century, hypnosis was the only means of having surgery comfortably. James Braid), a Scottish surgeon working in Bengal in the 1840s, operated on several hundred patients using hypnosis and his success subsequently received widespread acclaim.

Over the years, clinicians have reported dissociation from pain, decreased bleeding and reduced infection, suggesting an evolutionary basis for why we have the ability to enter a hypnotic “trance-like” state when under extreme stress.

Following the establishment of pharmacological anaesthesia – with its greater effectiveness and reliability – the practice of hypnosis languished for decades, becoming little more than a parlour trick. It was almost forgotten until relatively recently.

Unfortunately, the term “hypnosis” has many negative connotations and its use by stage hypnotists as entertainment has probably contributed to many doctors not taking the clinical use of hypnosis seriously.

How it works

Contrary to popular belief, hypnosis is not sleep; hypnotic responses can be elicited in minutes or less; and a conscious belief that it will be effective is not required to achieve a benefit. Patients experiencing hypnosis can hear what’s happening around them and can halt the process at any stage if they wish.

The success of hypnosis in a clinical setting requires trust between doctor and patient to go along with the process. But a borderline, and sometimes frank, hypnotic state frequently occurs spontaneously in hospital patients where the overwhelming stress of the external environment – or the thought of painful procedures, or feelings of being a victim to illness – can facilitate an internal focus of attention.

Contrary to popular belief, hypnosis is not sleep.

This can make patients highly responsive to suggestions, positive or negative. And it means that when a doctor says, before a potentially painful procedure, “this is going to sting”, the communication can function as a hypnotic suggestion and is likely to increase pain. In contrast, the positive suggestion, “the local anaesthetic will numb the area and allow us to perform the procedure more comfortably” is likely to decrease pain of local anaesthetic injection.

What the research say?

Advances in brain function imaging using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) scanning techniques have allowed us to see that hypnosis modulates activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, which links the limbic (emotions) and sensory cortical areas of the brain during hypnotic pain relief. This appears to allow sensations that would normally be experienced as painful to no longer have the suffering or negative emotions that would normally be associated with them.

A labour contraction, for example, can be felt as either the most terrifying and painful of sensations or a wonderfully fulfilling experience that tells the mother she is getting closer to her baby. These very different perceptions may be experienced despite the intensity of uterine contractions being identical.

Anaesthetists in Belgium have successfully used hypnosis to help thousands of patients minimise their need for general anaesthesia during thyroidectomy (surgical removal of they thyroid gland), mastectomy (removal of the breast) and plastic surgery.

Meanwhile, US researchers are currently investigating the effectiveness of hypnosis and suggestion in the management of chronic and procedural pain including burns.

And our own institution is researching the effectiveness of hypnosis in managing childbirth pain, along with investigators in Denmark, the United Kingdom and the University of Tasmania.

How is it used?

Hypnosis in the formal sense – where a patient receives an induction, treatment, and an alerting procedure – is more commonly practiced by clinical psychologists and not widely used in hospitals. Although a number of hospitals around the world use hypnotic techniques, the main clinical application is to use suggestions to supplement anaesthesia drugs and techniques as part of a multimodal approach to patient care.

Hypnosis has been used at Adelaide’s Women’s and Children’s Hospital for more than three decades, since Dr Graham Wicks, a medical hypnotherapist at the hospital, pioneered its use. Over the years, hypnosis has been used to treat thousands of children with problems as diverse as bedwetting, pain, and helping children comfortably use hypnotic anaesthesia with needles and renal dialysis.

Today, several paediatricians and anaesthetists at our institution are trained in hypnosis and use it to supplement patient care where indicated.

As anaesthetists, we use hypnotic techniques to help patients feel more in control and to supplement and enhance their anaesthesia experience. Common examples include assisting children and adults with their induction of anaesthesia, burns dressings, treatment of needle phobia, assistance with childbirth pain and preparation of patients for surgery.

It’s very rare for procedures to be performed entirely using hypnosis.

The main value of hypnosis as a technique is to assist patients having drips and needles inserted more comfortably and usefully supplement a less than perfect local anaesthetic. The belief that the patient can do more than he or she thinks (and more than the doctor believes is possible) is likely to generate surprising therapeutic responses.

Further reading: Handbook of Communication in Anaesthesia & Critical Care: A Practical Guide to Exploring the Art

Allan Cyna is affiliated with the Australian Society of Hypnosis (executive member). He has received funding from the NHMRC (for a Hypnosis for childbirth trial, 2007-9) and two ASA grants including a PhD research award and a health sciences award from the University of Adelaide.

Marion Andrew has received funding from the NHMRC.

This article was originally published at The Conversation.
Read the original article.

IBS and Hypnotherapy ....

Extract courtesy BootsWeMD

Hypnosis can be a highly effective treatment for the bowel disorder IBS according to new research. The treatment of IBS using hypnotherapy has been studied before but only at highly specialised "hypnotherapy centres", two new Swedish studies evaluated a form of treatment that could be used in ordinary healthcare. 40% of participants showed a reduction in symptoms.

IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) is one of the most common digestive conditions and can cause bouts of stomach cramps, bloating, diarrhoea and constipation. It's thought that 10%-20% of people experience IBS at some point and it's twice as common in women as in men.

Control

Professor Peter Whorwell from the University of Manchester School of Medicine has been studying hypnosis for IBS for around 25 years and told BootsWebMD that the new studies back up his own findings: "These studies confirm accumulating evidence that hypnotherapy is an effective treatment for patients with irritable bowel syndrome and that its effects are sustained in the long term."

He says hypnotherapy helps both physiologically and psychologically: "Hypnosis relaxes you and reduces your anxiety but we've done studies over the years showing that hypnotherapy has a direct effect physiologically. There are studies that show it reduces acid secretion. It reduces the hypersensitivity that IBS patients have. It reduces the contractions in the gut."

He says hypnosis also helps IBS patients with bowel function, pain and bloating.

He calls the therapy gut-focused hypnosis: "The mantra is: you are controlling your gut, rather than your gut controlling you."

Swedish studies

The studies, conducted by researchers at the University of Gothenburg, involved a total of 346 patients. They showed that hypnotherapy alleviated symptoms in 40% of those affected and that the improvement was long-term.

In one of the studies, published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology, 138 patients with IBS received hypnotherapy treatment for one hour a week over 12 weeks. The study showed that 40% demonstrated a satisfactory reduction in symptoms, compared with 12 per cent in the untreated control group.

In a press statement researcher Magnus Simrén from The Sahlgrenska Academy of Gothenburg University said: "The treatment involves the patient learning to control their symptoms through deep relaxation and individually adapted hypnotic suggestions. The idea is for the patient to then use this technique in their everyday life."

The positive effect was sustained for the entire year the study ran and led to an improvement in the quality of life experienced by the treatment group.

In the second study, which was presented in the Scandinavian Journal of Gastroenterology, 208 patients who had previously received hypnotherapy were examined. The results showed that 85 per cent of those who had been helped by hypnosis still felt the benefits of the treatment up to seven years later and that the majority still actively use the technique in their everyday lives.

"In this group, use of the healthcare system as a result of stomach and bowel symptoms had also reduced by 70%," said Magnus Simrén.

Effective

He believes the studies show that hypnosis belongs in the arsenal of treatments for IBS: "Overall, our studies show that hypnotherapy is an effective method of treating IBS."