Mind & Body

Manual white balance next time!

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A Special Place

My first attempt at a vblog!

Another Wave of Nostalgia

"Ken Dodd 'third best-selling artist of 1960s'"

According to new research, the two top-selling singles of the Sixties were by The Beatles, but this was the third:

More on Metaphor - Gandalf and Me

J R R Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (“LOTR”) is currently enjoying a revival, but I read it over thirty years ago, and it made a lasting impression on me. Set in “Middle-Earth”, LOTR is the sequel to The Hobbit, a children’s book, which tells how hobbit Bilbo Baggins stole a magic ring which made him invisible. In LOTR it is revealed that this is the “One Ring”, created by the evil Dark Lord, Sauron, to control nineteen rings of power held by Elves, Dwarves and Men – and Sauron wants it back. When the wizard Gandalf the Grey discovers that Bilbo has the Ring, he orders that it must be destroyed. Bilbo’s nephew Frodo is nominated for this task, and he sets out with a Fellowship headed by Gandalf to cast the Ring into the volcano Mount Doom, unfortunately situated within Sauron’s realm of Mordor. This is achieved on page 982, but there is more evil to be conquered at home before the final happy ending.

This long and complex novel incorporates many of Jung’s archetypal elements. Firstly, of course, the book describes the eternal battle between Good and Evil, Light and Dark, the Ego and the Shadow. Frodo is the Hero, who must make a long journey and overcome many obstacles to attain his Quest and conquer evil. Gandalf combines two archetypes, the Magician and the Wise Old Man. He fulfils the same role as Merlin, Mr Spock and Obi Wan Kenobe – a powerful yet vulnerable wise counsellor. Early in the book Gandalf is dragged into an abyss and assumed to be dead, but he reappears later with increased power as Gandalf the White, a clear “death and resurrection” theme. He replaces the evil Saruman the White as head of the wizards’ order; Saruman has been corrupted by the power that he formerly held. All of these elements can be regarded as metaphors for life.

It occurs to me that the contrast between light and dark could be applied to the uses of hypnosis – hypnotherapy on one hand, stage hypnosis on the other (I imagine that any use of hypnosis for “evil” must be extremely rare). In the same way that magic, electricity or atomic power can be used for both positive and negative purposes, hypnosis can be used to benefit a fellow human being or to invoke laughter at his expense.

It is possible for an individual to be both a stage hypnotist and a therapist. Ormond McGill, “Dean of American Hypnotists”, was both the author of the standard textbook of stage hypnotism and a therapist. McGill carefully points out that the two sides of hypnosis must be kept separate, and that any requests for therapeutic help should be referred to the hypnotist’s office if he is also a professional therapist.

The balance between light and dark is a delicate one, and I imagine that it may be relatively easy for a therapist treading both paths to fall, like Saruman, into the dark side. Some professional hypnotherapy bodies, including mine, take a dim view of stage hypnosis. As an amateur magician I could have followed the stage hypnosis path, but having chosen to train as a therapist I prefer to follow Gandalf along the path of light.

Milton Erickson – the Father of Modern Hypnotherapy?

The foundations of hypnotherapy were laid in the nineteenth century by medical researchers such as John Elliotson, James Esdaille and James Braid. The latter, who coined the term “hypnosis”, was largely responsible for the acceptance of hypnosis by the British medical community (although its current status among them is somewhat equivocal). But it was Milton Erickson’s observed and published work that made hypnosis a respectable approach within the American medical profession and worthy of study in medical schools. It has been suggested that Erickson was to the practice of psychotherapy what Freud was to the theory of human behaviour.

Erickson was born in 1901 and raised in a farming community in Wisconsin. Degrees in psychology and medicine led to a career in psychiatry. Over his career he published over 140 papers and co-authored several books on the therapeutic uses of hypnosis and was a consultant to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. He also gave seminars and workshops, some of which survive on video and audio recordings. He co-founded the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis in 1957, and became its first president and also the first editor of its journal. Erickson died in 1980.

An attack of polio at 17 left him bedridden and totally paralysed. Able only to see and hear, he observed his family, and was able to study non-verbal and body language, effectively turning his disability into an advantage. Colour-blindness, tone deafness and dyslexia also contributed to his view of the world. He was confined to a wheelchair after a further polio attack at the age of 51 but was able to use self-hypnosis to control his pain. The use of hypnotic techniques enabled him to overcome his own disabilities and help others to deal with similar issues.

Erickson never did “Ericksonian Hypnotherapy”. He took a pragmatic approach, utilising whatever techniques were need to facilitate change in each individual client. Although he is remembered for pioneering the indirect (or permissive) approach to hypnosis, he was also prepared to use more traditional direct (or authoritarian) methods where appropriate. Many modern hypnotherapists follow Erickson’s lead in utilising both types of therapy, but for the purposes of the explanations that follow we will treat them as two distinct approaches.

Practitioners of direct hypnotherapy are often authoritarian in style – similar to the persona of the stage hypnotist – telling the client what to do. This is the classical approach to hypnosis represented in countless novels and films; the therapist adopts the role of the expert, and the client is simply a passive receiver for his suggestions. The principal problem with this approach is that the therapy will be ineffective if the client is unwilling to accept the therapist’s suggestions. The client may be the sort of person who resents being given orders, or perhaps is nervous about hypnosis and being under hypnotist’s control. Also, direct therapy is one-sided and does not use the client’s personal resources.

In indirect hypnotherapy the relationship between therapist and client is emphasised. Rather than giving the client orders, the indirect therapist offers new ways of looking at a situation or choices of behaviour, and, as far as possible, the client is encouraged to find these himself from the resources in his own unconscious mind.

It may be helpful to illustrate the two different styles of therapy by the way in which the classic “eye fixation” induction may be used by therapists trained in the direct and indirect approaches.

A classical direct hypnotist may swing a pocket watch in front of the client’s eyes: “I want you to focus your attention on this watch. Watch it swinging back and forth. Your eyes are getting heavy – you are getting sleepy – close your eyes and sleep”.

An “Ericksonian” therapist using this technique (rather than the purely verbal inductions based on “language patterns”) may say something along these lines: “I’d like you to look up at the corner of the room behind me and choose a spot to focus on. You may like to choose part of the wallpaper pattern, or part of a picture frame, or anything else you wish – it really doesn’t matter. Just let me know when you’ve chosen. Good. Now just concentrate on that spot. You may find it seems to move about slightly, or drift in and out of focus. You may find that your eyes start to blink faster – that’s right – and you may notice that they are starting to feel heavier – when you’re ready to let them close, whether now or in a few minutes time, you can do so whenever you wish…”

The importance of Erickson, and his methods as practised in Ericksonian hypnotherapy, is to take hypnotherapy away from the classical approach involving an authoritative therapist and a passive subject. His indirect approach allows a greater freedom of response from clients, both consciously and unconsciously, allowing them to access their own resources to deal with the real problems from which their symptoms have arisen.

They don't make them like that any more...

Thanks to Freeview and DVD, I’ve recently been re-watching some of the classic TV shows of the 1960s and early Seventies – The Avengers, The Saint, Department S, The Protectors and The Champions. All of these, as far as I can see, have two things in common.

Firstly, whenever a character drives somewhere, even in the middle of London, he always finds a parking space immediately outside the place that he is visiting. He never has to pay to park and never gets a ticket. Also, he never locks his car, and presumably always leaves the key in the ignition as his car can easily be stolen by anyone who jumps in.

While all that strains credibility, it’s not likely to be a major plot problem if anyone tried to do a modern remake (perish the thought). The second point of commonality, however, is potentially more serious.

In the Sixties and Seventies, there were no mobile phones. Apart from the Champions, who had the handy gift of telepathy, any character wanting to contact another had to find a telephone box and then hope that the contactee was at home or in his office. Many of the plots revolved around the fact that hero A was unable to contact hero B; hero A would then go off on his or her own and inevitably get into trouble. There was a good example of this in an episode of Department S which I watched the other night; Annabelle gives Jason a good talking to for going off on his own and getting beaten up; she then does precisely the same thing, although, to be fair, in her case she did have the foresight to leave a scribbled note in the empty office so she could be rescued at the last minute (of course).

So many of the plots from these shows just wouldn’t work nowadays. But I still enjoy these programmes, although for different reasons in each case; The Avengers and Department S for the humour and quirky plots, The Saint because I like the books, The Protectors because they packed everything into half-hour episodes, and The Champions – well, I’m not so sure now about that one...

Let me tell you a story...

If you watched the first Leader’s Debate, between the three British main party leaders, a couple of weeks ago, you may have noticed how often they used lines like: “I was in my constituency last week, talking to a group of ......, and one of them told me about....” This story-telling technique is known in therapeutic circles as metaphor.

Therapeutic metaphor is a form of suggestion through the use of stories or anecdotes. These can be examples from life, real or imaginary former clients, literature, folk tales or mythology. Classical mythology is full of tales which can be used as metaphors. The story of Orpheus and Eurydice, for example, is about dealing with grief and the futility of trying to hold on to the past.

Founder of modern hypnotherapy Milton Erickson was well known for his use of “teaching tales”. These were stories about his own life and previous clients – possibly real, possibly fictional – in which his clients could find their own meanings. I often use life experiences as metaphors for my clients. I may tell smokers, for example, that my father was forced to give up smoking after his heart attack – but it was the lung cancer that finally killed him.

Advanced therapeutic metaphors have a “nested loop” structure. See if you can spot it in this one, which I wrote for a client with the (very common) fear of public speaking.

“I heard someone on the radio recently talking about a famous actor – I forget his name – who is physically sick before every performance. He regards it as both normal and essential – he feels he has to be nervous to give a good performance. You know, I used to do quite a lot of acting at school, and eventually my father also encouraged me to go along to the debating society, and always to stand up and say something, even if it was only ‘Mr Chairman, Gentlemen’. I discovered that however nervous I was before I stood up, the nerves always vanished as soon as I started to speak. I eventually became Vice Chairman, and found that I was better as Chairman than as a speaker. So I suppose it was natural that when I became a Freemason I would go quickly up through the offices in the lodge – which are really just acting – and become Master, which is a mixture of role-playing and chairmanship. And years later, having been Master in the Craft three times, and now Master in the Royal Arch, I still get nervous before I go into the lodge room, but those nerves still vanish once I start to speak.

“And it’s a great pity that my father, who never became a Freemason, isn’t around now to see what his encouragement and advice led to. And although I’m not physically sick, like that great actor, before I speak in public, I still have that twinge of nervousness which all speakers learn to value and harness to their benefit.”

Although metaphors were very noticeable in the first Leaders’ Debate, I don’t remember any in the second – I wonder why?

The Element of Surprise

My former life as a tax adviser was frequently frustrating but rarely dull. The reason was that any plans I had for a particular day were often defenestrated (i.e. thrown out of the window) by a telephone call or visit from either a client or a partner wanting something done immediately. My favourite (not) were the partners who would turn up at 4 pm and say “I’ve promised Mr So and So that he’ll get his tax return first thing in the morning.” Thinks: “Fine for you to make the promise – you don’t have to do the work.”

Now I’ve put all that behind me, dei gratia, I still get the odd surprise in my work as a self-employed hypnotherapist. Very occasionally, I take a call from a prospective client who desperately needs my help straight away – a sudden attack of nerves before a presentation, perhaps, or fear about an upcoming flight. Another kind of surprise came from a client in Greece wanting a telephone session. But the most usual type of surprise comes from a client who turns up in my consulting room with an issue that I wasn’t expecting.

Generally, when I take a booking, I ask the client how he would like me to help him. Some give me a great deal of information at that stage, most give a brief overview and a few are so reticent – or perhaps they are calling from work – that they don’t want to give any details over the phone. Then they arrive and it quickly becomes clear that the issue they told me about isn’t what we need to work on. Or there’s the client who comes for a particular issue in session 1, then says he has other issues too – so when he comes back for session 2 I don’t know whether we’re going to be working on reinforcing what we’ve already covered or something entirely different.

Happily, my original hypnotherapy tutor was adamant that we shouldn’t use pre-prepared scripts and trained us to work completely cold with our practice clients. We wouldn’t even have any idea what issues they would bring to the session. That was about eight years ago, and I have since picked up a number of new techniques that can be adapted for most situations, such as Emotional Freedom Technique and Archetypal Parts Imagery (which I used with a client this morning). It can often be tricky to make an instant decision on which of the possible techniques to use, but all of my client sessions start with a pre-talk to find out what the client needs and there are usually clues there which will guide me on which way to go.

There is one more kind of surprise in my work – the client who fails to show up altogether. There are several possible reasons for that – but I’ll save them for a future blog.

My First Blog

Well, here it is. My first attempt at a blog on Blogger. It'll be interesting to see how it comes out.

It's a pleasant sunny afternoon here in NW London. That's a bit of a surprise, because it was damp and gloomy this morning and the forecast was for heavy showers.

Just as an experiment, here's a photo of one of the feral cats that own our back garden. Ah - that didn't come out quite as I expected, but I'll know for next time!