I hold group supervision sessions at a nearby hospital every month. Recently I got a request.
"I saw a program in the summer about how high function autism or savants' brains work and on it there was a professor in the US who was doing experiments to switch off the left hemisphere of the brain using electrical stimulation. It takes 15 minutes of mini shocks to switch of the left hemisphere and only lasts a short period of time.
"Now you might be wondering why on earth I might want to do this, so I'll explain. I have read that to draw and paint well the key is to tune into the right hemisphere and effectively draw from the right side of the brain, so it occurred to me that surely hypnosis could do this rather effectively and more safely than electrical shocks.
"It might be interesting to do before and after tests of drawing to see if this is possible with hypnosis and if the results once established could be repeated as in squirrels and rabbits. So establish the desired state and then anchor it in using a verbal command that the would be artist could use as and when they wanted to be creative.
"Are you intrigued and does it sound like something we could do at the January meeting?"
Well, I was intrigued enough to go for it. I've done some dual brain work before (having first read about dual-brain therapy in Fred Schiffer's book "Of Two Minds" several years ago, but I haven't done a lot. Also I rather felt that to get to the point where I could shut a hemisphere down in hypnosis required some considerable development of the hypnotic communication and not something likely to be appropriate in a first session. Still, in for a penny ...
And much to my surprise, it worked spectacularly well. The volunteer, whom I had not worked with before, went out with the first attempt at an induction, I got good and genuine IMRs, her subc confirmed she'd help me do what was planned, I closed her left hemisphere and tested: she had total right side catalepsy. I woke her up with only her right hemisphere active and she proceeded to draw without inhibition. I put her back to sleep again and anchored the state as requested, using Klimt as the in-word and Picasso as the out-word.
Once awake she was able to re-enter the state by giving herself the Klimt command, but she didn't come out of it again as she should have on Picasso, so I had to have a word with her subc and warn her that if she didn't follow the rules I wouldn't ever let her Klimt again.
All of which will, I'm sure, sound utterly bizarre to you if you weren't there. The dozen who were there saw something I think was quite extraordinary. (In fact, one has already written to say she is still struggling to get her head around it.)
There's good and bad news. The bad news is it didn't happen for me overnight. The good news it could happen overnight for you.
I started my relationship with the NHS by offering to do free, weekly, one hour relaxation and ego-boosting group hypnotherapy at my own GP's surgery. I sold it on the basis that all the pensioners and unemployed who went for their allotted 9 minutes of placebo could get an hour with me, thus lightening the load on the GPs.
Because I was doing free sessions I was able to put posters in local chemists, libraries, practically anywhere advertising the sessions. People had to phone me to book their seats. Some did. Others phoned and said "I don't want to go to the group but can you help me with ..."
I did those for a year until they re-organised and needed the room for the practice nurse.
I went to Kingston Hospital for a check-up and the nurse asked me what I did. We got chatting and she said they could get aromatherapy from the Occupational Health Dept. She didn't know if they did hypnotherapy. I got directions to the Occy Health Dept and went there as soon as I finished with the nurse. I met the nurse-manager and the Head of Psychological Services and offered them just what I'd been doing at the GP's, only monthly. That was in 2003, and I've been with them ever since.
I have NHS identity tags that say I'm the Clinical Hypnotist, Occupational Health Department, Kingston Hospital (NHS) Trust (KHT). I also have a car park pass and a log-in to all the NHS on-line research data. And I have my own page on the hospital intranet. And because several local PCTs contract their Occy Health from KHT, I'm their Clinical Hypnotist too.
KHT has a post-graduate medical centre and they provide lunchtime lectures which any of the hospital doctors, consultants and local GPs can attend. I was invited to give a lecture on Clinical Hypnotism. I did - to 132 sceptical physicians.
I started with a quote from a meta-analysis of hypnotherapy as an adjunctive therapy in surgery which says that "Surgical patients in hypnosis treatment groups had better outcomes than 89% of patients in control groups". And then I said "If there was something that gave 89% of your patients better outcomes, you'd want to know about it, wouldn't you?" And then I had their attention.
The GPs who ask for leaflets were at that lecture. The consultants who send me patients were at that lecture. And I even got paid £100 for giving the lecture (and a free lunch)!
So, if I were you I'd forget your GP and, instead, go to your local hospital and find the Occupational Health Department. Offer them a once-a-month, free, relaxation and ego-boosting session for their staff. And when, after a few months, they value you so much they offer to pay you, decline it. As soon as they pay you say £100 a session, someone will want to know if they could get the same thing from someone else for £75. My NHS dog-tags are worth more than all my other certificates combined and very much more than £100 a month.
Towards the end of last October I accepted an invitation to treat a young man who had just punched his father in the head, perforating his ear-drum, for anger and violent episodes.
The patient (P) had been prescribed 10mg/day Olanzapine by the presiding psychiatrist. The same psychiatrist also said that the only way to achieve peace in the home was for the patient to be institutionalised. When the parents said they wanted a hypnotherapist to see their son, the psychiatrist characterised hypnotherapists as charlatans and sellers of snake oil.
I saw the patient and he was clearly schizophrenic, and had been for 10 years. Since S1 the patient's anger has gone and there have been no violent episodes. His parents are thrilled (and greatly relieved). But ...
P had been into sport and used to take a lot of exercise. As he calmed down so he also seemed to lose his motivation, not just for sport but for everything. It felt/seemed/looked like this ...
Imagine a scale of 0 to 10 where 5 is 'normal', 10 is uber-manic and 0 is morbidly depressed. It's like when I first saw him he was scoring 8 but the Olanzapine was suppressing him to 6. What I've done has got him down to 6 but the on-going meds have him at 4, so he's a bit too quiet and a bit too docile.
So I wrote to the Cons Psych and said something along the lines of "I know you don't think highly of hypnotherapists but I have the following status in the field of 'proper physicians' and I whether that makes a difference to you or not I just wanted to share the following observation so you can decide whether or not you want to include it in your considerations; I think the benzodiazepine he's taking might now be having a sedative effect." Trust me, it was a lot more professional than that, but that was the gist.
The Cons Psych has replied, perfectly nicely, saying that Olanzapine is an anti-psychotic (yes, I knew that) not a benzodiazepine and in any case neither would have a sedative effect. Nonetheless he said he would pass my letter on to the General Practitioner currently responsible for medication and dosage levels.
Well, that's all right then. Only ... Olanzapine IS a benzodiazepine and it DOES have a sedative effect; at least, according to everything I've read.
So, what's the problem? Well, I can adjust what I've doing to balance out the meds so my patient is and will continue to be all right. I'm just a little discomforted to know that a leading a prominent local consulting psychiatrist doesn't seem to know very much about at least one of the drugs he's prescribing - so much so that he's prepared to put utterly wrong information in print.
Do I write back to him and say "Thank you for your reply, but it IS a benzo and it IS a sedative"? Or do I let it pass, take care of my patients and leave him to do what he does?
IMRs are my first step in getting 2-way communication with the patient's subc, and I value them highly.
Over the last seven days I have seen a new patient for S1 and S2. The issue was eating control. I got good hypnosis but failed to get IMRs. I woke him and tried again. The second time I did a wrist-lift and then got his subc to carry his hand to his face against his conscious will, successfully.
Having failed to get IMRs the first time I didn't attempt IMRs the second time and just did implied suggestion. In S2 (six days later) he reported lots of good things including having shed 12 lbs, leaving food on his plate, eating slower and 'so not doing bread' anymore.
So after the S2 induction I went for IMRs again, but failed to get any unequivocal response. Now I knew he was a good hypnotee and so the IMRs should have been easy. Then I remembered trying to get a hand levitation from a fellow student while I was studying for my diploma. Her hand came up about a millimetre and a half but she told me afterwards that it felt, to her, like it was way up in the air.
So I said to my patient's subc, "Sometimes you think you're lifting his finger way up, but I can barely see it. So I'd like you to keep lifting his finger until it touches my finger, and then stop."
At that point I had no idea which the YES finger was supposed to be. (I think - in fact I am completely sure - it's a mistake to demand the YES in the first finger of the dominant hand and the NO in the first finger of the non-dominant hand. Neurologically that makes no sense. Let the subc pick the hand for the YES and then get the NO from the *same* hand.)
Almost immediately the first finger of his left hand moved obviously. I put my finger half an inch above it and waited for contact. I then asked for a NO from the same hand and quickly got his middle finger.
So ... How to get IMRs ...
"I want your subconscious mind ... just your subconscious mind with no acting or conscious interference, to take full and independent control of a finger or thumb from either of your hands to use as a signal for YES. And when s/he has full and independent control of a finger or thumb from either of your hands to use as a YES signal, I want them to move it, clearly and distinctly so I can can how will you signal YES."
Usually that will be enough to get a YES. Then you say. "Thanks. Now please take control of a different finger or thumb from the same hand to use as a signal for NO, and when you have full and independent control of a different digit from the same hand to use as a No signal, move that so I can see how you will signal NO."
But if you don't get a strong YES, ask them to keep raising the relevant digit until it touches your finger. Then only once a finger has started to raise, place your finger half an inch above the IMR and await contact.
Best wishes
barry http://www.mindsci-clinic.com
(ps ... there's all sorts of dissociation being engendered here but not to worry about that at the moment. The point is, if the first IMR seems not to have worked, ask it to rise up until it touches your finger.
In my first blog post a week ago I mentioned that a local GP (physician) had requested some more of my leaflets as he had run out. I sent them as requested and included a copy of my Hypnotism for Hypnotherapists DVD so he could actually see what I can do.
It was a calculated risk as I've never met the doctor (though I know another one at the same practice) and whilst there are some enlightened medical professionals who appreciate what we do, I'm never sure what they think I do and what I actually do are one and the same thing.
Well, I haven't heard whether he liked it or not, but a colleague of his e-mailed me this morning to say that he'd seen it and ask if he could make an appointment to see me himself.
I've just added my Christmas Induction to the videos section.
