When: 8th October 2023
Who: Debbie Daltrey with CPHT
Subject: Introduction to CBT (7 hours)
What I learned:
- The Stoic origins of CBT
- How it applied Pavlov’s conditioning as therapy for our feelings, thoughts, and actions.
- How thought, emotion, and behaviour all affect each other.
- A key difference – they set homework – which can be a problem for some clients.
- Lots of similarities – we have been using it alot already, I just didn’t realise it.
When: 16th & 17th September
Who: Ali Hollands Hook with CPHT
Subject: Solution Focused Brief Therapy SFBT (14 hours)
What I learned:
- “The quality of your attention determines the quality of other people’s thinking”. Reject urgency, instead apply attention, equality, and ease.
- Solutions are built, in contrast to problems that are solved.
- The “lenses of change” and “basic tenents” of SFBT
- The “EARS” model.
- Differences between SFBT and SFHT.
- Renewed enthusiasm for SFHT.
- Alternatives ideas for questions – “What’s been better about your week?” -> “That’s good – how did you do that?”
- Alternative ideas for how to scale, and what to scale. Including scaling both “how important is this subject to you” and “how willing are you to change” – the latter not just for smoking cessation.
- Talk about “outcomes instead of goals”, which isn’t that clear, but the point is to get a transformation in the client, rather than the symptoms/proof of that transformation.
When: 22nd January 2023
Who: Dante Harker with NCH
Subject: Key Psychosexual Issues facing Men (3.5 hours)
What I learned:
- Key facts about how common the various malfunctions are – “you are not alone”
- Science about their causes – phyciological, psychological, environmental/drug side effects
- Hypnosis scripts for ED, PE, Loss of Desire
- Psychotherapy approaches (negative anchoring, and how to overcome this)
- Physical training approaches (condom sizes, possitions)
- Effects of porn – various side effects possible – false expectations caused by porn, leading to dissapointment with reality
When: 13th November 2022
Who: Claire Noyelle with CPHT
Subject: Neuroscience of SPHT (7 hours)
What I learned:
- Hypnotic Trance is not the same REM sleep, because it has different measurable brainwaves as detected by e.g. an EEG.
- Only REM sleep processes memory from “emotional” to “narative”.
- The body has two stress mechanisms, the SAM axis and the HPA axis, and the calming mechanisms of one axis can work against stress generated on the other axis. SFHT works on the
- The “mirror neurons” are a capability within the Limbic system, rather than a specific structure in the brain.
- SFHT works by “reprocesing” important memories, such that REM sleep is able to be much more efficient at changing the memory from an Emotional to a Narative memory.
- Trance is also different to Meditation. One important difference is that unguided meditaion can lead to negative introspection, which makes things worse, wheras we guide the clients thoughts to be calm and self controlled.
- The explanations I share in my sessions are going to be updated accordingly.
When: 22nd May 2022
Who: Dr Rachel Gillibrand with CPHT
Subject: Psychoneuroimmunology (7 hours)
What I learned:
- How the hippocampus is intrinsically involved in the immune system response.
- Depression makes memories “foggy” which in turn effects pattern matching of experiences as “safe”. (An experience is “safe” only if it is a good match for a know safe situation, otherwise it is deemed “new” and therefore slightly anxiety inducing. (The real sitation no-longer matches the memory because the memory recollection is degraded, so the safe situation now generates “novelty anxiety”.)
- Tips for solution-focused approaches to therapy.
- Journaling as a useful tool to enable a client to feel in control, and to gain a sense of “completeness” in their experience of injury or illness.
- The ability to get someone into trance seems to be about matching technique to person. However, the suggestability of a person in trance does vary alot. Significantly, their current dopamine level seems to be the dominant factor in suggestability. A specific example being people with Parkinson’s are often given medication to boost dopamine, and that makes them more suggestable.
When: 14th May 2022
Who: Rebecca Bartholomew with New Horizon Training
Subject: Alchohol & Hypnotherapy (2 hours)
What I learned:
- The current recommended safe levels
- The consequences of alchohol
- Appropriate small steps to make
- How to identify this issue in clients who have not yet identified it in themselves
When: 9th May 2022
Who: Jennifer Dunseath with New Horizon Training
Subject: Fertility (6 hours)
What I learned:
- How mental state can effect the fertility of men and women
- The stresses someone can be under, as a result of fertility treatment processes
- How we can support someone who is trying to increase their fertility
When: 26th March 2022
Who: Sarah Sollom with New Horizon Training
Subject: Weight Loss – A Mindset Approach (4 hours)
What I learned:
- Poor mental associations with food, that lead to comfort & social eating
- How to change food-related habits
- Lots of marketing ideas, specific to Weight Loss
When: 13th March 2022
Who: James Banfield with CPHT
Subject: Intro to NLP (6 hours)
What I learned:
- Havening technique, Spinning technique, Inner critic submodality shift, and Timeline techniques.
- Brief history of NLP
- Explaining the Reticular Activating system with respect to psychotherapy
- the meta model – language used which demonstrates how their RAS is Distorting, Generalising, or Deleting the real world to fit their model.
- Anchors
When: 14th Jan 2022
Who: Andy workman with New Horizon Training
Subject: SFH for PTSD (3 hours)
What I learned:
- There are a very wide range of responses to PTSD – active, hypervigilance, but they can also be avoidant, detached, or disinterested.
- The SFH approach avoids the initial traumatising event, instead Rewinding and Reframing the most recent and most severe episodes
When: 26th November 2021
Who: Angie Hayes with New Horizon Training
Subject: An Introduction to Solution Focused Brief Therapy (3 hours)
What I learned:
The power of the “miracle question” or “tomorrow question”, and the power and importance of finding the client’s “golden nugget”, the key person (or perhaps cause) which motivates them, and which can be used to motivate change.
When: NCH conference September 2021
Who: Bob Burns
Subject: Real or Imagine?
What I learned:
The power and use of placebos, even when you tell the client that it is a placebo.
How a client can consciously not appear to repond to any of the hypnotherapy, or any of the psychotherapy, but it’s never about their conscious, its about talking to their subconscious. By confidently showing the subconscious that you “see them”, and are helping them, then we can help fix them in the place where the problem lives, which is the only place that matters. And this applies to clients who don’t exhibit the usual signs of hypnotic or otherwise theraputic rapport – it’s there, speak confidently to it.
Indeed, the irrelevance of the conscious can be demonstrated by clients comming back for the next session, saying that they aren’t any better, but when questioned about what they did, describe events which show that their problem has actually been fixed.
When: NCH conference September 2021
Who: Kaz Riley
Subject: Working with Female Sexuality
What I learned:
With sexual issues, it is very common for a psychological / worldview attitide to exist due to a false belief – which is fairly common with most of our work – but in this case, these false beliefs can be undermined with facts, with education. (In contrast to a more abstract unhelpful worldview that we might normally be working with.)
It is therefore very important for the therapist to be actually knowledgable about psycho-sexual and physical-sexual issues, in order to be able to give effective therapy in this area.
She went into more detail about the specifics of female sexuality, which is not relevant for me, since I don’t feel comfortable having female clients in this subject space.
When: NCH conference September 2021
Who: Rob McNeilly
Subject: The practical heritage of Milton H Erikson
What I learned:
A reminder of the “everyday ordinary trance”, which leads into conversational hypnosis.
Useful ways of questioning the client:
- What did you like to do before?
- What could we do now that would be useful for you? / What problem is happening, that you would like a solution to?
- What is it about the problem, that is particularly problematic?
This feeds into the miracle question of course.
Also: remind them that they have learnt behavioural rules, so that shows that they can learn new behaviors.
It can help to finish by asking “what is different now?”, to cause them to find a difference, and acknowledge it.
When: NCH conference September 2021
Who: Prof Peter Whorwell
Subject: Hypnotherapy for IBS
What I learned:
The severity is greatly underestimated, it is sometimes worse than labour pains
- IBS-D = diarrhoea (can lead to fear of eating due to consequences)
- IBS-C = constipation (can lead to fear of eating due to pain)
Often misdiagnosed, leading to pointless, difficult, and ineffective treatments, and frustration.
Often under-reported. Stigmatised. Even Drs and nurses don’t take it seriously.
- tactile imagining of normal function
- visualisation of normal function
- 6 weeks is enough, but also offer top-ups
- daily self care with hypnosis recording
Ideas:
- hand on abdomen, radiating warmth, or cooling inflammation, or whatever the client imagines
- often a hot water bottle or heat pad
- visualise river (flow or dam)
- stronger mind
- positive
- no symptoms, but phrased positively
- you are in control
- tummy is a source of pleasure
- triplets
- a setback in the program is useful practice for the rest of their life
Hypnotherapy works well with the other types of disorder of gut-brain interaction.
Significant physiological changes have been measured.
Measurable help from hypnotherapy with:
- psychological factors
- motility
- rectal sensitivity
- central processing (brain)
- dietary sensitivity
- sparing them from the need for surgery for inflammation
Very effective, helps with all symptoms,