Hypnosis/NLP doesn't work

[Barenboim]

Hi,

I'm in my early 20's and have been struggling with shyness for a long time now. I am currently doing cognitive behavioural therapy with a psychiatrist for social anxiety.

Before seeing the psychiatrist, I had been trying to resolve this problem through self help which led to hypnosis and NLP. I spent quite a lot of money on various types of therapists and here I am, the same, years later.

I really like the sound of NLP and hypnosis and I wish that it would work but it just doesn't for me. I feel that you almost need to be a very gullible person for it to work.

When I try to "spin feelings" I really couldn't say which direction my emotion is spinning in..it could be any direction. Actually I don't even know that it is spinning. I've tried to figure it out and try to spin it in an other direction which feels like nothing's happening at all.

After I try the visual exercises like watching myself on a movie screen and stepping into it, I feel just as nervous when i go out in the real world. I find it quite hard to recreate feelings in myself so the anchor exercises don't work either.

I often end up getting more and more frustrated when I read NLP books or try a hypnosis session especially when the hypnotherapist says "that's right" as if something is actually happening.

Bandler talks about how much he hates psychiatry, but NLP has done nothing for me. With so many people becoming practitioners after a 3 day seminar..it really makes me wonder how efficient this all is.

I don't know what I expect to gain from writing this post. What are you perspectives on this situation? I'm currently reading "Unstoppable Confidence" by Kent Sayre and getting frustrated with the exercises.

[Don]

So why are you here? You've been reading a few books and claim to be getting CBT therapy from a psychiatrist (highly unlikely). My guess is that you've spent a bunch of time on the web, and now you've come here with your first post to say to us that people who are like us have done nothing for you.

What is your goal? Why are you here? What are you expecting to accomplish?

If you're having success with CBT, why do you feel a need to come here? What do you want?

[skip]

My experience personally, and that of thousands of my clients and students, is that it works, works well, works fast, and works thru time.

I can understand your migivings in that it hasnt yet worked for you, and that it seems to be 'too good to be true', especially when the exercises, you do, only frustrate you.

Given my unshakable knowledge that this 'stuff' works I can only conclude that one or more of the following applies to you ...

The books and subsequent exercises you have read and tried arent explained adequately.

You arent following the instructions well. (This isnt a indictmet of you, it is actually quite common for people who try to self help with this techology.)

The people you have gone to for help arent competet. A common problem in an unregulated field and also if you know anything about psycharitry or psychology common in a regulated field as well.

So in a nut shell, that is what I think about your experience thus far.

I have an idea how we can narrow this down quickly and easily.

Go to www.emofree.com

Download their FREE manual. I know it explains the process well, and that this technique works.

Read the manual, make sure you understand it, do the technique, come here and ask any questions you care to about how to apply the technique, to your 'social anxiety' and within a week we will know where the most likely source of the problem is.

The real question is what are you going to DO with Don's and my information?


skip

[Poodle]

Go "hungry" internet troll.

and, btw "Thaaaat's right".

Pood

[Connie]

There's another option. The poster is an internet "troll" and come to slam us for the fun of it, to stir up a "defense." That's my gut feeling.

Your experience, if true, is unfortunate. It is no indictment against NLP or hypnosis, though. If anything, it's an unskilled practitioner. If you're trying to "do it yourself," that also explains your lack of results.

[Poodle]

I think you are very much right about the troll part. I've been watching who's on line all day and have yet to find poster looking for an answer to the post.

Apparently does not want an answer enough to look so it would be my suggestion that the whole thread be deleted as SPAM I AM.

Can we put this one up for a vote?

Pood :)

[Don]

http://www.hypnosisforum.com/images/attach/jpg.gif

[Coldfire]

Sometimes I wonder if it is real, I can never seem to get it to work. But just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean its not real!

I am still going to try and hopefully one day it works for me! :)

[Merlin]

i can't make my car work,
therefore it's not real ;oD

[Coldfire]

i can't make my car work,
therefore it's not real ;oD

Haha! Thats a good one :p

[Poodle]

I was re-reading an OLD Bandler book last night that fit this orginal poster to a "T" so I'm left wondering the exact reason NLP did not work. Self inflicted would be my guess. This particular book would be one that any self-respecting NLPer has in their library and has read a few times over.

Also "spinning" is a lot more than original poster wrote which also leads me to believe self-inflicted.

It would be like doing The Fast Phobia Cure on self and wondering why it didn't work well. Answer is easy: Most visualization in NLP is visually-led, not self-led. Could there be a reason why medical professionals are not allowed to work on self or family? Could there be a reason why an excellent attorney says: Any lawyer that hires himself as client has a fool for a client? Are we all getting the point here? Thought so! ;) Pood

[master_debator]

It would be like doing The Fast Phobia Cure on self and wondering why it didn't work well.

So since I used the FPC on myself years ago and got rid of my fear of snakes, that makes me a special case them, right? ;)

m_d

[skip]

In a narrow way, yes, MD.

NLP patterns require the 'client' to be associated and disassociated at specific times.

Most people when trying to do patterns, on themselves, dont realize that they are popping in and out of the associated state. For example, when you check to see if you are associated or disassociated you have to dissassociate to do it, or when you report on a submodality, you have to disassociate to do it.

This 'fact' frequently messes up the NLP 'self help' attempts, because most people dont realize that they have 'gone meta' when they should be associated.

There are 'work arounds' as you no doubt discovered when you successfully applied the FPC to yourself. Or perhaps you did it and never realized that you managed it differently than it would work if applied to someone else.

Special case?

Yes and no.

You did manage to accomplish it successfully, whether by accident or delebrate work around, and that IS special.

BUT your neurology still works just like everyone elses.

skip

[Poodle]

you are very special and even more special to me!! :)

Congratulations on doing well on self what was never intended for self. I knew there was a great brain in there somewhere. ;)

Pood :pood:

[MrDigital]

I feel that you almost need to be a very gullible person for it to work

When I first started my NLP training I was amazed at how it seemed to work for everyone else and how good I was at getting people to change...

In fact I thought people were 'putting it on' you know 'acting as if' I was good because they seemed to really embrace the instructions... To me it was all too easy, my problems were bigger than the cure and I was hunting for the mother of all patterns and when was I going to receive it...

Today I can honestly say as Skip mentions I have unshakeable evidence that the tools and techniques work and they work thru time... As long as you have the right person to guide you through the process and they know how to guide you in building the bridge to generalise your learnings and what they bring...

Now, let me backtrack to gullibility and the way I perceive what you wrote and touch on one of my major learnings in my NLP/Hypnosis trainings... I am more gullible now than I ever was... Suprised? I was too and that's what made my experience even more profound... Because I thought I would be less able to be manipulated/influenced or whatever you want to label it...

The opposite was true for me and now I can pay attention to whatever I want... and if an old tramp in the street playing a violin can make me feel like i'm floating on his music then just imagine what paying attention to someones words can do...

So listen to the messages you receive... be gullible to the words people use (even your own) and if you don't like them don't wear em... Even act as if you can change them... Aren't you... even considering the possibilities?

Now i'm not suggesting you can even pretend you're gullible and follow instructions... I mean that would be you using your mind in a pretty cool way to make the changes you want... Haven't you already made changes in your thinking before now?

Wayne