allergies-medical thing or subconscious thing?

[tinman]

are allergies, eg. nose allergies have a medical cause or is it to do with the subconscious mind? some say it's the immune system attacking itself, some says it's a conditioned response. what do you think?

[Don]

I think each person is an individual and deserves the honor of being treated as an individual instead of just another machine with a broken part.

In other words, I would contend that there are multiple causes for allergies, and a good hypnotherapist is trained to overcome the cause, whatever it might be.

If you're simply looking for a one-cause-fits-everyone, go to a doctor--they've got drugs for that.

[Nicholas]

I'm sure most of you can already guess my opinion on such matters, but I'll just say this to clarify; If hypnosis could acheive these sorts of results, there would be medical trials going on right now, which would parallel drugs of the same use. There would be research papers on it, at least by anyone who wanted to be taken seriously, that would show it's effectiveness. The current idea is that there are drugs for almost anything. If hypnosis was as good as drugs there would be a common conception that hypnosis can help almost anything. and; The subconscious is responsible for over all body control, but it is no way near the ability of controlling indiviual cells. It is not an evolutionary advantage to have such a complex brain that it controls everything. It is far better for parts of the body to be able to work autonomously, as the immune system does. I do not deny that the subconscious has an effect on the immune system. I just say it has no direct control. It's like the climate and people on the earth. While the climate does affect how I act, to some extent, it in no way has complete control of my actions.

[AnthonyM83]

From what I've been told by psychology professors, there's not a high enough success rate and "cures" have been shown to wear off over time. Now this isn't always the case, but that's something the PhDs might say.

As a personal anecdote, I had someone apparently remove a peanut butter allergy. I started eating peanuts right away without getting the mild reaction, I usually get (intense itching in back of throat and slight hives). I was so amazed, I know I kind of pysched myself out thinking about how it SHOULD be feeling that it actually started feeling worse. My throat started closing up way more than ever in my life. I was wheezing and taking anti allergy medicine, which helped just a little bit. It was before bed, so I had to stay up for awhile out of fear my airway would close up all the way in my sleep. Not a good experience.

Still, I did experience eating peanuts for a few minutes for awhile before the reaction started, whereas before I would've immediately got a really bad almost painful itch and hives all over.

[Jack]

I concur with Don on this. Hypnotherapy can have a truly miraculous effect on lifelong allergies, but so can EFT, CBT and acupuncture.

But since it is an auto immune response there is no reason to suppose that hypnotherapy will not be effective, as most experienced practitioners know.

Jack

[Don]

Nicholas, I respectfully disagree with you.

The drug industry makes billions of dollars in profits because certain drugs, such as those used for allergy symptoms, must be purchased by people forever. What possible financial motivation would there be for the drug industry to do research ending this financial windfall with short-term therapy?

So maybe universities should do the research? Who is going to pay for it? The government? Not likely. Governments work on money, and the pharma companies give millions to politicians every year. No way are cowardly politicians going to give up their diet of pharma money!

Perhaps MDs should support it? Right! MDs are going to support research on what is mostly non-life-threatening problems that would cut their income by millions. I don't think so.

But the main reason there is not much research is because of the basic worldview or paradigm that separates hypnosis from allopathic medicine: Western medicine is based on a simple concept: the body is a machine. Parts can be replaced. All problems given one label or name have the same cause from patient to patient.

In hypnotherapy, however, each client is considered a unique individual. Although some common-named problems may have similar causes from client to client, we cannot depend upon it. If we could, doctors would be prescribing audio recordings rather than drugs. But inductions for one person may not work for another. Suggestions for one person may not work for another. This is true even if the problem appears to be the same.


So rather than looking at it this way:
multiple people have same problem with same treatment,
hypnotherapy looks at it this way:
problems are unique to individuals and each person must be treated for a unique situation. Futher, changing mind-body behavior with the help of hypnotherapy depends upon the training, skill, and experience of the hypnotist.

This hardly opens up the possibility for research on a single hypnotic "prescription" that can be studied.

Even so:
Hypnosis and the allergic response
By: Wyler-Harper J, Bircher AJ, Langewitz W, Kiss A
Published in: Schweiz Med Wochenschr Suppl 1994;62:67-76
Dermatologische Universitatsklinik, Kantonsspital Basel

Abstract: In recent years our knowledge of the immune system and the pathogenesis of immune disorders has increased. There has been much research on the complex connections between the psyche, the central nervous system and the immune system and the effect of mood on disease processes. This paper reviews the evidence on the effects of hypnosis on the allergic skin test reaction, on allergies, particularly respiratory allergies and hayfever, and on bronchial hyperreactivity and asthma. Hypnosis, which is generally regarded as an altered state of consciousness associated with concentration, relaxation and imagination, and amongst other characteristics an enhanced responsiveness to suggestion, has long been thought to be effective in the amelioration of various bodily disorders. It has seemed that the state of hypnosis is capable of a bridging or mediating function in the supposed dualism between mind and body. There has been great variation in the experimental and clinical procedures such as type of hypnotic intervention employed, the training of subjects and the timing of the intervention. Also, variability in the type of allergen used and its mode of application is evident. But despite these limitations, many of the studies have shown a link between the use of hypnosis and a changed response to an allergic stimulus or to a lessened bronchial hyperreactivity. There is as yet no clear explanation for the effectiveness of hypnosis, but there is some evidence for an influence on the neurovascular component of the allergic response.

[Nicholas]

I shall state again part of what I said in the other thread concerning allergies;
In my own experience I managed to almost completely eliminate my symptoms of allergy, just by remaining aware of what it was that I was doing to make it worse, and making sure I didn't do it.
I have hay fever. A few years ago, I would only have to go outside on a beautiful pollen filled day, and within a few minutes my eyes would be streaming, my nose running, and all I could think about was how much it itched. Now I can move hay bails and role around in the grass, with little more than a sniffle.
Not because I am now no longer allergic to some pollens. Not because my subconscious has corrected some kind of error in my immune system.
The reason is because I stopped thinking about it. The allergic reaction is made so much worse when you scratch your nose, or rub your eyes. All this does is expose more live, unprotected, skin to the pollen, and introduce more pollen to the area. To prevent the allergic reaction becoming a problem, I stopped scratching. One way to do that is to stop thinking about the itch. Which I have no doubt a hypnotherapist could aid you with.

Yes the drug industry does make billions a year from selling drugs, which may not be the best they can sell simply so patients remain dependant on renuing perscriptions.
Are you aware however, that Britain has a National Health Service. One with too few doctors and money. The perscriptions are heavily subsidised. This obviously requires a hell of a lot of money. Money which the government is all too willing to cut. We also have many nationalised research centres. These do not hold the stigma of profitability. If treating certain allergies through hypnosis were possible, the government, would jump at the chance to palm off a load of patients onto a quick, and far cheaper fix.
Which too, the GPs would be all to happy to do in order to lighten their workload, and spend more time with patients that really need it.
Tell me; If you were able to cure many allergies through hypnosis, how much would it really cost you to cure some subjects in testing of your ability, and then write a research paper that could be verified by other people?
Pharmaceutical companies cannot give individual politicians any money. Also since the private health service in this country is quite small, and the number of drugs which are subsidised by the government is quite large we gain little money in the taxation of these drugs.
Your idea that in medicine doctors treat people as malfunctioning machines with the same problems is rediculous and frankly disrespectful of what they have devoted their life towards. The subject of hypnotherapy catalogues individual classes of disorders in exactly the same way. In medical terms there are thousands of symptoms, causes and cures, which are effective in varying degrees for varying people. It is not so simplistic as your idea of replacing broken parts, and giving the same treatment for all similar problems. They do the best with what time they have, and the diversity and variety of the healing techniques they offer is completely unparalleled by hypnotherapy.
Hypnotherapy is just as guilty (if at all) as medicine, for generalising problems and cures. In hypnotherapy you have set suggestions, ways of suggesting them, and conditions that the subject has to be in. While you may use a variety of different techniques for making suggestions and aquiring response from the client, you still use the same ones, just in different orders and they have varying success. Just like the variety of drugs that the medical proffesionals have to offer. In medicine you try one drug at a time, which may or may not be succesfull. In hypnotherapy you shoot people in the face with a shotgun of suggestions in the knowledge that some of them must get through. Don't get me wrong, this is a shotgun with a laser sight on it, but not all of your suggestions work, just like not all drugs work. The only difference is in medicine they must take time to reload, but in hypnotherapy you've already sent out a wide spread.

One last thing I'd like to say. Though I admit that I may be wrong, in that allergies could be cured through hypnosis, we still don't know exactly how the unconscious interacts with the immune system. So while you're merriyl prancing along getting rid of peoples allergic responses, you may well be leaving them with depressed immunes systems which could lead to terrible illness, or some other unknown problem.

[Don]

Unfortunately, Nicholas, as I'm sure you know, simply giving one example (in this case, yourself) is what is called "anecdotal evidence." If you describe working with a few dozen clients, I'd be more inclined to concur with your assessment.

MPs still have to run for office. That requires money. Money comes from a variety of sources, including pharma companies. Sure, the amorphous "government" would love to save money, but the individuals who actually make up the government need money to run for office. They're not going to work against the organizations that give them money. To them, it's just politics and money.

I don't cure anything, so your statement is meaningless to me. However, the time taken to work with hundreds or thousands of clients and keep track of them over time--not to mention developing double-blind protocols--would cost millions of dollars.

I am not being disrespectful of MDs at all. I highly respect what they do. But that doesn't mean that I am blind to their paradigms.

Respectfully, you seem to think that money can be isolated from politics. Unless all elections are state financed and no individuals or corporations can ever direct or indirect contributions to the government or politicians, money runs everything.

Unfortunately, for doctors, it is just like replacing broken parts. Right now, pharma companies are trying to come up with a vaccine for avian flu. There will not be dozens or hundreds of versions with the correct version being determined by the doctor. Rather, there will be one vaccine given. One problem--one solution. If your heart is bad, replace it. The actual technologies required are complex, but the basic concepts reain the same. I stand by what I said.

I don't know where you studied hypnotherapy, but I most certainly do NOT have predetermined sets of suggestions. I interview clients, determine what they need, and create suggestions based on the information they give me consciously. I may even alter them (and frequently do) as a result of material that comes up from the subconscious during a session.

What books have you studied on hypnotherapy that describe have a fixed set of suggestions? Which ones claim that hypnosis, using such fixed suggestions, will cure anything, let alone allergies?

And yes, you are wrong. Your statement, "In hypnotherapy you shoot people in the face with a shotgun of suggestions in the knowledge that some of them must get through" is absolutely false. Well, that may not be true as I don't claim to know all hypnotists. Perhaps that's the way you do it. The professional hypotherapists I know prepare and give specific suggestions designed of specific clients. And nobody has claimed that allergies could be "cured through hypnosis."

And frankly, many hypnotherapists don't care about "how the unconscious interacts with the immune system." All that's important is knowing that the unconscious knows how to do it. If the hypnotherapist is trained well enough, he or she will know how to enable a person to get their unconscious to change the response to allergens. Taking a drug to mask such a response won't alter a depressed immune system any more than hypnosis will.

[Nicholas]

There are not an infinite number of ways which you can suggest that to someone that they lose the desire to eat chips. Suggestions take specific forms. They are catagorised and grouped into groups which work on the same grammatical principals. Suggestions must take forms which work, and those forms are few and far between, just as this sentance must conform to the rules of the language. I'm sure you can see that there are far many more ways the sentence could be jiberish, than could make sense. The same is true for suggestions. Pressupositions are an example form in which suggestions can take place. These forms are broken down into subcatagories, but there are still very few forms which the suggestions can take that could be succesfull for one, if not many people. In this way suggestions are fixed. You only have to listen to various hypnotherapists of different ability, and belief of their own suggestions to recognise that much of what they say is repeated by their counterparts.

I'll get to the rest of your statements in a bit. I agree with you that money runs politics, but I think we differ in opinion on just how it is affected.
I've got a lab report to write now, so I'll reply to the rest of your statements in a day or two.

[Don]

There are not an infinite number of ways which you can suggest that to someone that they lose the desire to eat chips.

I never said their were. Rather, I said that for each person there are specific suggestions for dealing with an unwanted behavior. For example, I know of no qualified, experienced, trained hypnotherapist who would focus on losing "the desire to eat chips." Rather, they help a person develop alternate behaviors.

Suggestions take specific forms. They are catagorised and grouped into groups which work on the same grammatical principals.

Not really. Often, abandoning grammar allows the main focus (altering a specific behavior) to become strengthened.

Suggestions must take forms which work, and those forms are few and far between, just as this sentance must conform to the rules of the language.

Of course you want suggestions that work, but that doesn't mean falling back on limited sets or scripts as was the style in 1935.

I'm sure you can see that there are far many more ways the sentence could be jiberish, than could make sense. The same is true for suggestions.

That's very true for the conscious mind, but not for the unconscious. One of the basic concepts of "speed reading" is that you can throw all sorts of data into the unconscious and it will sort it out. Therefore, rather than reading a sentence linearly, you can look at an entire paragraph or even page and the unconscious will "get it." You may not believe this, but the hundreds of thousands of people trained by the Evelyn Wood schools would agree.

That's the way the unconscious works. The same is true with hypnotherapeutic suggestions. Have you studied Ericksonian techniques at all?

Pressupositions are an example form in which suggestions can take place. These forms are broken down into subcatagories, but there are still very few forms which the suggestions can take that could be succesfull for one, if not many people. In this way suggestions are fixed. You only have to listen to various hypnotherapists of different ability, and belief of their own suggestions to recognise that much of what they say is repeated by their counterparts.

Well, that's probably true concerning hypnotists "of different ability," but I don't want to model myself after them. I prefer to look at hypnotists who are excellent--as proven by their record--and model myself after them.

Perhaps the hypnotists "of different ability" are at different abilities rather than at a level of excellence because they have limiting beliefs about how suggestions are limited in format and how people with a desire to change a similar behavior all need suggestions from one limited set of suggestions.

I'll get to the rest of your statements in a bit. I agree with you that money runs politics, but I think we differ in opinion on just how it is affected.
I've got a lab report to write now, so I'll reply to the rest of your statements in a day or two.

I note that you didn't comment on the published scientific paper I listed concerning hypnosis and allergies. I also note that you haven't listed how much training you've had. I hope you will share this in your future posts.

[Poodle]

For me allergies are nothing more than the immune system gone awry -- T-cells attacking healthy cells. This whole process is controlled by the subconscious mind so when the subconscious mind gets the T-cells doing their job correctly the allergy leaves. This is not always true in the case of intolerances tho as that is a whole 'nuther problem. I have been giving this serious consideration to RA which is also the immune system attacking the body in the bones. Interesting huh?

[AnthonyM83]

Nicholas was right in that allergies are not an autoimmune disorder. It's hypersensitivity to certain foreign substances and has to do more with IgE and basophils, than with T-cells attacking your own body.

In defense of hypnosis, Nicholas should know that just because you run a great research study yourself, does not mean you're necessarily going to get professionals working for respected organizations to reproduce your experiments and have them published. It's a lot of work (paperwork, getting authorizations to do experiments with people, finding appropriate people to do experiments, paying them sometimes, people to be the hypnotists, monitors, while delaying other experiments, others being able to repoduce those experiments, on and on to actually get some recognition.

Also, it's not so unbelievable that just because it's the immune system go "awry" that hypnosis can have an effect on it. Hypnosis can stop bleeding. Sounds like magic at first, until you realize that the body can constrict blood vessels by releasing specific hormones. The body can do many things on its own that you wouldn't think, as evidence by the placebo effect.

BTW, I just remembered two other people I know who had hypnosis for allergies...the allergies returned for them too. Maybe it wasn't done right, but that might be an indicator of the difficulty of finding skilled hypnotists...the people running these experiments might not fall into that skilled category, thus making it difficult to reproduce results.

[AnthonyM83]

PS
Also remember that people who seek out competent hypnostists are, as generalization, a rather filtered crowd who already believe hypnosis might (or definitely will) work for them. The results professional hypnotists are seeing are slightly skewed in that way.

[Jack]

Nicholas,

Not because I am now no longer allergic to some pollens. Not because my subconscious has corrected some kind of error in my immune system.
The reason is because I stopped thinking about it.

You seem remarkably sure that your subconcious was not involved. How do you know?

Are you aware however, that Britain has a National Health Service. One with too few doctors and money.

There is an abundance of money. Just too many patients, and too many administrators.

If treating certain allergies through hypnosis were possible, the government, would jump at the chance to palm off a load of patients onto a quick, and far cheaper fix.

Not true. We have a corrupt, amoral government that is in the pocket of big business - do you really think that they would jeopardise their pay-off with something as altruistic as fixing the problem?

Tell me; If you were able to cure many allergies through hypnosis, how much would it really cost you to cure some subjects in testing of your ability, and then write a research paper that could be verified by other people?

I occasionally work at a university, so I asked. A pilot study over one year with a statistical sample of 100 patients would cost around £200,000 if one were careful. A proper research study over two years with a statistical sample of 500 patients would cost about £2 million. The biochemistry people I asked are currently involved in a study not sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry and not subsidised by government, except unwittingly. It took them four years to get £250K from multiple trust funds and private individuals both here and abroad. Their research subject is nothing so exotic as hypnotherapy but is considered not to be useful in terms of making large amounts of money since it would be difficult to patent it. I have been asked not to mention the subject but it involves the use of a very common and cheap material as a potential 'helper' treatment for Alzheimer's.

Pharmaceutical companies cannot give individual politicians any money.

Oh Nicholas, get real. If you are very young, I apologise.

Your idea that in medicine doctors treat people as malfunctioning machines with the same problems is rediculous and frankly disrespectful of what they have devoted their life towards.

I have many medical doctors as both friends and colleagues and with one exception their approach is mechanistic. They are taught to think that way, but there are signs that the BMA and the RCS are beginning to think in a holistic manner.

The subject of hypnotherapy catalogues individual classes of disorders in exactly the same way.

Er, no, it doesn't.

They do the best with what time they have, and the diversity and variety of the healing techniques they offer is completely unparalleled by hypnotherapy.

Medicine is a closed system. It finds a physical effect, consults either memory or a book for a cure. Hypnotherapy is an open ended system. It finds either a physical or emotional effect and consults the brain or the 'mind' of the person affected for the reason(s) these effects are present and the practitioner attempts to modify these reasons or causes so that the effect is beneficially changed.

Compare the two. One is an inflexible system that uses pre-ordained treatments because they have worked for a majority of people historically. The other is a totally flexible treatment that can be modified in any way dependent upon the skill of the practitioner and the response of the client to effect required change.

Medicine does some things very well. Hypnotherapy does some things very well. But to suggest that the techniques of a closed system are not parallelled by an open system is absurd.

Hypnotherapy is just as guilty (if at all) as medicine, for generalising problems and cures.

I agree. I would only amend that to some hypnotherapists.

In hypnotherapy you have set suggestions, ways of suggesting them, and conditions that the subject has to be in. While you may use a variety of different techniques for making suggestions and aquiring response from the client, you still use the same ones, just in different orders and they have varying success.

As above.

Just like the variety of drugs that the medical proffesionals have to offer. In medicine you try one drug at a time, which may or may not be succesfull. In hypnotherapy you shoot people in the face with a shotgun of suggestions in the knowledge that some of them must get through.

You understand little about hypnotherapy if that is what you think. It's actually very offensive.

The only difference is in medicine they must take time to reload, but in hypnotherapy you've already sent out a wide spread.

Well, let's take a phobia of heights. Most hypnotherapists would not try to deal with it as if it was a fear of spiders, water, bananas, long words(sesquipedalaphobia) or anything else. The would make the valid assumption that heights was the problem. Wide spread? Your knowledge of hyponotherapy is abysmal.

One last thing I'd like to say. Though I admit that I may be wrong, in that allergies could be cured through hypnosis, we still don't know exactly how the unconscious interacts with the immune system. So while you're merriyl prancing along getting rid of peoples allergic responses, you may well be leaving them with depressed immunes systems which could lead to terrible illness, or some other unknown problem.

Well, everything could lead to something else of course. Taking an aspirin could lead to a fatal haemmorage in a susceptible person, taking Thalidomide did lead to hundreds of malformed babies and there are thousands if not millions of cases where normal medical treatment has had a lethal and unpredicted effect. Did that stop those treatments from being used for the benefit of the majority? Of course not.

Having spent over 30 years as an hypnotherapist, I cannot recall one case where allergy treatment has resulted in a greater problem than that presenting. Doesn't mean to say that it couldn't happen, just that I have never seen or heard if it happening.

In conclusion: medicine has given great benefits to humanity and is a valuable tool in the amelioration of human suffering and pain. There are many things it can do and others it cannot. Hypnotherapy, although the modern version is quite new, also delivers great benefits to humanity but there are many things it can and cannot do.

You do both medicine and hypnotherapy a great disservice by treating them as if they are in opposition.

Jack

[Nicholas]

Don – I don’t cure anything, so your statement is meaningless to me.

It doesn’t take a genius to understand what I meant. What you said is just a way of avoiding the argument by being pedantic about your definition of the use of hypnotherapy. All you needed to understand was that to me if hypnotherapy can eliminate the symptoms of a condition, then it is a cure. Yes that was a simplistic way of saying something which is far more complicated, but that would have taken much longer to write and explain, as I am having to do now to say something that you obviously knew I meant, you just wanted to seem intelligent by being pedantic about it.

Don - Unfortunately, for doctors, it is just like replacing broken parts.

That is another gross simplification of what doctors do. In this case to such an extent as to obviously written by someone who has no grasp of even the most basic of biology.

Don - I don't know where you studied hypnotherapy, but I most certainly do NOT have predetermined sets of suggestions.

Your suggestions are predetermined by grammar syntax, and all the other constraints which our language conforms to. You may be able to make suggestions that do not make grammatical sense, but you can make exactly the same suggestion in a form that does.
There are many different ways of saying the same thing. There are lots of ways someone can say something. There are loads of different arrangements of words, which actually mean the same thing. Our language is wonderfully diverse, to the extent that one thought can be expressed by many different sentences.
Wait, I think I just said that, only using different words.
There are a million ways to suggest ‘each time you eat healthily you can begin to notice how good it can make you feel’ or ‘you may not notice until after you have eaten healthily how good it has made you feel’. Each one you can say in many (but not an infinite) number of ways, but they can still be the same suggestion. In that way I reiterate what I said previously. There are set suggestions which you can use. If there are not an infinite number in our language, then there are a fixed set of suggestions. You may not be drawing from a book of suggestions, but the ones you use, will be used by thousands of other hypnotherapists across the globe.

Just because you are unwilling to understand my shotgun analogy, doesn’t mean it isn’t an accurate one. Are you so arrogant to think that all of your suggestions work? Are you only able to make one suggestion per session?
I will explain it simply to you; The shotgun is your mouth. Time you pull the trigger it is comparable to one session. Each shot represents one suggestion (not all of them hit the target). You aim the shotgun at the correct person, not the people standing nearby, and get to an appropriate distance from the target (calibrate suggestions to one particular client and their problem).

Don - many hypnotherapists don't care about "how the unconscious interacts with the immune system." All that's important is knowing that the unconscious knows how to do it.
That’s a pretty big assumption Don. Let’s hope your right, for all your clients sakes.

Don - I know of no qualified, experienced, trained hypnotherapist who would focus on losing "the desire to eat chips." Rather, they help a person develop alternate behaviors.

That’s pretty low down on the scale don. I think I would aim suggestions more along the lines of belief and identity. If you’re aiming to suggest that someone no longer desires chips, then you suggest to them that they believe chips to be undesirable. I think that would work better than to say ‘you will notice that you have gone the whole day without eating chips’, or ‘instead of eating chips you will pick up an apple’.

Don - That's the way the unconscious works. The same is true with hypnotherapeutic suggestions. Have you studied Ericksonian techniques at all?

Yes, through choice and inadvertently through other books, but I would still not interpret it to mean that you subconscious can understand ‘maN a no There little to friEnds day He and who once A was had but one carpet some became found’. I challenge your subconscious to work that one out. Sentences still must be in some understandable form, even if it’s not specifically a grammatical one.

Don - I note that you didn't comment on the published scientific paper I listed concerning hypnosis and allergies.

Firstly I told you I was busy, and secondly; The piece of anecdotal evidence was to go some way towards commenting on the abstract provided. It was an example of how I have alleviated similar disorders in myself, through non hypnotic techniques. Also you may not be aware, but that abstract didn’t actually state the results, or the conclusion only the hypothesis. That’s not a good start.
I do commend it however to be hopefully the start of something of a way of justifying the claims hypnotherapy makes. Doesn’t it just show that you really can come up with a paper if you can be bothered. It successfully narrows down the reasons to – you can’t justify your claims. Which is a problem far too common in hypnotherapy. I constantly see these posts about what hypnotherapy can do, but there is not attempt to justify the claims that it makes. Only the anecdotal evidence, which is similar to that which I gave, only people choose to believe it as proof. Hypnotherapy is beginning to parallel with religion in the number of outlandish claims it makes with no backup.
‘I can get rid of your allergy symptoms with hypnosis, but I provide no evidence for it in the form of pictures, documented research or reasoned argument based on biological knowledge.’ vs ‘There is a place called hell, even though the only people who go there in order to prove it’s existence will never return, and I can’t back up my argument with reason, knowledge, or proof of any kind.’

Jack - You seem remarkably sure that your subconscious was not involved. How do you know?

Because when I can easily regain the symptoms with a little scratch of the nose, or rub of the eye.

Well that’s quite a lot of money you mentioned, but anyone can create a research paper, if you test your thesis under adequately controlled conditions, and you could do it for a lot less money. However, I would like to know what areas that money would have to be spent on, eg paying participants, hiring moderators, etc.

Jack - Oh Nicholas, get real. If you are very young, I apologise.

I am actually quite young, yes. However I stand by my claim that pharmaceutical companies aren’t able to give money to individual politicians, only to individual parties. I’m afraid I believe in the power of the press. I’m sure that those dirty dishonest rats, or journalists as they are more commonly known would be able to sniff out a little bit of dirt on the evil dishonest snake tongues, more commonly known as politicians. Though saying that, a political career is still on the table for me. I vote conservative by the way, so I’m not one of those loony liberal student types.

Jack - I have many medical doctors as both friends and colleagues and with one exception their approach is mechanistic.

To be honest though, are body is technically just a machine, but a very complicated one.

Jack – (Nick quote) The subject of hypnotherapy catalogues individual classes of disorders in exactly the same way.
Er, no, it doesn't.

Unfortunately that was taken slightly out of context, so just to reiterate it was ‘in exactly the same way’ – as medicine. That was stated clearly earlier, but the quote was incomplete.
Well if you’re going to be like that Jack; Er, yes, it does.
It classes problems into categories, or how else would you learn and adapt to new situations in hypnotherapy. The point of NLP was to condense an entire complex language of therapy and problems into specific types. Wasn’t it?
I didn’t say that two patients presenting the same problems would have the same cause. I was trying to get across that vastly different problems can have common causes, or at least common classifications of those causes, as well as common types of suggestion, which will be more useful than others in that situation, eg ones based on specific neurological levels.

Jack - You understand little about hypnotherapy if that is what you think. It's actually very offensive.

See the above explanation of my analogy.

Jack - Well, let's take a phobia of heights. Most hypnotherapists would not try to deal with it as if it was a fear of spiders, water, bananas, long words(sesquipedalaphobia) or anything else. The would make the valid assumption that heights was the problem. Wide spread? Your knowledge of hyponotherapy is abysmal.

This was in regards to another comparison between medicine and hypnotherapy. It’s not like you’re going to rub haemorrhoid cream on your eyebrow, is it. Refer again to my explanation of the analogy.

I was only treating medicine and hypnotherapy in opposition, as the comparison was required by the original point of the thread.


Cheers

Nick

[Terry (existing)]

Now back to the original question. I suggest that Don's reply was the proper one to give with the limited knowledge we have. Now that reply in no way insulted the medical profession, or how they treat their patients. It recognises that certain drugs have an effect on symptoms, and if that drug is take constantly, the problem, though not removed, will not have a diliterious effect on the patient. I have a fine doctor who likes me, and is very concerned to ensure me the best treatment he can offer, but fact is, one problem is beyond him, so he gives me something to remove the ill effects, which will never "cure" anything, and this is common practise by the best and most respected doctors. Like us, they are limited in what they can and can;t do. I confess, I have never heard of an allergy returning, but that doesn;t mean it doesn't happen, just as I said, I have never heard of it. Others may argue stupidly, but I stand by a belief that no single practise is a cure-all, we need to investgate all methods of treatment. Only chidren would argue with that.

[skip]

Nick,

I just have to butt in here, I hope it os OK.

While I understand that often we can assume the meaning in the general context, some of us here want to try and be more precise, not to be pedantic, but in order to avoid giving misleading information.

"All you needed to understand was that to me if hypnotherapy can eliminate the symptoms of a condition, then it is a cure."

That is no more true, than to say that a pain killer, instead of setting a broken bone with the resultant healing, is a "cure". Or that taking asprin when you have the flu is a cure. One is the remediation of symptoms, the other is something else entirely.

"Don - Unfortunately, for doctors, it is just like replacing broken parts."

"That is another gross simplification of what doctors do. In this case to such an extent as to obviously written by someone who has no grasp of even the most basic of biology."

Maybe a dirth of biology, but a pretty good grasp of modern medicine. Other than antibiotics, what specifically does modern medicine do besides, eliminate, swap, and sometimes reapir parts, mitigate symptoms, until the body heals itsself, gradually kill in the hope that the bad stuff will die off before all the good stuff does?

"Don - many hypnotherapists don't care about "how the unconscious interacts with the immune system." All that's important is knowing that the unconscious knows how to do it."

"That’s a pretty big assumption Don. Let’s hope your right, for all your clients sakes."

Time and experience has already proven Don correct. It works very well for both hypnotherapy and modern medicine. But dont take my word for it, ask any doctor, "How specifically does the body know when to heal a wound, and when to stop?" WE ALL rely on the wisdom of the unconscious to take charge of the healing. Those who dont are called 'traditional hypnotherapists" or "psychoalanysts" and are not to be taken seriously.

"That’s pretty low down on the scale don. I think I would aim suggestions more along the lines of belief and identity. If you’re aiming to suggest that someone no longer desires chips, then you suggest to them that they believe chips to be undesirable. I think that would work better than to say ‘you will notice that you have gone the whole day without eating chips’, or ‘instead of eating chips you will pick up an apple’."

Personally I think both of these examples are pretty low on the food chain. But what of it? If it works for the client, and they get what they want, is something more 'globally effective' called for? C'mon be realistic, the ideal is the minimum of intervention that is effective, isnt it?


"Don - That's the way the unconscious works. The same is true with hypnotherapeutic suggestions. Have you studied Ericksonian techniques at all?"

"Yes, through choice and inadvertently through other books, but I would still not interpret it to mean that you subconscious can understand ‘maN a no There little to friEnds day He and who once A was had but one carpet some became found’. I challenge your subconscious to work that one out. Sentences still must be in some understandable form, even if it’s not specifically a grammatical one."

Well here we at least we can agree. However having said that, I often work with communication that is understandable to the unconscious but not noticed (understood) by the conscious. The important thing is that the unconscious understand. And you can measure that understanding by your results. Who cares if someone can consciously decipher some nonsense?


"I constantly see these posts about what hypnotherapy can do, but there is not attempt to justify the claims that it makes. Only the anecdotal evidence, which is similar to that which I gave, only people choose to believe it as proof. Hypnotherapy is beginning to parallel with religion in the number of outlandish claims it makes with no backup."

I wont disagree with you about this. BUT you say it as if it is ALL bad. Sometimes anectdotal evidence and faith in what you are doing is all you have. Do I wish it were better, in the sense of more studies, "Yes." But we have come a long long way, still have a long way to go, but look at how far we have come.

"I am actually quite young, yes. However I stand by my claim that pharmaceutical companies aren’t able to give money to individual politicians, only to individual parties. I’m afraid I believe in the power of the press. I’m sure that those dirty dishonest rats, or journalists as they are more commonly known would be able to sniff out a little bit of dirt on the evil dishonest snake tongues, more commonly known as politicians. Though saying that, a political career is still on the table for me. I vote conservative by the way, so I’m not one of those loony liberal student types."

Hooray! You have thus far managed to escape the indoctrination! I wish I shared your optimism and faith. However I thru the years have grown a bit more cynical than you about our 'loyal watchdogs'.

Nick, I apologise if I have misrepresented you or your thoughts in this. I havent been following this thread, per se. But I read this post and just had to stick in my two cents worth.

More power to you. Keep asking the tough questions, keep questioning, and use that very good brain you have.

cheers,

skip

[Don]

Don – I don’t cure anything, so your statement is meaningless to me.

It doesn’t take a genius to understand what I meant. What you said is just a way of avoiding the argument by being pedantic about your definition of the use of hypnotherapy. All you needed to understand was that to me if hypnotherapy can eliminate the symptoms of a condition, then it is a cure. Yes that was a simplistic way of saying something which is far more complicated, but that would have taken much longer to write and explain, as I am having to do now to say something that you obviously knew I meant, you just wanted to seem intelligent by being pedantic about it.


I was being accurate. If you are in any scientific field, accuracy is a vital importance, and respectfully, I will not abandon an accurate comment in order to guess as what you believe.

Further, as pointed out by others, your claim of symptom removal equaling cure is far from accurate. If you take pills so you don't have any cold symptoms this evening, has that cured the cold? You'll find out the answer is "no" tomorrow morning.

Don - Unfortunately, for doctors, it is just like replacing broken parts.

That is another gross simplification of what doctors do. In this case to such an extent as to obviously written by someone who has no grasp of even the most basic of biology.

You're correct. It is a gross simplification. In a few words that's all we can do. Western medicine (allopathy) has made incredible strides in helping people. I would not be here if not for allopathy some six years ago.

However, to deny the nature of allopathy is also wrong. There are three primary things that allopathy does: poison, burn, and cut. It's an incredible advance over the medicine of 1,000 years ago, but it is also directly related to it.

Don - I don't know where you studied hypnotherapy, but I most certainly do NOT have predetermined sets of suggestions.

Your suggestions are predetermined by grammar syntax, and all the other constraints which our language conforms to. You may be able to make suggestions that do not make grammatical sense, but you can make exactly the same suggestion in a form that does.
There are many different ways of saying the same thing. There are lots of ways someone can say something. There are loads of different arrangements of words, which actually mean the same thing. Our language is wonderfully diverse, to the extent that one thought can be expressed by many different sentences.
Wait, I think I just said that, only using different words.
There are a million ways to suggest ‘each time you eat healthily you can begin to notice how good it can make you feel’ or ‘you may not notice until after you have eaten healthily how good it has made you feel’. Each one you can say in many (but not an infinite) number of ways, but they can still be the same suggestion. In that way I reiterate what I said previously. There are set suggestions which you can use. If there are not an infinite number in our language, then there are a fixed set of suggestions. You may not be drawing from a book of suggestions, but the ones you use, will be used by thousands of other hypnotherapists across the globe.

I note that you still have not revealed where you studied hypnotherapy.

I think you may be correct that "thousands" of hypnotists use the stock suggestions as you claim, but I would also contend that such suggestions are the ones taught to beginners in lousy classes, and don't work for many people. The ones you give are too general and nonspecific. If I ever gave such horrible, poorly-formed suggestions I should be drummed out of the Hypnotists' guild! If you were trained to give such bad suggestions you should get your money back. What the heck is "eat healthily?"

Your suggestions may be constrained by grammar and syntax, but mine are not. Again I ask, have you studied Erickson at all?

Just because you are unwilling to understand my shotgun analogy, doesn’t mean it isn’t an accurate one. Are you so arrogant to think that all of your suggestions work? Are you only able to make one suggestion per session?
I will explain it simply to you; The shotgun is your mouth. Time you pull the trigger it is comparable to one session. Each shot represents one suggestion (not all of them hit the target). You aim the shotgun at the correct person, not the people standing nearby, and get to an appropriate distance from the target (calibrate suggestions to one particular client and their problem).

Yes, all of my suggestions work. Period. All of my suggestions hit the target. Period. I use several suggestions because they amplify each other in a synergistic fashion, not because I think some don't work. I don't have the time to give 150 suggestions to every client in the hope that one might work.

Further, if I don't believe something will work, it won't. Even Stanislavski recognized the importance of this (in relation to acting, of course).

Don - many hypnotherapists don't care about "how the unconscious interacts with the immune system." All that's important is knowing that the unconscious knows how to do it.

That’s a pretty big assumption Don. Let’s hope your right, for all your clients sakes.[quote]

You're correct. It's also a major assumption of the way hypnotherapy works. Didn't you learn this? Again I ask, where were you trained in hypnotherapy?

[quote] Don - I know of no qualified, experienced, trained hypnotherapist who would focus on losing "the desire to eat chips." Rather, they help a person develop alternate behaviors.

That’s pretty low down on the scale don. I think I would aim suggestions more along the lines of belief and identity. If you’re aiming to suggest that someone no longer desires chips, then you suggest to them that they believe chips to be undesirable. I think that would work better than to say ‘you will notice that you have gone the whole day without eating chips’, or ‘instead of eating chips you will pick up an apple’.

You may think this works better, but behaviorists, hypnotherapists, and psychologists know that it doesn't. Changing behavior is most successful when they have something to move toward, not away from. That's why, in hypnotherapy, changing behavior works. Stopping one behavior without a replacement may work temporarily, but eventually fails because the motivation will still remain. Without an alternate response, clients will generally fall back into the original undesired behavior.

Don - That's the way the unconscious works. The same is true with hypnotherapeutic suggestions. Have you studied Ericksonian techniques at all?

Yes, through choice and inadvertently through other books, but I would still not interpret it to mean that you subconscious can understand ‘maN a no There little to friEnds day He and who once A was had but one carpet some became found’. I challenge your subconscious to work that one out. Sentences still must be in some understandable form, even if it’s not specifically a grammatical one.

Then you still don't understand the unconscious. Speed reading systems, beginning with Evelyn Wood's system (as studied by John F. Kennedy and his advisors) and continuing with virtually all other methods are based on the concept that the unconscious can determine order. Millions of people use one of these systems daily. Are you saying that millions of people don't understand what they are reading?

Don - I note that you didn't comment on the published scientific paper I listed concerning hypnosis and allergies.

Firstly I told you I was busy, and secondly; The piece of anecdotal evidence was to go some way towards commenting on the abstract provided.

So you make claims but refuse to even look at evidence that might refute a single experience. Respectfully, that's hardly a scientific attitude. And curiously, although you claim you are "busy," you had time to make this long post. Perhaps you're not as busy as you claim.

It was an example of how I have alleviated similar disorders in myself, through non hypnotic techniques. Also you may not be aware, but that abstract didn’t actually state the results, or the conclusion only the hypothesis. That’s not a good start.

That's why it included where it was published so you could read the entire work. Duh!

I do commend it however to be hopefully the start of something of a way of justifying the claims hypnotherapy makes. Doesn’t it just show that you really can come up with a paper if you can be bothered.

No, it shows that there are many hundreds of scientific papers on the effectiveness of hypnotherapy. But your response, unfortunately, is something I see commonly on the net. One person says, "prove I'm wrong." Another replies, "here's the proof." The first responds, "that's not good enough!"

You asked for proof, and the truth is you had plenty of time to write a long post but were too cowardly to investigate the paper because it might conflict with your predetermined opinions. So the fact of the matter is that by the way you're posting there could never be enough proof to have you change your dogmatic beliefs. Therefore, I'm not going to bother providing you with any more proof as to how wrong you are since you obviously can't be bothered.

It successfully narrows down the reasons to – you can’t justify your claims. Which is a problem far too common in hypnotherapy. I constantly see these posts about what hypnotherapy can do, but there is not attempt to justify the claims that it makes. Only the anecdotal evidence, which is similar to that which I gave, only people choose to believe it as proof. Hypnotherapy is beginning to parallel with religion in the number of outlandish claims it makes with no backup.

But you can't be bothered to even look at the proof, so it really doesn't matter, now, does it?

‘I can get rid of your allergy symptoms with hypnosis, but I provide no evidence for it in the form of pictures, documented research or reasoned argument based on biological knowledge.’ vs ‘There is a place called hell, even though the only people who go there in order to prove it’s existence will never return, and I can’t back up my argument with reason, knowledge, or proof of any kind.’

The fact is, the person here who has admitted that he is too busy to actually look at proof--and I would contend that the reason for this is that proof will make him confront his own dogma and he is too cowardly to do it--is you.

Nick, I ask you again: Where did you train in hypnotherapy? Who was your trainer? How long was the training? How long have you been practicing hypnotherapy?

[Jack]

Hello Nicholas,

I will leave Don to reply to the points you raised addressed to him. I have to use bold type since this becoming rather convoluted.

Jack - You seem remarkably sure that your subconscious was not involved. How do you know?

Because when I can easily regain the symptoms with a little scratch of the nose, or rub of the eye.

And you make the assumption that your conscious mind was responsible for the result.

Well that’s quite a lot of money you mentioned, but anyone can create a research paper, if you test your thesis under adequately controlled conditions, and you could do it for a lot less money. However, I would like to know what areas that money would have to be spent on, eg paying participants, hiring moderators, etc.

If the research took place under proper clinical research conditions you could not do it for 'a lot less money'. A statistically significant sample is needed and that sample has to be tested( and paid) over a period of time. This is not simply a student sitting in a lab with a computer and a few friends (see below).

Jack - Oh Nicholas, get real. If you are very young, I apologise.

I am actually quite young, yes. However I stand by my claim that pharmaceutical companies aren’t able to give money to individual politicians, only to individual parties. I’m afraid I believe in the power of the press. I’m sure that those dirty dishonest rats, or journalists as they are more commonly known would be able to sniff out a little bit of dirt on the evil dishonest snake tongues, more commonly known as politicians. Though saying that, a political career is still on the table for me. I vote conservative by the way, so I’m not one of those loony liberal student types.

Naivety as well, Nicholas. Imagine, if you will a situation in which your dishonest rat journalists are offered more than their yearly salary not to publish. Since they are dishonest what do you think they will do? Might they not sniff out the corruption, like the smell of it and dig into the trough? If you do become involved in politics I would advise you to take a reality check before doing so.

Jack - I have many medical doctors as both friends and colleagues and with one exception their approach is mechanistic.

Nicholas -To be honest though, are body is technically just a machine, but a very complicated one.

If you believe this to be the case then you will do well as a politician or an Ostrich. If it was the case then there would be no human ailment that could not be cured by simply replacing the afflicted part. This is patently not the case.

Jack – (Nick quote) The subject of hypnotherapy catalogues individual classes of disorders in exactly the same way.
Er, no, it doesn't.

Nicholas - Unfortunately that was taken slightly out of context, so just to reiterate it was ‘in exactly the same way’ – as medicine. That was stated clearly earlier, but the quote was incomplete.
Well if you’re going to be like that Jack; Er, yes, it does.
It classes problems into categories, or how else would you learn and adapt to new situations in hypnotherapy.

Again you demonstrate how little you know of hypnotherapy and how much you believe in a mechanistic approach. It is not your fault, but your window of experience needs expanding.

The point of NLP was to condense an entire complex language of therapy and problems into specific types. Wasn’t it?

Was it? Did Bandler and Grinder say that's what its point was?

I didn’t say that two patients presenting the same problems would have the same cause. I was trying to get across that vastly different problems can have common causes, or at least common classifications of those causes, as well as common types of suggestion, which will be more useful than others in that situation, eg ones based on specific neurological levels.

Yes there are common suggestions done by those who read scripts to clients rather than perform therapy. There are indeed common causes for different problems but in hypnotherapy the solution is not always or even occasionally the same, and neither is the methodology the same. To an hypnotherapist every client is an individual and not a robot. To a medic a patient is a problem to be fixed using the ABC of medical science. To an hypnotherapist the client is not broken and does not need fixing. There is room for both approaches.

Jack - You understand little about hypnotherapy if that is what you think. It's actually very offensive.

See the above explanation of my analogy.

Jack - Well, let's take a phobia of heights. Most hypnotherapists would not try to deal with it as if it was a fear of spiders, water, bananas, long words(sesquipedalaphobia) or anything else. They would make the valid assumption that heights was the problem. Wide spread? Your knowledge of hyponotherapy is abysmal.

Nicholas - This was in regards to another comparison between medicine and hypnotherapy. It’s not like you’re going to rub haemorrhoid cream on your eyebrow, is it. Refer again to my explanation of the analogy.

That wasn't the point and I think you are intelligent enough to know it.

I constantly see these posts about what hypnotherapy can do, but there is not attempt to justify the claims that it makes. Only the anecdotal evidence, which is similar to that which I gave, only people choose to believe it as proof. Hypnotherapy is beginning to parallel with religion in the number of outlandish claims it makes with no backup.
‘I can get rid of your allergy symptoms with hypnosis, but I provide no evidence for it in the form of pictures, documented research or reasoned argument based on biological knowledge.’ vs ‘There is a place called hell, even though the only people who go there in order to prove it’s existence will never return, and I can’t back up my argument with reason, knowledge, or proof of any kind.’

I have some sympathy with this and agree about the making of and substantiation of claims about 'hypnosis'. Hypnotherapeutic claims are sometimes wild and ridiculous and do little to help the cause of hypnotherapy. They are often made by people who wish hypnotherapy to be secret and mysterious and known only to a few adepts - in exactly the same way some religions perform. I do not and I have had many arguments on here about exactly this point. The problem is that money for research is not available simply because it is not in the interests of our masters to have such a therapy universally available - re: my earlier point about corruption. An example: about 5 years ago I was involved in a pilot study made with University resources whose subject was the use of hypnotherapy in depression.

To cut a long story short, our pilot showed that there was a definite improvement in the mental health of our miniscule sample (8) which could not be be ascribed to the placebo effect. In order to get research money for a 5 year study covering 2000 depressives our pilot had to have a statistical sample number of 100 but despite advertising we could not get 100 depressives to agree to a 6 week study without any remuneration, which remuneration we did not have. The Department of Health refused to consider any pilot studies done with less than 100 participants all of whom had to have been diagnosed as clinically depressed.
As a pharmaceutical company testing a new SSRI this money would have been chickenfeed, they would have done the pilot and then used their own and government money to fund the bigger study.

Do you see the problem?

I was only treating medicine and hypnotherapy in opposition, as the comparison was required by the original point of the thread.

Yes, Nicholas, I understand to what you were referring, and replied accordingly.

Jack

[Five]

You couldn't get 100 depressives to come in to work in a study that might help them? That's incredible! There must be more to this thing called depression than is commonly thought.

As to medicine for allergies. I have one, and there is no medicine for it.
I have food allergies. Starting with MSG and progressing all foods naturally containing lots of free glutamate, then on to the single aminos, and then to the polyphenols and then to citric acid. My reaction to them all is the same; a thundering head fog, ringing, maybe buzzing, lack of ability to concentrate, eyes out of focus, sometimes temporary blindness with aura (flashing lights) rash, flu-like achiness and burning sensations. Yes, it is my immune system over-reacting. My doctor has nothing to offer, but sympathy. I asked him why the doctors do not speak out about MSG. He says, "Because they are ridiculed if they do."

Oh, I know there is now a glutamte blocker, but as with all prescr.meds, the side effects are worse than the ill they are supposed to alleviate.

Since MSG is now sprayed on produce because it is a plant growth stimulator and bugs will not eat it, the growers produce beautiful and bountiful produce, but to me it is poison.
And to make matters worse, the FDA recently approved the use of a citric aced based wash for meat and fish. It is anti-microbial and an anti-oxident.
Good for the meats, bad for me.

I have tried and NLP practicioner for another problem. Well, she was a nice person...... However, I have not lost faith in the process and have been thinking of seeking one for this problem.

Also sent my unmotivated son to a couple of them. The best they could do was to suggest to him that he get a job. They did nothing in the way of inducing him to acquire motivation. He studies NLP, and we must have 20 books on the subject, however none of it seem to "take".

[AnthonyM83]

You couldn't get 100 depressives to come in to work in a study that might help them? That's incredible! There must be more to this thing called depression than is commonly thought.There's more to this medical experiments than is commonly thought.

[Merlin]

*most* of the time it is a mistake of the mind.
kinda like a phobia.

[Jack]

Five,

You couldn't get 100 depressives to come in to work in a study that might help them? That's incredible! There must be more to this thing called depression than is commonly thought.

Ok, I will explain it simply in ABC fashion so that even the facetious can understand. The problem is not getting the depressives, the problem is paying them to be part of the study. Despite your assumptions, people who suffer from clinical depression are surprisingly very like the rest of humanity and have to live. A six week study is personally costly to participants. Since they are depressed, the condition mitigates against many sufferers being in a position to help themselves, so an inducement is needed. Is that clear?

MSG is a major allergen. Many people suffer from an allergic reaction to it without being aware that they are doing so. It is also impicated in both ADD and ADHD. I would suggest that if NLP is not effective that you try hypnotherapy. In my own practice desensitisation to various allergens is around 60% successful and IBS gut-centered therapy a few percent points more. Multi-allergic reactions are less successful at around 50% but this may be because clients cannot afford to persist with treatment.

Jack

[skip]

I have a simple solution.

Five,

Whovever you are, you contact Jack when you have 200 (Cause 50% will drop out) depressives lined up ready to go, with the needed office space and clerical help to run the study, and the funds necessary to analyse and publish. Oh and enough money for Jack because his life will be disrupted too.

Jack will let you know how much he needs.

Then you can have your satifaction, cant you?

Until then, would you consider that some people just might know a bit more about the problems associated with conducting a real study than someone who only does it in their imagination?

skip

[Merlin]

And Skip,

Don't forget those 100 participants will need travel reimbursement. Say £5 per visit.
Not an unreasonable amount.

If we assume 5 visits each, £5 x 5 visits x 100 participants, only another £2500
Money's easy to come by for Five :)

[Five]

Im neither depressed nor trying to work with them. It is rather beyond my understanding actually. I have a belief that most problems can be solved with reason and will power. However, I am readinga hypnosis forum, and so you know that I have some knowledge and a great deal of appreciation for the workings of that "subconscious" mind.
X-daughter-in-law was depressed and on Paxil. She would not go to work! She almost lost her house to foreclosure. I wonder how many do not work. Finally she decided to come out of it, got off the paxil and got a job. I'd say she reasoned it out.

[Merlin]

I have a belief that most problems can be solved with reason and will power.

Try an experiment, walk across a 2x4 board. Easy, huh?
Now, suspend the board in a stadium 50' off the ground.
Most people will find it different & reason/willpower oten isn't enough.

[skip]

Good point five.

And I tend to agree.

Unfortunately it comes across as if you believe that we have attempted neither reason or willpower or at least sufficent, and that is a bit insulting to those who have made effort sometimes tremendous effort to do exactly as you suggest.

Those actually sweating in the arena take with understandable skepticism the advice of those sitting in the shade 'advising'.

It isnt that we disagree that it ought to be do able, it is the seeming arm chair quarterbacking.

If I have misunderstood your intentions, my apologies.

cheers,

skip

[Don]

I have a belief that most problems can be solved with reason and will power.

Were that true, nobody would have any problems.

[Five]

Take note that I did say most problems, which still leaves many of them so
unsolvable that it inspired folks like yourselves to dedicate your lives learning how the mind works, and applying that knowledge where needed. I am aware that this may be the first thing you do when talking with your clients/patients, and when that fails you move on to something else. I couldn't handle your job. I'd get too frustrated when folks couldn't see what I was telling them. Humanity is one messed up species.

After all, I came here to learn from you by reading what you have to say. This is better than a book, because it is interactive. Since I can post my thoughts here, I take it as an invitation for my input.

As to walking on a 2x4 50' off the ground--I have a belief that this would be a very foolish thing to do. :-D

I have seen on this board several instances where some of you say that you feel insulted. You do know don't you, that neither I nor anyone else can insult you without your permission. It is you who take the words and create the bad feelings out of them.

[Poodle]

This one this evening had hives. Medical studies say it's the T-cells again but I really didn't believe it in his case. He had been tested for everything on the face of the earth and no one could determine the cause. MD's have to say something so it was something like the 21st Century Syndrome. To me he seemed to be under a great deal of stress from the phone calls I received and when we sat and chatted tonight he is under an awful lot of stress. What did I do? I made the T-cells behave, took a way any and all itching forever and gave stress relief just on the off chance that it was stress induced. Other than it took me about three hours to go through everything I feel that needed to be over it. I let his SC do all the work for me. I just gently guided it. I have no idea what it told him but he did and that's the important part.