depression

[Unregistered]

I have had severe depression for years can this help....pillls dont how do you find a good hypotherapist

[EC]

Call several and ask them about their work and success with depression. Also ask them what causes it. If they tell you it's a chemical imbalance, keep looking !

EC

[Terry (existing)]

I have had severe depression for years can this help....pillls dont how do you find a good hypotherapist
Best reply I can offer, is how comfortable you feel after talking to them on the phone. I hesitate to say what makes a GOOD hypnotist, since results are what count, and results are only measurable after the sessions are complete. Taking a course in self hypnosis might be a reasonable suggestion since you have suffered for years, so a little longer will not matter too much.

[mariah]

I read somewhere that hypno-therapy can in fact INCREASE your depression. I actually don't believe in this, because theres usually a reason why we're heading down that road and if we don't face it sooner then later you will not reach the state of being truly happy. I think what it said was that if you are soon to have a break-down, hypno-therapy really could give you one for real. But consider that as a relieve, your body could be screaming for it.

[Don]

Mariah, your comment based on something you read somewhere? And then you say you don't believe it, but then you say if you're going to have a "break-down" that "hypno-therapy" could give you one?

I'm sorry, but this is nothing but contradictions based on misinformation.

To our guest who asked the original question, I would suggest listening to the advice of the experienced hypnotherapists on this board such as Terry and EC.

Or see the article: "Hypnosis in Treating Symptoms and Risk Factors of Major Depression" in The American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis for 2001 Oct;44(2):97-108 (ISSN: 0002-9157) written by a man Michael Yapko

According to Alberto Torelli, "This article summarizes aspects of effective psychotherapy for major depression and describes how hypnosis can further enhance therapeutic effectiveness. Hypnosis is helpful in reducing common symptoms of major depression such as agitation and rumination and thereby may decrease a client's sense of helplessness and hopelessness. Hypnosis is also effective in facilitating the learning of new skills, a core component of all empirically supported treatments for major depression. The acquisition of such skills has also been shown to not only reduce depression, but also the likelihood of relapses, thus simultaneously addressing issues of risk factors and prevention."

[mariah]

I read it in the info-package of the hypnotist I saw this weekend. Actually I had to answer the question "are you depressed?".. that was underneath the question, "do you have epilepsy". It's in THAT category. It shouldn't lie, should it? Thus are written of professionals. But maybe I have misunderstood the meaning of this board.. are you not suppose to reply to other people's threads? Unless you are professionally trained, I mean? If so, I got this all wrong. I thought this board was free for opinions. I can't say I feel the freedom..

[TaffyE]

Mariah,

>I thought this board was free for opinions. I can't say I feel the freedom..

Everyone has a right to their opinions. If someone expresses an opinion different from yours and explains why, how does this reduce your freedom?

[Don]

I'm sorry, Mariah, but I find your comment very confusing. If you received literature that from a hypnotherapist who wrote that you shouldn't go to hypnotherapy for depression, and you knew that depression was part of your problem, why would you have a session with him?

Now, even though you feel he did a bad job with you and you lost a lot of money and had no change, you're repeating his comments even though what he did didn't work. Isn't that like giving other people advice from your stock broker even though all he had ever done was lose money for you?

Nobody has prevented you from stating your opinion. But as Taffy pointed out, just as you state your opinion, others have the right to state there opinions. This is especially valuable when some of the people here have studied and practiced hypnotherapy for decades.

[mariah]

Mm, I did not see him for depression actually. But frankly he HAS helped plenty of people, I am just not one of them. I still can't call him out as a "cheater". He definitely did not know how to handle me, or maybe the 'type' of hypnosis he does is not the 'type' I was looking for. Honestly I'm too much in a beginner-state to even get into the different 'types' of hypnoses here, so I will just continue to believe in everything everyone says.

My comment up there was not meant as an insult to anybody. It wasn't a way to defend myself. I actually was wondering if you had to be a "professional" to post. Because I'm okay with people having opinions, but I just felt like he was racking down on ME, not my opinions in general. So I just wanted to make sure. I'm glad you guys disagree and correct me when I'm wrong, because that's what these message-boards are for, right? I just don't understand why this is all so confusing to you, I don't just make statements out of personal beliefs, I've actually read this and talked about it with my hypnotist. I can't tell you why it didn't work for me, but he did not understand my issues and when I did try to explain it to him he only boost it off like I was wrong.

[Don]

Hi, Mariah.

Let me take what I think is your side for a moment.

From what you said, the hypnotist you went to:
1) Did not establish rapport with you
2) Did not clarify with you your needs, wants, desires
3) Did not clarify what the experience of hypnosis is really like
4) Did not inform you that you are in control, not him
5) Did not observe you well enough to determine whether you were going into trance
6) Did not do "convincers" so you'd be sure that you were, in fact, hypnotized

I think you are absolutely correct in saying that he was not the "type" you were looking for. And since he should have been the expert, not you, it was up to him to determine whether or not you were an appropriate person to work with. From yor description he failed in this, too.

To sum up, from your description you certain had a bad experience and that is still having an effect on you. However not all hypnotists are like him, so saying that other people are stuck with hypnotists such as you experienced is probably not accurate.

[mariah]

Let's just let this fade as a part of our past. I don't feel comfortable with asking him to refund my money because I knew so little about hypnoses. I actually thought hypnoses could "heal" you! But it can actually just "guide" you.. am I right? When I asked that question to the hypnotist he said that he was going to find me a "tool". It's when I got to know the "tool", that I knew this wasn't going to work. From now on I will read more about hypnoses and try to learn from you guys. In the meanwhile I'll be looking around for real professional ones or try to get deeper into it myself. Now let's not talk more about me, because this thread was not specified to me I believe.

[Unregistered]

I read somewhere that hypno-therapy can in fact INCREASE your depression. I actually don't believe in this, because theres usually a reason why we're heading down that road and if we don't face it sooner then later you will not reach the state of being truly happy. I think what it said was that if you are soon to have a break-down, hypno-therapy really could give you one for real. But consider that as a relieve, your body could be screaming for it.

Er...what?

From the same sentence, the second to be exact:

"I actually don't believe in this"

"we're heading down that road"

"if we don't face it"

"you will not reach the state of being truly happy"

From "I" to "we", lingering on the "we" to the lonely, singled out "you" in the same sentence and in just 26 words. Count them if you don't believe me.

Oh, but rather obviously there's...

"if we don't face it sooner then later you will not reach"

Obviously, it should be "than" not "then". Now re-read it. Looking at the layout of a keyboard, it's not as if it could be finger trouble. Get it now? Clever stuff, eh? You're being singled out from the "we" because you will not reach... well, what exactly? Well, "the state of being truly happy" apparently. Not "a" state either, but "the" state of "being truly happy", our unique state of being truly happy, which sounds a lot like Mr Erickson's renowned "artful vagueness" at work.

"I think what it said was"

"you are soon to have a break-down"

Great expression in the use of spaces, but copying and pasting the original text contracted all multiple spaces in the preview pane to one space, so presumably in my subsequent post too - just read the original further up in the thread to see the three spaces that imposed a sense of suspense the first time you read the sentence.

"hypno-therapy really could give you one for real"

One what? What for real? really? Really real? Who says? How do they know? (qv Meta Model ad nauseum)

"your body could be screaming for it"

For what? Again we lose our performatives and have to wonder.

All the information you regulars never give out when people take the trouble to register just to ask for: well it's available cheaply easily at Amazon. It seems it was only a matter of time before someone came back to bite you slowly and seemingly convincingly. Luckily, I saw them. You, however, didn't.

[Unregistered]

Let's just let this fade as a part of our past.

That's an interestingly phrased sentence, isn't it.

Do we feel sleepy yet, because if so I'm just not getting anything here...

[Don]

Okay. Let's talk about a concept in general.
Can hypnosis "heal" anything?
First, hypnosis simply moves a person from one state of consciousness to another. That's all. Change can take place after a person is hypnotized. This is hypnotherapy. Hypnosis--how to hypnotize yourself or another--is easy to learn. Hypnotherapy--and there are many forms--can take a long time to learn and a lifetime to master.

So hypnosis really doesn't do all that much, but hypnotherapy can create what some people call "miracles." But can hypnotherapy heal anything?

This assumes a model that I refer to as the "client broke/other person fix" model. This is the model most Westerners have when it comes to healing. A more "advanced model is the "client broke/other person fix as a team" model. The "other person" could be a doctor, psychologist, proctologist, hypnotherapist or any other person in the healing profession.

Modern hypnosis does not have this model. Instead, it has the model that the client is fine. The client is doing perfectly with the knowledge and tools that he or she has. For example, to follow the topic of this thread, at some time the subconscious, responding to certain external and/or internal stimuli, produced behaviors which some people have collectively called "depression." At that time, the subconscious found it ecologically positive to produce those behaviors. Today, those behaviors are no longer needed, and the consciousness does not even consider it positive, but the unconscious still produces those behaviors and doesn't have a reason to change or know how to change.

A hypnotherapist is trained in a multitude of ways to help the unconscious understand the value of changing and giving it the tools to change. This is the conplex part of hypnotherapy. Getting someone into a trance--the part of hypnosis that many, if not most hypnosis neophytes and reporters tend to dwell upon--is easy and, IMO, a relatively unimportant part of the process.

Note that this is defintely not psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, or similar types of treatment. A hypnotherapist helps a person achieve desired changes. The hypnotherapist does not give suggestions that are not entirely based on the desires of the client. A hypnotherapist doesn't tell the subconscious what to do. Rather, the hypnotherapist uses specific techniques to let the subconscious change according to the desires of the conscious of a client.

[mariah]

So what? My English sucks. But please, keep correcting me because then I'll do better on my TOEFL-test. Thank you, indeed. About the Amazon-crap, and the whatever-thing I did not "see" yet; if that really had a purpose please explain this in simple language so I can understand.

By the way, are everyone on this board perfectionists? Just wondering. :rolleyes:

[skip]

No not everyone here is a perfectionist.

We do know how important how someone says something is though, and when we percieve something to be "sloppy" languaging, we tend to point it out.

Not because we are just anal retentive, but because we do know how easily beliefs can be slipped into someone subconscious. And this happens all the time, both accidentally and deliberately.

And if you are going to slip beliefs in, wouldnt you want it to be deliberate?