You may wonder how hypnosis, hypnotherapy and guided imagery can actually be of any benefit to you and help you to improve various medical or emotional conditions. Hypnosis is not stage hypnosis, nor mind control.
Hypnosis simply puts you into a normal and natural state of mind that all individuals experience many times throughout the day. It is a state of intense concentration. Experiencing hypnosis or hypnotherapy is not sleep, unconsciousness, nor mind control, it is simply an altered state of consciousness. Day dreaming for example is another altered state of consciousness, you remain alert and aware of your surroundings but your focus of attention is elsewhere.
Generally experienced as restful and relaxing, it is different to slumber. During hypnosis (the altered state of consciousness) you are aware of your surroundings, hearing sounds, smelling smells, also being aware of movements and in control of your actions. Consciousness is NOT lost, rather it becomes more selective.
It is typical to be more aware of internal processes than in the outside world’s activities and distractions. Contemporary scientific studies show trance is a natural and normal state of mind and like other states, such as alertness or pleasure, which have many different and individual components.
When a therapist uses this very same state in hypnosis to guide and assist you, this becomes therapy – hypnotherapy uses the state of hypnosis as a form of therapy – and anything the therapist says, you can accept or reject freely. Being in the state of hypnosis is not only natural, but it is voluntary, and you are able to speak, hear, and communicate if needed.
Guided imagery or visualization is one aspect of hypnotherapy where descriptions of images for you to visualize help you to work through various medical or emotional concerns either by direct suggestion or use of metaphor in the imagery. It is often said that imagery is the language of the subconcious mind. These images may not be “rational” to your conscious mind, but they are symbols that can be very powerful tools in helping to guide you to heal or improve yourself for many conditions. Other times, the therapist will give you suggestions to help you on your healing journey. Each person interprets these suggestions, or views the imagery in their own way, according to what is needed by the person at the time – you will experience the very same session differently from another individual, because your own subconscious mind knows exactly how to interpret the images or suggestions in the way that is just right and tailor-made for you.
For more about being always in control, about the brain, brain waves and more, follow the link provided.
Tuesday 17 February 2009
The PR Company!
The PR Company didn’t quite reply in the way I was hoping they would! After years of researching and development of the IBS Audio Program 100, the PR Company who will remain nameless to hide their blushes, sent back the IBS Audio Program 100 unopened with a nice note on what looked like expensive letter headed papers.
Dear Mr Mahoney, Thank you for your recent communication.
Having reviewed your product; the IBS Audio Program 100, it is, it is in our opinion
unmarketable and therefore return it to you.
Thank you for contacting us,
We wish you well for the future.
Yours sincerely….
So there it was. Failure at the first hurdle! They sent it back even without even opening it, which initially hurt me, but then decided (after a few days of internal searching of where I had gone wrong!) they were wrong not me.
I had seen first hand what this condition did to the lives of people. I had learned through my research into this that my program worked. So I decide to keep going.
(And for anyone connected to that company, I can tell you, your lack of foresight, and perceived laziness did me a great favour in the long run. The program is now used by IBS sufferers in 43 countries, and from me, and the thousands it has helped. THANK YOU!)
Without that knock back, I wouldn’t have been spurred on to do more, to keep persevering, so again thank you.
Time passed and people got to know about my IBS Audio Program 100, I got great positive feedback from it. And for some considerable time I focussed on that. Then I was asked to do a follow up program for people who had done the IBS Audio Program 100 and wanted to work on other areas of their life, and so my next program was developed, Towards Inner Peace. Over the years, I did more research in more areas and subjects, until today we have 17 programs which are helping lots of people in many different ways.
Next Hypnotherapy
Dear Mr Mahoney, Thank you for your recent communication.
Having reviewed your product; the IBS Audio Program 100, it is, it is in our opinion
unmarketable and therefore return it to you.
Thank you for contacting us,
We wish you well for the future.
Yours sincerely….
So there it was. Failure at the first hurdle! They sent it back even without even opening it, which initially hurt me, but then decided (after a few days of internal searching of where I had gone wrong!) they were wrong not me.
I had seen first hand what this condition did to the lives of people. I had learned through my research into this that my program worked. So I decide to keep going.
(And for anyone connected to that company, I can tell you, your lack of foresight, and perceived laziness did me a great favour in the long run. The program is now used by IBS sufferers in 43 countries, and from me, and the thousands it has helped. THANK YOU!)
Without that knock back, I wouldn’t have been spurred on to do more, to keep persevering, so again thank you.
Time passed and people got to know about my IBS Audio Program 100, I got great positive feedback from it. And for some considerable time I focussed on that. Then I was asked to do a follow up program for people who had done the IBS Audio Program 100 and wanted to work on other areas of their life, and so my next program was developed, Towards Inner Peace. Over the years, I did more research in more areas and subjects, until today we have 17 programs which are helping lots of people in many different ways.
Next Hypnotherapy
Sunday 15 February 2009
Irritable Bowel Syndrome IBS
Irritable Bowel Syndrome IBS
The birth of the IBS Audio Program 100
In 1991 I was visited by three women in the same week at the medical centre where I am based, all presenting with IBS, irritable bowel syndrome a common gastrointestinal condition for which there is no medical cure, nor is there any real understanding of why it develops in some individuals and not in others, but there are some excellent theories and lots of medical research still going on so the hope for a cure out of a bottle is still alive.
In that week of 1991 I saw the misery first hand this condition brings to people. I didn’t know much about the condition but in that week I had seen enough to know this was something I wanted to become involved in. I didn’t work with the three women as I didn’t know enough about it to give me confidence enough that I could help. So I started researching, I started learning lots about the IBS condition.
I saw there was research being done using hypnotherapy to help IBS sufferers, I learned about that too, and after several years I was confident I could start to write my own scripts. But I wasn’t going to do it the way I had discovered in my research of others, I believed I could do it differently, but still as (hopefully more) effectively as what was already being done.
Every IBS patient that came to me I treated for free. I explained I was learning about the condition and if they were willing, so was I. And what I did made sense, I brought a structure to the learning about getting well, I could see the difference is a short time of the majority of people I was working with, physically and emotionally there were recovering, growing, getting well and enjoying taking part in their own healing. They gave great testimonials to their friends and family and their doctors. They couldn’t believe it, I was delighted and word spread.
I saw more and more people for it, and they were going to their doctors and the doctors started to send people to me. Eventually I had to start charging for the service, nothing major but there are economics in life, I had my family to keep, by his time our daughter had arrived and was eating us out of house and home along with her brother. But even then the clients and patients still came. I knew what I had developed was important.
One day I did a home visit to a chap, I recorded his session on my portable tape recorder as I always did, and he said, you need to record this professionally. I knew no-one who did recordings professionally, I had no idea about how I would go about it, and I certainly didn’t have the money to do it. So I parked the idea, but the thought never left me.
Then a few weeks later, I saw a patient who just in passing said she played the flute, and she was going to be recorded, she had a friend who did it. I was immediately interested, I asked if I could be introduced to her friend, I was and we hit it off immediately. We shared similar beliefs had similar morals and ethics and it worked well.
I had to restructure the scripts I had done, to make them more usable for listeners, I had to make sure the listening schedule was right too. It all mattered, it had to be right.
The first recording session was a nerve rattling experience. Even the slightest outside sound could be heard, the microphone was so sensitive. The recordings were getting done, but the work was taking me away from my patients and my income. It was costing more than expected. So I raised money by getting a loan and put my home up as capital. It was a nerve wracking experience, but I was so sure I was doing the right thing.
I also then had to get patients to try the recordings I had created, to follow the schedule for 100 days and to report back to me over the next three years. By this time it was late 1997 the logistics of the duplication, packaging, delivery and fabrication has been massively underestimated. But I learned, I found people I could trust and work with through trial and error I eventually had the packaging of the program done, by today’s standards it looks quite amateurish but it was the content that mattered, and to be honest at the time it looked fine.
I was sure the program would work, the results from the trials were very pleasing, and it was time to get the word out. My first decision was to contact a big Press Release company and so my labour of love, the IBS Audio Program 100 was sent off for its first commercial critique.
Tomorrow: Disaster!
The birth of the IBS Audio Program 100
In 1991 I was visited by three women in the same week at the medical centre where I am based, all presenting with IBS, irritable bowel syndrome a common gastrointestinal condition for which there is no medical cure, nor is there any real understanding of why it develops in some individuals and not in others, but there are some excellent theories and lots of medical research still going on so the hope for a cure out of a bottle is still alive.
In that week of 1991 I saw the misery first hand this condition brings to people. I didn’t know much about the condition but in that week I had seen enough to know this was something I wanted to become involved in. I didn’t work with the three women as I didn’t know enough about it to give me confidence enough that I could help. So I started researching, I started learning lots about the IBS condition.
I saw there was research being done using hypnotherapy to help IBS sufferers, I learned about that too, and after several years I was confident I could start to write my own scripts. But I wasn’t going to do it the way I had discovered in my research of others, I believed I could do it differently, but still as (hopefully more) effectively as what was already being done.
Every IBS patient that came to me I treated for free. I explained I was learning about the condition and if they were willing, so was I. And what I did made sense, I brought a structure to the learning about getting well, I could see the difference is a short time of the majority of people I was working with, physically and emotionally there were recovering, growing, getting well and enjoying taking part in their own healing. They gave great testimonials to their friends and family and their doctors. They couldn’t believe it, I was delighted and word spread.
I saw more and more people for it, and they were going to their doctors and the doctors started to send people to me. Eventually I had to start charging for the service, nothing major but there are economics in life, I had my family to keep, by his time our daughter had arrived and was eating us out of house and home along with her brother. But even then the clients and patients still came. I knew what I had developed was important.
One day I did a home visit to a chap, I recorded his session on my portable tape recorder as I always did, and he said, you need to record this professionally. I knew no-one who did recordings professionally, I had no idea about how I would go about it, and I certainly didn’t have the money to do it. So I parked the idea, but the thought never left me.
Then a few weeks later, I saw a patient who just in passing said she played the flute, and she was going to be recorded, she had a friend who did it. I was immediately interested, I asked if I could be introduced to her friend, I was and we hit it off immediately. We shared similar beliefs had similar morals and ethics and it worked well.
I had to restructure the scripts I had done, to make them more usable for listeners, I had to make sure the listening schedule was right too. It all mattered, it had to be right.
The first recording session was a nerve rattling experience. Even the slightest outside sound could be heard, the microphone was so sensitive. The recordings were getting done, but the work was taking me away from my patients and my income. It was costing more than expected. So I raised money by getting a loan and put my home up as capital. It was a nerve wracking experience, but I was so sure I was doing the right thing.
I also then had to get patients to try the recordings I had created, to follow the schedule for 100 days and to report back to me over the next three years. By this time it was late 1997 the logistics of the duplication, packaging, delivery and fabrication has been massively underestimated. But I learned, I found people I could trust and work with through trial and error I eventually had the packaging of the program done, by today’s standards it looks quite amateurish but it was the content that mattered, and to be honest at the time it looked fine.
I was sure the program would work, the results from the trials were very pleasing, and it was time to get the word out. My first decision was to contact a big Press Release company and so my labour of love, the IBS Audio Program 100 was sent off for its first commercial critique.
Tomorrow: Disaster!
Saturday 14 February 2009
My First ~ and almost last client!
Now out of training, after all the study now it was time for the most exciting part of all, that of getting out into the real world, to make a difference, to help to heal those in need, comfort those in distress, guide those who had lost direction. My leaflets went out as inserts in the local rag, and I waited for the phone to ring, expecting a surge of calls and being in total demand.
Well not quite! It was now 1986, hypnotherapy in those days was pretty much unheard of, and it was seen as hocus-pocus, baloney and more. In fact in those early days I chose to get an answer machine, this to my friends made me a ‘Yuppie’ this may be another term unfamiliar to younger readers ~ (young upwardly-mobile professional) which was far from the truth. Little did my friends know I got the answer machine to field off the idiots who knew nothing about hypnosis and saw it as a means of doing harm, doing evil. In fact nothing could have been further from the truth. I had left a well paid job, did some serious brain testing studying to do what I had chosen to do. It was my choice to leave the comfort of a secure job, to help those in need.
They knew nothing about what I had been trained for, and what I knew was that I was not going to allow those types to concern me or worry my family. I knew I wanted to do this, and that was exactly what I was going to do. However it did provide a learning curve for me, I fell back on my training, not to be offended; some people get scared or abusive when they don’t know or understand something. So I let it go and moved on.
Eventually the phone did ring a client! Remain professional, it was exciting and I had to try and prevent that excitement getting in the way of being professional. A few days later I did a home visit. Now bearing in mind whenever I speak about a client, it will be about events over 10 years ago (this is about 23 years ago now) names and places will be changed to ensure anonymity.
Of all the things for a first client I had a chap with a sexual problem! Just my luck! And yet I had been trained for such clients and was entirely professional. All the usual first meet questions were asked, I told him about hypnotherapy. A few days later I returned and was setting up my audio tapes, one for ambient music, and the other to record the session to which he would listen in between times we would meet.
As I was setting up the cassettes he excused himself saying he needed the bathroom. He came back completely starker’s! As naked as a jaybird (although jay birds aren’t naked, the origin of that phrase poses a question perhaps for the wordsmiths among you readers). I was shocked, but I hope he didn’t notice, I simply told him there was no need for it and he should get dressed. He left the room and came back suitably attired.
I felt a bit uneasy, but all was fine, after all I am over 6ft tall and trained to look after myself so no physical threat was imminent, but I remained uneasy. I had explained at the initial consultation that hypnotherapy is a process not a magic wand and that there would have to be more that one session.
During the now regular post session discussion I hold with people, he made it clear that it wasn’t hypnotherapy he wanted, it was more me he wanted! That questions not only his sanity but his eye-sight in my view! I assured him nothing more was on offer. I packed up and left, after being paid of course.
I didn’t see another client for three weeks. I was disappointed, is this how it was going to be? Is this what I had left a good job for, had left good salary and security to satisfy some lonely mans fantasy! I didn’t see any other clients for three weeks out of choice, the leaflets were doing their work, I was getting calls, but after three weeks, my wife quietly said to me “why are you letting one person ruin what you want to do, what you have trained had to do and that you have a passion for”? She was right, and from that moment I changed, I was back to it again, enthusiastic and wanting to make a difference.
At my workshops I often tell this story in more depth, but I always add, if it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone, so I always warn those therapists who do home visits, especially females, be aware!
Tomorrow ~ IBS
Well not quite! It was now 1986, hypnotherapy in those days was pretty much unheard of, and it was seen as hocus-pocus, baloney and more. In fact in those early days I chose to get an answer machine, this to my friends made me a ‘Yuppie’ this may be another term unfamiliar to younger readers ~ (young upwardly-mobile professional) which was far from the truth. Little did my friends know I got the answer machine to field off the idiots who knew nothing about hypnosis and saw it as a means of doing harm, doing evil. In fact nothing could have been further from the truth. I had left a well paid job, did some serious brain testing studying to do what I had chosen to do. It was my choice to leave the comfort of a secure job, to help those in need.
They knew nothing about what I had been trained for, and what I knew was that I was not going to allow those types to concern me or worry my family. I knew I wanted to do this, and that was exactly what I was going to do. However it did provide a learning curve for me, I fell back on my training, not to be offended; some people get scared or abusive when they don’t know or understand something. So I let it go and moved on.
Eventually the phone did ring a client! Remain professional, it was exciting and I had to try and prevent that excitement getting in the way of being professional. A few days later I did a home visit. Now bearing in mind whenever I speak about a client, it will be about events over 10 years ago (this is about 23 years ago now) names and places will be changed to ensure anonymity.
Of all the things for a first client I had a chap with a sexual problem! Just my luck! And yet I had been trained for such clients and was entirely professional. All the usual first meet questions were asked, I told him about hypnotherapy. A few days later I returned and was setting up my audio tapes, one for ambient music, and the other to record the session to which he would listen in between times we would meet.
As I was setting up the cassettes he excused himself saying he needed the bathroom. He came back completely starker’s! As naked as a jaybird (although jay birds aren’t naked, the origin of that phrase poses a question perhaps for the wordsmiths among you readers). I was shocked, but I hope he didn’t notice, I simply told him there was no need for it and he should get dressed. He left the room and came back suitably attired.
I felt a bit uneasy, but all was fine, after all I am over 6ft tall and trained to look after myself so no physical threat was imminent, but I remained uneasy. I had explained at the initial consultation that hypnotherapy is a process not a magic wand and that there would have to be more that one session.
During the now regular post session discussion I hold with people, he made it clear that it wasn’t hypnotherapy he wanted, it was more me he wanted! That questions not only his sanity but his eye-sight in my view! I assured him nothing more was on offer. I packed up and left, after being paid of course.
I didn’t see another client for three weeks. I was disappointed, is this how it was going to be? Is this what I had left a good job for, had left good salary and security to satisfy some lonely mans fantasy! I didn’t see any other clients for three weeks out of choice, the leaflets were doing their work, I was getting calls, but after three weeks, my wife quietly said to me “why are you letting one person ruin what you want to do, what you have trained had to do and that you have a passion for”? She was right, and from that moment I changed, I was back to it again, enthusiastic and wanting to make a difference.
At my workshops I often tell this story in more depth, but I always add, if it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone, so I always warn those therapists who do home visits, especially females, be aware!
Tomorrow ~ IBS
Friday 13 February 2009
How it all started
Welcome to my Blog.
For quite along time I have been thinking about writing my own blog and wondered what it was I would talk about. Yet anyone who knows me will be aware that I am rarely short of a word or several hundred, especially in the clinical environment.
I thought I would start this blog, by answering a question that is asked me many times, and that is, how did I get into hypnotherapy?
In the early 1980’s I was made redundant from my office job, and I already knew that I preferred working with people rather than shuffling paper. I wanted to do something productive, something really worth while, and I had inherited my mothers’ calmness and I hope some of her kindness and caring.
All around me I saw the devastation that redundancy was bringing to people, strong people reduced to tears and frightened. I had a baby son a few months old at this time, and a new mortgage so things were pretty tense. Somehow I had a calmness in me, I saw it as an opportunity to move on, to get into the caring profession, but which one and how?
One day I opened a broadsheet and saw an advert to become a clinical hypnotherapist, it struck me as different; in fact I had no idea what it was about. I sent off for some information and in due course it arrived back, I was bitten by the healing bug, just reading about it, how it could help people, how it could remove fears and dread, how hypnosis could enhance an individuals self esteem and confidence, remove physical and emotional problems, simply by talking, and as previously mentioned I could do that alright!
So to cut a long story sort, I went and took my entrance exams and passed those and then had to wait for the new course to begin. In the meantime I got a job in the computer industry, at that time I knew nothing about them, PC’s were brand new. I remember the first computer I saw, it was a single floppy machine ~ you may be to young to know what that means, but it was, as they say nowadays ‘mega’
This big box, with a big deep monitor, was attracting interest from many quarters. It was a mono screen and in those days this simple machine by today’s standards cost thousands of pounds, the software for it was limited and expensive too, yet it seemed the way things were set to go.
Soon afterwards, although now I can’t really recall exactly how soon afterwards, the duel floppy machine came in, and then wow!! a hard disk machine. A 10Mb hard disk arrived. That really got people excited.
I was pretty sure I wanted to stick with my pending training in hypnotherapy, the temptation to stay in the industry was quite high, and there were promises of lots of money if I worked hard. As it happened during some of my training and then licentiate membership I returned to the industry to earn more money.
The hypnotherapy course was looming and in a relatively short time, I had established a presence in the computer company, and the progression allowed me to ask my boss for a golden handshake, though it wasn’t called that in those days, I was leaving and wanted some money to help me though my training, I still had to live and had a family to keep and mortgage to pay. Through sheer cheek I got what I needed, the computer industry was awash with money in those days, and I had done a good job, and was recognised for it. Three cheers to my boss!
Then I started my hypnotherapy training, I loved every minute of it, I worked hard to understand and learn, I kept up, I worked harder, I wanted to be the best in the group. I was certain it was what I wanted to do, and eventually after training and in service training I got my grade and was let loose. And what a scary time that was! Now I had to apply what I had learnt, and it is fair to say, no matter how good the training was, and how structured it was, the real learning began as soon as I began seeing clients, and after my first client things could only get better!
Tomorrow ~ my first client!
For quite along time I have been thinking about writing my own blog and wondered what it was I would talk about. Yet anyone who knows me will be aware that I am rarely short of a word or several hundred, especially in the clinical environment.
I thought I would start this blog, by answering a question that is asked me many times, and that is, how did I get into hypnotherapy?
In the early 1980’s I was made redundant from my office job, and I already knew that I preferred working with people rather than shuffling paper. I wanted to do something productive, something really worth while, and I had inherited my mothers’ calmness and I hope some of her kindness and caring.
All around me I saw the devastation that redundancy was bringing to people, strong people reduced to tears and frightened. I had a baby son a few months old at this time, and a new mortgage so things were pretty tense. Somehow I had a calmness in me, I saw it as an opportunity to move on, to get into the caring profession, but which one and how?
One day I opened a broadsheet and saw an advert to become a clinical hypnotherapist, it struck me as different; in fact I had no idea what it was about. I sent off for some information and in due course it arrived back, I was bitten by the healing bug, just reading about it, how it could help people, how it could remove fears and dread, how hypnosis could enhance an individuals self esteem and confidence, remove physical and emotional problems, simply by talking, and as previously mentioned I could do that alright!
So to cut a long story sort, I went and took my entrance exams and passed those and then had to wait for the new course to begin. In the meantime I got a job in the computer industry, at that time I knew nothing about them, PC’s were brand new. I remember the first computer I saw, it was a single floppy machine ~ you may be to young to know what that means, but it was, as they say nowadays ‘mega’
This big box, with a big deep monitor, was attracting interest from many quarters. It was a mono screen and in those days this simple machine by today’s standards cost thousands of pounds, the software for it was limited and expensive too, yet it seemed the way things were set to go.
Soon afterwards, although now I can’t really recall exactly how soon afterwards, the duel floppy machine came in, and then wow!! a hard disk machine. A 10Mb hard disk arrived. That really got people excited.
I was pretty sure I wanted to stick with my pending training in hypnotherapy, the temptation to stay in the industry was quite high, and there were promises of lots of money if I worked hard. As it happened during some of my training and then licentiate membership I returned to the industry to earn more money.
The hypnotherapy course was looming and in a relatively short time, I had established a presence in the computer company, and the progression allowed me to ask my boss for a golden handshake, though it wasn’t called that in those days, I was leaving and wanted some money to help me though my training, I still had to live and had a family to keep and mortgage to pay. Through sheer cheek I got what I needed, the computer industry was awash with money in those days, and I had done a good job, and was recognised for it. Three cheers to my boss!
Then I started my hypnotherapy training, I loved every minute of it, I worked hard to understand and learn, I kept up, I worked harder, I wanted to be the best in the group. I was certain it was what I wanted to do, and eventually after training and in service training I got my grade and was let loose. And what a scary time that was! Now I had to apply what I had learnt, and it is fair to say, no matter how good the training was, and how structured it was, the real learning began as soon as I began seeing clients, and after my first client things could only get better!
Tomorrow ~ my first client!
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