NLP Practitioner Training Courses | Experts Forum

NLP Practitioner Training Courses | Experts Forum - NLP Hypnosis http://nlp-experts.org/ en Wed, 08 Sep 2010 01:03:19 GMT vBulletin 60 http://nlp-experts.org/images/misc/rss.png NLP Practitioner Training Courses | Experts Forum - NLP Hypnosis http://nlp-experts.org/ Garner Thomson on becoming a great hypnotist http://nlp-experts.org/nlp-hypnosis/339-garner-thomson-becoming-great-hypnotist.html Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:37:54 GMT *Hypnosis - Garner Thomson on how we can develop our hypnosis skills and what makes a great hypnotist - Discussion with NLP Trainer Michael Beale... Hypnosis - Garner Thomson on how we can develop our hypnosis skills and what makes a great hypnotist - Discussion with NLP Trainer Michael Beale November 2009

Garner is is an NLP Master Practitioner and Trainer, and founder and training director of the Society of Medical NLP and is creator of the medical NLP programme taught to doctors, allied health professionals and medical students since 1996.

(Please allow up to two minutes for the MP3 to download when you want to listen to the discussion)

http://www.nlp-expert.co.uk/hypnosis...r_hypnosis.mp3 ]]> NLP Hypnosis michaelbeale@ppimk.com http://nlp-experts.org/nlp-hypnosis/119-garner-thomson-hypnosis.html Hypnosis MP3 downloads - for free http://nlp-experts.org/nlp-hypnosis/90-hypnosis-mp3-downloads-free.html Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:39:39 GMT Hypnosis MP3 Downloads

Over the next 12 months I'm going to develop a series of MP3/pdf downloads. As part of that I'm going to be experimenting with a number of different approaches to trance inductions, as well different recording approaches - and some of them I'll post here.

The first is a very simple relaxation/softening induction which lasts a bit longer than 15 minutes. If you listen to it, as well as relaxing slightly you may find yourself unlocking some of your unconscious abilities.....

Please allow 2 minutes for the MP3 file to download and listen to when you're in a safe place. Not while you're driving!

http://nlp-expert.co.uk/hypnosis/michael-relax3a.mp3 ]]> NLP Hypnosis michaelbeale@ppimk.com http://nlp-experts.org/nlp-hypnosis/90-hypnosis-mp3-downloads-free.html Hypnosis Scripts and Trance Music - For Free http://nlp-experts.org/nlp-hypnosis/67-hypnosis-scripts-trance-music-free.html Tue, 15 Apr 2008 11:36:05 GMT Hypnosis Scripts and Trance Music

The music was recorded by Doug O'Brien and Nick Kemp at Nick's studio in Leeds, England in December, 2007. After composing original music for the Shamanic Journeys of "How Deep the Rabbit Hole" in 2006, where they decided to create some music for trance that can be used as accompaniment to your own trance inductions. The music is 15 minutes in length. You are free to use it however you choose.

The authors ask, if you use it for a distributed recording, please give us a music credit. Thanks.

By the way, it has been noted by some people that Milton Erickson never used background music in his inductions. To that we can only say: he never heard ours. ;-)

The following scripts are intended for educational purposes only. They are not meant to serve as suggested therapeutic interventions. Rather, they are intended only as general illustrations of hypnotic phrasing. These scripts are designed as supplements to other sources of academic and professional training. All rights are retained by the author of the script and must not be reproduced, distributed or recorded without the expressed written permission of the author.

End of Day Trance
By Doug O'Brien.
A Group Hypnotic Induction

"Fail-Safe" Hypnosis
By Doug O'Brien.
A transcript demonstrating Dr. Ernest Rossi's version of "Magnetic Hands"

Suggestions for Quitting Smoking
By Doug O'Brien.
A script for becoming a non-smoker

Time(line) For A Change
By Doug O'Brien.
A script for letting go of unhealthy eating habits

A Naturalistic Induction
By Doug O'Brien.

Metaphor for Changing Patterns
By Doug O'Brien
Facilitating learning new patterns (behaviors).

Facilitating The Learning Process
By Michael Yapko, Ph.D.
Preparing people to learn a new skill that seems challenging to them.

Pre-Surgery Script
Pre-surgery hypnosis script using direct and indirect hypnotic language to help a surgical patient feel at ease as a member of the surgical team, to teach The Relaxation Response Technique, and to assist with recovery.

Self Hypnosis: "The Betty Erickson Special"
More of an outline rather than a hypnosis script, this shows the format of this self hypnosis method named for Milton Erickson's wife. Reportedly, she was quite expert in this area and this is the sort of thing she'd do. (Read a transcript of a live demonstration of this technique on the "transcript" page.)

For scripts and music follow the link:

Hypnosis Scripts and Trance Music

Many thanks to Doug O'Brien ]]> NLP Hypnosis michaelbeale@ppimk.com http://nlp-experts.org/nlp-hypnosis/67-hypnosis-scripts-trance-music-free.html Brian Mahoney Interview http://nlp-experts.org/nlp-hypnosis/34-brian-mahoney-interview.html Sun, 03 Feb 2008 13:22:24 GMT *NLP Hypnosis - Brian Mahoney* Hypnosis - Discussion between Michael Beale and Brian Mahoney, January 2008. Brian Mahoney is a certified... NLP Hypnosis - Brian Mahoney

Hypnosis - Discussion between Michael Beale and Brian Mahoney, January 2008.

Brian Mahoney is a certified hypnotherapist and master hypnotist who runs Boston Hypnosis. He has trained with many of the worlds leading NLP and hypnosis trainers and practitioners.

(Please allow up to 2 minutes to download the MP3 file if you want to listen to this discussion)

http://www.nlp-expert.co.uk/hypnosis/brian.mp3

Michael : Good afternoon Brian. Firstly can I thank you for taking part in this podcast, I've heard a lot about what you're doing. If we could just kick it of with you saying a little bit about who you are and what you do.

Brian : Sure. Firstly I'd like to say thank you for having me. I am Brian Mahoney, I run Boston hypnosis in Boston Massachusetts, over in the US, I do therapeutic hypnosis on a really wide area of issues, mainly behavioural, emotional, although there are some physical issues as well.

Michael : As far as you're concerned, what actually is hypnosis?

Brian : Well, you've got the textbook definition 'a state of highly focused attention - for the purpose of selective thinking' and there's others as well. For my purposes, hypnosis is a stage, it's a stage for people to get some work done so people can get some things solved for themselves.

Michael : And what drew you to hypnosis and what's your background in it? How did you get to the expertise that you've now got?

Brian : Well, it's kind of interesting. I think with a lot of people in the NLP community my door was Tony Robbins. I did a lot of his stuff through the nineties, as I was in a more traditional business career, and at the tail end of that I began to do some coaching work with some guys that I was managing. And I was just wowed by the quality of results that these guys got for themselves, with this pretty basic stuff that I was teaching them from Tony Robins, Phil Carnagy, Steven Covey, so I decided that I liked coaching.

And when I left the company I was with I began to do some coaching work and I pretty quickly realised that the type of tools that I had didn't really have the horce power I needed to really help people sort some things out within themselves. And I knew that Tony came out of NLP so I decided 'well, I should learn this stuff.' so I went to see John Grinder in London in 2003, and from then it was just a whirlwind of training, with who I think really are the best minds in NLP, and hypnosis. And in 2004 I opened the doors at Boston hypnosis.

Michael : And how would you say it's helped you personally?

Brian : Well from the career standpoint it's enormously rewarding, it's rewarding in the way that every day I get to see people solving major life problems for themselves, or almost every day anyway, and there's a lot of satisfaction to be found in there. I also really enjoy running my own business, making a good living. I think there's a lot to be gained from 'cleaning out the closet' so to speak, I think there's a lot of subtle improvements that I've made personally that made me into, basically a happier guy.

Michael : And generally, what would you say are the main uses of hypnosis?

Brian : Well, again, I'll speak from my biased standpoint, because obviously there's a wide, wide, variety of uses for hypnosis. For my purposes its therapeutic. People come in with their different types of problems, and I will use hypnosis so that they can get the problem solved for themselves.

Michael : What sort of problems?

Brian : Everything form the traditional smoking, nail biting, phobias, weight loss, the different anxiety issues - actually a lot of anxiety issues, as well as some physical issues as well. Things like rashes, vertigo, I had client who was vomiting every day with no medical reason for it.

Voice issues, someone who is particularly hoarse, there's a pretty wide variety there too, and I would point out that I probably do a lot more of that type of work, I've done a mentorship with a guy called Steven Tarkel who works exclusively with people with physical issues, mostly people with cancer, and he doesn't just make the pain go away or anything like that, he actually makes people cure themselves.
So really I've been trained by the best.

Michael : You were saying that your background is business, what business applications of hypnosis do you think there are?

Brian : I think that the same type of work applies to business. It's interesting, actually, earlier on I met a student of Richard Bandlers, a guy named Stever Robins who was into NLP, who I think you know as well, and he was doing business coaching at the time, and I remember asking him 'Boy! How is NLP different when you're working with business people?' and he said it's the exact same thing, as when you're doing one-on-one therapeutic work.

So an example of someone that I have worked with, I have recently worked with is the CFO's of two major, well-known companies, and one, he was nail-biting, he was kind of taking his overall personal image up a few notches, getting a few things taken care of, he needed that done. And another one, he had an issue with confrontation, which in a job like that, very high pressure, very high profile, it wasn't working for him, and I did two sessions, maybe three, and he resolved the issue for himself.

Michael : Looking at the other side of this, are there any cautions that you would give anybody that was thinking of seeing a hypnotist or going on a hypnosis course. Are there any risk?

Brian : I think in terms of going to see a hypnotist, I think it's tricky, especially for a layman, to identify who's going to be really good and effective, against someone who's perhaps taken a weekend course, who's going to give them a progressive relaxation induction and then read them a script. However there's no danger there, beyond that they're just not getting their moneys worth, and I'm not aware of any hypnotists out there who have done any harm to a client.

Michael : From your point of view, what are some of the characteristics of a good hypnotic subject?

Brian : The ability to imagine and to connect with what they imagine, emotionally. People who can feel, people who haved active see-feel circuits, make for really good subjects. The super-analytical, dry, can't-access-emotion types, in the work that I do, are much more challenging to work with.
*
Michael : Can you explain a little bit more what a see-feel circuit is?

Brian : In the work that I do I really need to be able to help people to access the emotion that is likely to be at the root of the problem. so, if someone is overeating for example, maybe that's the feeling or emptiness and anxiety that they get, that even though they're physically full, they feel that they need something to eat. With a phobic, it will be a feeling of fear, so when they're in the office I want to be able to coach them to get them into that situation so basically we have the problem-state active.

If the Problem state is active, the chances are extremely high that we can get the problem solved. For the folks that can't find that feeling no matter what it's more challenging and I'd have to take a different approach,

Michael : What do you think are the characteristics of a good hypnotist or a good hypnotic trainer?

Brian : A good hypnotist, and here I'm going to unveil my professional bias and say somebody that's skilled in regression work, regression or timeline therapy, I think that's really important. I think to some degree, they don't need to be nice and warm and fuzzy or anything, but people who generally care about the clients. People who just see the clients as numbers, who say 'next! come on, let me take your money. Whatever. Do it, do it, do it. " that is not the kind of person that I would recommend someone go and see.

Michael : Just say a few words about regression and timeline therapy.

Brian : Sure. I find that in doing this work and in seeing clients every day, and guaranteeing in my work as well, seeing the problems that I see solved, in eight out of ten cases is to regress, and timeline therapy regression, basically the same thing. Timeline, which is Ted James' work, is a little bit cleaner and neater, but is essentially the same thing, which is to find out - and I hesitate to say cause and effect - but find out why someone is there, like if someone has a phobia of spiders, chances are there's a memory earlier on in their life which is charged with fear and relates to spiders - if you can find that and get it resolved - all of a sudden that person has normal perception. Basically we find the cause and fix it, and people feel better.

Michael : Now I appreciate that hypnosis is a very large subject, but before I ask you to give your contact details, and come up with anything you may or may not to plug, is there anything else important about hypnosis that you would like to add?

Brian : Just that I think it's a really, really fantastic way for people to get issues solved, in a way that's much much faster than most of the therapies that are out there.

Michael : Ok, is there anything that you're doing that you'd like to plug? And then if we could have your contact details.

Brian : No, nothing really that I'd like to plug. I just see clients, I don't do cd's, I don't write books, I don't do training, I just do hired client work. My contact information is Boston hypnosis, 48 melgrove street, Boston Mas, 021116 and my website is www.bostonhypnosis.com.

Michael : Excellent, thank you.

Brian : You're welcome. ]]> NLP Hypnosis michaelbeale@ppimk.com http://nlp-experts.org/nlp-hypnosis/34-brian-mahoney-interview.html <![CDATA[Doug O'Brien Interview]]> http://nlp-experts.org/nlp-hypnosis/33-doug-obrien-interview.html Sun, 03 Feb 2008 13:09:18 GMT NLP Hypnosis - Doug O' Brien

Hypnosis - Discussion between Michael Beale and Doug O'Brien, January 2008.

Doug O'Brien is a Master Practitioner and Trainer of NLP, and a Certified Hypnotherapist. He now conducts numerous seminars of his own around the globe.

(Please allow 2 minutes for the MP3 file download if you want to listen to this discussion)

http://www.nlp-expert.co.uk/hypnosis/doug.mp3

Michael : Good morning Doug

Doug : Good morning Michael

Michael : Firstly if I could just thank you for taking part in this podcast. Can you give our listeners a brief introduction to who you are and what you do?

Doug : My name is Doug O'Brien, I'm an NLP trainer, hypnotist, hypnotherapist, and trainer of Ericksonian hypnosis here in New York city. I travel and do seminars elsewhere, but most of my work is done here in New York city.

Michael : What do you understand by 'hypnosis'? How would you define hypnosis if somebody asked you?

Doug : Oh boy, that's a great question. I do a lot of seminars where I have to expose people to hypnosis for the first time. Everybody seems to have this idea of what they think hypnosis is, it's one of those words that makes people go 'Oh! Yeah, hypnosis, yeah.' But nobody, I think, really, truly understands it because they have a lot of misconceptions based on theatre and stage hypnosis, and movies, where people are under the control of the Sven Gali type person. And it's not just that, I think hypnosis is .... an unfortunate word!

For example when I'm working with a client that wants to quit smoking, I do more traditional transinduction work, where I will relax them and then give them suggestions that they will quit smoking - And that works for most people, it works very well.

There are other situations however where I feel that hypnosis is a natural state, its the type of state you go into naturally on a long run, or when you're driving your car without thinking, but your body is doing it, you're driving the car perfectly safely, but your mind is elsewhere. This sort of automatic behaviour is a trance. And I think really in a sense that's where the opportunity lies for true realisation of the phenomenon, because as an example, I think most problems are trances - for example if someone raises their voice and you go into this 'oh god I can't handle this' confrontation, then that's a trance, from childhood associations probably, of loud voices or whatever, but its a trance.

As you're going into a trance which isn't very productive, and I think trance sometimes is a de-hypnosis, where you're hoping to get people out of those unproductive trances and get into more automatic, unconscious behaviour that's more productive. It's just as automatic, but its a positive trance if you will.

Michael : What drew you to the subject? and tell us some of your background in it.

Doug : Well, a long time ago, at this point, I was working as a musician in New York city, and I was brought to a Tony Robbins seminar on how to walk across hot burning coals, and I thought it was the silliest things that I'd ever done, but to my surprise I was fascinated by what he was teaching, this NLP, Neuro Linguistic Programming, and I got involved, and I started taking more and more seminars from more and more people, and it seemed like the better you got at NLP you could do this thing called hypnosis, there was this thing called Ericksonian Hypnosis, a lot of NLP apparently came from Milton Erickson.

So I said 'Ok, I want to learn that!' so I start doing whatever I could to do to learn more of the subject, and I've taken seminars from whoever would teach me. sometimes I've snuck my way into seminars that I wasn't supposed to be, because they were kept away from the riff-raff, that's supposed to be taught the people with PhD's or whatever.

I was a musician, I had many degrees et cetera, but none were in the field of psychotherapy, but I did what it took to do all of this stuff and have a great understanding.

Michael : How's it helped you personally?

Doug : It's exceptional. I don't know who or what I'd be if it weren't for NLP and hypnosis. it's been a life changing event. From the behavioural side of things just by stopping smoking or losing weight, I have an ability, I chose to exercise it by the way, I don't think everyone always does and certainly I can't claim to always do it, but I have the ability to effect change on a behavioural level when I want to. And also it's been enlightening and empowering in a lot of ways, just as a quick aside.

Back in the seventies, there was a lot of talking about a lot of things, a lot of live experimentations with altered states that but they were mostly chemically induced, I was also interested in Eastern philosophy, meditation and that sort of thing. It wasn't very well centred, if you will, and I think what hypnosis offers is an ability to utilize altered states in a useful way.

So it's really helped me utilize my totality as a human being much more than I would have done otherwise. So it's behaviourally important to me but also - I don't want to use the word 'spiritual' but humanly important to me as well

Michael : Now you would have already answered some of this, but what do you think are some of the general uses of hypnosis?

Doug : Well most people I work with across the country, and the world, I guess, is in behavioural change - people want to change something in their life that they're unhappy with it's often stuff like smoking or weight loss.

Weight loss is very large if you will, it's a heavy issue for many people - but, it is. And so are changes like stopping biting nails or any number of behavioural changes - but also things like emotional reasons, people have fears and phobias, traditional NLP approaches if you will. But typically what it comes down to is your response to stimulus, your response to the world and how are you responding to what the world is giving you.

And hypnosis helps you to have better response, to respond the way you want to, other than the way you sort things out habitually or

Michael : You've given some of the uses of hypnosis - would you give anybody any cautions or warnings before they went to a hypnotist, or before they went on a hypnotic training?

Doug : Not really. I've been to about a million trainings, as I've said before, I would tale training for whoever would teach me, and I've come across a misunderstanding, of people who don't really get it and are claiming to, and I have come across ineptitude - people that have one way of doing it, but not more than one way of doing it, like for instance they may have one way of doing a trance where they swing the*watch in front of their face, but they don't know the other ways of going into trance, that is hypnosis to them.

So I've come across ineptitude, but I don't think it's very easy to really screw somebody up with hypnosis, I think we have a lot of our own natural safeguards, to protect ourselves, I believe that - so people are free to go off and explore

If there's someone who wants to quit smoking, as an example, they might find someone who's not very good at it, so they don't quit - but it doesn't mean that hypnosis doesn't work, it's just means that they came across an inept practitioner, so try it again, find someone else, or maybe it wasn't that person, maybe they just had a bad day or there was more of the onion to peel, if you will.

Michael : What do you think are the characteristics of a good hypnotic subject?

Doug : That's a very fascinating question. Even in traditional hypnosis there is this idea that there are some people who are hypnotisable and some people who are not hypnotisable, and that is true, there are some people who are not hypnotisable, but those people are usually psychotic or brain-dead, they have an inability to process language - it's not very common. Most people - if you can understand language - if you're breathing and can understand language, then you're hypnotisable.

A good hypnotic subject I guess, is someone who cares if you're a good hypnotherapist, or hypnotist, because it's a cooperative thing. Hypnosis, I think is a cooperative area, it's not just about how good of a hypnotist I am or how good of a subject you are, it's about how good are we together? Does that make sense?

Michael : Yes. But looking at things the other way then, from the other half of the partnership - what makes a good hypnotist?

Doug : Interestingly, primarily, I would say, is the ability and the willingness to pay attention to the subject, to the client, to really see who they are. Milton Erickson used to say that people are only as individual as their programmes, which is a great way of saying it, and then it's also important to know that seeing that's true - how do I interface with this particular individual that would be different to how I interface with somebody else, so it's that flexibility, and the flexibility in that ability to change, your approach, and certainly to realise what that is. To listen, to appreciate the needs and individual characteristics of the people that you're with.

Michael : Taking it a stage further, are their any particular different characteristics of somebody that teaches hypnosis well?

Doug : Well, let me put it this way, I've learned something from everybody. There is nobody that I could say was a waste of time. Even with people that were one trick ponies, where they had one way of doing hypnosis, a 'deeper, deeper, deeper' kind of thing I learned something from there, and I still do to this day, I can pretty much point to who I learned what from in any different situation.

And as much as I consider myself a student of Ericksonian hypnosis there are still things that I've learned from those one-trick pony seminars that I use even when I'm at my most Ericksonian, so I'd say that the best teachers, the people that I've, in a sense, gone back to more and more, are the people that are still curious, the people that are still exploring for themselves.

I have met people out there who think- who believe they're got it, they've learned it all and they're sharing their wisdom with the multitude, but frankly those people have good things to teach, but maybe just once, but the people that are still really exploring and asking 'what is this'?' and 'what is that'?' people like that, I keep coming back to explore with them, if you will. So people like Brad Keeny, like Steven Gilligan, that sort of person, I will go back to again and again.

Michael : Before I ask you if there's anything you'd like to plug before you give your contact details.

Doug : Hypnosis is just an incredible thing, and what it boils down to is being human, and whatever area of life there are humans, hypnosis can be applied. Whether you're a farmer, whether you're a fireman, whether you're a businessman, there are applications of hypnosis that can improve anything that you're doing. even if you're on a tractor all day long, going back to a farmer, you're in a trance during that period of time - you'd might as well use it - you might as well utilise that opportunity to make life more enjoyable.

It's always possible. Hypnosis is a real phenomenon, it's how our brain works, we operate through patterning and automatics, and the question is not 'can you go into trance?' the question is 'what kind of trance are you in and how productive is it for you?'

Michael : Before you give your contact details is there any activity or product that you've brought to market that you'd like to mention.

Doug : There's a bunch of things that I have available as CD's, as products, but there's one thing that I'm very proud of that doesn't seem to get a lot of attention which is a website. I have two websites, one is n www.eicksonian.com and one is www.ericksonian.info so it's Ericksonian, as in Ericksonian hypnosis - I'm very proud of it, I have interviews on there, it's free access for people to go on there and get interviews, I have one with David Gordon, Dan Milman, and Steven Gilligan has an article that he's just submitted to it. There are a variety of wonderful people on there, and there are also scripts and transcripts, and a wealth of information that's there. so I'd like to encourage people, I'd love for people to tell there friends about it, I'd love for people to be aware of it.

Michael : And can you give us your contact details?

Doug : As I've mentioned before www.ericksonian.com, that's my commercial website where you can get information on seminars, and I'm teaching throughout the world, and also cd's and dvd's that I have available on there on there, so probably the easiest thing is for people to remember that or to email me at doug@ericksonian.com you could just do that

Michael : Excellent, thank you very much indeed

Doug : Thanks it's been my pleasure, thank you. ]]> NLP Hypnosis michaelbeale@ppimk.com http://nlp-experts.org/nlp-hypnosis/33-doug-obrien-interview.html Stephen Gilligan Interview http://nlp-experts.org/nlp-hypnosis/11-stephen-gilligan-interview.html Fri, 18 Jan 2008 07:37:28 GMT *NLP Hypnosis - Stephen Gilligan* Hypnosis - Discussion between Michael Beale and Stephen Gilligan, January 2008. Image:... NLP Hypnosis - Stephen Gilligan

Hypnosis - Discussion between Michael Beale and Stephen Gilligan, January 2008.

Stephen Gilligan, Ph.D., is a licensed Psychologist practicing in Encinitas, CA. Stephen was among the group of students that gathered around the founders of NLP during its formation at U.C. Santa Cruz from 1974-1977. Milton Erickson and Gregory Bateson became his teachers and mentors.

(To listen to the interview please click on the MP3 file below. Please allow up tp 2 minuts for download)

http://www.nlp-expert.co.uk/hypnosis/stephen.mp3

Michael : Could you just start by giving our listeners a brief introduction as to who you are and what you do?

Stephen : Well, I'm a psychologist. I live in San Diego, California. And professionally speaking, for the last thirty two-thirty three years, I've been doing a variety of therapeutic work, coaching work related to hypnotic work. I started out in the late seventies as a student of UC Santa Cruz and I was a student of Bandler and Grinder, I actually met them when they first got together - I was a student of Grinders. And about a year into that they went out and met Milton Erickson and I was just thoroughly taken by what they had brought back, and the next time they went I went with them and met Erickson in 1974 and became a student of his for the next six years until he died in 1980. So a lot of my work has that as a core - Ericksonian hypnotic trance, and a number of other things have become integrated into that over the years, including a lot of stuff from Aikido and Buddhism, and some from other aspects of psychology.

Michael : From your point of view, what is hypnosis, what does the term mean to you?

Stephen :Well I think it's important to distinguish between hypnosis and trance, most people don't, and it leads to a lot of misunderstanding. So in order to define hypnosis I would first have to define trance. One of the most important aspects of Erickson's legacy was emphasising trance, not as artificial, but as naturalistic, and that is it doesn't come from hypnotic suggestion, it comes from consciousness itself - that it's a natural part of peoples learning states and of their consciousness. I think we could say in the most succinct way that trance is the way that occurs any time that identity is disrupted.
*
And of course identity might be disrupted in a number of ways, you might get traumatised, you might be at the end of an identity cycle or a learning cycle in your life.

I was just working with somebody for example, that was going through retirement - that you might call the end of a identity cycle for that person. Your identity might get disrupted because of things that happen in the world, you might get married, divorced, you might have a child, your child leaves home, a parent dies, you get ill, you get a new job, you change your residence. Those would be what we call events at the identity level, and it creates a break in the identity box, if you will, that you've been walking around in.

So because you need to create new identity patterns at those pivotal points, nature has supplied consciousness with this learning state that we call trance - so trance is natural. And like it or not you're going to go into a trance at least periodically in your path.

Now the thing about trance I would say, is that it's incomplete. It needs a human context. And so the social ritual is able to absorb it, to give it a container, connect it with some traditions or some patterns that allow something that is that coming up in trance, be made artistically into something that has human value.

So another way of saying that is what your unconscious gives you in trance is not complete, it's only half human. so you need someway to be able to absorb it in order to be able to shift it into something that has full human value.

And that's why I say hypnosis is one of those ritual processes if you will. If a way that you can safely create a container, and receive the unconscious and at full throttle be able to open to the more primitive, primordial consciousness. and that has some set of tools that you can gracefully, I hope, effectively guide it, into a thing that has a full human form and full human expression.

So trance is the experience, hypnosis is the social ritual to guide the experience.

Michael : And what drew you to the subject?

Stephen : Well I think I've had a life-long interest in altered states of consciousness. Maybe it comes in part from the Irish-Catholic blend. But also I think that I was just always intrigued - now that I look back to my childhood I was always drawn to these deeper dimensions and these non-rational states, if you will.

And then I grew up in San Francisco and came over in the late sixties, where there was a lot of trance in the air so to speak, so when I was nineteen I was already interested in altered states and meditation, and consciousness at a deeper level - and then I met Erickson and he just blew me out of the water, because he was a guy that was modelling and embodying trance and all of it's states far beyond what I had imagined as possible. and that's always a great thing to meet a model that's able to embody that for you.

Michael : And how would you say that it's helped you personally?

Stephen : Well trance is one tradition, I have other traditions like meditation, like yoga, like Aikido, and I think of these as the essential forms that help a person to become a human being - because we're all works in progress - and consciousness is not really, as I said, a human form. So there's not a day that goes by that I don't use it, for example as a way to stabilise consciousness, as a way to align consciousness, as a way to calm consciousness.

And then to have those capacities, and be able to settle in, settle down and be able to let go of the instinctual fight or flight that is often governing primitive consciousness.

There's this piece of Ericksonian work, that is personally so helpful which is, how do you transform problems, or how do you create solutions - and I really utilise a lot of Erickson's idea on that, about how to be able to accept and utilise whatever's there - and to be able to connect with it in a way for it to unfold into a solution - So that's a good skill to have!

Michael : Now you may have already answered it when you were talking about your own personal experience, but what do you see as trance and hypnosis's main uses?

Stephen : I think that it has a number of main uses, so I was just alluding to some of them. I think that we all need some tool to be able to calm and centre ourselves throughout the day - there's a lot of stuff that goes through that gets us agitated, that gets us away from our base. So one use is to be able to centre.

Another use is to be able to understand things, and I don't mean that intellectually, I mean that you'll be able to perceive life on a very good level. And to be able to sit with it in your bones, if you will, and be confident with whatever's going on in any given moment.
And thirdly I think that it gives a set of tools for being able to create experience. I would say that hypnosis is a beautiful model for how consciousness is created, not the only one but a very helpful one.

Michael : Can you just build on that, I'm not quite sure what you mean by creating experience.

Stephen : Well, you might say that one of the things that trance does is it amplifies everything - so all these subtle sub-modalities of consciousness, it amplifies them. So it helps you to be aware of not only how you're creating a certain pattern, but how you could change the way you're creating that pattern - for example - some of the core dimensions in creating a experience of consciousness are you have a relationship to your past, you've got this whole set of experiential learning that are within you.

Most of the time we feel almost like victims of our past. What you're doing in trance is settling down, amplifying and going into that level of sub-modality, and in trance its called age regression, so you get this intimate, deep awareness of how it is you're using your past experiences to create your present, and then you have this opportunity to generate that in a different way.
*
Other dimension for creating an experience of the world would be time, and time distortion would be that hypnotic phenomenon where you can really get to enter into the really subtle patterns of how time is used to create a world of experience and then you can be able to change that. One's sense of the future, is very influential in how you create your experience, self fulfilling prophecy - that would be another dimension that gets amplified and you're able to focus on it in trance so that you're able to really tune to how to move your creation of the "future" to create your identity.

Those are a few examples.

Michael : Are there any cautions that you would give to anybody that was thinking of going to see a hypnotist or going on a hypnosis training session.

Stephen : There's a big controversy about this question and I'm a licensed psychologist, and there are some in my field who say 'hypnosis is so dangerous that only licensed people should be able to use it" and I think what they're failing to see is that we could use trance for many, many different things in our lives, we could use trance to help others for many, many different things.

So the usual principle is to only use it in the ways that you are properly trained so if somebody clearly has - maybe they're working through some severe trauma, you don't want somebody that's not been trained to deal with trauma to work with that person hypnotically.
I see this because there's a lot of coaches who are interested in trance and I think that there are a lot of good places that people who can use trance would be able to help a person.

But they will operate as so far as their training as a coach - what to do, how to deal with it. Here's the thing, a lot of people have created this idea that the unconscious is a very dangerous thing, and it's not an oversimplification to say that the quality of the unconscious is related to your function to relate to it each moment - so if you can approach it in a friendly, respectable way, not trying to dominate it, but not being afraid of it, then you will find out what the natural limits are, because you're really interested in helping a person discover their own way.

Its not a process of the hypnotist controlling or suggesting something in some way, it's really a process of - in a sense, all hypnosis is self hypnosis. So you're saying 'lets create this safe contact where you will be able to tap into a lot of resources and potentials that you don't sense are there when you're in your normal working state. And I can support you in that as long as I'm trained to do that - what I'm trained for, I think we can use effectively.'

Michael : What are some of the characteristics of a good hypnotic subject?

Stephen : Willingness to learn, I think that's what it's all about. Let me just say a little bit more about that - there's presupposition that within each moment there are these possibilities for each person to open up to a space beyond their previous experience. That's called learning.

So it is innate within consciousness, it is there in each moment and this notion of willingness to learn is crucial and as a practitioner what you need to do is how to create contexts where people feel safe and connected with themselves so they're open to learning, and that's a sort of technical skill that one has to learn about how to connect with people so that you can support them in opening up to their possibilities. And some ways are better than others.

Michael : Again, you may have already answered the next question: What do you think makes a good hypnotist or hypnosis trainer?

Stephen : I would say that the bottom level, the ground level, of all good hypnotic work is connection. So before you're thinking about technique, before you're thinking about outcome, you're looking to first connect with the self. Unfortunately, like in a lot of therapy there's an inherent tradition to focus more on the client than on your consciousness as a practitioner.

So I think you have to ground your centre, and be able to align yourself with all the subtle patterning within yourself that's your base. And then you need do the same thing and make a connection with your client. And that is what creates the journey of the unconscious. It is this connection within yourself and between you and the client, that forms the basis, that then will guide you to sensing what techniques will be effective.

It doesn't mean that you don't have to train rigorously in your technique, but a core part of Ericksonian work is that technique comes from within and connection.

Then the creative unconscious is relation of connection, so you're ability to be able to establish and maintain that is the most important part of what you do as a practitioner.

Michael : Now before I ask for your contact details, is there anything else you'd like to mention about what we've talked about, and what you're doing at the moment? Are there any more points about hypnosis or trance that you'd like to mention?

Stephen : I think that it's practice, and trance should never be thought of as broken up in the singular. There are many, many types of trances, some positive, some negative, some low quality, some very high quality. So really the work that I do is really focused on what we call the generative trance - what is means in essence is to create a trance that constitutes a higher state of consciousness, and I don't mean that in a lofty way or a dissociated way, but in a way that you are able to create a state of consciousness that goes beneath the performance mind, it goes beneath all the soap opera of the mind, it also extends beyond it.

So whatever you're working with, you're not attached to it, you're not identifying to it, you're really sitting and opening to a consciousness that is beyond that, if you will.
And I hope that doesn't sound too California-ish because I mean it in a very practical way. But like anything, if you're going to be a really good musician, if you're going to be a really good business man, it's going to take a lot of practice - so basically you're as neat as your practice is. And also you get this sense that everyday I'm really interested in opening a little further and be able to enjoy this little mystery called life, but it's a big practice.

And sometimes people say to me 'Jeez, it sounds like your asking a lot!" well, watching TV every day is a lot, that's a practice. Being depressed every day is asking a lot, that's a practice. So we're trying to get clear - choose your practices carefully because they're the core basis for the quality of your life. I'm saying here is a really nice tradition that you can practice that will give you increases in what I call the Four H club, and the four H's are an increase in Happiness, increases in Health, increases in your capacity to Heal yourself and others, and increases in you capacity to be Helpful, that is your work in the world. So I think it's a great tradition for doing that.

Michael : Now changing the subject, is there anything that you would like to bring to our listeners attention that you're doing in the near or medium term future or any products you've got, or anything that you'd like to mention to bring people up to date with what you're doing out there.

Stephen : Well, the main place that people can get information is from the website which is www.stevengilligan.com , that's right. And I do a lot of training, I'm on the road for 180 days of the year, I also work at home for about another thirty. I do trance camp, which you went to, in the San Diego area every July. I also do a lot of other work, I'm in Europe three times a year, so I really think the best thing to get the information on the training, the books and the products, is to check out the website.

Michael :Excellent. Well thank you very much for your time.

Stephen : My pleasure Michael, happy holidays

You can download some of Stepen's most important work from NLP Resources: Stephen Gilligan ]]> NLP Hypnosis michaelbeale@ppimk.com http://nlp-experts.org/nlp-hypnosis/11-stephen-gilligan-interview.html John La Valle Interview http://nlp-experts.org/nlp-hypnosis/3-john-la-valle-interview.html Sat, 12 Jan 2008 16:28:32 GMT Hypnosis - Discussion between Michael Beale and John La Valle, January 2008.

John La Valle is a Licensed Master Trainer of NLP™ & DHE™, who has been in the training & development field for almost twenty-five years and who has brought NLP™ and DHE™ into the business arena for the past 20+ years.

(You can listen on the MP3 file below but please allow up to 2 minutes to download)

http://www.nlp-expert.co.uk/hypnosis/john.mp3

Michael : Firstly John, thank you very much for agreeing to take part in this podcast,

John : Thanks.

Michael : To kick it off would you introduce yourself so that our listeners know a little bit about who you are and what you do?

John : Well my name is John, my last name is La Valle, and I think most people might know who I am apart from those who might not, I do NLP trainings, and I do lot of them with Richard Bandler, I also take care of the administrative things for the Society of NLP for Richard. I do a lot of training, I co-wrote a book with Richard of Persuasion Engineering, sales and business, things like that I think that most people would probably know who I am though.

Michael : What is hypnosis?

John : Hypnosis to me, really, really is nothing more than exquisite, really exquisite communication.

Michael : And what drew you to the subject, and what's your background in it?

John : I have to tell you years and years and years ago, oh gosh, I must have been twelve, or even thirteen something like that I was fascinated by the idea of hypnosis, and I remember seeing those little ads at the backs of comic books and things like that, and the guy with the darts coming out of his eyes and the hypnotron wheel, and I remember seeing those and thinking whoa, this stuff looks really cool!, and so I learned hypnosis and all of these things. Of course I was only young at the time so didn't really get into it, but it really peeked my interest, that far back.

And then a friend of mine, I forget how old I was, I might have been maybe in my twenties, early twenties maybe I was twenty years old or so, and I'm happily talking to a friend of mine, and happened to mention that I was interested in some hypnosis, and learning hypnosis and what it was about, and he told me that he was actually doing hypnosis, which I really didn't have any idea that he was. And he sent me one of these self-hypnosis cassette tapes.

Michael :And

John : So I immediately plugged it in. And I was fascinated. I went into an altered state and was able to program myself based on the instructions on the tape where it said at the end of this tape if you want to stay in this nice relaxed state or whatever it was or if you want to relax for another ten minutes past that, or to tell yourself that whatever, and it happened, and I was really really amazed that I could give myself a set of instructions in a deep altered state and it would work.

Michael : And how's it helped you personally?

John : I've been able to relax better with it, I've been able to reprogram myself better with it, I've been able to do all kinds of things, I guess. I've learned a lot of things over the last twenty years or so.

One of them being that just about anything is possible in trance, and so if there's something that people want to try out, is that they ought to try it in an altered state and the altered state by the way, is really a chemical state change that we produce in our brain, now I do think it's about exquisite communication, I believe hypnosis is going on all the time. That's how people change beliefs, they could be watching TV and watching the news, getting hit with so many things of the same topic, and also they'll be hit with something that they then realise is true.

So I really believe that it's going on, I believe that it's going on all of the time. So for me it's been a way for me to go in and reprogram some things that I've needed to reprogram for myself, even to learn some things, and more than anything else to learn to relax when I want to.

Michael : Building on that, what would you say it's main use is generally?

John : Well, you know Michael, when I look at it, there are a couple of things I said earlier that I really believe that hypnosis is exquisite communication which is really going on all the time, I think that the main use that most people think that it's for is for therapeutic or coaching types of activities, things where they want to change personal behaviour. But the fact is, I believe that it's really going on and being used in the mainstream by media, by politicians and things like that, whether they know it or not so the only other question is if they don't know it, than they ought to, and if they do know it there's more than that many uses for it.

So I hear lots of people making distinctions where they want to know the difference between the conscious and the unconscious mind, which of course don't really exist in an abstract sense, but to me they do exist in terms of how much activity is going on. So conscious is what we're aware of and unconscious it what we're not aware of.

But everything is really going on, so my thought is, if they're consciously aware of what's going on then they know, and if they're not, it doesn't mean that these process's are no longer occurring.

Michael : Ah, taking that a bit further, do you think that there are any specific business applications or do you think that's been covered by what you've said before?
John : I think it's been pretty well covered. In business it's really quite an entertaining idea when you think about it, most business will not entertain the idea of doing any hypnosis within their business and I understand that.

I remember when my son was back in school the kids were forbidden to have or even ask another child to close their eyes and think of something. Because they were afraid that the children would be able to hypnotise the other children. Then, that didn't mean that they weren't, it meant that the teachers weren't aware that they were actually doing all these things.

So I think in business, we actually call it closed eye process's how can you not if hypnosis is everything, I looked up a definition once, for hypnosis, and it said something about altered states and I looked up altered state, and altered state really only means the state other than the one that you were just in previously so we really do go from state to state, emotional state, brain chemistry states, things like that, but this is happening in business every day.

So whether or not we're allowed to tell people to close their eyes, or get them to do a guided imagery, or closed eye process, or lets do hypnosis! is basically, to me, irrelevant, because we'll just do open eye hypnosis if that's what people want to do.

The fact is they still have to follow the law -I tell people the following thing I go here's something that you have to understand about anything you do about hypnosis, or about what you consider to be hypnosis, or exquisite communication you must listen and then hear or first hear and then listen to, every word that the speaker says. And that's just so you can understand what they're saying.

And that's before you can disagree. But by the time you've already gotten it into your brain, it's already too late. It's already in there, you've already gotten the suggestion, you're going to carry it through.

That's why when I hear the silly things, like when they're in court and they say to the jury please just disregard that last statement, there's no way that they can disregard it.

Michael : (laughter)

John : What they might do with that information is it could end up being something else, but they've already got it into their brain. To me it's not about whether somebody closes their eyes, or whether somebody swings a watch in front of their eyes, before they close their eyes or anything like that it's just a matter of how well is the communication passed through? So I think that there's a lot of opportunity in business.

Michael :Ok, taking from that, do you think that there are any dangers, or are there any caution that you'd give somebody who was thinking about seeing a hypnotist, or considering going on hypnosis training?

John : I tend to think not. I've heard different arguments from different people about whether or not somebody could be harmed with hypnosis or whether or not we could control another persons mind, and I really believe that we're really in control of our own behaviour.

If somebody could truly be programmed, and it requires something a little bit more than hypnosis when I look back at the Jim Jones thing where he had all these people drinking this poisoned cool-aid and stuff that was beyond hypnotism, that was something other than hypnosis, it certainly required a set of skill that he had in order to influence them and convince them, that would also require protein deprivation, sleep deprivation, and a whole bunch of other things over an extended period of time before they would be willing to follow this guy.

And I'm not that sure that he was all that good at hypnosis anyway, in terms of being able to getting people to do these kinds of things.

I think it's true that if somebody's going to see somebody who does hypnosis they should be sure that the person is pretty well qualified, but not because they might get hurt, it's only because they should be sure of what they're getting.

Michael : What do you think that some of the characteristics are lets start with of a good hypnotic subject?

John : There's really only a couple of things. One is willingness, two is the belief that they can do it. I mean, I believe that they can do it, it's just a matter of whether they believe that they can do it or not. And it's what their idea of hypnosis is. And I think that most people that would be entertaining the idea of doing hypnosis or some hypnosis have some belief that it will work.

There's always a portion of the population that will say well I don't really believe it hypnosis but I want to try it out. Well if they want to try it out, than they must believe that part of it is going to work. Or something's going to work or they wouldn't be willing to try it why would they waste their money?

So I think that the characteristics of a good subject would be, number one, willingness two is the belief that they can do it and that things will happen. And possibly the third thing is not just the willingness but the ability to just go for it, and relax really.

Michael : What about the characteristics of a good hypnotist or good hypnotic trainer?
John : I think that the criteria I would look for personally, is number one that person doing the hypnosis, that the hypnotist or the trainer is that they're not following a script. It's paramount. It's really important that they're following along and calibrating the other individual, in terms of knowing what to say, and what to do next.

Not that they have a script written out, they can't possibly know where to take the other person, or what's going to work next unless they're really, really observing that person. So the people that are good, they don't follow scripts they might have some pap phrases to help them follow some things but when it really comes down to doing some hypnotic phrases, they're not reading from a pre-written script with fancy language patterns.

And the next thing would be that they have some really good experience, not just gone to a three day hypnosis seminar. And it's not just hypnosis that they want to learn, it's really about language patterns, and using language really well. That's what makes a good hypnotist.

And I tell people, that some of the guys that are really good, who are out there, whether or not I agree with some of their personal beliefs, religious beliefs or anything like that, happen to be people that are really, really good at convincing large groups of people into doing things. Zig Zigler, real well known I guess is out there, I'm not sure about the UK, I'm guessing he is, he's a master at this here's a guy who could motivate tens of tens of thousands of people at one time, and he was really good using his own language, there are a lot of people who are like that. I think those are the criteria for me if I were going to look for somebody.

Michael : Now before I ask you if there's anything that you'd like to plug, and to give your contact details, is there anything important about hypnosis that you'd like to finish with?

John : I think people ought to realise that there's a lot of things that they can do when they do go into altered states, and more relaxed states. Now the fact is, just because they do something in those altered states doesn't guarantee that they going to keep the behaviour when they come out of that altered state, although it certainly increases the possibilities.

Which means, if they're going to generate the behaviour they're going to have to get back into that altered state or regenerate another state in order to carry through that behaviours.
Most people will do the behaviours after they've done the hypnosis but they've got to take notice of the fact, for example we could take someone to do something in an altered state and they may or may not do the same thing out of that state because of the vast difference in the chemicals, in the neuro-chemical change.

Richard recommended once, I asked him the question what if someone for example, because it's just a brain chemical state change, comes in and they happen to be on some kind of medication, or some kind or mind-altering something or other, whatever? Or even if they just had a glass of wine for lunch before hand, or something, and he said well, what I would do, when I do the hypnotic piece with them, I record it, and then I would give that to them. Because when they come out of that dream state change and they go into another reality basically, another state then if they come off the medication, or if the glass of wine that they've had has finally worn off, they should go off and listen to that again. Because then they're going to be in a different neuro-chemical state. And that's going to make a difference to whether it stays in their brain and is usable, or whether or not it isn't.

So again, all this goes back to the neuro-chemistry, and to what state they're in, they're brain-state.

So I would suggest that people learn to relax, theres a lot of things that people can do if they would just study a little hypnosis, study self hypnosis learn how to do it, it's really easy enough if they're going to go to a hypnotist, make sure the person really is good. Ask for a few recommendations, most people will not get recommendations because a lot of people that go out to see hypnotists won't know what's out there.
Yes, I've been hypnotised and I've seen some of the most incredible things that can occur in hypnosis, whether or not somebody does it for themselves, whether or not somebody helps them to do it. I suggest people just go for it, try it.

Michael : Ok. As we bring this to a close is there any activity that you're doing or product that you've just done that you'd like to mention and let people know about?
John : Well, we're active all the time. We've got products, I'll just mention the two websites really, our main website is www.purenlp.com and that's where a lot of things are happening, we have schedules up there and everything else, and any of the new products we have, any products that we carry are up at www.nlpstore.com and I think it's fair to mention that you carry many of them on your site as well.

Michael : Absolutely. www.nlp-cds.co.uk

John : So let me throw that in for you. So if people go to those sites, they'll figure out where to go from there. And there's always www.richardbandler.com for people that are interested that's really about it for now.

Michael : Ok, and your own contact details?

John : People can reach me at jlavalle@purenlp.com that's really the best way to do it. Our other contact information and mailing address, but I recommend that people don't really mail me I'm not here that often. But that's NLP Seminars group international and that's at PObox 424, and that's in Hoppatcong, New Jersey, 07843 in the US.

Michael : Ok, thank you very much for that John. ]]> NLP Hypnosis michaelbeale@ppimk.com http://nlp-experts.org/nlp-hypnosis/3-john-la-valle-interview.html