4 Corners Hypnosis

A two-day certification seminar
taught by David Botsford

Saturday January 29th and Sunday January 30th, 2011

10am to 6pm both days

Holiday Inn Orlando International Airport,
5750 T.G. Lee Blvd., Orlando, FL 32822

Download two free reports in PDF format:

“5 Ericksonian hypnosis techniques you can use right now to enhance your work with clients.”

Click here: 5-ericksonian-hypnosis-techniques

“3 real-life case studies using Ericksonian approaches.”
Click here: 3-ericksonian-case-studies

In case of problems downloading, please e-mail davidbotsford@gmail.com

or call 863 420 3634

This workshop is aimed at practising hypnotists and those who already have some experience or training in the field of hypnosis. Participants will learn the essential techniques of indirection, utilization and tailoring in hypnosis, drawing on the methods of Dr Milton H. Erickson (known as Ericksonian hypnosis).
 Many hypnotists who have heard about the power of Dr Erickson’s techniques have gained the impression that they are complicated, obscure and difficult to master. In part, this is because Erickson’s writings were aimed at professional audiences of medical doctors, academics, dentists and psychologists and are laden with jargon. However, the essential Ericksonian technques can be, and are, both simple and enjoyable to master.
 The purpose of this workshop is to teach participants the essentials of Ericksonian hypnosis in the simplest possible way. Your instructor is a “lay” hypnotist who first trained at the National School of Hypnosis and Psychotherapy with Ray Keedy-Lilley, who was the first to introduce Ericksonian hypnosis to the United Kingdom. He has used Ericksonian hypnosis consistently in one-to-one sessions with clients for 16 years. His goal is to ensure that you gain the most useful and practical knowledge to enhance your hypnosis practice, optimize your results with clients and enhance your reputation as a trance-former. In addition to two days of intense live training, you will receive a handout of over 100 pages and a set of audio CDs as a permanent resource for the future, plus a bonus gift instructional DVDs.
 Because many hypnotists are feeling the effects of the challenging economy, the price for attending this seminar is being kept as low as possible in order to keep it affordable.

Attendance:

Before November 1st 2010: $245    After November 1st 2010: $295    NGH members (any time): $195

Practical Ericksonian Hypnosis
Overview
 Dr Milton H. Erickson pioneered a new approach in hypnosis. Instead of using standardized and authoritarian inductions, he learned to use indirection, tailoring and utilization in order to enable clients to enter trance, access unconscious resources, and achieve their goals. This seminar will teach those aspects of the Ericksonian approach which are most useful for hypnotists in helping their clients to achieve their goals most effectively. Students will learn how to observe the client closely and deliver reliable inductions based on their observations. They will learn to tailor the session to the individual client and to utilize the client’s resources in order to gain a successful outcome. They will learn the essential Ericksonian approach to some of the most common issues dealt with by hypnotists, including weight control, pain management and achieving emotional well-being. Each attendee will receive a workbook of over 100 pages which is intended to be a permanent resource for their practice, together with audio CDa and bonus DVDs.
 This workshop intends to be as close as possible to the reality of the work done by hypnotists. Both days will start with a live demonstration of an actual session of Ericksonian hypnosis, carried out with a volunteer from the audience. On the first day, the volunteer will keep secret the issue to be dealt with (“secret therapy”). This is because the first day will deal with process rather than content . In the demonstration on the second day, the volunteer will announce what the issue is to be dealt with. This is because the second day will be more focused on content.

Day 1: Inductions.
Session 1: Demonstration of an actual (brief) Ericksonian session with a volunteer from the audience. The volunteer does not announce what that issue is that being addressed. This is an example of “secret therapy” or process (not content) instructions.
Session 2: Overview of Milton Erickson’s approach and his contribution to hypnosis. How Erickson’s indirect approach, based on tailoring and utilization, goes beyond traditional authoritarian hypnosis in the possibilities it opens up.
Session 3: Essential skills underlying Ericksonian hypnosis: pacing and leading, observation, the permissive approach, trance induction through sensory experience and utilization. Includes exercises.
a. Trance is an amplification of responses and experience. Describe an experience talking about what has to be   there, in order to help the subject amplify his/her response.
b. Matching and verbalizing as means of building rapport.
c. Smooth transitions to assist going into an altered state (“as”, “while”, “and”, etc.)
d. General signs of trance: facial asymmetry, then more than usual facial symmetry, muscular relaxation, small   involuntary muscle movements, flushing, changes in breathing.
Session 4: Specific inductions. These includes: verbal pacing and leading (5-4-3-2-1), non-verbal pacing and leading, accessing a previous trance state and utilizing naturally occurring trance states.
Session 5: Therapeutic communications: the use of metaphor, anchoring trance states, analogue marking, eliciting a positive outcome.

Day 2: Utilization.
Session 6: Demonstration of a second actual (brief) Ericksonian session with a volunteer from the audience. This time, the volunteer specifies what issue is being dealt with.
Section 7: The use of process instructions (not content). The Milton model: vague language. Outline of the Ericksonian therapeutic approach.
Section 8: Structure of an Ericksonian hypnosis session. How to deal with the client in front of you from start to finish.
Section 9: Ericksonian hypnosis for groups. Tailor your induction by using the “group mind” and utilizing experiences.
Specific applications:
Section 10: Weight management. How to enable your client to enjoy better choices in their eating and exercise.
Section 11: Pain control. How to alter a client’s representation of pain - to be used only with a physician’s referral.
Section 12: Emotional well-being. How to change a client’s emotional life using his or her inner resources.
Section 13: Attendees split into pairs and do a complete mini-session based on techniques learned at this seminar.
Section 14: Questions and answers.
Section 15: Benediction. A motivational group hypnosis session to reinforce learning and inspire attendees to success.

Handouts
100+ pages course manual. Audio CD with voice techniques. Retail CD sets: Freedom from Pain (2 CDs), Free from Depression (2 CDs), Eat Less, Lose Weight for Women (2 CDs). Bonus: DVDs of a 3-hour presentation on Erickson.

If you would like to print out a form in PDF format, please click on the link below: 

erickson-seminar-form

Master the essential techniques of Dr. Milton H. Erickson in one weekend with this

Certificate Course in Ericksonian Hypnosis

109 Ambersweet Way # 111, Davenport, FL 33897                              Tel: 863 420 3634

e-mail: davidbotsford@gmail.com       www.selfhypnosiscd.com

Dear Fellow Hypnotist:

          Would you like to dramatically improve the results you get from your hypnosis practice? Would you like to build a reputation as the hypnotist of choice in your area? Would you like to learn how to tailor your hypnosis to each individual client? Would you like to be sure that every single one of your clients enters trance? Would you like to learn how to utilize your clients’ experiences so that they can achieve a solution in a unique way?

          Now you can – with a two-day seminar which teaches you the essential hypnotic techniques of the legendary Dr. Milton H. Erickson, who is considered by many to be the greatest medical hypnotist of the twentieth century. In the traditional authoritarian approach, the hypnotist essentially “tells the client what to do”. By contrast, Dr Erickson developed a permissive approach which utilized the client’s experience and tailored the session in a unique way to each individual. He recognized that the client’s unconscious mind already has all the resources needed to achieve the client’s goals.

          As a hypnotist with 16 years’ experience in working with clients using one-to-one Ericksonian hypnosis, I would like to invite you to the Holiday Inn Orlando International Airport, Orlando, Florida, for a two-day practical seminar which teaches you those techniques of Ericksonian hypnosis which are most useful for working hypnotists. By the end of these two days, you will know:

          • the essentials of the Ericksonian approach to success through unconscious learning;

• how to perform hypnotic inductions based on close observation of the client;

          • how to listen to your client for resources you can use to achieve his or her goals;

• how to pace your clients, reframe their experiences and lead them to the solution they require;

• Ericksonian hypnotic inductions which will mobilize your client’s unconscious resources;

• numerous communication techniques to influence your client’s unconscious;

• how to apply this knowledge to weight management, pain control and emotional well-being;

• and much, much more.

This is a practical workshop. We will begin both days with a live demonstration of a mini-session with a real person dealing with real issues, using the techniques taught in this workshop. If you have any issues you would like to deal with, you are invited to volunteer to be the client in either of those sessions. (Please note that the whole workshop is likely to be videotaped.) These two volunteers will get a FREE place at the entire workshop (hotel and travel not included).

This certificate course is being kept as low-cost as possible to make it affordable in the present economic climate. However, the goal is to provide exceptional quality and value for money, so please don’t let the low price deter you! You will also receive a comprehensive, 100+ page manual which will be a permanent resource for your hypnosis practice, plus a series of CDs and DVDs.

It is my belief that once you master the material on this course, your effectiveness in hypnosis will be massively increased, so that you can become the hypnotist of choice in your area. Also, using the Ericksonian approach on yourself through self-hypnosis can bring massive improvements to your own life.

In order to attend this event, please either return the form overleaf or enroll on-line at www.selfhypnosiscd.com

If you have any questions, please feel free to call me on 863 420 3634 or send an e-mail to davidbotsford@gmail.com

Always glad to help.

Sincerely,

David Botsford

One of the challenges which many hypnotists face when they first encounter hypnosis done in the style of Dr Milton Erickson is the impression that it is complicated. This can certainly be the case when reading Dr Erickson’s own writings, and those of many who have written about him.

          Here, then, are five Ericksonian methods which you can put into practice with your clients immediately. The goal is to make it simple.

Technique 1: Reframe your client’s experience into a positive.

Every problem was once a solution. Whatever the client’s presenting “problem” may be, there was a context in which it achieved something positive for them. It was the most useful behavior available to the client at that particular time in that particular situation.

For example, a client may have become overweight as a result of eating too much food in order to relieve stress. Insofar as the client did actually relieve stress, then at least the overeating did achieve something positive, along with the negative result of becoming overweight. If a client has developed a fear of being in a confined space, such as an elevator, as a result of an incident earlier in life, you can congratulate the client’s unconscious mind on its readiness to protect the client. If a client has difficulty in sleeping because of continuous thoughts about problems, then you can congratulate the client on the fact that he is aware of areas in life which need to be dealt with, and it is now time to redirect the “energy” applied to the worrying into constructive action to achieve a solution. For clients who have fear of public speaking, recognize that they attach a great deal of importance to what they say and how they come across to the audience, and that it is now time to find a more useful way of fulfilling that sense of importance. The issue will remain equally important to those clients, but they will develop more useful ways of manifesting that importance.

Your task now as the hypnotist is to take that client to a place where he or she can find a more useful way of achieving that same positive intent than through the problem behavior. So once the client has explained his or her situation, congratulate them on what the “problem” achieved for them. There are three positive results of doing this. First, the realization of the positive function of the behavior tends to surprise clients and shake them out of their negative attitude towards it. Second, it tends to give clients a sense of empowerment: they realize that since they had the power to develop the problem, they must also be able to develop new and more useful behavior. Third, it helps clients understand that life is a series of changes, that what “worked” yesterday will be replaced by something that works better today, and helps orient clients towards directing the process of change towards the positive goals they want to achieve.

Technique 2: Elicit the positive result the client does want (rather than the presenting problem)

We get more of what we focus on. A large part of our culture – including so much of medicine and therapy – focuses on the negative, on problems. Our clients – like most people – tend to focus a great deal of attention and energy on the problem instead of the solution. Recognition of this fact is in no way intended to criticize anyone. It is not surprising, for instance, that a person suffering from chronic pain is likely to think about it much of the time.

A crucial step early in the hypnosis session is to identify the positive outcome the client does want – using the client’s own definition, not the hypnotist’s. For example, ask your clients who want to lose weight to specify the exact weight they would like to become, as well as how they would describe themselves at that ideal weight (they might use words such as “slim”, “trim”, “lithe”, “light”, “attractive”). Ask a person who experiences fear of flying how he or she would like to feel when boarding a plane – listen for words such as “calm”, “relaxed”, “confident”, or whatever the client says. With a nail-biter, ask how long they would like their nails to be, ask for description of the nails once they have grown back to their full length, and where they want to direct the energy that has until now been trapped in the nail-biting habit. For clients who feel emotionally low or upset, ask what they would like to experience – perhaps it is “happy”, “enthusiastic”, or “joyful”, but again it must be the client’s words rather than yours.

Once you and the client have a concept – however rudimentary – of the positive outcome you are both working towards, you have already changed the client’s orientation away from the problem towards the solution. Now the task is to strengthen that representation of success so that it becomes a powerful means of achieving the desired goal. You can ask the client whether the image of the desired outcome is a picture, a sound, a feeling, or some combination of those. The client can then enhance that representation using sub-modalities. This means that the picture can be made bigger, brighter, in sharp focus and rich color. Feelings can be made larger and more intense. Sounds can be made louder and put in stereo. Also, if the client says he or she wants some outcome such as “confidence”, “well-being”, “comfort”, or “control”, you can ask the client to remember some occasion when he or she experienced that quality, perhaps in relation to some other aspect of life. For instance, if a singer lacks confidence while singing in front of an audience, but felt confident while completing a marathon run, then get the client to remember that marathon run, and ask the client’s unconscious mind to  transfer that memory of confidence to a representation of a future experience of a singing performance.

As soon as the client has developed a strong representation of the solution to which we are headed, there is no need to mention the presenting problem again. If the client mentions that problem again, it is advisable steer the session back to the solution, where possible.

Technique 3 - Find a metaphor

Metaphors are probably the most powerful form of communication available to the hypnotist. A metaphor equates one thing with another. Metaphor is fundamental to all communication, and to human development. As very young children, we learn to associate one thing with another, and therefore build up our model of the world. As new words enter the language, metaphor is used to connect them with existing words. For thousands of years, stories, myths, fables and parables have been proven ways of transmitting knowledge from one generation to the next. At an unconscious level, we connect with characters in those stories and learn lessons from their experiences.

          If you use metaphors to enable your client to move forward to the solution he or she is seeking, you will be able to by-pass the critical faculty and avoid the impression that you are “telling the client what to do”. The client will pick up – certainly at an unconscious and possibly also at a conscious level – the lessons which need to be absorbed in order to achieve change. A metaphor might be a true story or an imaginary fairy story.

          Metaphors are everywhere, and the challenge for the hypnotist is to find the one which is most appropriate to this particular client. The best source of metaphors is the client’s own conversation. The client will give you figures of speech, memories and influences which you can expand on in your approach. For example, a lady whom I was treating to become a non-smoker mentioned that she had been inspired by the sequence in the film Rocky (starring Sylvester Stallone) in which the title character is in training, running up steps in Philadelphia while a background song blasts out, “Getting stronger now…Not so long now.” Needless to say, when she was in trance I asked her to recall that scene and even sang the words in order to inspire her unconscious mind to quit smoking.

Another example is an elderly lady who suffered from a physical condition in which her hands and feet were cold because blood was not properly circulating to them. When she was in trance, I told a story about a house in a cold region which had a new central heating system installed so that every part of it – including the attic, basement and garage – became warm and cosy as heat circulated through it. Her unconscious mind connected this representation to her body, and her circulation dramatically improved as a result.

Technique 4 - Induce trance in a way which matches your client’s experience.

The effective hypnotist benefits from knowing a selection of proven trance inductions. Whatever induction you use, closely observe your client to ensure that it is having the desired effect. If one induction simply doesn’t connect with your client’s experience, then simply say, “That’s all right” in a reassuring tone, and switch to one that does.

          Ericksonian inductions do not depend on merely reciting a script. They are based on feeding back the client’s actual experiences – whether present sense impressions or memories of the past. They are “permissive”, in that what the hypnotist says cannot be contradicted by the client. The may include vague language, multiple alternatives, double binds and self-fulfilling prophecies. They aim to encourage the client to “turn inward” towards unconscious resources in a naturalistic way which makes the most sense for that particular client.

          The conscious mind is aware of five to nine items of information at any one time. The purpose of a hypnotic induction is to “overload” the conscious mind so that the hypnotist can present ideas to the unconscious mind without conscious interference.

          Most clients have accessible memories of an experience of being relaxed, content or intensely involved with some pleasant activity. If you can bring back the client’s memory of such an experience, and make it vivid, then the client’s conscious mind will be “overwhelmed” and absorbed by it. If the client has a hobby, then you can ask him or her to remember a particularly satisfying experience – a day of gardening, golf, or whatever – that will both absorb the conscious mind with sensory representations and elicit a positive state characterized by optimism and a sense of capability and achievement which is the pathway to successful change. So if your client has such a memory, you can “feed back” both aspects of his or her description of it and things that must have been there.

The key here is to listen to the client’s conversation for descriptions of anything he or she may do which is enjoyable and relaxing. It may be that the client plays a musical instrument. You might ask, “Can you remember a particularly enjoyable session playing the guitar (or piano, flute, or whatever)?” If the client plays a particular sport, you could ask, “What was the best game of golf (or football, baseball, etc) you ever played, when you were really in the zone?” Simply in order to answer your question, the client must elicit memories of those absorbing experiences, and so starts going into trance. You can then deepen the trance by asking for more details and feeding back experiences that would necessarily have been there. For instance, for a memory of playing the guitar, you might say, “You can feel the movement of your fingers on the strings”, even if the client does not mention that feeling, because that feeling is necessarily a part of playing the guitar.

Even if the client simply enjoys other people’s musical or sports performances, this approach can be effective. How often have you seen young guys play an “air guitar” while listening to the music of their favorite band - even if they are simply imagining that music? They are already in a form of trance. Consider also how sports enthusiasts get excited about major sports events. Have you ever seen anyone watching a game while displaying body movements as if they were playing that game? These are all positive trance experiences which you can utilize – and with Ericksonian hypnosis, utilization is the name of the game.

Some clients already engage in some form of relaxation practice, such as yoga, t’ai chi or transcendental meditation (TM). Working hypnotists should have a general idea of what these and other practices are, although it is not necessary to know much about them. If your client has already developed the habit of creating relaxation through some meditative practice or other, then simply ask him or her to recall what that is like. The client will develop a satisfactory trance state while remaining in his or her comfort zone. If the client mentions a meditative practice that you have not previously heard of, then take a few moments after the session to go on-line and find out what it is and the essential ideas behind it. Wikipedia makes this kind of research very fast and easy.

Otherwise, ask the client simply to recall a time when he or she felt relaxed. This could be on vacation (but bear in mind that vacations can sometimes be the most stressful tome of the year!), chilling out with friends after a pleasant dinner, or just slumped half-asleep at home on a Sunday evening. Even with someone who spends a lot of time watching television, and has few interests beyond that, you can ask that client to describe a television show which he or she found particularly involving.

The key is simply to find what fascinates the client and shape your therapeutic approach around that. One of Erickson’s patients was a young boy who was just starting school, and who was unable to urinate in public bathrooms. Erickson learned from talking with the boy that he was very interested in spaceships. So Erickson drew a design for a spaceship that could take astronauts on the long journey to Mars. This spaceship had only one room for the astronauts to live together in. Erickson drew cans of food and bottles of water on the shelves around the walls of that room, and explained that they would all eat and drink together on the route to Mars and back. As a result of this one session, the boy was totally cured. What Erickson did was to capture the boy’s imagination by drawing that spaceship. Although Erickson never mentioned going to the bathroom, it was obvious that - because the spaceship had only one room - each astronaut would have to urinate in the presence of the others after eating the food and drinking the water. But the value of getting to Mars and back was so immense that it was simple to forget the problem of urinating by comparison. The boy’s unconscious mind responded to the metaphor by finding a solution.

Technique 5: Use content-free language to encourage your client’s unconscious processes

Erickson believed that the client’s unconscious mind had all the resources it needed to achieve the client’s goals. He took the view that the therapist’s task was to lead the client to the creative “place” where the innate healing potential of the client’s unconscious could do its work without interference. He said that the therapist simply creates the “climate” or “weather” in which this inner transformation takes place. He rejected the idea that the hypnotist should “tell the client what to do”. Hypnosis was merely a question of introducing ideas which the creative part of the client’s unconscious mind could explore in its own way.

Indeed, with many clients, Erickson’s “prescription” was for the client do something seemingly unrelated to the therapeutic situation. For example, he would send some clients to visit the Phoenix Botanical Gardens, where they would examine such remarkable flora as the bizarre-looking Boojum tree, and the Creeping Devil, a form of horizontal cactus which seems to “crawl” across the ground in search of food as cells die at one end and are replaced by new ones at the other. The experience of studying this vegetation developed a sense of fascination in the client, which would be a doorway to new unconscious learnings. The client would study how these remarkable plants successfully adapted to the harsh climate of the southwestern desert. This would lead the client’s unconscious to creatively examine how the client, too, could successfully adapt and make changes in life. This is perhaps the ultimate content-free induction.

More frequently, however, Erickson would use vague language to encourage the process of transformation. In inducing trance, he might say something like the following:

“You may be curious about what precisely I’m going to say that will take you to the place where you can access your unconscious resources.”

This would have the effect of turning the client’s attention inwards. The client would recognize that he or she was indeed curious about what words the therapist would use to induce trance. Note also the presupposition that the client has unconscious resources and will soon be going to the place where they can be accessed.

This use of vague language became known as “the Milton model”. The classic formulation of Milton model language is as follows:

Therapist’s words                                Comments

“I know that you are wondering…”      Turning the client’s attention inward.

“…and it is a good thing to wonder…”  Approving of the state of “wondering”.

“…because…that means…”                 Suggesting causality.

“…you are learning many things.                  Suggesting learning without specifying

And all the things, all the things                  what exactly is to be learned.

that you can learn…”

“…can give you new insights and        Again, the new insights and understandings

new understandings.”                        are not specified.

“And you can, can you not?”              The words “you can” strengthen the client’s confidence but do not specify what can be done. The words “can you not?” displace resistance.

This formulation of the Milton model, or something close to it, can be used with almost every one-to-one client, as well as at group hypnosis sessions, usually towards the end of the time when the subjects are in trance. Every client has his or her unique response to these vague, content-free suggestions.

________________

Practical Ericksonian Hypnosis

A two-day certification seminar

taught by David Botsford

Saturday January 29th and Sunday January 30th, 2011

Holiday Inn Orlando International Airport,

5750 T.G. Lee Blvd., Orlando, FL 32822

Attendance: Before November 1st 2010: $245   

After November 1st 2010: $295    NGH members (any time): $195

To secure your place, please visit www.selfhypnosiscd.com

or call 863-420 3634

Here are three examples of recent real-life clients of mine showing how Ericksonian hypnotic techniques were used to help them. All names have been changed.

A young man wanting to quit booze and build a career

Miguel was referred by his mother, who was concerned at his heavy drinking and lack of motivation to build a career. When he arrived, he was wearing a bracelet with icons of different saints. When asked for the keyword which defined what he positively did want in life, he said, “control”, so that was the positive outcome it was decided to steer him towards. He mentioned that he spent a lot of time on Facebook, the social networking website, so that became a means of accessing useful memories and other unconscious resources.

          In the session, I asked him to imagine getting on the Internet and looking through Facebook to find the one memory where he felt most in control and was sober. He recalled a particular evening at a nightclub where he was socializing while being sober and in control. He even simply ignored an alcoholic drink someone had bought for him and forgot to drink it. I asked him to look at himself in the Facebook photo in his imagination, and to make that picture big, life-size, in rich color and sharp focus, amplifying the music. Then I asked him to step inside Miguel’s body in that picture and re-experience that sense of control and being sober. I asked him to repeat the affirmation “I enjoy being in control”. By this time, Miguel was in a satisfactory trance. I asked him to remember a “learning set” of achievements: becoming fluent in both English and Spanish, learning to drive, and having given up so many childish and adolescent habits. Referring to the bracelet with saints’ portraits, I asked him to open up to divine protection, and to be aware of those saints on his wrist and what they each represented. Each saint represented something powerful – protection, wisdom, love, salvation and so on. I asked him to experience holy energy flowing from those icons in the form of different colored lights, energies and sounds, flowing together and forming a protective energy field around him. I suggested that nothing can get through that field unless Miguel approves of it, knows that it is good for him and consistent with his life of control, sobriety, freedom and achievement.

          I asked Miguel to visit the Facebook pages of the future, when these transformations become a reality. He was encouraged to look at himself and his achievements now that this new way of life is becoming permanent: waking up in the morning feeling fresh, saving money, being a better friend, building a career, noting how happy his family and friends become, and a feeling of freedom. These were all positive goals he had specifically said he wanted to achieve by this transformation. I had him step inside these pictures and experience them directly. This was followed by ego-strengthening suggestions, some Milton model language and awakening.

 A high school student who needed to get motivated and achieve a passing grade

Jane was a high school student referred by her grandmother because she was paying little attention to studying, and needed to build up her motivation in order to graduate from high school. In the third grade, she had been considered an outstanding student, but had had gradually become less and less interested in schooling and had recently got poor results. Her parents and grandparents were all strong influences on her and wanted her to change her studying habits so as to graduate from high school. When I asked her what she enjoyed doing, she said, “hanging out with friends”.

The first task was to demonstrate to her that she could change her state instantly, so I taught her self-hypnosis. I showed her that whatever goes through her mind is going to happen in the real world. I asked her to imagine her mother, father, grandfather and grandmother right in front of her and talking to her, saying: 

“Just face this reality: when you succeed in getting passing grades and graduate from high school, this will get you into college, and that will get you a good career with more money to enjoy life, including hanging out with friends. You’re going to have to sit through the class anyway, so you may as well enjoy it and you may as well get a passing grade.”

(They had previously said this kind of thing to her and got her a passing grade.) I asked her how she would like to feel about school, and she said, “enjoyment” and “being excited”. Then I asked her to look through a photo album containing memories of enjoyment and being excited, and hanging out with friends. I asked her to make a careful note of what being excited looks, sounds and feels like. Then Jane was asked to imagine looking through the photo album of the future and seeing herself at her high school graduation dance. I asked her to make that picture and music vivid, and to step inside her own body in that experience and feel really excited. This was a way of getting her to be motivated at the prospect of graduating from high school. Then I had her take that same sense of excitement and apply it to classes, studying, and passing exams.

          Following that, I asked her to imagine seeing the third-grade Jane who had been considered an outstanding student, and the “Jane” of the future after she had successfully graduated from high school and college and built a well-paid career. I suggested that she ask those two representations of success how to achieve the motivation she needed, and to listen to what they said. I then had her imagine all three “Janes” merging together to become one, by pulling the other two into her own body. I then had her imagine that photo album of the future, seeing herself graduating from high school and then college, then building a future career as a result of that academic success, and stepping inside her body in each of those photos. This was followed by some ego-strengthening and Milton model language before returning to the here and now.

A man who wanted to get slim again

When Mike came to see me, he was extremely obese. His body was so large that he could no longer fit into a standard airplane seat. This was a real problem, as his job required a great deal of travel. His health was also potentially threatened.

          Needless to say, it was important to focus Mike’s attention on the possibility of slimness. I asked him whether he had ever been at a weight he had been happy with. He replied that several years before, there had been a period of six or eight months when he had been 175 pounds. This was a result of losing a lot of weight after a previous experience of obesity. He considered 175 pounds to be the most desirable weight for a man of his height, age and build.

I asked him to imagine watching home videos of himself at the time when he weighed 175 pounds. Watching those imaginary videos, he described a sense of high energy, the pleasure of being about to sit in planes without embarrassment, and compliments from friends, colleagues and family on how much slimmer he had become. As he continued to watch those videos, I asked him to think of a piece of music that he found particularly inspiring, and to add that as background music to the video he was watching. I then had him imagine stepping into his own body on that screen and directly experience memories of being his ideal weight. I had him repeat the affirmation, “It’s great to be in control and be slim”. In that highly focused state, I encouraged him to get in touch with his natural stomach hunger, and eat healthy foods to satisfy that hunger, and no more. Then I asked him to imagine traveling to the future, when he would be slim again. I had him imagine himself looking at himself in a full-length mirror weighing 175 pounds. I asked him to vidualize a tailored suit, especially made for him at that ideal weight. In imagination, he put on that suit and attended a social function where he could imagine once again being slim and enjoying compliments from people about his success. This was followed by some ego-strengthening, some Milton model language, and awakening.

__________

Practical Ericksonian Hypnosis

A two-day certification seminar

taught by David Botsford

Saturday January 29th and Sunday January 30th, 2011

Holiday Inn Orlando International Airport,

5750 T.G. Lee Blvd., Orlando, FL 32822

Attendance: Before November 1st 2010: $245   

After November 1st 2010: $295    NGH members (any time): $195

To secure your place, please visit www.selfhypnosiscd.com

or call 863-420 3634 

The social factor in abundance

by David Botsford

“When you have a lot of money, it can cause misery. But I’d rather have that kind of misery than the misery without it.” (n) Donald Trump

A great deal has been written about “prosperity consciousness”. Certainly it is vital to think thoughts consistent with financial success, if that is what we desire. The Law of Attraction reliably manifests what we think about. However, much of the material written on the subject tends to assume that the individual is an isolated atom, disconnected from the broader world of which we are all a part. People who sit at home visualizing $100 bills floating down from the clouds, without reference to taking action and connecting with other people, are likely to find that the Law of Attraction results in simply more such isolated visualization – and those numbers piling up in the “negative” form of unpaid bills. Also, beware of the technique of visualizing luxury yachts and Italian sports cars in the hope of acquiring such items. At least research the running costs on those vehicles and decide if they’re worth it before doing so!

The precondition of abundance is that we know what it means to us specifically. As Lao Tzu, the founder of Taoism, put it, “He who knows he has enough is rich.” We must also remember that abundance is the net result of a process of interactions with others, and does not exist in isolation from the rest of life. The Law of Karma (cause and effect) is as powerful as the Law of Attraction.

For self-employed people, prosperity consciousness is most effective when the following factors are in play:

1.                     Think about how – from the client’s point of view – our services will improve their lives. See, hear and feel the benefits your client enjoys from making use of them. In order to know how to do this, it is vital to actually learn what clients want and how they want it delivered. This “indirect” thinking is preferable to focusing on the end results of the cash and material rewards received at the end of the process of providing a service. Learn from clients themselves how they can best benefit from our services. Constantly seek to improve the value they gain from the purchase.

2.                     Take massive and consistent action. Thought, emotion and action are all one. Thoughts multiply their power when they are associated with action.

3.                     Let people know you exist. At least in the early stages, every self-employed individual has to spend about nine hours marketing for every hour they are paid for their services. People today are overwhelmed with commercial messages from advertising, direct mail and the Internet. Live communication in the form of networking, public speaking to groups and one-to-one selling tends to be more effective these days.

4.                     Build a repeatable formula of action which consistently brings rewards of abundance (financial and otherwise).

5.                     Once that formula produces results, find ways to constant improve its beneficial effect for those who use it.

(n) Donald Trump with Meredith McIver, Think Like a Billionaire, Ballantine Books/Random House, New York, 2004, p. 49.

Would you like to improve some area of your life with a FREE one-to-one hypnosis session?
Would you like a FREE one-to-one psychic reading using tarot cards, palmistry and runes?
David Botsford, a hypnotist and intuitive reader in the Four Corners area of Florida, is producing a series of training DVDs. He is seeking people who agree to be filmed for these DVDs for FREE hypnosis and psychic sessions. You will also get a FREE DVD of your session. The schedule is as follows:

June-July - hypnosis      August-September - psychic readings

These FREE sessions will take place in Davenport, off Highway 27, near to exit 55 on the I-4 (south of Clermont and north of Haines City). Exact directions will be given when you book your session.

For more information, please call David on 863 420 3634 or send an e-mail to davidbotsford@gmail.com or visit:
www.4corrnershypnosis.com
www.4cornersintuitive.com

Macrocosm and microcosm in healing

David Botsford

Healing can be understood as realigning the individual with “higher” and “lower” levels of experience.

Western medicine tends to treat a patient as an isolated unit, disregarding the impact of outside forces (other than bacteriological) on the individual’s condition. In psychiatry, “mental illness” is usually considered to be like a mechanical fault in a motor, to be “fixed” by the addition of pharmaceuticals.

Yet this approach of simply drugging unhappy people without changing their exterior lives provides no long-term solution. Radical thinkers such as the psychiatrists Dr Milton Erickson, Dr Thomas Szasz and Dr R.D. Laing, and the family therapist Virginia Satir, have shown that “insanity” can be understood as arising from overall family and social contexts. The individual’s relations with family and society, as well as individual behavior, must be transformed in order to achieve healing.

Physical ailments, too, are often manifestations of the individual’s life experiences and relations with others, processed by the unconscious mind. Louise Hay’s popular book You Can Heal Your Life lists correspondences between common thought patterns and specific physical illnesses. The science of psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) has demonstrated that “mental” experiences within the nervous system (including the brain) cause actions within the immune system. When a person continuously thinks of himself as “under attack” (in an emotional sense), the immune system responds by producing antibodies as if the body were under attack from external bacteria. However, because there are no external bacteria to combat, the antibodies attack the healthy tissue, thus causing rheumatoid arthritis and its associated swelling. By changing a person’s thinking to a sense of being protected and loved, the body rebuilds itself in a healthy way.

 Healers in traditional societies understand the need to harmonize the individual not only within himself, but also at the familial, social and even spiritual levels. The Yoruba healers of Nigeria, and their patients, believe that “insanity” is caused by spirits or witchcraft. To cure them, they manipulate symbols of power in impressive rituals. They use direct command, metaphor (e.g., “As the river always flows forwards and never back, so your illness will never return.” ) illustrative stories about individuals who overcame challenges, songs, and sacramental elements including the use of sacrifice and shaving, greasing, cooling and cutting the head. A patient may be instructed to move to a new home “because of the witches or sorcerers in his present quarters” or to change his occupation. As an ego-strengthening technique, he may be told to join the cult of a deity (Orisa) to enjoy mutual support and identification with the qualities of that god. (n)   

The healer who wants to help clients achieve transformation must recognize the need to help align the individual’s experience at both the microcosmic and macrocosmic levels. It is vital to utilize the symbols which have most power for that specific person, and induce the sheer headlong emotional whirlwind which will break the client from the previous unwanted patterns and make the positive goal consciously desired by the client into a permanent reality.

(n) Raymond Prince, “Indigenous Yoruba psychiatry” in Ari Kiev (editor), Magic, Faith and Healing, Free Press/Macmillan, New York, 1964, pp. 84-120.

David Botsford is a hypnotist and inuitive reader in the Four Corners area. He has produced a series of self-hypnosis CD sets and is the author of the book Hypnosis for Smoking Cessation. His websites are www.4cornershypnosis.com and www.4cornersintuitive.com and www.selfhypnosiscd.com and he can be reached at 863 420 3634.

Invoking the Goddess

by David Botsford

At an unconscious level, human beings have immense resources for healing –in the physical, emotional and spiritual fields. By connecting with their healing symbols, they can access those resources and achieve their goals.

          Every culture has healing symbols. In modern Western medicine, the placebo effect is well documented. The doctor’s prestige, white coat, pharmaceuticals and impressive-looking electronic equipment are powerful healing symbols. In west Africa, diviners advise Yoruba people who get sick to contact a supernatural agent such as a witch, double, ancestor or Orisha (spirit which manifests one aspect of God). Christian faith healers encourage believers to let Jesus or the Holy Spirit become a living presence in their lives. In Peru, Sharanahua shamans mix patients’ dreams with their own traditional visions to create healing symbols. In Mexico, Otomí shamans cut magical paper figures that represent the life force of different beings and manipulate them to suggest change. (1)

          The divine feminine is a universal symbol among human cultures. It can be understood either as a conscious entity or as mythical representation of processes of creation. According to Joseph Campbell,

“All of the references of religious and mythological images are to planes of consciousness, or fields of experience that are potential in human spirit….And the personification of the energy that gives birth to forms and nourishes forms is properly female….Everything you can think of, everything you can see, is a production of the Goddess. ” (2)

In the beginning is the Void, the undifferentiated energy which is neither male nor female. The divine feminine, or Goddess, is the medium through which that energy takes specific forms – material, emotional, mental and spiritual. Artistic representations of the Goddess show her containing the universe within her body. In ancient Egypt, for instance, the goddess Nut is represented as the whole heavenly sphere, a female figure filling an entire temple ceiling.

          We can invoke Goddess in our own lives when we want to access the qualities of creativity, nurturing, receptivity, understanding, compassion that she represents. (Of course, this process is equally useful for women and men.) We by-pass the conscious mind – with its continuous (and often negative) “running commentary” - by filling the senses with symbols alluding to Goddess, in order to mobilize those resources. Instead of focusing on the problem, which can often merely reinforce it, we shift our focus towards the solution.

Sit in a semi-darkened room while playing music which you associate with the divine feminine. My favorite is Marcey Hamm’s “Celestial Dance”. From a Tarot deck, place the cards the High Priestess, the Empress and the Moon on a brightly-lit table and observe them passively. Imagine that you are surrounded by spirals and snakes, swirling around you. Breathe slowly, deeply and evenly. Imagine that you are breathing in those spirals and snakes with every inhale. Say these words to yourself: “Earth Mother, divine feminine, Goddess, yin energy, I invoke you. Give birth to the forms that will guide me forward.”

Let things happen inside. Whatever you experience is authentic.

(1) James Dow, “Universal aspects of symbolic healing”, American Anthropologist, March 1986, vol. 88, no. 1, pp. 63-64.

(2) Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth, Doubleday, New York, 1988, pp. 165, 167.

David Botsford is a hypnotist and inuitive reader in the Four Corners area. He has produced a series of self-hypnosis CD sets and is the author of the book Hypnosis for Smoking Cessation. His websites are www.4cornershypnosis.com and www.selfhypnosiscd.com and he can be reached at 863 420 3634.

Finding balance in love

by David Botsford

‘Love seeketh not itself to please,

Nor for itself hath any care,

But for another gives its ease,

And builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair.’

So sung a little Clod of Clay,

Trodden with the cattle’s feet;

But a Pebble of the brook

Warbled out these metres meet:

‘Love seeketh only self to please,

To bind another to its delight,

Joys in another’s loss of ease,

And builds a Hell in Heaven’s despite.’

Blake’s poem “The Clod and the Pebble” speaks of the eternal challenge of love: the search for a balance between our desire to give spontaneously and for the fulfillment of our own self-interest. Each of us inhabits a subjective world in which those we love reflect something of ourselves. Yet in finding love we give up something of the self we were before.

As a hypnotist, I seek to assist clients in finding solutions to challenges involving love. The unconscious mind has all the resources needed to find these solutions. Clients often find it difficult to talk about love, partly because of self-consciousness, and partly because they lack the words to really express themselves. So I often use devices such as tarot cards, palmistry and runes as means of enabling clients to find answers at an unconscious level.

Here is one such technique. If you have a Rider-Waite tarot deck, look at the Lovers card. (If not, print out the image from the Internet.) It displays nude female and male figures, beneath the angel Raphael with upraised hands, with the sun on top and a mountain in the background. The man is understood to represent the individual’s conscious mind, the woman the subconscious, and Raphael the superconscious, which connects us to universal consciousness. The sun is the light-source from which we draw energy, life and potential consciousness. The mountain suggests climbing, aspiration and attainment above our current level through volition. Now forget about those meanings and just gaze on the card for three minutes. Play a love song you enjoy in the background. If your conscious mind wanders, that is good. Let your unconscious mind absorb what you see.

Then, look at your dominant hand (the right hand if you are right-handed). Examine the heart line (the large horizontal line nearest the fingers). A relatively straight heart line is a physical heart line, signifying satisfaction primarily through physical love. A curved heart line is known as a humanitarian heart line, meaning someone who needs to be aroused through the emotional aspects of affection. Notice the depth and form of the line, along with any breaks, irregular shapes and changes in direction. These manifest events connected with the ups and downs of love over the course of your life. Then imagine yourself shrinking in size and traveling along your heart line from the beginning (at the edge of the hand) to the end. Spontaneously experience whatever comes up. Then take few moments to return to the here and now, and trust your unconscious mind to guide you forward.

David Botsford is a hypnotist and psychic reader in the Four Corners area, His websites are www.4cornersintuitive.com and www.4cornershypnosis.com and www.selfhypnosiscd.com and he can be reached on 863 420 3634.

This event is a house party at the home of David Botsford, hypnotist, in the Four Corners/Davenport area, off Highway 27 near exit 55 on the I-4. Please call 863-420 3634 or e-mail davidbotsford@gmail.com in advance if you would like to attend, and you will be sent detailed directions.

Lifestyle Weight Management Hypnosis: Get slim with a reliable system with you in control

Saturday January 24th 2010 at 2.00pm Length: approximately 90 minutes

Instructor: David Botsford                                                 $30 per person (includes CD and handout)

If you want to lose weight permanently, you must permanently change the behavior that led you to put on the excess weight. We learn the habit of overeating (and becoming overweight) in the unconscious mind. The unconscious mind is also where we must learn new and more useful habits in order to get slim. Even once we have developed these better habits, we must track our progress every day to ensure that our weight is indeed reducing day by day.

          The Lifestyle Weight Management Hypnosis program is a new system developed by Ohio hypnotist Matt Dawson. It makes the process of getting slim through hypnosis as easy as possible. It teaches you simple techniques anyone can follow to eat less and get slim, reliably and permanently. A hypnosis audio CD is included with the class to listen to every day to ensure that your unconscious mind absorbs the message and transforms your daily habits. Following this system, you can continue to eat the food you now enjoy, but you will be satisfied with less of it. An essential part of the program is tracking your new behaviors and recording your weight on a written chart every day for 30 days. This puts you firmly in control as you measure your progress towards slimness. The Lifestyle Weight Management Hypnosis program cuts out all the non-essentials and provides you with a simple, predictable, controllable system which gets you slim for life.

          While the class is a complete system for permanent weight loss in itself, attendees who pay to attend are welcome to repeat the class free of charge any time, if they wish.