July 26, 2010 by Susan Gold
Arianna Huffington and Tony Robbins are soliciting stories about overcoming crisis for an online event they are collaboratively hosting called Breakthrough: The Power of Crisis. They are asking for participants to post written or videotaped answers to the questions below.
- What was your life like right before the challenge or crisis hit?
- What was the crisis you faced? What happened — what did you feel and experience?
- What pulled you through this difficult, unjust, or impossible time? What was the trigger or catalyst for change? Was it a belief, a strategy, a faith, a person, a tool? What made the change possible?
- Once you turned the corner mentally or emotionally, what did you do to turn your life around?
- How is your life better today because you lived through the crisis? How have you transformed? How are you stronger emotionally, physically, spiritually? What gifts do you have to give because of this?
Whether or not we choose to participate in this event, these are worthwhile questions for reflection. Vividly remembering a time of strength, and the resulting transformation, can empower us get through a current or future time of great difficulty. I would recommend writing a reflection and then adding a self-hypnosis session to experience the memory of strength and transformation with as many of the senses as possible. The session might end with the affirmation, “I am strong, resilient, and resourceful.”
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July 23, 2010 by Susan Gold
Judith Orloff, M.D. has a great article in the 7/21/10 Huffington Post, “The Health Benefits of Tears.” Here’s an excerpt:
Emotional tears have special health benefits. Biochemist and “tear expert” Dr. William Frey at the Ramsey Medical Center in Minneapolis discovered that reflex tears are 98 percent water, whereas emotional tears also contain stress hormones which get excreted from the body through crying. After studying the composition of tears, Dr. Frey found that emotional tears shed these hormones and other toxins which accumulate during stress. Additional studies also suggest that crying stimulates the production of endorphins, our body’s natural pain killer and “feel-good” hormones.” Read the whole article here.
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July 18, 2010 by Susan Gold
Imagery International, a professional association for guided imagery practitioners, asked me to speak on a panel of hypnotherapists for their telechat about hypnosis and imagery. I have included my notes here outlining my thoughts about the similarities and differences between the two fields, and how I use imagery in my hypnotherapy practice. Read the rest of this entry »
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July 18, 2010 by Susan Gold
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July 15, 2010 by Susan Gold
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July 13, 2010 by Susan Gold
Below is an excerpt from the July 12, 2010 ScienceDaily article, “Children and Teens with Tourette Syndrome Find Relief with Self-Hypnosis.”
A new study of children and adolescents with Tourette Syndrome finds that self-hypnosis taught with the aid of videotape training reduced their symptoms and improved their quality of life.
Seventy-nine percent of the 33 research participants achieved enough improvement in tic control to report personal satisfaction with the technique, according to the study published online in the July issue of the Journal of Development and Behavioral Pediatrics. Read the rest of the article here.
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June 11, 2010 by Susan Gold
See CNN Medical Producer, John Bonifield’s, 6/10/10 article, “Health Lessons from ‘The Wizard of Oz’” for ways that nurses, psychologists, and hypnotherapists have used metaphors from the The Wizard of Oz in their work. Below is the excerpt on its use in hypnotherapy:
Hypnotherapists have even used the story of “The Wizard of Oz” to put kids into hypnosis.
When some 8-to-13-year-old children weren’t responding to traditional cognitive-behavioral therapy, hypnotherapists in Montana developed an individualized hypnotic treatment based on metaphors found in Dorothy’s adventures. According to a study in the American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, to induce hypnosis the therapists suggestively told the children:
“In the Wizard of Oz, the Straw Man wanted brains, the Tin Man wanted a heart, the Lion wanted courage, and Dorothy wanted to take Toto and go home to Kansas. They wanted these things very badly. So, they went to the Wizard for help. At first the Wizard seemed bothered. He called himself the ‘great and powerful Oz’ and sent them away. Later, he sent them out to bring back the witch’s broom. When the Straw Man, Tin Man, Lion, Dorothy, and Toto returned with the broom, they were surprised with their own success. They discovered that the Wizard was just a regular man and wasn’t really a Wizard after all. They also discovered that they already had brains, a heart, and courage. Then, the Wizard gave them each something to show they were smart, loving, and brave. And Dorothy discovered she had within herself, the power to get her and Toto back to Kansas.”
After hypnosis, by applying the metaphors, the children were more capable of defining their goals and realizing they already had within them some of the things they thought they were missing. Read the whole article here.
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May 6, 2010 by Susan Gold
This is a terrific free online event for hypnotherapy practitioners and those who are curious about how hypnosis might help them. Sign up here and gain access to daily 60-minute audio interviews with experts in the field. Each interview can be accessed for free on the World Summit site for 24 hours. A collection of all of the interviews can be purchased for download. Here is the schedule of speakers.
I’m really enjoying this and hope it will be an annual event.
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April 14, 2010 by Susan Gold
See Marc Jacobson’s 4/13/10 video story, “Improve your mind, improve your golf game” on ABC 12—Mid-Michigan’s local station.
Here’s an excerpt from the online transcript:
The weather is warming up, and for many of us, that means it’s time to hit the golf course.
After a long winter, hitting the green isn’t necessarily an easy thing to do.
A potential solution could be hypnotherapy.
Hitting a little white ball straight down the fairway is easier said than done.
“It’s like Zen and the art of golf. When you’re totally relaxed, your mind relaxes and everything is easy,” said John Tomlinson from Tomlinson Medical Hypnotherapy.
Tomlinson is a certified medical hypnotherapist. His four-session Mental Side of Golf program is designed to break golfers free from their two most-common problems. “If you fix inconsistency and self doubt, the same thing with business, if you go into a sales meeting with self doubt, you’re not going to make that sale.” Read the rest of the transcript or watch the video here.
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April 8, 2010 by Susan Gold
In his 4/6/10 Guardian article, “Steve Mason: Out of the blackness,” Dave Simpson writes about Steve Mason’s history of severe depression and how hypnotherapy and antidepressants helped. Here’s an excerpt:
In 2008, Mason briefly returned as Black Affair, a curious electronic project that he says arose out of a whirlwind relationship with a woman who shared his love of 1980s electro music. When the pair broke up, he found himself at rock bottom again, and finally sought serious, long-term treatment.
Gradually, with antidepressants and gruelling six-hour sessions of hypnotherapy, Mason has taken these experiences and turned them into the best music of his career. In the new single Lost and Found, he sings about being discovered “at the base of a river”, which draws on the time he jumped into Loch Lomond and saw daylight disappear above him – although he insists the song’s suicide pact theme is fictional. Read the whole article here.
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