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Wednesday, December 5, 2018

Dealing With Headaches During Hypnosis

(This blog was originally posted on October 4, 2016)

Photo by Rick Hustead

Occasionally, clients develop headaches while they are in hypnosis. The headache, which can last for two or three hours, is usually an abreaction to the subject being addressed during the hypnotherapy session. This is especially true if the individual doesn’t want to let go of the feeling or behavior.

According to Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder John Kappas, Ph.D., headaches are a subconscious device (body syndrome) to protect our emotions. The majority of headaches experienced during hypnotherapy are tension headaches. However, if the headache is caused by another factor, such as a food allergy, the hypnotherapist should check out whether there is an issue the person cannot or will not face (crying syndrome). For example, migraine headaches—which start out as a bilateral tension headache and migrate to one hemisphere—start out as a bilateral tension headache and then migrate to one hemisphere. Symptoms include excruciating pain, sensitivity to light, nausea and vomiting.

Before working with a client who is suffering from a headache or other kinds of pain, the hypnotherapist must get a medical referral* to ensure that the person doesn’t have an underlying medical problem that requires treatment. Once the physician verifies that there is no etiological cause for this discomfort, the hypnotherapist can help the client relieve the headache by moving it to another part of the body. At this point, the hypnotherapist can use hypnotic suggestions to dissipate the pain from this area.

“Train the body to accept [the pain] elsewhere,” Dr. Kappas said. It is also important to increase your tolerance of stress and learn to relax, he added.

*California law allows me to provide hypnotherapy as a complementary or alternative treatment to help you manage/control pain as a way to achieve vocational and avocational self-improvement goals (Business and Professions Code 2908). However, I must receive a referral from a licensed medical doctor or mental-health professional in order to work with you on this issue. I would also need a medical referral if your pain gets worse or your condition changes during the therapy, or if your wakes you from sleep.

Hypnotherapy for Weight Loss

This 10-week weight-loss package is designed to help you shed extra pounds using hypnosis and therapeutic guided-imagery techniques. It is customized to your specific weight-loss goal, and materials are provided at each weekly session to help you keep track of your progress and maintain motivation throughout this program. In addition, a complimentary recording of the hypnosis portion of each session (CD or digital file) is provided at the end of each appointment to reinforce what you worked on that week.

$1,250 for 10-week series. (This is a $250 savings!)

Fee must be paid at the start of the program. This promotional discount may not be combined with any other offers.

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

Tuesday, December 4, 2018

Pack It Away

(This blog was originally posted on November 22, 2016)

Photo by Rick Hustead

In my blog titled The Red Box, I described how Great Britain’s Queen Victoria liked to place important documents in a red box on her desk. This box served as a “to-do” box/in-tray; anything that made it into this container was considered urgent and needed the monarch’s attention right away. Of course, at the beginning of her reign all sorts of papers and petitions found their way in, which overloaded and frustrated the queen and her husband, Prince Albert. It turned out that comparatively few of the items in the box were truly urgent or even deserved her attention, at all. However, until the documents were sorted and prioritized, she had to treat them as if they were.

A similar process happens to most of us at some time or another, when stray thoughts, memories, daydreams/fantasies or worries drift into the conscious mind when we are—or should be—busy handling something else. Suddenly, the mind is filled with these distracting ideas that prevent us from focusing on the task at hand. Of course, the more we tell ourselves to focus and ignore that pesky idea that is starting to blossom in our imagination, the more difficult it is to do just that: Did I buy enough cranberry sauce? I need to rent more chairs from the party-supply store. Should there be a separate kids’ table, or do the children get to hang out with the grown-ups this year?

In cases like this, I like to suggest that the intrusive image or thought is being moved into a metaphoric version of Queen Victoria’s red box, in the subconscious mind. This suggestion will be literal and direct or metaphoric, depending on the person’s suggestibility. I remind the individual that this box is only for temporary storage to allow him or her to continue to work (or play) without interruption. The information can be easily accessed and retrieved whenever the time is right to address this issue. Meanwhile, it is being stored safely out of the way until the client can and wants to deal with it.

The great thing about this kind of imagery is that even the concept of a red box can easily be replaced with an object or even an element the person likes better. If you do a lot of work with computers and on the Internet, perhaps the idea of storing this information on a cloud or even invisible strands of energy around your head is more effective. If a memory of a previous family celebration or a fantasy about who you want to sit beside is particularly distracting, it may feel more comfortable and safer to metaphorically lock that thought in a metaphoric iron box. To strengthen this concept, you can even make a motion with your hand to turn a key in that lock to keep it out of your conscious mind until you want or are ready to address it.

Hypnotherapy for Weight Loss

$1,250 for 10-week series. (This is a $250 savings!)

Fee must be paid at the start of the program. This promotional discount may not be combined with any other offers.

Monday, December 3, 2018

Weight Loss and Hypnotherapy

Photo by Rick Hustead

If you want a head-start working on your New Year’s resolution to take off some weight and get fit, now is the perfect time to try hypnotherapy and therapeutic guided imagery to help you achieve these goals. I am currently promoting my 10-week weight-loss program with a $250 SAVINGS when you enroll for the entire package. Following is a brief summary of how this program works.

The first thing I will do is to establish your motivation for losing the weight. Is there a health reason such as diabetes control? Do you want to improve your physical fitness or just take off a few pounds to get ready for the spring and summer? Perhaps friends or relatives in your social circle have been putting on pressure to drop the pounds. Or, you may (subconsciously) use excess weight as a “shield” to protect against emotional rejection or even a subconscious fear of returning to a previous lower weight where an emotional trauma may have occurred.

It doesn’t matter what your motivation for losing weight happens to be. However, said Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder John G. Kappas, Ph.D., “If you are not personally motivated to achieve the weight-loss goal, the weight-loss program is unlikely to be successful.”

Once we identify and establish your motivation to lose weight, I will use hypnosis and guided-imagery techniques to help you resolve any previous issues or resistance to losing weight*. I will also use these therapeutic techniques to help you develop and reinforce your strong, positive self-image about being at the desired weight and feeling comfortable with being physically attractive. All of the hypnotic suggestions I give you will incorporate your expressed motivations to feel physically, emotionally, mentally healthy and happier every day and to project positive feelings and ideas of successfully losing weight in a healthy way. (Depending on your weight-loss goals, I may also refer you to be examined by a physician for guidance about an appropriate exercise and nutritional regimen before we begin this program, which I will reinforce during your hypnotherapy sessions with me.

I look forward to hearing from—and working with—you soon!

Hypnotherapy for Weight Loss

$1,250 for 10-week series. (This is a $250 savings!)

Fee must be paid at the start of the program. This promotional discount may not be combined with any other offers.

*California law allows access by California residents to complementary and alternative health care practitioners who are not providing services that require medical training and credentials. The purpose of a program of hypnotherapy is for vocational and avocational self-improvement (Business and Professions Code 2908) and as an alternative or complementary treatment to healing arts services licensed by the state. A hypnotherapist is not a licensed physician or psychologist, and hypnotherapy services are not licensed by the state of California. Services are non-diagnostic and do not include the practice of medicine, neither should they be considered a substitute for licensed medical or psychological services or procedures.