Last day of the NGH convention, the end of a great weekend.
I learned alot about just about everything in the field in hypnotherapy. In just about every talk I went to, I heard something new, along with a review/reinforcement of what I already knew.
Part of what I learned was about interviewing and sales, the next "opportunity" in my HT path. I went to a couple of talks on the pretalk. One of the things I learned was that the fear of hypnosis and of the process in general may be left. Often people don't realize that they don't understand what it is that they don't understand. During the initial intake interview this may not be noticable but later, when hypnosis begins, it could easily show up as questions and unease - and thus, limitations on the hypnotic process.
So in the morning, we talked alot about how to better explain the hypnosis process, how to ease fears and concerns, how to be increasingly confident. This was one of the most useful series of talks I've been to in a long time. And I think that, for present and future clients, it will be a tremendous boon...
Another talk - probably the most rewarding talk I went to this whole weekend, was the talk by Lee Peletier, on Hypnosis and the Conservative Christian. This directly addressed the issues I described in earlier posts, on confrontation issues with Christians who were afraid of hypnosis.
We discussed how to allay fears about hypnosis being a occult oriented, diabolical, allowing negative influences to attach to the Christian client.
The biggest thing to note was that hyposis is a normal part of the human experience. We each experience hypnosis several times a day - typically once each 90 minute cycle of consciousness. Everybody has daydreams, moment of focus, etc. We all get focused on something like a book, a movie, a television show, a conversation, etc. These are all spontaneous hypnosis events.
Any moment of highway amnesia is also an instance of spontaneous hypnosis. In short, hypnosis is part of everyone's experience.
In addition, Lee pointed out several very good passages in scripture describing stress management. The biggest one is Phillipians 4: 4-9 - which effectively describes stress management using selective focus - one definition of hypnosis. Another is in Romans, 12:9 - love what is good, hate what is evil, which to me, means that the Christian will not accept anything that doesn't pass their own discernment filter. The way Lee put it, Hypnosis has learned alot from the Christian traditions - it's just called a different thing.
In the end, it was a very useful day, full of practical tips, inspiration and ideas.
