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havening

How to use Havening in hypnotherapy

How to do Havening 

The whole havening process is simple and takes only a few minutes.

Set up for Havening

  1. Get your client to think of their problem, the issue that they want to deal with. Get them to say aloud a word or phrase that represents that problem. Ask the client to put a number on the feeling, with ten being the most distressing.
  2. Tell your client to clear their mind, or imagine something pleasant.

Havening tapping

3. Ask your client to start tapping lightly on their own collarbones with both hands, and while they are tapping and keeping their head still,

a.  open and close their eyes twice.

b.  with their eyes open, look to the right, then left

c. look down to their left, then down to their right.

d. rotate their eyes once clockwise, and once anticlockwise.

e. tell the client to stop tapping.

Havening Stroking

4. Tell them to close their eyes. Get your client to fold their arms across their chest.

5. Ask your client to imagine [first visualization: going up a flight of stairs].

a. With each step they [first audio: count out loud from one to 20].

b. As they are counting, you count along with them, and you gently stroke the sides of their upper arms 20 times.

Repeat the Havening Stroking

6. Ask your client to rate their feeling now on the 1 -10 scale.

If it has not reduced enough, repeat step 5a and 5b as many times as you need to.

But replace the [visualization] with another visualization such as [skipping twenty times].

Replace the [auditory] with something else such as [humming Happy Birthday aloud]

Final Havening Release

When there is no further change to your client's rating number

7. Tell your client to open their eyes, drop their arms, and relax.

8. Ask your client to rotate their eyes clockwise and anticlockwise, then close their eyes.

9. As the final step, you stroke the side of your clients arms again five times, and on the fifth stroke say "Let it go now".

10. Check with your client how they think about their problem now.

 

 

Source: http://www.hsj.gr/medicine/impact-of-a-singlesession-of-havening.php?aid=7273    accessed: 21 Sep 2018

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Ending Procrastination

Ending Procrastination

Ending a lifetime of procrastination

I was looking through some old computer text files when I came across one with the strange name of "tangerine induction". The file was about eight years old, according to the file date stamp. The file was well structured, in good English, nicely laid out in sections. And made no sense at all.

The instructions were to imagine a tangerine. The writer urged me to imagine a tangerine nestled in the palm of my hand. I was to imagine it as vividly as I could. Feel the weight, smell the aroma, feel the texture, really experience that tangerine. Then I was to throw the tangerine, in my imagination, from hand to hand.

As I was throwing it back and forward, it would allow any worries, doubts, or anxieties to just disappear. Just focus on the tangerine going from hand to hand and allow my mind to calm. Then I was to put the tangerine on the back of my head and start playing. Huh?

Ending Performance Anxiety

I did a bit more investigating, and worked out from the URL that it was from a music coach website. Then it made sense. It was actually designed to prevent performance fright. The reference to playing meant to sit at your piano or take up your guitar or whatever. Then imagine the tangerine, allow your stage fright to diminish, and just start playing. The idea of sticking it onto your head just means that it will be there with you all through the performance.

It seemed to me that this routine would probably work. What you are doing, in essence, is taking a mental problem, and visualizing your problem as an object. Then the imagined exercise of throwing the tangerine takes your mind off it. Add in a little suggestion of the fear getting smaller, and it does. In other words, by focusing on the tangerine you are not focusing on your stage fright. Believe in the tangerine and your performance anxiety will disappear.

I decided to try it. I noticed that while visualising the tangerine being thrown between my hands, I had entered a very light trance. So I decided to use that little bit of trance, and see if I could develop it.

Now I do not have performance anxiety. I am quite happy lecturing in front of a cinema sized audience without notes. What I do have, is a form of procrastination that I have never been able to get rid of. And I really don't understand it.

My Personal Procrastination Problem

When I am writing, or programming, I find that whenever I get to the point where I don't know what to do next I just feel compelled to stand up and get away from my desk. I usually go and make a cup of tea. By the time I've made the tea I have thought of what to do next, and carry on with it. Nine times out of 10 I forget about the tea and when I remember it again it's stone cold.

This would be amusing if it wasn't for the fact that I spent quite a lot of my life doing things where I don't know what to do next, such as writing an academic dissertation. This particular habit of mine must have wasted thousands of hours and made a serious dent in my productivity.

So I thought about that as I was mentally throwing my tangerine. I allowed myself to associate into the feeling that I have to get up and move away, the feeling that I get when I don't know what to do next.

Fear the Fear and accept it

To my great surprise, I began to get a much stronger feeling. And then a visualization. What I was visualising was a metal strap, the sort of thing that is used to hold large bundles of timber together, or as reinforcing around industrial cardboard boxes. This strap was a pale green colour. And I was trying to get the two pieces apart.

I have no idea what this strap represents. So I focused on when this was happening. I got a very strong feeling that I was young. This was happening when I was a boy. What I was feeling was a terrible anxiety about not knowing what to do next. And then I felt my head tilting back.

I got the distinct impression that I was a little boy looking up, the way children do at adults. And then I got this overwhelming fear that I was going to get punished for not having done something. I knew I was going to get punished because I didn't know what to do next about this strap thing.

In my mind, I was then running away and trying to hide in a corner, behind a wooden kitchen chair. And this unidentified adult was coming at me, going to hurt me, punish me. I was totally filled with fear and my only desire was to get away from there.

I had found the origin of my procrastination behavior. I actually did have a bad childhood, and got punished often. I have absolutely no conscious memory of this particular incident.

Ending Procrastination

Then I thought to myself, "I'm a psychologist. Why don't I just get rid of this the way I would with a client?" Almost immediately, I imagined myself as an adult going into that room where the child was, finding that child and comforting him. I empowered the child to stand up and throw the chair at the adult.

I then filled the child with a feeling of power, almost rage, that saw the child sweeping the adult out of there. Then I found myself, the child, standing in the doorway of that house. I could feel myself with enormous muscles and strength. Looking outside I heard myself saying that "this will never happen again. I will not put up with this! And then the child giant went back into the house and cleared out every room and made sure there was no threat there at all.

Since then I have noticed that when I am writing, wondering how to develop my article, that old feeling is completely gone. It just isn't there.

As I reflect on my experience of this, sharing it with you, I suppose what I'm really thinking is that it really does not take a lot of time or effort to create the mental space in which to make significant personal change. All it needs is the ability to empathise with the child's feeling and then to rescue that child. I just wish it hadn't taken me 50-odd years to do it.

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Lost Connections

Get out of depression by finding your Lost Connections

LOST CONNECTIONS AND DEPRESSION

Lost connections is a new book about uncovering the real causes of depression, and the unexpected solutions.

This book takes a fresh look at what really causes depression. The author, Johann Hari, tells his own story. He suffered from depression from childhood. He was on medication for decades. And it was only after decades of not getting any better that he began to question whether pharmaceuticals were the right answer to depression.

This book is the outcome of 30 years of thinking about depression. He proves that almost everything we know about depression and anxiety is wrong.

Chemical Theory of Depression

The accepted explanation of depression is that it is the result of a chemical imbalance in the brain. All mainstream efforts are aimed at correcting that chemical imbalance.

Depression is a brain disease, and Seroxat is its cure. That has been the accepted wisdom for more than 40 years. According to the Prozac theory, depression is caused by lack of serotonin in the brain. Seroxat, Paxil, and all the other selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors restore your serotonin balance and banish depression. Although they don't.

Johann Hardy realised that the pills made you feel good for about six weeks, and then they didn't. The doctors' answer is to increase the dose. That makes you feel better for about six weeks, and then it stops. So the answer is to increase the dose again. And so on. Until you are walking around like a zombie. You don't have depression, but you don't have any real life either.

No support for serotonin theory

The core of this book is about how he started to question the reality of chemical treatment of depression. He realised that even after 20 years of taking the medication, he was still depressed.

So he started thinking about what other things might be associated with depression. He went to  see his doctor early on. The doctor asked about his symptoms, and prescribed him medication. And every time he saw doctor after that, they asked about his symptoms. He eventually realised that they did not ask anything else about his life.

No doctor asked what was going on in his life that moment. Nobody asked if he had had any emotional shocks. Nobody asked about money worries. As long as you believe that it is a chemical imbalance, there is no need to look for any other explanation.

The doctors assumed that all his troubles are the result of the common chemical imbalance. In fact it was the other way round. It is the emotional shocks, and economic circumstances, that give you depression.

Depression is in your environment

The rest of the book examines two things. One, the results of the chemical imbalance theory. And two, the factors that really cause depression.

The first few chapters are a detailed analysis of the astonishing rise in antidepressant prescription. At the time of writing one person five in the US is on some sort of drug for a psychiatric problem. This is an incredible level of drug consumption.

Debunking serotonin

The analysis looks at what is driving this level of consumption. He details the vast profits made by pharmaceutical companies, and the incentives for doctors and hospitals to keep prescribing these things. That story is well known.

What is not well known is the hidden truth. there is not one shred of evidence to actually show serotonin has any connection whatsoever to depression. The entire industry is built on a lie. Every scientific study that has tried to find a connection has failed.

His first breakthrough was to realize that depression and anxiety are simply different aspects of the same thing. They are always found together. When one goes up the other goes up. When one goes down the other goes down. They are not separate illnesses.

The second was to realize that unhappiness and depression are strongly related. There is a continuum between unhappiness and depression and anxiety.

The nine causes of depression and anxiety

It is not all in your head. The cause of depression is in your environment. His researches showed that there are nine interconnected environmental issues which are leading to an increase in depression and anxiety for everyone.

The first cause is disconnection from meaningful work.

People who hate their jobs, people who can't see any point what the doing, have stepped on to the conveyor belt towards depression.

The second cause is disconnection from other people.

Human beings evolved from groups of apes. Humans are happiest when they're in a group. But most of us lead fairly solitary lives. The nuclear family is quite different from the way humans used to live. Most of us have lost the warm interconnections of an extended family and even a village. Social isolation is a driver of depression.

The loss of meaningful values is the third cause of depression.

Society has changed so much that the principal leisure activity is now buying stuff. Our principal social actions are about meaningless fluff on social media. People are driven by extrinsic values, that is, we do things for rewards, physical rewards mostly. Intrinsic values are things that we do because we love it. The Western world has become obsessed with extrinsic values. And depression is the price.

The fourth cause childhood trauma.

This is widely understood. An unhappy childhood leads to an unhappy adult. Childhood trauma is one of the most obvious indicators of depression and anxiety. Children who have been sexually abused, emotionally abused, or neglected are at very high risk of depression. Nothing to do with genetics or brain function. The scientific results are quite simple. The more types of childhood abuse you had, the more likely you are to have depression.

Disconnection from respect

Studies with baboon society showed that the lowest member of the hierarchy was constantly stressed. The highest member of the anxiety was also highly stressed if his position was threatened. Other research showed that the more social distance there is between the haves and the have-nots, the greater the prevalence of mental illness. There is much more mental illness in the USA then there is in an egalitarian society like Norway.

Cause six is disconnection from the natural world.

Spending a couple of hours in the natural woodland has a remarkable effect on people's feelings. This can be measured by the stress hormones in the blood. Living in modern cities is the exact opposite of that.

Cause seven is disconnection from a hopeful or secure future.

The more insecure your future income or personal security is, the more likely you are to have depression.

The length of time you have been under stress is the eighth cause.

Your brain is constantly changing to meet your needs. Your brain changes as you suffer life changing challenges. If this goes on for long enough, your brain changes to deal with it. Part of the brain become more sensitive to bad things and parts that are sensitive to good things get smaller. This leads to the common feeling of being stuck in anxiety and depression. The good news is that once the external factors begin changing your brain can repair itself.

The ninth cause is genetics.

There is a clear and proven correlation between certain genes and the tendency to become depressed. However having the gene only gives you a tendency. If the other eight factors don't happen, then you are no more likely to get depression and anyone else.

 

"Depression isn't a disease. Depression is a normal response to abnormal life experiences."

 

Hari, Johann. (2018) Lost Connections. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-4-1-4088-7868-2

 

 

 

 

 

 

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remember your dreams

How to remember your dreams

How to remember your dreams

Everyone dreams, every night. In fact on average we dream about every hour and a half. The longest dreams last between 30 and 45 minutes. And yet many people say they never dream. What they actually mean is that they cannot recall their dreams. If you would like to remember your dreams, there are some simple things you can do to make it happen.

Keep a dream journal

There is a time between beginning to wake up and being fully awake. This is the ideal time to record your dreams. It has been shown that the best way of remembering your dreams is to keep a dream diary. All you need is something to write on that you keep other side of your bed. It's probably best to get some sort of notebook. That way it keeps all the dreams together, in sequence, and you are less likely to misplace it.

When you first wake, think about what you were dreaming about, and immediately write a description of it it in your dream diary. Make a habit of doing it every day. Even if you can't remember the dream in detail, write down a word or a phrase that comes to mind.

As soon as you start, write down as much as you remember. Usually after you put down a few lines, you will recall more of the dream. Write that down, and you'll get more of the dream. Keep writing it until you think there is no more. Don't worry about spelling, grammar, or sense, or anything else. Don't worry about how weird it seems. Just write down whatever you remember. If you do this every day, over time you will be training your mind into recalling your dreams.

Tell yourself that you can dream

If you never, or seldom, have dreams then you need to tell your subconscious mind what you want. All you have to do is, when you go to bed, gently bang your head three times on the pillow, and say "I will wake up when I dream". It may take a couple of nights to have an effect but for most people this form of gentle self hypnosis allows them to become much more aware of their dreams.

Give your dream a name

After you have written down your dream, give it a name. If you don't have time right now to go over the dream in detail, then the name will remind you later on. You'll also find that when you go back and look over your dreams for a few weeks, you will probably find the same themes appearing in the names of your dreams.

Draw a rich picture

It is often useful to draw a picture of your dream. Just do a little drawing of one of the symbols in the dream. Then do another and link the first one to it, and then just keep adding more and more things which will remind you of your dream. You can also add in words and anything else you think will remind you. As you draw more and more of the dream will come into memory.

Use a mind map

If you don't have time for a written description, you just don't feel like writing it out in sentences, then use a mind map. A mind map has one or two words as the central idea. Write it down and draw little oval round it. Then draw three or four look little curvy lines coming off that circle. At the end of each line draw another oval. Then add more words which are the relationship to the central word. Draw more lines either from the second of also from the original oval. Eventually you end up with a a map of 'bubbles' containing the keywords of your dream.

The habit of writing down your dreams as soon as you have them will remind your mind how important it is to you. That will encourage your mind to waking up when you are having a dream. Eventually, you will find that your wake up several times a night immediately after having had a dream. Then you know down your dream in as much detail as you want to, and just go back to sleep.

Very often when you wake up fully in the morning you'll be surprised to see two or three dreams described that you don't even remember writing down.

 

 

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