This is a 3-part series of articles
PART ONE
Embracing a Neurological Model Hypnotherapists Can Lead The Way As Psychology Evolves
Methods of helping people psychologically emerged out of theories of why people are as they are. Those theories continue to evolve. In developing the new therapeutic method, NEURO-THERAPY Training, we stepped back and took a broader view of the field of psychology and its relation to emerging systems of thought.
With NEURO-THERAPY Training, one is exposed to dramatic differences and redefinitions of older psychological ways of thinking. Training reflects an emerging model Neurological Model for methods of helping people. Previously all methods of practical psychology can be show to reflect three models, analytical, behavioral and cognitive (what we call the A-B-C’s of psychology.) These models emerged from theories, what we call the WAAWA (we are as we are) Theories of psychology. The theory behind the analytical model and its methods is…we are as we are because of deep-seated problems and conflicts in the psyche. Behind the behavioral model and its methods is…we are as we are because of behaviors. Behind the cognitive model and its methods is…we are as we are because of our perceptions and how we communicate.
The therapeutic method, NEURO-THERAPY Training, is based on the most modern WAAWA Theory…we are as we are because of the interaction between the mind and body. Its mental training approach and other techniques are focused on teaching people to directly manage the eruption of emotion. It puts tools into people’s hands that can directly clear damaging emotions from their bodies. They learn to better manage unhealthy emotional reactions and to keep a process of healthy emotional reactions occurring. NEURO-THERAPY Training moves out of the subjective discussion of emotions as positive or emotions as negative. Its methods are designed to give people ways of regularly restoring a healthy balance that existed in everyone before the effects of conscious interaction with the world.
Systems of thought in many areas are changing which demands an enlargement of systems of psychotherapy. A two-track model for psycholotherapy is emerging. It consists of a Learning Track (traditional reprogramming, reshaping, reframing which are directed at the content of mental activity,) and a eruptions of thoughts and emotions.) With new understanding of the nature of emotion it one cannot dispute that long-term emotional management is impossible without an ability to more directly effect the eruption of emotion in the body.
Psychotherapists, Hypnotherapists, Professional Coaches and others involved with psychological health should be excited. NEURO-THERAPY Training offers a framework of client-directed tools. It is a cornerstone for the emerging Therapeutic Track of psychology. Universities continue to train in and perpetuate the A-B-C models of psychology, the Learning Track, and rarely offer knowledge of mental training techniques such as NeuroTherapy Training offers. Therapists, coaches and people wanting to enter the helping professions can now teach the needed tools to facilitate the Therapeutic Track. They can lead the way. They can realistically offer clients needed tools for long term emotional management.
PART TWO
NEURO-THERAPY Training: Removing the Emotion From the Thought
All your problems are caused by fear. Sound too simple or unlikely? Not when seen from the perspective of a NEURO-THERAPY Specialist. NEURO-THERAPY Training is a different kind of hypnotherapeutic approach, one that is based on the emerging scientific understanding that people are most greatly shaped by the innerworking of the mind and body. But, someone may ask, what about negative or destructive experiences, perceptions, memories and behaviors – the traditional focuses of psychotherapy including hypnotherapy? NEURO-THERAPY Training is clearly focused on those, but it is understood that there are physiological reactions – reactions in the body – that make each of those either damaging or not damaging to the person.
In NEURO-THERAPY Training, guilt, anger, frustration, and other “negative” emotions are seen as forms of fear. Fear is viewed as the most basic emotion. But, fear is taken down to another level – a set of physical, chemical reactions that are damaging to the organism. That takes negative emotions out of a subjective discussion of what may be negative to one person versus another. NEURO-THERAPY Training is most about training people to better manage those physical and chemical reactions that cause their experiences, perceptions, memories and behaviors to be problems for them.
Take the example of Joan who has memories of an abusive mother that continue to make her feel hurt and angry and that, she feels, have damaged her ability to respond in a mature, happy manner as an adult. As negative and inappropriate as Joan’s experiences with her mother may have been, it is not those experiences that are the problem. The problem is how Joan’s body reacts every time something reminds her of those experiences, consciously or unconsciously. There are many techniques used by hypnotherapists to help release Joan from the hold the experiences with her mother have had on her. They may include reframing them, anchoring them to more positive experiences, suggesting new behaviors or revisiting the experiences through regression. The problems these approaches will experience in giving Joan long-term release are, 1. The triggers for Joan’s reactions are many and very diverse and, 2. Those techniques are primarily cognitive or mental techniques and the reactions Joan has are not just mental. First and foremost they are physical and chemical. Her problem IS her body reactions to the memory. Mental and physical cannot be separated.
NEURO-THERAPY Training uses hypnosis in new ways. It redefines it as mental training (reflecting the true client centeredness of the approach) and emphasizes the natural therapeutic effects of the state of mind. It’s philosophy is “making people their own therapists,” effectively integrating use of NEURO-THERAPY techniques into people’s lives for long term use and benefit.
What makes NEURO-THERAPY Training a therapy of the future, though is that it goes way beyond an aggressive use of the altered mental state. Using the neurological technique, SUBVERBAL SHIFTINGã, developed by its creators, it enables people to turn on a genetically built in mental ability, the human survival response. With this, people train the intelligence of the body to completely clear away the physical and chemical reactions caused by negative experiences, memories, etc. in their lives. SUBVERBAL SHIFTING removes the emotion from the thought in negative areas of a person’s life and teaches people how to recreate that emotionally neutral state daily.
Yes, emotions are important, people learn from the emotions that will reoccur in many forms daily. Nobody can afford the luxury, though, of the amount, intensity and duration of emotions that occur in most people’s lives, especially when taking on the challenge of an illness but even when trying to build a more positive life. With NEURO-THERAPY Training people actually become more aware of negative emotions enabling them to make better life decisions – but they are able to stay more removed from them; experience the thought without the intense body reactions attached. When they are blessed with positive emotions, they can feel them with full force and intensity, not watered down by a physiology of fear or anger that may linger in their bodies.
NEURO-THERAPY Specialists understand that at the basis of all problems are fear but with a more sophisticated look at emotion, they know that fear isn’t just a mental experience, nor is it as subjective as it has traditionally been treated by the field of psychology.
SUBVERBAL SHIFTING is a registered trademark of The North American Institute of NEURO-THERAPY, Inc.
PART THREE
NEURO-THERAPY Training: Brain Based Rather Than Idea Based
NEURO-THERAPY Specialists use the hypnotic state to help people, but in different ways than other hypnotherapists. Their approach is brain-based rather than idea-based. It helps people make desired physical, chemical and mental changes by developing the natural therapeutic potentials of the brain. It brings therapy with hypnosis into a clinical framework making use of it desirable to a much broader base of clients.
Opening Pathways In The Brain
If you are driving down the highway and a deer jumps in front of you, in a fraction of a second, you go from sheer terror to calm perceiving things in slow motion. You’ve experienced your brain’s amazing, genetically built-in ability to react in a way that dissipates or neutralizes fear. In NEURO-THERAPY Training this reaction is referred to as the Ancient Alert. One very important way the hypnotic state is used differently from other approaches to hypnotherapy is as a mental platform to trigger the Ancient Alert. The hypnotic state can open the pathway to the brain’s own survival mechanism. Like it can turn terror to calm, this brain reaction can remove the emotion from the thought in the face of damaging situations and negative, destructive memories. By using the neurological technique, SUBVERBAL SHIFTING, to stimulate the Ancient Alert, NEURO-THERAPY Specialists can take a woman who was raped at sixteen and, within a few session, teach her to open up her brain’s own abilities to remove the emotion from the thoughts of that negative situation. She trains the intelligence of her body to manage her responses to any future negativity.
Hypnosis Is A Neurological Technique
Hypnosis, itself, is a powerful neurological technique. Expertise in using hypnosis is what can put hypnotherapists at the forefront of the neurological revolution. If, though, hypnotherapists continue to merely offer what one client referred to as “psychotherapy with your eyes closed,” in many cases not even emphasizing self hypnosis work by clients, they are missing the greatest historical opportunity to surge ahead as leaders and definers of a new model of helping people. Too often if the mechanism of the brain is not disciplined, inability to use its full potentials will erode gains made by even the best psychotherapy techniques available.
Traditional training in use of the hypnotic state is limited. It is used primarily to enhance memory or heighten suggestibility. Helping someone into a state of super-concentration and teaching them to use it regularly on their own can automatically bring about many desirable physical, chemical and mental changes. There should be a focus on intensifying those changes.
From a neurological perspective most hypnotic inductions have three basic weaknesses. These weaknesses get in the way of developing the natural potentials of the state of mind. These weaknesses even lessen effectiveness if the goal is enhancing suggestibility. First, inductions are often too linguistically complex. They use long, often compound sentences, abstract ideas and words. Second, they commonly employ too much variation in messages and deepening techniques to allow for effective training of the mechanism of the brain. Third, many hypnotherapists do not seem to have a sense of the overall structure of an induction in regards to intensifying its effectiveness. The message is primary; the framework of delivery is secondary.
Putting The Brain Through Its Paces
The inductions of NEURO-THERAPY Training put the brain through paces; train the brain. A primary goal is developing more instinct responsiveness to override negativity from the conscious realm. There are, though, other important reasons for the focus on intensifying the activity of subconscious brain mechanisms: that is the realm of brain most involved in coordinating healing. It is also, the realm of brain, according to leading neurological researchers, so underutilized by modern humans that it may not be responding effectively to non-cognitive signals such as come from tumors deep in the body.* Adding a more brain-based approach could enable hypnotherapists to work more confidently with and offer far more to people facing diseases and other physical problems.
“Hypnosis can cure warts.” NEURO-THERAPY Training looks beyond long held beliefs such as this and asks, “What about it does that?” Warts have a viral basis. Viruses are weakened and killed by heat. The brain’s own ability to generate a condition of internal heat is the most naturally powerful healing technique available to people facing viruses, the basis of many modern diseases. Unless the brain is trained, and disciplined regularly, though, a person cannot use their mind effectively for that benefit.
We grow and change through many pathways. By learning about and incorporating a more brain-based approach or techniques like SUBVERBAL SHIFTING, hypnotherapists can use more of the potentials of the state of mind in which they’ve chosen to specialize.
* See Mind Matters by Michael Gazzaniga
SUBVERBAL SHIFTING is a registered trademark of The North American Institute of NEURO-THERAPY, Inc.