- Hello and welcome to this week's edition of Adam Up.
I am feeling buoyed this morning following a great evening spent with my professional peers and fellow hypnotherapists.
We welcomed international speaker Richard Tyler as our speaker last night and it was wonderful. Have a read of my brief report about the evening here:
Advanced Hypnotherapy Diploma
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June is here! It does not quite feel like Summer despite a couple of lovely days of sunshine here during the Bank Holiday weekend, at the end of this
month I will be running our Advanced Hypnotherapy Diploma.
Following our big hypnosis-based edition of Adam Up last week, lots of hypnosis
students and hypnotherapists asked me about the best places to go and start finding research and resources about hypnotherapy, and I thought it might be useful to share what I wrote with those of you interested.
I think that if you’ve had really good quality hypnotherapy training, you should not need to ask someone like me for those kinds of resources because your hypnotherapy training school or college ought to have provided all of that, nonetheless, I
recommend the following:
1. Getting Quality
Training first and foremost, in particular building on top of basic diploma programmes which are often lacking in depth of research.
Here is a brilliant couple of advanced courses by a wonderful training organisation: Or have a look at our online training resource which has an enormous depth of research and education included in it:
2. Read This Thread at my Hub - it has a variety of sources of where I'd go to seek out research in this field: and to a lesser extent, this thread: 3. Hypnotherapy Text
Books Read this article I wrote about my top ten
hypnotherapy text books and the reasons why:
Then also read this about what I believe constitutes a good hypnotherapy
text:
4. My Blog, Podcast and Members Area
Plough through the back catalogue of my own blog, my podcast and members area as there is a huge amount that I've shared for free in there.
5. Empirically Supported Treatment:
Read this article about hypnotherapy as an empirically supported treatment:
It lists well designed peer reviewed Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs). I give a full set of handouts and notes to my students containing all
the seminal papers in our field.
Took me years of study to compile so I don't give that away free to those who do not or have not studied with my college. 6. Papers and Journals If you own a book like the Oxford Handbook of Hypnosis, it will give you a comprehensive explanation of the research and lessen
the need for individual papers.
As a researcher, I get journal access to all journals as part of my University library membership, but it is not necessary for my therapeutic work. Papers and subscriptions can be expensive too.
My own Science of Self-Hypnosis book (nb NOT the greatly superseded Secrets of Self Sypnosis) has a great many relevant and seminal studies referred
too. PM me if you have anything in particular you'd like to ask or
discuss.
Onto today’s Adam Up then….
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I briefly mentioned earlier that I had such a great weekend in the glorious sunshine here, my wife and children spent two full days, staked out at our beach hut, digging holes, building castles, surfing, eating
ice cream, getting loads of fresh air and needing long showers in the evening to get rid of all the sun cream and sand off our skin.
My daughter has red hair and pale skin just like her Dad, and so we cover her in high factor cream, she wears sun hats, and she takes some breaks out of the sun from time to time so we can make sure she is not getting sun
burned.
However, on Monday, we started to notice something very different about her skin, a small number of spots. Then on Tuesday this week, after a restless night, she appeared in our bedroom in the morning and was covered, I mean royally covered in spots. She has chicken pox.
It was heart breaking. While my son has been off with his friends this week on days out enjoying the half term break, she has had to be kept at home. I look at her and wish it was happening to me instead. She has had oat baths, calamine lotion, piriton as well as some more modern foam sprays and so on to help her
get through this itchy and uncomfortable time.
She is just 3 years old and having had such a lovely weekend with my family, and really feeling sorry for her, yesterday, I had to keep nipping into the house to sit with her while she was drawing, painting, watching films (Bugsy Malone is her current favourite) and doing shows with her
dollies.
If only she were a bit older, and I would have been able to have helped her with hypnosis. She is currently slightly too young to fully orchestrate her imagination, organise and direct her cognitions and does not really have a fully developed sense of self. So she is not really a good candidate for hypnosis.
Which is a shame as hypnosis is something which is very applicable to skin disorders.
When I was a lot younger and fairly new to this field, I worked with a lot of clients who suffered from skin disorders. In those earlier days, I did not
really seek out the evidence-based approaches for what I was doing. I was originally taught that the skin was a mirror reflection of what was going on beneath; thus acne occurred in greater prevalence among teenagers going through uncertainty and physiological change. Then if you look at other types of happenings upon the skin’s surface, such as getting goose bumps, sweating and changes in temperature, these can all be influenced by thoughts and emotions
felt.
Therefore, I used a lot of mental imagery processes for treating the skin’s surface, but also worked on helping clients to be more in control of their thoughts and emotions in order to aid the condition of the
skin.
Some of this still holds true for me today, though the years have shown me that there is so much more we can do with the use of hypnosis to help with skin conditions.
Last year, I was part of an
online clinic organised and run by the TalkHealth Partnership, in collaboration with NHS Choices here in the UK. This particular online clinic was looking at skin disorders. The clinics offer lots of support from the panel of experts, but also from charities, support groups and sponsors.
Naturally, as part of my own preparations, I had been reviewing the literature and research that
supports the use of hypnosis in helping with skin disorders such as eczema, psoriasis, ichthyosis, acne, rosacea or other conditions.
There have been a couple of encouraging reviews that have supported the use of hypnosis as a treatment for a range of skin conditions (Scott, 1964; Shenefelt, 2000).
There have also been a number of case studies to have been peer-reviewed and featured in journals that have show hypnosis to be effective in the treatment of eczema (Twerski & Naar, 1974; Mirvish, 1978; Sokel et al., 1993; Stewart & Thomas, 1995) as well as psoriasis (Kline, 1954; Frankel & Misch, 1973). With psoriasis, there is also a couple of randomised, controlled trials supporting the use of hypnosis as a treatment (Tausk & Whitmore, 1999; Zacharie et al., 1996).
Additionally, hypnosis has been used to help relieve the itching of eczema (Goodman, 1962; Motoda, 1971; Scott, 1960, 1964) and the itching of psoriasis (Biondo, 1975; Cheek, 1961; Hartland, 1970).
Within my own therapy rooms, I tend to use the very evidence-based habit reversal (Azrin & Nunn, 1977) protocol to stop the scratching action which also tends to help lessen problems associated with some
skin disorders, such as them bleeding or becoming infected and subsequently being made more problematic. The habit reversal has a 99% symptom reduction in studies.
One of the most impressive studies of the use of hypnosis in treating skin disorders was a case study and report by A. Mason (1952), a physician who used hypnosis as a treatment of a patient suffering from congenital
ichthyosiform erythrodermia of Brocq (often referred to as ‘fish skin disease’). The report was published in the British Medical Journal in 1955 and showed the dramatic changes in the patient who started off with thick, scaly, immovable skin with an unusual colouration, that “fell off” as a result of hypnotic suggestions. The suggestions were initially given to just the left arm of the patient to show that the effects were attributed to the hypnotic suggestions and the difference
between the two arms was incredible. Thereafter, suggestions were given to the right arm and the skin of the arms was 95% clear of the disorder after 20 days of treatment.
This is a rare condition, so there has not been the opportunity to conduct good quality controlled studies, however, there have been other case studies using Mason’s method that have had their results published with
favourable outcomes (Bethune & Kidd, 1961; Wink, 1961; Kidd, 1966; Schneck, 1966).
Hypnosis has been used to help deal with and overcome allergic reactions upon the skin and has proven to be successful in lessening sensitivity of the skin and also successful at lessening the reactions to
allergens (Fry et al., 1965; Dennis et al., 1965).
The largest body of research with using hypnosis as a treatment for skin conditions has been applied to the removal of warts. A study by (Spanos et al., 1988)
showed a 50% cure rate (percentage of warts gone) which was much higher than two different types of control groups.
Numerous other studies tend to show impressive results (a number of which show 60-70% cure rate) spanning the past 75 years (Sulzberger & Wolf, 1934;
Vollmer, 1946; McDowell, 1949; Obermayer & Greenson, 1949; Sinclair-Gieben & Chalmers, 1959; Ullman & Dudek, 1960; Tenzel & Taylor, 1969; Surman et al., 1972, 1973; Ewin, 1974, 1992; Clawson & Swade, 1975; French, 1977; Tasini & Hackett, 1977; Dreaper, 1978; Johnson & Barber, 1978; Chandrasena, 1982; Morris, 1985; Spanos et al., 1988, 1990; Felt et al., 1998; Kohen et al., 1998; Goldstein, 2005).
In conclusion, though we have some very encouraging results from the limited research, there is still not a strong enough body to start suggesting hypnosis can be a full-on alternative, stand-alone treatment. However, for those receiving medical care and treatment, it would make sense to potentially enhance that care with the use of psychological treatments, such as
hypnosis.
If you would like a full reference list of the studies featured here, get in touch.
7 Steps To Heal Your Skin With Self-Hypnosis and Sensory-Imagery: |
Further to this research supporting the use of
hypnosis for help with skin conditions, I want to share a process to help you with any skin issues you may have now or in the future, this session incorporates mental imagery and imagined sensations while in a self-hypnosis session, with the aim of advancing the healing of skin conditions.
This
particular process is influenced by the techniques used by Kline in his 1953 research and Frankel and Misch in their 1970 research.
Both were used primarily with sufferers of psoriasis, however both can easily be applied to eczema and other skin disorders
too.
The research on using hypnosis to help with skin problems does often state that specific suggestions for particular aspects of skin disorders are equally as effective as very general and non-specific suggestions.
This process could be used without any particular suggestions, instead just using the sensory-imagery. However if there is the slightest chance that the results will be amplified with the use of some positive self-suggestion within this type of session, then it makes sense to include it.
Kline (1953) whose methodology was shared in the first volume ever of the IJECH asked patients to imagine the afflicted area getting much bigger, then hotter, then a lot colder, to the point of freezing, then a lot larger again before returning them to their usual size, shape and sensation.
Many sufferers of psoriasis have found that certain sunny climes or just safe exposure to sunshine has helped the psoriasis to reduce too. Frankel & Misch (1973) used imaginal sunshine to enhance the healing of the skin.
The ability of our imagination and cognitions to affect our skin is undeniable, and this process must be done safely and sensibly.
A piece of research showed that blisters can be caused by hypnotic suggestion (Muftic, 1961). Therefore, when imagining the sunshine and the sensations,
make sure you keep them at levels you imagine to be healthy and for your highest well-being.
Get yourself into a comfortable position where you will be undisturbed for the duration of this session.
Be seated with your arms and legs uncrossed and feet flat on the floor, then follow the steps.
Step One: Induce hypnosis
You can do so by any means you desire or know of. You can use the process in my Science of self-hypnosis book, use the free audio we give away on this website to practice or have a look at the following articles as and when you need them; they are basic processes to help you simply open the door of your mind:
Once you have induced hypnosis, proceed to step two.
Step Two: Be mindful of your entire body. Notice the rate of your breathing and just observe it without
interfering with it. Notice the sensations throughout your body and move your awareness systematically through your entire body starting at one end of your body and all the way through to the other end. Heighten your awareness of the entire body.
Imagine that this absorption and focus is taking you deeper into
hypnosis. Be gently mindful or your body, watch what it does, observe it without trying to change anything and if any changes do occur in the body, just watch them happening. Keep mindful of your breathing throughout and let your breathing keep you tuned in to your body.
When you are really aware of your body,
then get a sense of the skin covering your body. Just be aware of the sensations of your skin; the temperature, the tightness, be aware of the colouration in your imagination and so on.
When you feel aware and tuned into the skin covering your body, move on to the next
step.
Step Three: Imagine basking in the sunshine. Choose wherever you enjoy the sunshine the most. That might be on a beach, in a forest, by a pool, a lake or anywhere else. Let the
sun be shining at just the right level of heat and warmth for you to feel comfortable. Allow yourself to be exposed to as much sunshine as is healthy for your skin.
Engage with the scene, really imagine being there. See the sights, hear the sounds and most importantly, feel the healing warmth of the sun upon
your skin.
Feel the sunshine warming the affected areas of your skin. Imagine it is healing your skin.
Once you have
really imagined being in the scene and can imagine feeling the sun upon your skin, then start to use your internal dialogue and use a progressive cognition such as “my skin is healing” or “my skin feels healthier and healthier” (for example) that you repeat to yourself while you enjoy basking in the sunshine.
Say it to yourself in a way that you find convincing. Believe in the words you are saying to yourself without applying any pressure to yourself. Just say it to yourself in a reassured fashion, remaining comfortable and relaxed.
Then move on to the next
step.
Step Four: Continue to relax, while you now fully engage yourself in the following sensations.
Convince yourself of these sensations, imagine that the affected areas of your skin have these sensations within, around, and through them:
a) Firstly, build upon the sensation of warmth that has been generated by the sunshine you have been imagining. Turn up the heat as much as you can stand or bear. Just using your imagination, imagine turning up the heat, keeping it at a safe and healthy level. You might imagine a warm colour spreading and getting
more intense as you turn the heat upwards, you might use an imaginary dial. Once you have imagined the affected areas of skin being really warm, move on…
b) Now imagine the affected areas turning cooler and cooler until they become cold. Imagine them getting colder and colder. You might help
advance this with imagery of ice, or cold water, or even a colour that you consider to be cooler. You might turn any previously imagined dial downwards. Imagine the skin in those areas getting as freezing cold as you can cope with. Remembering to be safe. Then, when you are really engaging and imagining the affected areas as really freezing cold, move on…
c) Imagine the skin is getting heavier. Imagine a heaviness spreading through the areas. Interpret this in whatever way seems right for you. Remember to take all the time necessary to really notice a change in your perceived sensations, then when you imagine the areas are feeling heavier, move on…
d) Imagine the skin is getting lighter and lighter. Imagine a sense of lightness spreading through those affected areas. Again, interpret this in whatever way is right for you, imagine the skin getting lighter, engage and concentrate on this enough to really develop the sensations, then move on…
e) Now imagine the affected areas of skin are getting tighter and tighter. Imagine a sense of constriction, just as if the skin got dry and is drawing in, being pulled tight and constricting. Imagine they are getting smaller and smaller, that these areas are shrinking in size. Imagine this enough to note a change in sensation,
then move on…
f) Finally, imagine those affected areas of skin are expanding. Imagine they are getting bigger and get a sense of expansion. When you have imagined the areas getting bigger, and the skin expanding, you can bring this step to an end and move
on…
Believe in the sensations as much as you can. Use your imagination as vividly as possible to alter the notable sensations within this step. You also need to ensure you take all the time necessary to develop the sensations in turn and ensure that they are notably
different.
Step Five: Run through steps 2-4 a further 2 times before moving on to the next step.
Step Six: Imagine looking at yourself in a mirror in a few weeks time - see the previously affected parts of your skin as being much clearer. Notice the difference, the improvement and enjoy seeing it. Take some time with this step and see it
in detail, make it vivid and get focused upon it.
As you look at the mirror image of yourself with healthier skin, repeat some positive cognitions to yourself and engage your belief in the image; tell yourself “I just know that is going to happen” and/or “my skin is getting healthier and healthier” -
convince yourself in a reassuring, relaxed manner.
Once you have really convinced yourself and invested some belief in this image, you move on to the final step.
Step Seven: Exit hypnosis. You can count from one through to five, take a couple of deeper breaths, wiggle your finger and toes and get your bearings, remember exactly where you began with this exercise. Maintain the belief when the session is at an end, and be progressive and assured about the
outcome.
Repeat this process at least once daily for 3-6 weeks for maximum effect. There you have it, our first process to use self-hypnosis to help with skin conditions. Enjoy!
Hypnotherapy Training With AE College Of Hypnosis
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OUR MISSION TO PROVIDE THE BEST
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Hypnosis Resources In Our Platinum Members Area
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This is a major collection of audios and videos that are a resource for our Hypnotherapy Students. We now have made them available for anyone wanting to learn more
about hypnosis.
Once you are a member you get all updates automatically.
We are going to be adding
new more recordings of new courses and seminars later this year and the price of membership will be increased. So it is a good time to join this month.
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I have a bunch sent in to me by a fellow Dad this week, who cited his kids’ favourite joke book gags…..
What do you call a frog with no legs? (Unhoppy!)
What has eight legs and eight eyes? (Eight pirates!)
What kind of hair do oceans have? (Wavy!)
What has a bottom at the top? (Your legs!)
What did the left eye say to the right eye? (Something between us smells!)
Why can't a nose be 12 inches long? (Because then it would be a foot!)
Why did the one-handed man cross the
road? (To get to the second-hand shop!)
Why shouldn't you tell a secret on a farm? (Because the potatoes have eyes and the corn has
ears!)
Hahahahaha, I love those. Thank you everyone who sends the jokes in each week, I love getting them. Why not get over and join Adam's Hypnosis
Hub. Anyone interested in Hypnosis may join. You could then add a caption to our weekly image.
share the meme of the week:
Any Questions Or Help Needed -
Please DO Contact
Us:- Do feel free to contact us if you need help or more information about our courses, seminars, products. It is in fact great to get to know you all.
We can take payments for products or services over the
Phone or Skype if preferred.
Please use Support Centre rather than e-mails which are notoriously
unreliable
Support Centre
Do leave a message if
we are not available and we will call you back. Adam: 01202 526977 or 0044 1202 526977 (outside UK) Keith: 01202 247301 or 0044 1202 247301 (outside UK) Skype:
Another thing that we encourage is contacting
us via Skype. Keith's Skype ID - keithaw2k1. Adam can be contacted on Skype by arrangement. |
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