Spring 2008

    I like to wander, mostly because it offers me a chance to find the unexpected, and whether those wanderings are, by foot, down a winding cow path of my family’s farm in central Florida, a strange road, school hallway, or within the electronic world of the  Internet I always know that the thoughts and ideas produced along the way are the real treasures, as I  genuinely find it quite interesting how each of us is affected by what we think.  Sure it may be a given that someone, like myself, who utilizes hypnosis and linked life philosophies to facilitate healing and help clients garner greater happiness would be predisposed to the possibilities found down the path of inner potential.   Yet I have to say, after several years of sessions, studies and a multitude of what on the outside may seem like aimless wandering, I still find myself pausing in wonder at just how intimately what one thinks and feels is reflected in the physicality of their body, which in turn always seems to be reflected in one’s overall life situation.  I was reminded of this, just recently, after a potential client phoned my office and asked not only if hypnosis helps in birthing situations, an easy answer, “sure” I said, but the caller also wanted to know some statistics concerning intervention techniques as well as desiring reference material that she could look over.  I, at that point, had to offer, what I thought, was a feeble apology and explained that if she would give me her email address I would see what I could find and send it along as soon as I could.  The caller quickly complied and I was left reprimanding myself, thinking surely a hypnotherapist should have such information quickly available, maybe even memorized.  So for the next couple of days I was on a mission; dusting off my student ID card I spent available time, between sessions, online delving into the data banks of my alma mater the University of Central Florida.  It was easy to find a number of journal articles in the medical archives supporting the use of hypnosis in pre and post birth situations to among other things, cut down on drug use, alleviate pain, as well as addressing post-partum depression.  Gathering several articles of interest I attached them in an email, apologizing once again for not having the information more readily available, and that could have been the end of things. Yet being a wander by nature, I was intrigued by all related reference material I had come across in my search.  Inevitably, I continued my online meandering and that’s when I came across an article that left me nodding my head with positive appreciation, yet in the end, plied me with a sense of deep disappointment.  The report I found had to do with the use of hypnotherapy with pregnant mothers whose unborn child were in the breech, head up, position even though their birth time was imminent.  

    As for the reports details I’ll keep them as quick, painless and enlightening as possible.  The study was preformed by a Dr. Lewis Mehl who wanted to find out if the application of hypnotherapy could be applied to convert breech, head up birth presentations to what is termed normal vertex, head down position.  I must interject at this point that I thought I had been fairly progressive minded as to utilizing hypnosis to help folks for a wide range of issues, but this topic just had never occurred to me.  Within the context of the study, I found, Dr. Mehl had recruited 100 women who were 37 to 40 weeks pregnant and whose unborn children remained in the breech position.  He then meticulously divided the group of women into two groups while matching as many similar characteristics as possible; such as previous number of births, mother’s age, etc.  Once this was done, one group of fifty, labeled the control group, was left to finish their pregnancies without hypnotic interventions of any kind.  However, as not to infringe on the women’s choice of alternative interventions it should be mentioned that women from both groups could at anytime choose a hormone/manual manipulation method know as ECV to turn their unborn child, a method that is, not without some risk to mother or child.  The remaining fifty women chosen as the treatment group received two to three hypnotic sessions weekly until birth or until the child turned to the head down, vertex position.  In essence, each hypnosis sessions focused on relaxation, flexibility along with wordings and suggestions that called for natural balance, turning, as well as multiple references to the down position.  

     Going into this study it was already known that previous research had shown, that 12 percent of late term breech position pregnancies could be expected to resolve and turn to the head down, vertex position, before birth without any intervention what so ever.  So when the results of this study showed that 48 percent, nearly half, of the control group that had no hypnotic intervention resulted in normal head down births, I was surprised as I imagine Dr Mehl was.  However, as I wandered a bit further into this research I found that over half of those that had turned vertex, to the head down position in the non-hypnosis group, did so using the previously mentioned ECV method.   What ultimately grabbed my interest and left me standing in my own Internet tracks was that, even though the group not receiving hypnosis had a fair number turn, Dr. Mehl’s hypnosis test group was still able to garner what researchers consider the Holy Grail of results known as a statistically significant difference.  Incredibly, of those women working with Dr. Mehl over 80 percent of their unborn children turn from the breech position to the ideal vertex, head down, position before birth with nothing other than hypnosis.  It was this phenomenal number that easily created my nodding approval that I spoke of earlier.  Why then did I portend of a deep disappointment?   Well, certainly not because of the results Mehl obtained with hypnosis, and not because the client I previously spoke of decided not to make an appointment, that happens.  No, the real disappointment is that this incredible research was done nearly fifteen years ago yet it is not being utilized to any degree today.  Fifteen years ago and even this hypnotist was not aware of just how well hypnosis works in helping to rectify breech presentations in late pregnancy.  In the light of some of my more recent Internet wanderings which found a long term study that showed that by the age of nine over 24 percent of breech –delivered infants had repeated one or more grades in school, I have to ask myself, why is hypnosis not a mainstream alternative, why has the medical establishment chosen to use cesarean or ECV methods to bypass breech birth when hypnotic intervention has been shown as a viable alternative?  I guess, deep down, I’m hoping that most are like me, they just didn’t know.  Well now I do, and so do you…spread the word.  And while I imagine a number of readers may not have a use for such sessions I sincerely hope the idea crosses your mind that if hypnosis can be utilized to actually change the position of an unborn child what other incredible results can be expected.

    By the way, one final thing I’d like to mention; the one other thing that I like most about my wanderings is those folks you meet and share your path with along the way. So I must thank you for joining me, perhaps in the coming months we’ll have an opportunity to wander together once again.

Until then, I wish you much health and happiness.   Richard     

Check back here often as I plan to share those thoughts that I happen upon in my endless wanderings.

Enjoy... Richard

© 2006  Guided Excellence

Made by Serif

      Butterflyhope

March 2008

When the webmaster from Butterflyhope.com asked me to write a regular column for this web site I asked just what they were looking for and they said something along the lines of me giving my venue of choice, hypnotherapy a voice.  So I hope that as I let my thoughts wander these coming the months that you find something of benefit as I may reflect on either my office experiences, recent research, or both as I speak to just how intimately linked the mind/body connection is and how we can utilize this link to build both better health and happier lives.

In this particular column I want to pull forward the results of a study that was in the news this past September and while it may not be the newest of news I feel it bares repeating as the results of a clinical study reported in a journal supplied by the National Cancer Institute suggested, quite positively, that Hypnosis was able to help with more than just the pain associated with breast cancer surgeries.  Within the parameters of the study it was determined that hypnosis and hypnotic intervention techniques produced tremendous results.  Ultimately finding that those women undergoing hypnotic interventions prior to treatment not only had less pain, but they also had less nausea and fatigue and even more importantly according to those actively involved with the  intervention, they experienced their procedures as much less emotional draining than those women not receiving hypnotic interventions.  The doctors associated with the study reported finding the process of hypnosis for breast cancer patients a win-win situation for all involved.  In fact this specific study mentioned that there was a reduced cost associated with the hypnotic intervention group due to less time and anesthesia being needed and a quicker recovery time.  The September 2007 study pointed to a 773 dollar savings per patient due to a reduced amount of time being needed to perform necessary work and decrease in anesthesia needed.  Certainly these economic implications stacked along side the positive quality of life issues patients receiving hypnosis reported means that the win-win situation holds many positive connotations for both patients and their healthcare providers.  And while I may have tagged the topic of enhancing the lives of those dealing with breast cancer what I hoped to convey here is that the mind-body connection is something we can all benefit from in a number of ways.

Until next time may your wanderings be full of light and love, Richard

For a YouTube video about this column’s topic click this link.

NEW!   Early Summer 2008

Connecting the Dots

     It has been a couple months since I ventured write down a few of my wandering thoughts so when I recently reread a research paper, initially published in 2006, I was inspired to share some of the thoughts it held and inspired as I felt that it did a wonderful job of connecting the dots, so to speak.  What dots you may ask?   Well, as a consulting hypnotist I continually find myself working with folks who are having difficulties in their lives, often in part, because they haven’t yet quite connected all their dots.  Due to this fact I find them at my office needing help with any number of complex health, relationship and emotional concerns.  

What I’ve found, time and again, is just how intimately one’s health, both mental and physical, is linked to one’s emotional well being. These are the dots I speak of, and just as childhood was a place and time when most of us played the connect-the-dots game, it is as though the process is life long and that can often leads folks down a path of ill health and/or unhappiness in their lives.   It is from this particular perspective that I’ve grown to consider how the mind/body connection (some of the most important dots) can often inundates multiple aspects of one’s life, often without conscious thought, to creating our life experiences.

So what does this “life” philosophy have to do with the research I read?  

Well, to edify the point I’m going to paraphrase a portion the research article which explored multiple evidences as to whether connections could be made between childhood trauma and subsequent health conditions.  Before I delve into the results though, I must endeavor to explain that the words “childhood trauma” while bringing the possibility of unspeakable experiences into the reader’s mind, it must be understood that what a young child may perceive as extremely traumatic event might when viewed from the adult perspective be merely an accident, incidental, or even considered a natural part of life.  That’s not saying that some childhood traumatic experiences wouldn’t be perceived so from the adult perspective as I’m sure many might be.  However, in my years of working with clients I’ve often found that when folks discover the root of their issues many times they tend to be an accumulation of affect experience.  These experiences are often seeded in what from an adult perspective, is many times surprising yet manageable, which allows a great amount healing to take place.

So having said that, I want to share some of what this article revealed about the connections between childhood experience and adult health.  Within this article’s discussion, I found results which revealed that emotionally traumatic experiences do indeed seem to be able to affect one’s long term health. First, there were a couple of studies involving women being screened for breast cancer.  In the first study of its kind, conducted in 1982, women going in for a breast biopsy were asked a series of questions via a psychological interview.  What the researchers ultimately found, was that they could predict the presence of cancer in 94% of the cases by utilizing psychological factors alone. These incredible results prompted another researcher in Germany to replicate the study.  This second study involved eighty women, and replicating the first, researchers were able to identify, solely on psychological basis, those patients who were to be diagnosed with breast cancer with a 96% accuracy rate.  What exactly was it that these researchers were finding?   In essence what they found, with a very high level of accuracy, is that the participants in the study who had suffered a genuine trauma or set of traumas in their young life were the one’s more much more likely to manifest health issues, in this case breast cancer.  Another study mentioned in this research paper revealed the results of another long-term study that started in 1957 with 126 Harvard University students.  In this particular study researchers grouped participants into four categories according to how they, the participants, perceived their parent’s love and care.   What they found in a thirty year follow up, was that one out of four or 25 percent of the participants in the perceived high love and care group had been diagnosed with what was considered a serous disease or condition such as cancer, asthma, or cardiovascular disease.  Contrasting these results, researchers found that the group which had the lowest perception of parental love and care, almost nine out of ten, 87 percent, had been diagnosed with a serious disease or condition.

  The research paper went on to give results concerning smokers and other various behaviors and diseases, but needless to say the results continued to edify a picture of tremendous health implications in regards to one’s emotional well being when traumatic life events are not allowed to be resolved.  The author of the paper went onto speak to the effectiveness of hypnotherapy in attending to the needs of people wanting to regain a semblance of balance in their lives.  This perspective is one I easily can share as the results mentioned in this paper are also reflective of what I find in my practice as a hypnotherapist.  In the past I’ve worked with a number of folks who felt that they had left their past behind them and moved on in their lives, yet who find, in session, emotions, memories and situations that while buried, (often deeply) were not fully resolved and therefore affecting them in significant ways.  Ultimately, I’ve found that while many are busily living their lives a portion of their mental, emotional, and physical energy is being expended keeping that wall up, keeping the past “out of mind” so to speak.  Often this works until the body and spirit exhausted from years of effort reveal a physical manifestation of an emotional wound from long ago.  I’m not saying here that all ills are founded in childhood traumas or emotional life events; however I am saying almost all problems, by definition, have an emotional content connected to them.   It is here that hypnotherapy holds great potential.  In closing I have to say that this whole system of cause and effect reminds me of something Albert Einstein shared when contemplating some of life’s big questions, and while I’m pretty sure he wasn’t speaking about hypnosis in particular, it rings with a voice of such clarity I’m bound to listen and act accordingly as he stated, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”  I couldn’t agree more, so until next time, let me thank you once again for sharing paths with me.

Until next time, I wish you much health and happiness.   - Richard     

For a full text version of the research article referenced in this column click the button.  

        Then, click on the “Causes of Cancer” link.