Mental Health and Medication

I will preface my comments with this: I am not a any kind of "doctor". My training is limited to helping people address and change their behaviors. I do not have anything against doctors. My wife is an orthodontist and we get along fine.. most of the time. But I am a smart guy and I learn fast. I have seen many clients under doctor referral to address many different medical issues. My comments are my opinions based off of my experience, observations and reading.

The day after the Virginia Tech shootings, a radio announcer I was listening to said "the shooter undoubtedly had psychological issues and should have been using medication". When I heard that, I thought to myself, "I bet he was on medication."

Then the stories about his psychological state and then confirmed psychiatric drug use.

"According to breaking news from investigators at Virginia Tech, Cho may have taken depression drugs—documented by the Food and Drug Administration to cause suicidal behavior, mania, psychosis, hallucinations, hostility and “homicidal ideation.” Cho Seung-Hui psychiatric drug use is confirmed, it brings the total to 61 killed and 77 wounded by psychiatric drug-induced school shootings."

This is a surprise to many people, but not everyone.

Everyday I work with clients that are on psychiatric medications. I have had potential clients improve things such as compulsive purchasing, gambling, sleeplessness, bipolar symptoms, weight gain, anger, depression, etc., after simply reducing medication intake with their doctor.

I'v worked with a woman who has been heavily medicated since her mid-teens. She does not know what it would be to feel "normal". We started working together between medications.. We worked on her self-confidence for two sessions. She came back the third time and told me "I didn't feel like killing myself this weekend". She claims this is the most progress she can remember having. The following week her doctor had her increase the dosage of the medication she was starting. She had side effects; mania, hallucinations, sleeplessness, anger, confusion, suicidal thoughts. Her family took her to the hospital where they heavily sedated her. The doctor's comment was "the medication seems to be showing some manic depressive symptoms. They planned to continue the medications. Her self-confidence was gone and she felt hopeless and suicidal again.

We have continued working together on her self-confidence and she is feeling better again.

I guess that is my rant.

As a result I have found a very helpful resource - http://www.cchr.org and http://www.cchr.org/files/14552/Violence%20White%20Paper.pdf
It contains information that is very pertinent. I believe it will get a larger following because of the recent violence at Virgina Tech.

Patrick Glancy, CH
www.glancyhypnosis.com

Hypnosis and Self-hypnosis

Hypnosis is a great tool.. Like a guided self-help. Self-hypnosis is very useful and powerful, but still limited in it's scope.

Buying self-hypnosis audios online can be tricky from what I have seen.
The technique used on one persons CD may work for some people and not for others, depending on their approach and training with hypnosis.

Finding and creating an audio that will be widely useful and accepted has been taking a lot of my focus. Getting someone into an appropriate depth reliably with a recording is a tall order. Depending on the time of day and the type of person, they may be tired, have kids in the background, be distracted, not have enough time, etc..

I believe I have a rapid/brief induction that will achieve an appropriate hypnotic state quickly and reliably. A ten minute audio that someone can practice a few times, then apply to a specific recording - wieght, smoking, confidence or whatever.
Using a hybrid of a "group Elman" induction along with some of my own deepening.

This teaches a post-hypnotic induction so that the reinforcment audios do not need to spend any time on this.

Patrick Glancy, CH
www.glancyhypnosis.com

Hypnosis is like.......

Hypnosis commonly gets a bad rap. It is compared to chiropractics before the late 70's. At that time Chiropractics was often seen as "quacky" and new age. Then at the end of the 70's it began to become a normal part of the medical community. People began to see it for what it really is. Though, Chiropractor friend tells me that some people still have malformed ideas about it.

Hypnosis seems to be like that now. It is often mistaken for what it is not. But I can understand that perception because some people practice hypnosis in ways that make it look strange. They are afraid it is about brainwashing or a religious practice. It is not any of that.

This morning I thought of a metaphor for hypnosis and I will try it out here.

Hypnosis is like cement. Yeah.

Anyone can pour cement. But if you want a good driveway you find someone that is good at the process. Someone that has experience and training. A person can specialize in cement and make art, house foundations, roads and skyscrapers. They can even build a church from cement. The skyscraper and church are made from the same cement but the church is seen as religious and the road is not.

Hypnosis is it's own thing. People can use it in many ways. It can be made to look like many things.

I still like this metaphor :)

Patrick Glancy,CH
www.glancyhypnosis.com

Hypnosis techniques - after the sessions

My clients average 3 sessions to achieve desired results. Some are more some are less. This will depend on the person and the issue(s). Some people would achieve better results with more sessions in my opinion, but the client is in charge of their progress. Some will come back later if they need more help, but some do not.

I charge per session. I'm sure some people cut down the number of sessions because of the cost. At the same time, there are some people that would not have come in at all, would not have had ANY progress if I charged a package price for a preset number of sessions. Some hypnotists do this. I can see the benefit of both approaches but will stick with my pay-per-session policy for now.

I call clients a few weeks after the last session to ask their opinion of their continued results.

I have a client reported success rate of 82%. I assume that the actual success rate is closer to 70%. This percentage is for all issues combined. It is higher for things like fears or smoking cessation (90%) and lower for weight management (80%). Weight management is the most common issue worked with, and it is also the most complex.


Patrick Glancy, CH
www.glancyhypnosis.com

Hypnosis techniques - ending the session

I always end my session with suggestions that include the specific situations and issues the client has expressed. This makes things much more personal and applicable to the clients life.

As well, I teach self-hypnosis to each client using a post-hypnotic suggestion and trigger. They can use the self-hypnosis for whatever they like. Important to me, is that they can use the post-hypnotic trigger for a more rapid induction at the next session. Also, it is used on my reinforcement CD audios that each client recieves. This allows the reinforcement CD's to be very short and powerful. At an average of five minutes the cd's are easy to fit into a busy day. This makes them easier to use during the parts of the day they are most needed.

Patrick Glancy, CH
www.glancyhypnosis.com

Hypnosis techniques - addressing the presented issue

There are two basic approaches to addressing the presented issue. The older and more commonly known technique is "suggestion". When a person is in a hypnotized state, they are more accepting of suggestions. Suggestion based hypnosis is able to help some people. But a more common outcome from a suggestion session is short term results or none at all. If a person has an existing habit, suggestions just fight against it. If you think of an old style balance scale - the existing habit is on one side and is heavier. On the other side is the current motivation to change. If you add suggestions to the motivation side, you may be able to out-weigh the habit. And maybe not. If the suggestion is able to change things, the habit can still exist and be fighting against the suggestions until it wears them down. = short term change.

The more modern techniques focus on the habit directly. Changing or removing the learned behavior so there is minimal, if any, habit to fight against. Using the balance scale example, if you have nothing on the habit side of the scale, the motivation side is much easier. Of course the clients chance of success is much higher. Followed up with suggestions, you have a powerful and brief process.

From my research and office experience, the second technique is preferred. It is more comfortable, has more consistent results and uses less sessions so is less costly for the client.

Patrick Glancy, Ch
www.glancyhypnosis.com

Hypnosis techniques - the induction

There are 3 basic categories of hypnotic inductions that I will be talking about. Instant, rapid and classic relaxation. There are many variations of each category that have no relevance in this discussion.

Classic relaxation is what most people think of when talking about hypnosis. "your foot is getting sleepy", "Your whole right leg has gone to sleep", etc.. This induction can take over 30 minutes to do and accomplishes inconsistent results. While this can be comfortable, a person that just finished work and is tired can fall asleep (NOT OK for hypnotherapy - more on this later). A person that is fidgety or distracted will get bored. A person that is an analytical thinker will just wonder when they're supposed to be hypnotized. Because of this it does not consistently provide an appropriate depth of hypnosis. It can provide limited success, but with so many downfalls, this technique is slowly becoming less common.

Instant inductions are what you will generally see at a stage show. Distractions like noise and activity are almost a non-issue. An analytical or fidgety person does not have time to wonder much of anything before they are in trance. This technique is reliable in accomplishing appropriate depth, hence it's use in front of an audience. Another obvious reason for it's use in these situations is the entertainment aspect of watching this type of induction.


While there may be situations where both of the above techniques are appropriate in the office, rapid inductions combine the best parts from both. Rapid inductions last just a couple minutes with an additional couple minutes spent on deepening when appropriate. This leaves the rest of the session being spent on addressing the presented issue. A good rapid induction should have built in tests for depth of trance that help show the client they are in a different mental state.

Rapid inductions are what I will use most of the time. I am partial to them and for good reason. I will use the other techniques but rapid induction provides my clients the best possible results in the most cost effective manner. I have had clients request relaxation techniques before, because they may have used them in the past. While I will do what they ask me to do, I always feel like I'm cheating them. like they are not getting their money's worth. Maybe I should use self-hypnosis to deal with that guilt.... and even in those cases I will often show them a rapid induction and post hypnotic so we can use them in the next session if they choose.

There is much more that can be brought up in this topic, but it would be wasted time since the result would be the same.

The topic has been a point of debate among hypnotists. I do not bring it up here to create debate, but simply to state the facts as I know them.

Patrick Glancy, CH
www.glancyhypnosis.com