Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Is Hypnosis an Art or a Science?

I have been intrigued by the bad reputation that hypnosis has received since it was first practiced. From the beginning in the 19th century, when it was generally referred to as "Mesmerism", there was much suspicion about how some hypnotic events between doctor and patient were occurring. Franz Mesmer himself thought there was some effective magnetism that flowed from doctor to patient. This was in the lifetime of Benjamin Franklin. Franklin, as a then notable scientist, was summoned to Paris to evaluate Mesmer's work. Franklin and his colleagues declared that there was no magnetism or science involved.
The mesmeric phenomenon was off to a bad start. Then,two Scottish practitioners, Braide and Esdaile began using it in medical practice, and theorized that nobody was controlling anybody by magnetism or anything else: the good effect came from what state of consciousness the patient achieved, with the guidance of the doctor's words. James Esdaile, son of a Presbyterian minister, was a surgeon who practiced his craft in India around 1850. Without anesthetic ( which wasn't yet in use), he removed tumors and limbs from patients, who apparently experienced no pain when in a hypnotic state. This is amazing to me, and makes me think that the effectiveness of the trance probably depended on the cultural expectations of people in India at that time. Nowadays, our "belief" in the scientific method would not let most of us escape into a pain-free state of consciousness so easily. I am told that the best place to practice hypnosis for pain in Western cultures, is the emergency room, where people are really looking for ways to avoid the pain of physical trauma.
Soon, because of peoples interest in the unusual mental phenomenon seen in trances, it seemed everyone wanted to experience it or witness it. Charles Dickens used hypnosis as entertainment at large parties hosted at his home at the height of his career. Stage hypnosis was used as entertainment right into the twenty-first century, where it has aroused both peoples' suspicions and interest. "Cluck like a chicken" is the familiar phrase most of the general public think of when you ask if they want to be hypnotized even for for clinical purposes ( like, for example, irritable bowel syndrome).
I have been thinking that maybe we should call clinical hypnosis something else to avoid the negative associations of the name. I believe it is a powerful healing force, and have seen how it works. Maybe: "healing meditation" would be better.





Friday, June 20, 2014

On Horror Stories

How can we be more alert to relationships in which we are called upon to be a compassionate friend?I am speaking of situations where you know someone has a health concern, and may want to air their anxieties. It obviously calls for being a good listener. The question is can everyday conversations with friends be a place for some kind of "healing" presence? I would be interested to hear reader comments. Can it be mutual? What if you have your own concerns, and you are in need of a good listener, yourself? Will common sense be enough? The occasions of "horror stories" seem to reveal that we don't always realize when we are relating things that may have powerful suggestions. What does it take to increase one's self-awareness of what you are saying in these situations, so that comfort and compassion can prevail?

Saturday, April 5, 2014

Babyboomer Remarrying :Should You Marry for Love?

This raises a lot of issues about the nature of love, and just how intuition could be applied in such a major decision as partner choice. Widows and widowers often find themselves in a position later in life where they want to make a decision about gaining a new partner. Decisions made at a young age would have been influenced by a more idealistic notion of romantic love then what situation a person finds themselves in at this stage in life.
    So now, a person finds himself/herself able to take advantage of the wisdom of marital satisfaction/dissatisfactions--older and wiser, with different needs as a result of age, health, wealth
accumulation. Plus, how to prioritize the needs of companionship, affection, sex, not to mention security. Some people like the " living together separately" group really only want someone to travel with, go to entertainment venues, or just occasionally go out to dinner. These latter have had all they want out of a marriage and are satisfied with that. Decision-making at this level is more about dating then it is about marriage.
   Others have a serious opportunity to remarry, perhaps fulfilling some of the needs they did not have fulfilled in a previous marriage. Decision-making now becomes a bit more complicated. For example, should one choose a partner based on practical considerations, or could you make a choice based on not just what your head tells you what your heart tells you.
    I think here's where intuition comes into the picture. By now you may have learned whether to trust your intuition's generally speaking.
    This is a fairly large group of people I am talking because an AARP statistic says that 45% of those over 65 are now divorced widowed or separated, and they are the fastest growing segment of online daters.  AARP now has its own matchmaking service. I think it is safe to say that the difficulty of this new group of potential couplers is more about trusting love and intuition than it is about age. According to the New York Times "(Matchmakers Help Those Over 60...") article on this issue some people are paying big bucks to find
just the right mate through matchmaking services. It turns out that women are the big searchers, because there're fewer men alive at this age.
    Intuition comes into play when you have to trust a  decision that is more complex than it was when you were younger. Reconnecting at this stage in life at whatever level of involvement you may choose, requires, some assessment of your emotional needs, and  knowing what you want out of life considering that it is now shorter period of time . Matchmaking services may help to put you in touch with those whom you have listed as having preferred qualities, such as education political stance, tastes in entertainment,and desire to travel. But as rationali this might be, your final decision will probably be relying on intuition. What role do dreams, prayer, meditation play in sharpening intuition?

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Healing and the Placebo Effect

    I am getting ready to teach a course at Chautauqua Institute in Upstate New York this summer. The title is "The Body's Mysterious Healing Ability". It is about what behaviors and attitudes may enable one to activate the immune system for healing, including physical healing. The latter is sometimes known as "spontaneous remission", and includes the shrinking of cancerous tumors. When medical professionals observe this happening, they often do not see it as something that could be anything than rare, unrepeatable, or influenced by the human belief system.
    There are obvious theological problems when two people are prayed for in religious healing, and one person gets well, while the other one does not. We probably should not attribute this to a whimsical or punishing God! So the healing is mysterious. But is there something to be discussed here?
    I think, from my reading up to now, that a person's level trust in their doctor or their minister (or some combination, as it appears in numerous cultures in the form of shamanism) determines the effectiveness of prescribed pharmaceuticals. Modern American religion is not likely to get into shamanistic healing, but some who subscribe to different forms of spirituality and humanistic psychology do enact rituals which I have seen personally, and look like a religious practice. The Christian Church has long had a healing ritual of anointing with oil, often in a worship setting.
    There is alternative medicine literature that shows good scientific research on what the general practitioner can do to enhance the immune system when treating patients for a variety of illnesses, including complex diseases. I will show a bibliography later.
   There is a lot of literature on the placebo effect, which touches on a bodily response that often gets in the way of "proper" pharmaceutical research and development. But to see the placebo effect as a positive thing that we might like to encourage and influence is relatively new. Except that in the history of modern American (allopathic) medicine, ANY effectiveness of a prescribed pill before the 1940's was largely based on how the physician prescribed it, that is, what sort of relationship he promoted with his/her patient.
   Non-Western medicine has for centuries already known some things about natural medicines, and how they are "delivered" to the patient. Also the American Indian traditions use physical medicines we would consider odd, as we would consider the rituals odd that accompany them.
   

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

More on Intuition

I am curious how "natural" the intuitive function is. Apparently some people seem to be born with high intuitive skills. Women especially are seen as being more intuitive than men. some think this is because they have a slightly different brain structure; others say it is that at least in this country, there is a kind of permission for women to make decisions on intuition--a permission that culturally assigns men to functioning more strictly "rational". David Myers book, called "Intuition, Its Powers and Perils", has some interesting reading on the subject. We all have examples in our lives of thinking of someone, and then the next thing comes a phone call from that person. Some people have this kind of thing happen more frequently. Others get a "warning" from their dealing with another person, especially someone you meet for the first time.It is enough to make you think that there is some kind of  consciousness that connects us all, if we would just tune into it. By definition, it is not rational. Neither is is irrational; just non-rational.
    The TV show, " The Mentalist", shows our fascination with the sharp discerning skills of Simon Baker. "Sherlock" on PBS, who has a cult following, is another good example of paying attention to subtle clues, many of which are non-verbal. These are some of the things that a good psychotherapist will give attention to as a way of reading unconscious material in a counselee. For me it is a kind of meditative thing, being fully present to the person, empathic, open, trusting/testing what I read between the lines.
  As for personally employing intuition, I tend to rely on my dreams for a "reading" of what I am picking up unconsciously in my waking life. I use this especially when I am troubled by something.It is like my subconscious self is collecting data all day, some of which I am not consciously paying much attention to, then at night this subconscious puts things together and tells me a story--if I can just figure it out. There is an account of a sixth grade girl who dreamt that her teacher was pregnant, which had not been announced anywhere. She was picking up on signals of the teachers comments, behaviour, and putting it together as an intuitive conclusion.
   As I meet more people who are high intuitives, or "empaths", I think I have a theory on how the average person gets turned on intensely to their intuitive skills and insights. I think that these exceptional people learn early in their life to trust what the rest of us usually dismiss. One example is a women whose grandfather died when she was 12. He was her only real father, because her birth father had left the family. She was devastated in her grief, and lying on her bed, she "saw" her grandfather, who gave her some comfort in her grief. It was after that when she began to be aware of more things that she could see in other people. She did not think of her experience as a "normal" grief phenomenon, which it likely was, but as an initiation into the mysteries of the paranormal. I once tried to "telecommunicate" with her, over 100 miles away. That didn't work, but she told me that she awoke one morning with a strong sense that my wife was homesick, and wanted to shorten the vacation trip we were on. It was true, but was it intuition or deductive reasoning? I need more data from other people's experience on this, but it seems like adaptation and survival hightens intuitive abilities. This woman said it was sometimes a burden to see so much, some of which for her was a kind of futurecasting.
    The psychic I saw for the card reading had a lonely childhood because of the preoccupation of her parents with two sick brothers. They were in and out of the hospital with hemophelia, and she was neglected. She started to think that she was odd with her intuitive powers, and kept it to herself until she grew up, got married. It was then that she embraced these abilities.
 
   This is my new blog.Moreover, I am new to the idea of blogging.Last year at this time, I thought a blog was a miry place you grew cranberries in. Now it seems inevitable that I would have to use this medium of communication I have patiently waded through the set-up process to learn just how things work. I will give you some basics for navigating the swamp located at this end of the blogesphere, in case you are a newbie, like me.
   When you first arrive at the edge of the blog spot, you will see my "published" articles, by date, situated on the left side of the main page. You should not have to log into anything to see this, once you have followed the web address, WilliamRMorrow.blogspot.com.
   At the end of each of my postings, you will see a place for your contribution, "Post a comment" and a blank box in which to write your reactions, contributing ideas, comments, questions. Everyone who then visits my blog will see your comments. If you want your  comments to be private, you should not post here, but send me an email in the usual way: wmorrowmft@embarqmail.com.
   On the right side of the main page is the "Blog Archive" of previous posts by me, which may not show up until you click on one. Right now there are just a few, and they will all be visible as described above.
   There may be other useful things around the page to click on, but as a basic blogcommentator you probably wont need them. There is a way for you, the visitor, to create a direct path to this blog so you can access it readily, but I haven't figured that out yet. Good luck and let me know your feedback. I want it to be user friendly.May you always stand on solid ground, but don't be afraid to get your feet wet! This could be fun as well as enlightening for both of us.
  

Friday, January 3, 2014

Beginning thoughts about Intuition

What is the nature of intuition in our day-to-day functioning? As a psychotherapist and hypnotherapist, I am interested in how intuition may be an aid to better decision-making for everyone. I am also interested in how one can become more intuitive if someone is not naturally gifted with intuition. And why would they want to?
I went to a conference last year sponsored by the Florida Society of Clinical Hypnosis, where the express purpose of the training was to increase the intuitive "skills" of the therapist. I do not see myself as one who regularly uses intuition to understand others; some of the professionals at the conference apparently could "sense" (intuit?) other peoples' emotions, and maybe even more about their problems.
The way I am most comfortable using intuition is in dream analysis, where I think our intuition is at work to help us better understand ourselves.
I am most uncomfortable with persons who are supposedly "high intuitives" and use their skill like a psychic.
As I explore this topic further, I would welcome your input. Especially with regard to your personal experience with intuition, as an aid to dealing with relationships, or with emotional issues.