Irene Nichols, CH,CNC, RM, B.DIV

Holistic Hypnosis

Irene Nichols has been certified by the National Guild of Hypnotists, which was founded in 1951 and is the oldest and largest hypnosis organization of it’s kind.  Professional membership in the NGH signifies that an individual possesses specific qualifications, agrees to abide by a strict code of ethics, and will pursue continuing-education studies for annual recertification.  Medical or psychological referrals may be required for certain conditions.

UNDERSTANDING HYPNOSIS
What It Is and How It Works

The applications of hypnosis is effective for dealing with such matters as habit control, stress, excessive eating, smoking, fears, motivation, self-confidence, concentration, learning enhancement, insomnia, goal-setting, relationships, past lives exploration, and other areas which lead to unhappiness, dysfunction or difficulty in achieving personal goals.

Hypnosis and its uses is rapidly emerging as a highly effective science in solving the problems of people.  It can be very beneficial in many cases as a therapy in itself.  It is a valuable adjunct in psychotherapy and psychiatry.  It is probably the lowest risk procedure available from the standpoint of contradictions. Yet few therapeutic procedures are less understood, or more plagues by misconceptions and misunderstandings.  Before considering what hypnosis is, perhaps it would be appropriate to establish what it is not! Most hypnotists/hypnotherapists, on interviewing a new client will ask what he or she thinks hypnosis is.  Replies range from sleep to unconsciousness to surrender of mental powers and control.  All are in error. Hypnosis cannot be sleep.  In most cases the subject is fully aware of communication and is able to respond on request either verbally or by signal.  Nor is unconsciousness involved. A subject asked to make a specific movement will comply with the request unless it is objectionable, in which case there will be a refusal.

There is no surrender of mind of control.

A person who does not want to be hypnotized cannot be hypnotized or be induced to do or say anything, which violates personal standards of behavior or integrity.  Any hypnotist can explain the actions or behaviors seen in stage, film or television shows, where the subject seems to follow directions mindlessly.

Actually, hypnosis is better described than defined. It is often considered an altered state of consciousness featuring “selective perception,” a process in which the subject (who is in control) chooses to see only what is relevant to his task, blocking out everything else.  Hypnosis involves guided concentration.  The guidance; however, may be provided by a qualified practitioner or in the case of

WHAT YOU WILL EXPERIENCE

Your first visit with your certifies hypnotists will primarily be exploratory.  You will learn about hypnotism and become comfortable with it.  Irene will discuss your interests and your desires to determine if hypnotherapy can accomplish what you want to achieve. If you both feel that it will be worthwhile to proceed, she may give you some small tests to determine your type of suggestibility, your ability to relax, your skills at visualization- procedures which help your therapist adapt to you as an individual so as to design programming personalized for you which will be acceptable to your subconscious, retained and acted upon in a manner leading to full achievement of your goals.

Irene Nichols is a Certified Transformation Healing Practitioner ( THM )

The transformational Healing Method ( THM ) is a healing process for transforming darkness into light. Based on transformational hypnotherapy and combined with EFT, (Emotional Freedom Techniques) and the Wise Mind Process, it is a profound and comprehensive healing modality for working with most emotional, physical and spiritual issues. With this method you can transform life's challenges into states of well being, move through such fundamental challenges as physical issues, abandonment, abuse, addictions, habits, past issues, fears, emotions, and sabotaging thoughts. Ultimately, you can move into your true essence of strength, love, healing, and positive redirection. You receive emotional and physical healing as well as support for spiritual transformation.

A. The Four Phases of a Session: Description

THM has four phases: Interview, Preliminary Techniques, Deep Inner Healing, and Tape-Making. The Deep Inner Healing phase has three stages: Experience, Release, and Transform.

The THM healing system also includes special techniques to discover the root cause of issues and to release obstacles.

Some of the Results of The Transformational Healing Method are:

This healing system embraces all levels of consciousness.

With the combined powers of your subconscious mind, higher consciousness, conscious mind and energy system, you can resolve the dilemmas of your life. You can do self-healing or work with someone else.

The subconscious mind is a repository of all that you have been and done. It's the storage place the database, of all that has taken place in your experience. You can visit it and take a journey into its vast terrain. You can put it on “search mode”- ask it what you need to know at any given point in time.

Higher consciousness is a built-in enlightenment system. Through it you experience the love, healing power, wisdom and compassion of the universe.

The energy system is a system of meridians or energy pathways in your body. Getting in touch with this system can help to create a state of well being in your body, mind and emotions.

And because the quality of your thoughts naturally has a deep effect on your healing process, we also address your conscious mind .

The way out is through

This is a system for healing whatever in your life is obscuring your essence. The results are both practical and transcendental. Its philosophy is that “the way out is through,” that there is nothing inherently bad or wrong with anything you're undergoing. Everything is material worthy of being paid attention to. Everything you're experiencing is an opportunity for understanding and self-knowledge.

Inside your own being is an essence that is ready to shine beyond the difficulties that life presents. Through the Transformational Healing Method, you receive tools and techniques and ways of extraordinary healing. As you move through the stages of “Experience, Release, and Transform,” you first allow yourself to fully experience your experience, to come to know what's taking place within you. Next, you're able to release the experience and then you can transform it.

Every experience carries richness and has value. Paying close attention is the first step in the process of self-knowledge. It is a process of looking with an inner microscope or magnifying glass and just seeing what's there. It's about looking, for example, at current experiences that are taking place in your body- pains, constrictions, tingling, holding- whatever is happening in the moment. It's also about looking at the mind and emotions- seeing whether there is sadness or rage or tightness or shame. It's about looking even more deeply at the experience, possibly finding the roots. The roots may be in childhood or they may go all the back to the womb. Or they may go another lifetime or to a belief or a tendency of the mind.

Sometimes release happens naturally as a direct result of “looking deeply” or “paying attention”. Other times, we can assist in the release process by using techniques such as energy therapy (EFT), which taps away old traumas, fears, resentments, guilt, grief, shame, anger and emotional trauma.

Release is a clearing out of your consciousness. It's like cleaning out your closets and drawers, releasing old correspondence or outworn clothes. As you discard these, you ready yourself to invite in a new level of your life. You're ready to initiate an opening of reality that had previously been either closed or unknown.

Release, again, often takes place as a natural outgrowth of paying attention to your experience. As you stay with your experience, often a miracle happens. One person found a lotus at the bottom of a murky pond. Another felt as if she were experiencing a birth process through a very dark tunnel and out into an experience of light.

We remember that healing is the work of a lifetime, that healing is a cyclic process. We know that in this process we continue to transform darkness into light and to experience love and compassion.

Personal Development

Self-Esteem, Confidence, Motivation

Every human being, psychologists claim, has an ultimate goal. The goal may be maintained in the subconscious mind, but it is nonetheless a final objective. And it is the same for all people, regardless of race, creed, nationality or even physical condition.

The ultimate goal for each individual is Self-Actualization: achieving what sports people call a “personal best”. Regardless of background, education, financial standing or other factors, every individual is subconsciously induced to move onward and upward, to be the best possible in relation to beliefs and values.

Progress toward the ultimate goal, and necessary intermediate objectives, is affected by experiential factors- the hand of cards dealt out by heredity, opportunity and life in general. There are three factors essential to positive progress: self-esteem, confidence and motivation. During the course of a lifetime, virtually everyone experiences problems involving one or more of these elements.

Resolving such problems is one of the most important and valuable capabilities of hypnotherapy.

Self-Esteem

High self-esteem is a basic essential of success. Low self-esteem; however, does not suddenly appear, like the symptom of an illness. It develops like a cancer usually unnoticed in early stages, but spreading slowly throughout the mind until, when recognized it may be full-blown, demoralizingly destructive and possibly even terminal.

Low self-esteem actually must be dealt with before progress can be achieved in bulding self-confidence and creating motivation. It is difficult for a person to show confidence when he views himself as a low man on his own totem pole.

While poor self-esteem can emanate from events which might be considered personal setbacks (in business, relationships, health, etc.), the primary cause is negative programming from the past. It might be a product of judgmental parents, teachers, authority figures, relatives or friends. Many times derogatory comments, ridicule, relentless criticism and similar factors ignore commendable achievement and simply focus on and accentuate the negative.

Frequently these events, hurts, or negative valuations are absorbed by and buried in subconscious memory, with the victim totally unaware of the sources of troubled feelings, fears, self-doubt and damaging attitudes.

But we know that the subconscious mind is the storage house of memory. Through hypnosis it is possible to set aside the conscious mind, seek, locate and uncover the detrimental memories which are adversely affecting the personality, and in bringing the problems to light and understanding, accomplish a resolution which can free the client from the past and open the doors to future progress and achievement.

Confidence

The establishment of self-confidence must follow the disposition of past negative programming-eliminating from self-perception any labels such as bad, wrong, stupid, clumsy, dumb, inept, untalented, ignorant, etc. hypnosis can become the source of self-discovery-revealing unrecognized capabilities that lead to an acceptance of valid self-worth.

The procedures for developing self-confidence may vary considerably, depending on the depth and origins of the problem. In milder cases, working out problems of self-esteem may be followed by programming which utilizes visualization, creating in the mind pictures of success, confidence and appropriate abilities. Enhancing suggestions given in hypnotherapy can be absorbed and accepted, leading to attitude modification and positive demonstrations of newly acquired self-assurance.

In more complex cases where depression is a factor, the hypnotherapist may elect to use the techniques of parts therapy or the removal of fears to free up behavior and reduce negative internal judgments so that positive self-feelings and confidence can develop in a natural way.

Longer term results can be significant. Mood and energy levels increase, compulsive and psychosomatic symptoms fade, emotions become understood, clients move toward self-direction and greater interpersonal involvement. Self-derogation is reduced and positive feelings about life's possibilities develop.

Motivation

With self-esteems and confidence enhanced, improved motivation comes into the spotlight. Psychologist Abraham Maslow defined five levels at which people are motivated:

Psychological- food, drink, sleep, sex;

Safety- protection, freedom from fear, order;

Belongingness- love, social contact, family, friends;

Esteem- self-respect, need to be valued;

Self-actualization- the need to grow, to achieve one's potential

Essential to generating positive motivation is elimination of any fear of failure (or its often hidden counter part, fear of success). First, it is important to recognize motivations and subsequent successes of the past. Second, a sense of direction is needed (Where am I going?). Third comes the all important factor of “goal-getting”. Not the ultimate goal, but a short term, quickly achievable goal- a first step to provide convincing proof that forward movement is established. Finally, on achievement of this goal, self-reward. This constitutes self-recognition, a powerful motivating factor. This reward may be a self-treat, or the pride of achievement and self-satisfaction. The lesson learned will be lasting.

Success breeds success!

The purpose of establishing short-term, successive goals is important to understand. A small success generates additional confidence. It creates a sense of completion, readiness and eagerness for the next step. The end result: MOTIVATION!