"First they ignore you. Then they disagree with you. Then they fight you. Then you win." -- Ghandi

The progress of scientific revolutions is less violent, but sometimes no less heated, than political ones. I highly recommend the excellent outline and study guide  for Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Kuhn, 2012),  which has recently been published in its fiftieth anniversary edition. (In my opinion, the outline reads better than the original!) Of particular relevance are Pajares' notes on Chapter V, X, and the chapters which follow it.

As Shakespeare said in his play, The Tempest, "The past is prologue" -- or, as a New York cab driver reportedly phrased it, "Brother, you ain't seen nothin' yet!"

Reference

Kuhn, T. S. (2012). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 4th ed. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press

 

A One-Minute Meditation for the Management of Chronic Pain

The world is too much with us, late and soon.

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.

==William Wordsworth, 1807

By experiencing one minute a day of mindfulness meditation some significant changes can occur in your life, because the effects begin to multiply as the one minute meditations become a more frequent part of your life. You will feel more calm, resilient, creative, clearer thinking, focused and peaceful without detatching yourself from liife or interfering with other activities., When combined with other applications, for example,  meditation can be helpful in the management of chronic pain.

You can do this one minute meditation with eyes closed or eyes open. If you choose to have your eyes open in the beginning, I suggest you focus your eyes on something that has little meaning such as a doorknob or a speck of dust on the floor. If you are driving, you can use stopping for a red light as a cue to practice your one minute meditation by focusing on the red light until it changes.

Your focus of attention during the meditation is the experience of your breathing in and out. You will focus on some aspect of your breathing that feels natural to you, such as your chest moving, the feeling of air moving through your nose or mouth, your belly moving, your shoulders moving, or any aspect of breath that feels comfortable and natural. As you breathe out, relax any lightness in your body. During the one minute you will likely experience your mind having shifted from focusing on your breath to focusing on something else such as your thoughts, images, feelings, sensations, memories, conversations, movements, and/or other things. You may suddenly notice sounds you had not noticed before. You may find yourself reviewing conversations that you had earlier, or you may find yourself solving problems that you have been working on,or you may notice tensions in your body that come into awareness. When you notice that your awareness and attention have shifted away from your breath, you will mindfully, gently, calmly, and peacefully return your attention to your breath, just noticing the distraction without pushing it away or taking it in, or evaluating, judging, or getting involved in the distraction. Just gently and lovingly return your attention to your breath. You may find yourself doing this from 10 to 100 times during your one minute meditation. Eventually you will find that your "meditation muscle" gets stronger and there are fewer distractions. The distractions are normal and are part of the nature of our minds. Thoughts are like clouds in the sky. If you just notice them without trying to push them away or analyze them, they usually just pass away. The mindfulness practice will eventually bring you more peace, compassion, joy and calm for yourself and for others. 

Don't expect immediate results. The purpose of meditation is not to turn you into master overnight. Meditation works best when it is done for its own sake, without becoming attached to results.

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"Covert Hypnosis" and "Ambush Hypnosis:" It's Mostly a Hoax, Folks!

In spite of the numerous advertisements encouraging you to learn how to do just that, don't just sidle up to someone at the mall, or someone who is asleep, and try to hypnotize them on the sly!

Though not impossible, it is extremely difficult to hypnotize someone without their prior knowledge and consent. Although covert hypnosis (sometimes referred to as "ambush hypnosis") can work occasionally with an unsuspecting person who is caught by surprise, much more often than not, people will catch on to what you are trying to do. They will either laugh at you, or become angry for insulting their intelligence, and/or suspect that you have an ulterior motive and report you as a suspicious person -- that is, if they don't decide to take the matter into their own hands.

Overcoming the Negativie Suggestions from your "Inner Hypnotist"

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The psychologist Albert Ellis has put together a list of ten commonly held beliefs which are all false, but which many of us have are inclined to accept, at least occasionally, If they are not identified and specifically eliminated ahead of time, these negative beliefs can function as deeply-rooted autosugestions which may cause the hypnotist's positive suggestions to be rejected without either the hypnotist or the client knowing why. Since many clients are able to recognize these negative beliefs about themselves if they are specifically asked about them, I frequently go over this list with them before their initial hypnosis session: 

I must be perfect in all respects in order to be worthwhile. Many people are haunted by the nagging fear that "something is wrong with them." Nobody can be perfect in everything that we have to do in life. But if you believe that you're a failure unless you are perfect in every way, you are setting yourself up for a lifetime of unhappiness.

I must be loved and approved of by everyone who is important to me. Sometimes you just can't help making enemies, and there are people in the world who bear ill will to almost everyone. But you can't make your own life miserable by trying to please them.

When people treat me unfairly, it is because they are bad people. Most of the people who treat youunfairly have friends and family who love them. People are mixtures of good and bad.

It is terrible when I am seriously frustrated, treated badly, or rejected. Some people have such a short fuse that they can are constantly losing jobs or endangering friendships because they are unable to endure the slightest frustration.

Misery comes from outside forces which I can’t do very much to change. Many prison inmates describe their life as if it were a cork, bobbing up and down on waves of circumstance.

If something is dangerous or fearful, I have to worry about it. Many people believe that "the work of worrying" will help to make problems go away: "Okay, that's over. Now, what's the next thing on the list that I have to worry about?"

It is easier to avoid life’s difficulties and responsibilities than to face them. Even painful experiences,once we can get through them, can serve as bases for learning and future growth.

Because things in my past controlled my life, they have to keep doing so now and in the future. If thiwere really true, it would mean that we are prisoners of our past, and change is impossible. But people change all the time -- and sometimes they change dramatically!

It is terrible when things do not work out exactly as I want them to. Could you have predicted the course of your own life? Probably not. By the same token, you can't predict that things are going to work out exactly as you want them to, even in the short term.

I can be as happy as possible by just doing nothing and enjoying myself, taking life as it comes. If this were true, almost every wealthy or comfortably retired person would do as little as possible. But instead, they seek new challenges as pathways to further growth.

Of course, this list does not cover all the negative beliefs which hold us back from becoming the best that we can be. But they are so common that most of us have believed some of them at least part of the time. As far as the others are concerned, whenever you feel a change in mood and you find yourself feeling angry, anxious, depressed, or fearful, you can use a table like this one to write down what was going through your mind at the time, and to figure out how you might be able to see things differently. You can use the print command on your computer to print off as many copies as you need, and keep them handy to change your moods by re-examining and changing the beliefs that got you there.

The "Backstory" can Validate or Invalidate ANY Hypnotic Technique!

The hypnoverse of all possible experiences which may be brought about by means of suggestion is theoretically unlimited, as is the multiverse of potenial experiences which constitute our daily lives (Gibbons & Woods, 2016). But the circumstances in which we presently find ourselves are fixed; and to sucessfully blend the former into the latter, we mst consider the context from which we start.  Here is Steve Lynn's excellent summary of how they work together, followed by an illustration of their application in everyday life.. His first sentences deal with the structure of the hypnoverse, and the final sentence refers to their application in the multiverse in which we live. 

 . . .how clients respond to suggestions depends less on the nature and success of a particular induction than on the following variables: (a) clients' prehypnotic attitudes, beliefs, intentions, and expectations about hypnosis; (b) their ability to think, fantasize, and absorb themselves in suggestions; (c) their ability to form a trusting relationship with the hypnotist; (d) their ability to interpret suggestions appropriately and view their responses as successful; (e) their ability to discern task demands and cues; (f) their ongoing interaction with the hypnotist; and (g) the appropriateness of the therapeutic methods and suggestions to treating the presenting problem. . . . Accordingly, clinicians should devise inductions and suggestions with these variables in mind and tailor their approach to the unique personal characteristics and agenda of each client they encounter" (Gibbons & Lynn, 2010, p. 289).  

 A nurse I used to work with in a screening center asked me to hypnotize her to stop smoking, which I was happy to do. She mentioned that one of her high school teachers used to hypnotize her regularly (apparently as a demonstration subject in his classes), so it was clear that she was imaginatively gifted. 

We didn't have time for the usual stop-smoking program that I use, with three visits and all the rest. But, knowing her as I did, it was clear that if she was ready to stop she was going to do so, with hypnosis providing the necessary catalyst regardless of the time and format which were available to us -- so I just gave her the usual stop-smoking suggestions, with the usual repetition and elaboration. As I recall, I told her that her desire to smoke would vanish, that the cues which would normally awaken a desire to smoke would no longer be effective in doing so; that she could not be suddenly surprised by taking a cigarette without thinking of it; and that she would feel strong feelings of pride, achievement, and accomplishment at the fact that she had become a non-smoker, 

To my consternation, the next day, when I asked her how she had done, and she told me that she had gone home and smoked an entire pack of cigarettes! But six months later, when I casually mentioned something about her smoking, she told me, "Oh, I haven't smoked since the time you hypnotized me."`

"But didn't you go home and smoke up a whole pack?" I asked her.

"Yes," she replied. "And then I stopped."

Having worked side by side on the same unit with her for quite some time, I was familiar enough with her "personality and unique characteristics" to realize why she had responded the way she did. Her approach to authority was basically confrontational. In her everyday work environment, she made it obvious to everyone around her that, "Nobody's going to tell ME what to do!" So, when I gave her suggestions under hypnosis that she was going to stop smoking, her life narrative required that she had to first go home and deliberately smoke up a whole pack just to prove that I wasn't telling HER what to do. Then, once she had made the point to her own satisfaction, she could comply with my suggestions because she was ready to change. 

References

Gibbons, D. E., & Lynn, S. J. (2008). Hypnotic inductions: A primer. In Ruhe, J. W., Lynn, S. J., & Kirsch, I. (Eds.) Handbook of clinical hypnosis, 2nd ed. Washington, DC: American Psychological Assn.

Gibbons, D. E., & Woods, K. T. (2016). Virtual reality hypnosis: Explorations in the Multiverse. Amazon Books

Viirtual Reality Hypnosis? Throw Away Those Goggles!

Most people are familiar with Charles Dickens' story, "A Christmas Carol," in which the miserly Scrooge is sited by three spirits who "scare the Dickens" out of him and he becomes a lovable old gentleman who "knew how to keep Christmas better than anyone."If Dickens had been writing in the twenty-first century instead of the nineteenth, he would probably have had Scrooge make a few visits to an experiential hypnotist who, as Kelley Woods and I have been doing, would use hypnosis guide the client to a series of parallel universes, in which things would turn out differently i-- except we know now that we should use love and happiness rather than fear as an incentive to make the point. We don't need to use 3-D glasses to use virtual reality hypnosis. We use a combination of Kelley's mindful hypnosis and Don's BEST ME technique to allow clients to project their entire being into another Universe -- and it works!

Virtual Reality Hypnosis: Adventures in the Multiverse extends Dickens' approach to the modern era, often with dramatic results., Clients have been saying things like, "I can't thank you enough!" and, "I'm at a point in my life now where I think I can accomplish anything!" The changes which they are reporting in their lives seem to bear this out.

The Best Me Technique of Self-Hypnosis

The "Best Me Technique" is a form of hyperempiria, or suggestion-enhanced experience, which involves your whole person in the content of a suggested event. Every letter in "Best Me" corresponds with a different element of experience and these elements can be applied in a variety of ways. It's the versatility and the thoroughness of these elements that makes the Best Me Technique distinct from meditation and visualization exercises.

This link shows how to hypnotize yourself using the Best Me Technique. Since I put it up on WikiHow in 2009, it has received over 1-1/4 million hits.

I just looked over the comments A few people said that it did not work for them, which is par for the course with any hypnotic induction. However, the overall approval rating in the upper right hand corner of the article is four stars out of five over the seven-year period that it has been up. 

Print References 

Gibbons, D. E., & Lynn, S. J. (2010). Hypnotic inductions: A primer. in S. J. Lynn, J. W. Rhue, & I. Kirsch (Eds.) Handbook of clinical hypnosis, 2nd ed. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, pp. 267-291.

Gibbons, D. E. (2000). Applied hypnosis and hyperempiria. Lincoln, NE: Authors Choice Press (originally published 1979 by Plenum Publishing Co.).

Which Hypnotic Induction is Best for Your Client?

Many books have been written on the subject of hypnotic inductions and more are appearing every year, some of which are quire expensive. But how are we to tell which induction is the best one to use for any individual client?
At the British Royal Society of Medicine a few years ago, one woman said that she would lapse into her native Gaelic after an induction and it would  work just fine, regardless of whether or not the client understood what she was saying. This explains why witch doctors and medicine men can also be effective in cultures which support these beliefs, as long as the basic ingredients of rapport and positive expectations for change are present, As Steve Lynn so eloquently put it in his summary of our induction chapter in the American Psychological Association's Handbook of Clinical Hypnosis:   

If proper consideration is given to: a) the personality and characteristics of each individual client we encounter; b) the establishment of rapport and positive expectations for change; and c) the total situation in which the session is conducted, then we might well be successful even if the body of the session was delivered in Gaelic and the client did not understand a word of it.  Perhaps that's why, in cultures that accept it, putting on a mask and dancing around the subject chanting nonsense and shaking rattles at them is often the treatment of choice (Gibbons & Lynn, 2010)

Print Sources

Gibbons, D. E., & Lynn, S. J. (2010). Hypnotic inductions: A primer. in S. J. Lynn, J. W. Rhue, & I. Kirsch (Eds.) Handbook of clinical hypnosis, 2nd ed. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, pp. 267-291.  

Gibbons, D. E. (2000). Applied hypnosis and hyperempiria. Lincoln, NE: Authors Choice Press (originally published 1979 by Plenum Publishing Co.).

Sarbin, T. R., & De Rivera, J. (1998),  Believed-in imaginings: The Narrative Consruction of Reality (Memory, Trauma, Dissociation, and Hypnosis) . Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.