How to Deal With Passive-Aggressive Behavior

How to Get a Good Night's sleep

Don't just toss and turn in bed when you are having trouble sleeping. Get up and do something Boring!  

When I was working in the New Jersey State Prison system, each of us in the Psych Department had to meet with one group of prisoners per week to teach a class in "sleep hygiene," because as you might imagine, it's easy to get your days and nights mixed up in there. We were able to trade notes freely among each other, and over time we accumulated quite a bit of useful information which I'd like to share with you.

The most important thing keeping people awake at night is probably worrisome thoughts. The following video by Eckhard Tolle shows how to turn them off.

Here are some other things that will help.

•  Make sure you get enough daylight so that your body will be able to establish a daily wake-sleep rhythm. Some people have found commercially-available light boxes to be helpful, especially if you live in a location where there is less sunlight during certain seasons of the year. This lack of sunlight can lead to a condition known as seasonal affective disorder  (more popularly known as "cabin fever"), characterized by periods of depression and interference with regular sleep patterns.
• Keep the bedroom dark and quiet. Darkness causes the body to produce melatonin, a natural sleep-inducing agent.
• Your body remembers what it feels like as you are falling asleep, but the memory is stored directly in your muscles. Get into a comfortable position and bring that memory back into conscious awareness. Hold  onto it, and let it fill your mind completely..
• Don't play on the smartphone, the computer, or watch television. They all give off light which suppresses the melatonin in your system and overstimulates the brain,   
• Most people need between seven to nine hours of sleep each night. Trying to get by on less than this biologically-determined amount builds up a sleep debt which  cuts into your well-being and efficiency, and becomes harder and harder to repay.
• Establish a consistent sleeping schedule. People tend to become sleepy 24 hours after they last went to sleep, and awaken 24 hours after they last woke up. Significant changes in either time -- especially shift work schedules which frequently change -- disrupt the sleep-wake cycle.
• If your sleep is troubled by nightmares, or if you have personal problems which prevent you from getting the sleep you need, you may want to consider seeking professional assistance.
• Have a set ritual before going to bed. 
• Limit the amount of food you eat for the last two hours before you go to bed.
• Limit your daily use of caffeine, or eliminate it entirely.  One or two cupsc of coffee or tea  is probably okay to get you going in the morning, but using coffee, tea, or other drinks which are high in caffeine throughout the day only makes it harder to repay your sleep debt.
• Exercise regularly, preferably in the morning. .
• If possible, adopt a life style which reduces your total amount of stress.
• While most of us prefer not to use prescribed sleep medications, millions of people do use them regularly without ill effects. Melatonin, the favorite of many, is available without prescription. Others prefer nutraceuticals such as St. John's Wort.
• We frequently do not notice the "aches and pains" in our bodies because we have grown so used to them, but they can still interfere with our sleep.  Many prople find that taking a couple of aspirin, ibuprophin, or Tylenol works well before going to bed, particularly when they do not wish to feel groggy from sleep medication the next day. 
• Perhaps most importantly, use the bed only for sleeping and for sex. Instead of tossing and turning, find  something boring to do until you get sleepy. This helps you to avoid a conditioned association between not sleeping and being in bed.
• If it takes you a while to get back to sleep after getting up to use the bathroom, consider allowing yourself an extra hour or so in bed so that you can still get all the sleep that you need. 
• You can tell your virtual assistant to play soothing music or background sounds such as ocean waves or falling rain to lull you to sleep -- or you can even ask it to tell you a bedtime story!

The One Suggestion that EVERYBODY Needs to Hear

If you can't tell people that they're awesome, at least be kinder than necessary. 

Everyone that you meet is fighting some sort of a battle!

It's Not About the Nail!

In order to help people with their problems, you first have to establish a sound therapeutic relationship with them.

How MANY ''Altered States' of Consciousness'' Are There?

In the early years of the Twentieth Century, many psychologists were inspired by the discovery in chemistry that all matter could be reduced to certain basic elements. Since the purpose of consciousness was to allow us to experience the real world, they reasoned that it should be possible analyze the contents of consciousness into its own basic elements. This "mental chemistry" was given the name structuralism; and various groups of structuralists began their research, using a method called introspection, or "looking inward," a trained analysis of one's own thoughts and feelings, to see just how many basic elements of awareness exist.. However, the various groups of researchers could not come to a general agreement regarding how many elements of consciousness there actually were. One group claimed that they could find fourteen, another forty-three, and so on. The problem lay in the fact that consciousness is like a mirror. It reflects back what is put into it. The entire process is reminiscent of the game that Tolstoy and his brothers used to play when they were children, which involved trying to see how long each one could go without thinking of a white bear. (Try it!) 

There are probably as many altered experiences of consciousness as it is possible to conceive or to imagine; for each of these imagined definitions may be written up in the form of an induction procedure and presented to a sufficiently imaginative hypnosis partner, and that is exactly how he or she is going to experience a change in the perception of his or her awareness.

My evidence for this assertion  is hyperempiria. I did not wait for another historical accident to come along, as was the case when mesmerism morphed into hypnotism in response to people imitating the behavior of the retarded Victor Emmanuel, who was too  stupid to know that he was supposed to go into hypnosis and went to sleep instead: I simply made it up! I gave the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility to of Hypnotic Susceptibility to two groups of introductory psychology students, one of which was first  given a standard hypnotic induction and the other was given a hyperempiric induction based upon suggestions of increased awareness. Both groups showed a significant increase in suggestibility, but the two groups did not significantly different from each other. (Gibbons, 197 ).I currently prefer to use both inductions in tandem, first taking clients "down" into hypnosis and then "up" into hyperempiria (Gibbons &Lynn, 2010) before providing meaningful experiences of life-changing intensity in the mulriverse (Gibbons & Woods, 2016).\\

If the number of suggestion-induced altered states of consciousness is indeed unlimited, as it appears to be, given the ease with which such suggested experiences may be constructed, the only question which we need to ask ourselves is how can we define these experiences in a manner which is the most useful for the task at hand, forr the enhancement of human potential, the ennoblement of the human spirit, and the fulfillment of human existence.

References

                                      

Gibbons, D. E. (1979). Applied hypnosis and hyperempiria. New York: Plenum Press.

  

 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. 267-29

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

Multiversal Meditation for Re-Energizing a Previous Mystical Exprience

People of many different religious traditions have attested to the life changing potential of metaphysical experiences involving the experience of contact with a consciousness beyond one's own However, in this culture, people who have had this type of experience often don't talk about it because others may simply dismiss them as being a crackpot. When such a history is present, however, it can serve as a focus for completely re-framing one's view of the self, the world, and the future, which is the professed aim of cognitive-behavioral psychology and much easier to accomplish.

A 58 year old retired English teacher and mother of five grown children who recently had been divorced after a marriage of forty years came to me for help with depression. She was spending the greater part of each day in bed, with the blankets drawn up over her head. She was taking antidepressants, but they did not seem to help. She responded well to hypnosis; and early in the course of therapy, she mentioned that when she was about sixteen, she had a spontaneous mystical experience: "I could step beyond the ordinary world of reality, and I felt totally loved." I asked her if she would like to revisit this mystical experience as a way of getting over her depression, and she immediately agreed.

I told her that for best results, it would help if she were to recapture her mystical experience with the same life-changing intensity that she had experienced it the first time. She readily agreed to this also. Pulling out all the stops in order to evoke an experience of life-changing intensity, I hypnotically  guided her to the Multiverse  (Gibbons & Woods, 2016) and suggested suggested that we were reaching down into her vast, untapped potential for feeling happiness and joy. This potential for happiness and joy was flowing out from the innermost depths of her being in many different ways and on many different levels, like water from a hundred secret springs. As these feelings continued to flow without limit, they were healing and cleansing every muscle and fiber and nerve of her body, driving out all of the worry, and all of the stress, and all of the care that she had ever felt, and leaving her glowing from head to toe with such an intensity of happiness that she could not bear it if she were not hypnotized.

She remained outwardly impassive as I continued in this vein, emphasizing that this happiness was greater and more intense than anything she had ever hoped for, dreamed of, longed for, or imagined, I suggested that when she returned from hypnosis, she would not be able to bring all of this intensity back with her, because it would be more than she could bear in the everyday state of consciousness in which we live and move and have our being. But nevertheless, it would transform her life, and turn each new day into a thing of wondrous beauty.

Her depression lifted within two more sessions. Because she was a Buddhist, it was easy to frame her mystical experience as evidence that true happiness comes from within. She no longer remains in bed all day, and frequently goes out to go shopping, play cards or to visit with friends. Her demeanor is pleasant, relaxed, and cheerful. She is continuing to come in for monthly sessions in order to keep her orientation focused on the positive aspects of life, and as a means of continuing her personal and spiritual development.

The client's youngest daughter, who has had a great many personal difficulties of her own, has recently moved in with her. Even though she frequently serves as a lightning rod for her daughter's wrath, the client has remained impassive, and has managed to maintain a generally congenial relationship with her (when the daughter is on speaking terms!)

Reference

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

How to Conduct a Therapeutic ''Séance''

To borrow a line from Charles Dickens, “One thing must be clearly understood, or no good can come from this story I am about to tell.” Our brain constructs our own reality! We construct this reality out of what William James called the “buzzing, blooming confusion” of raw sensory input, which bombards us from every direction. Since no two people have exactly the same experiences,  no two people can share exactly the same reality. What we believe to be “out there" is actually an individually constructed parallel universe which can never completely intersect with those of others.

In accordance with the teachings of post-modern constructivism, my task as a therapist is to help clients to construct a reality that will help them to live better lives, regardless of the reality that I may construct for myself, since each person's reality is equally valid  

"Maryanne" was the last of six children in a rigidly conservative Catholic family. All of her brothers and sisters had gone to Catholic school, and those who wanted to had gone to college. By the time Maryanne was born, there was no money left for private education. so she went to public grade school and graduated from high school with no prospects of going further. 

Shortly after she was married, she incurred serious spinal injuries from a fall an icy sidewalk, which resulted in her having to see a pain specialist and take medication for the resulting chronic discomfort..

Her mother wanted to keep Maryanne by her side instead of leaving to get married as her other children had done, so she encouraged her to become emotionally dependent.

Her father, on the other hand, scolded her incessantly, in the mistaken belief that he could "shock" her into being highly motivated if he nagged her intensely enough. Instead, she developed s number of stress-related physical ailments including ulcers, migraine headaches, and chronic constipation.

When she finally did go to work, her boss was bullying and sadistic. Once when she.had mistakenly ordered a shipment of several cartons of supplies delivered directly to her desk instead of to the office, her boss forbade her to move them out of the way for several days, and made her climb over them in order to get to her desk.

After she was married, she still lived close enough to her parents to go home for lunch. Her mother would hold her and soothe her to give her courage enough to return to her job every afternoon, until she was finally fired because she could not put up with her demanding boss any longer and her work had begun to suffer.

She had married a man with Crohn's disease, a chronic inflammation of the digestive tract, in the expectation that they would be able to help each other with their health problems. He had developed a chronically sarcastic outlook which was well within her emotional comfort zone because it unconsciously reminded her of her father. To make matters even worse, shortly after she was married, she incurred several serious spinal injuries from a fall on icy pavement which required her to receive ongoing medication and treatment by a pain specialist.

On her first visit to my psychology practice, four years after her mother had died, Maryanne showed me a picture she had taken on her cell phone of household clothing piled inside her bathtub because she did not have the energy to put it away. Fortunately, her new husband liked to cook, and he did most of the grocery shopping. But the matter of household chores was clearly her responsibility.

Maryanne responded very well to hypnosis and was amnesic for most of the sessions. However, no matter how much I tried, I was unable to help her to summon the energy to clean up her messy house.

One day, she was discussing her desire to go back to work in order to help with the family finances, adding that she would have to clean up her house first before she could ever consider doing that. She also mentioned how depressed she was, and how much she missed her mother, who had died four years previously. Her father was also deceased.

It occurred to me that she might be unconsciously using the condition of her house as a wall to prevent her from having to look for a job. When I was about to hypnotize her, I told her confidently that this time we were going to give her all the energy she needed. "Are you going to take the place of my mother?" she asked, which tended to confirm my suspicions.

I could not actually take the place of Maryanne's mother, of course; but if she could re-experience her mother holding and soothing her just as she had done in real life, I would not need to.

In Victorian times, there was a great interest in contacting the spirits of departed loved ones by means of a "séance," in order to obtain reassurance and advice, which was usually communicated by a series of rapping sounds while the participants were holding hands. The practice died out, however, when the source of this rapping was revealed to be produced by trickery.. Nevertheless, the widespread popularity of séances had revealed a deep yearning on the part of many people for this.type of experience.

After hypnotically guiding Maryanne through a rainbow of pleasant emotions and coming to the pot of gold at the end of it, I suggested that this was the gateway to Paradise, where she could contact her mother and pour her heart out while being comforted and soothed, much as her as her mother had done while she was still alive. As our sessions continued, I soon discovered that these experiences were much more effective if I  suggested that she was able to join her mother in a parallel Universe, where she was able to experience the "actual" reality of her mother's presence.

Many modern physicists now believe that quantum mechanics implies that there are multiple copies of us living in an infinite number of parallel Universes. Since Maryanne's brain constructs her own reality, any hypnotically induced contact with her mother in a parallel universe would constitute a non-deceptive séance, since it would perfectly match at least one of the possible sets of circumstances in which her mother is currently still alive.. 

This type of reassurance appeared to be all that Maryanne needed in order to regain her former self confidence, clean up her house, and  begin looking for a job.

Was she really talking to her mother at the gateway to Paradise or in a parallel universe? As a post-modern constructivist, I have no right to say that the experiences which I have constructed for myself are any more "real" than the ones which she has constructed for herself. In most situations, I am perfectly content, therefore, to help my clients to construct  a set of beliefs which enables them to lead happier and more effective lives as they themselves interpret them. 

Considering the depth of pent-up longing experienced by many grieving relatives who yearn to contact their loved ones once more, as the Victorians have amply demonstrated, this opportunity to experience a non-deceptive hypnotic séance would appear to be a potentially useful application of hypnosis. However, one must be careful not to ask leading questions, in order to insure that the hypnotic realities constructed by one's clients are truly their own, and not a projection of the hypnotist.  Finally, it should be noted that the effectiveness of the hypnotic suggestions in acting as a catalyst for permanent change primarily depends upon the personality and unique characteristics of each individual client, rather than how the suggestions themselves are worded.

How to Learn Self-Hypnosis at Home

You can easily  learn the basics of self-hypnosis at home and free of charge by reading this instructional article on WikiHow. It describes the use of the BEST ME Technique to combine Beliefs, Emotions, Sensations and perceptions, Thoughts and images, Motives, and Expectations, in order to more fully involve oneself in the content of a suggested experience. I use it with the clients in my psychology practice, both as an introduction to the experience of self-hypnosis and for use between therapy sessions as a training and practice aid. According to the statistics available at the site, with the help of several co-authors, it has been viewed almost 1-1/2 miillion times since I first wrote and posted it     

"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.

Cognitive-Behavioral Downloads for Clients and Therapists

Here is the link to the resources in cognitive-behavioral therapy which were originally uploaded by the British National Health Service and made available to all of the inhabitants of the British Isles.  

I hope you find them useful;

Cognitive Behavioral Downloads for Clients and Therapists

How to Eliminate Late-Night Snacking

Being overweight can be caused by a number of factors. When it is simply due to the habit of making bad decisions concerning food, then a cognitive-behavioral approach such as the one described here may be useful. 

A client came to my office requesting hypnosis in order to eliminate his habit of waking up for two hours every night. He was retired, and simply slept later in the morning to make up for the two hours he had lost. We examined all the usual causes: he did not drink too much coffee or tea, there was nothing worrying him, and there did not seem to be any organic cause for his middle insomnia. Finally, he admitted that his real concern was that he was gaining about a pound a month because he would get up and have a snack of cheese and crackers before going back to sleep. Further discussion made it clear that this snacking habit was what was providing the primary reinforcement for his insomnia, and this was what we would have to work on.

Suggestion-enhanced experience does not always have to involve an induction, and experiences enhanced by suggestion need not always be positive ones. Since he did not seem to be a candidate for hypnosis, I instructed him on how to use the Best Me Technique to visualize, or picture in his mind, the cheese and crackers in the refrigerator having spoiled -- but to enhance this image in as many ways as he could imagine, using the grossest possible imagery, in order to totally destroy its incentive value. In cognitive-behavioral terms, this would be described as converting a positive reinforcement into an aversive stimulus. 

The best time to do this, of course, what just after he had awakened in the middle of the night, while he was still lying there before he had arisen to get his usual snack from the refrigerator. Using all six dimensions of the BEST ME Technique, he was instructed to mentally experience the previously-coveted food as having spoiled or become infected with fruit flies, drenched in urine, or floating in a pool of -- well, you get the idea. 

A follow-up telephone call one month later indicated that  practicing this exercise during his periods of middle insomnia seemed to be completely effective. He was no longer snacking, and, except for his usual bathroom breaks, he was sleeping through the night as well.  

You can apply this same technique to eliminate any food from your routine which will help you lose weight. Eating 3,500 calories more than you burn results in a one-pound weight gain. Pick one food that you like, find out how many calories per serving it contains, and do the math. See how many extra pounds that one food will add to your weight during the  course of a year. If you are like most of us, cutting out only two or three such foods using the cognitive-behavioral dieting procedure just described, combined with a little patience, should make your ideal weight goal easily attainable. 

 

Making Friends with your ''Inner Hypnotist''

It is generally agreed that cognitive-behavioral psychology is the fastest-growing orientation within the profession. Cognitive-behavioral therapy, or CBT, may be summarized as the study of the relationship between thinking, feeling, and behavior.  Just as physical therapists can provide you with exercises to improve physical functioning, cognitive-behavioral therapists provide exercises to develop more effective psychological adjustments.
The information referred to in any of the links below can be downloaded by clicking on the link and using the print command on your computer. 

We all carry an 'inner hypnotist" around with us in the form of deep-seated   beliefs about ourselves, the world, and the future, which psychologists refer to as out schemas. When these schemas tell us negative things  about ourselves, they can act like an "inner hypnotist" which keeps us from acting in accordance with our own best interests, and we are usually not even aware of  them until they are pointed out to us. Cognitive-behavioral therapists frequently use a document called a thought record in order to examine just what goes on when we keep making those angry responses that keep getting us into trouble, which can also serve as a guide for constructing appropriate hypnotic suggestions and autosuggestion's. Here is what one looks like, courtesy of www.getselfhelp.co.uk. They also provide a summary of the STOPP technique, which they describe as "CBT in a nutshell," and which can be summed up in one sentence: "Try not to act merely in the moment. Pull back from the situation. Take a wider view; compose yourself." 

Here is a video in which the STOPP technique is humorously demonstrated by comedian Bob Newhart. Behind his humor there is more than a grain of truth!

Following is a hypothetical example of how the anxiety thought record form might be used to see a situation from a different perspective. Using the example of being suddenly cut off in traffic by another car, with the column headings in italics and one set of possible responses in standard type. You can practice using these forms for a number of other hypothetical situations, or situations that have actually made you angry in the past, in order to be prepared for a variety of possible situations in the future. 

Situation: A car suddenly swerves in front of you and slows down, causing you to slam on your brakes in order to avoid hitting it.

Feelings, Emotions,:  An increase in heartbeat and blood pressure, clenched jaw, faster breathing.

Emotions/Moods (rate 0-100%):  Anger.

Physical Sensations & Reactions: Swearing, gripping the steering wheel

Unhelpful Thoughts/Images:  Urge to speed up and pass the car in front of you, honk at the driver, make an angry gesture, and cut back in front of him.

What I Did/What I Could Do/What's the Best Response? (Re-Rate Emotion 0-100%)  Realize that the emotion will pass in a few moments, but if you act on it the situation could escalate and possibly lead to serious complications.

Finally, the folks at www.smartrecovery.org have a toolbox of resources which is a treasure-trove for people who want to alter hard-to-change behaviors of every type, but especially addictive ones.They have prepared a selection of tips and tricks for managing anxiety in such a manner that in many instances you can not merely control it, you can get rid of it!  Here is a partial list of some of the other materials which they have to offer. The information may be downloaded free of charge by using the print command on your computer, although donations are encouraged. Here is a partial list of some of the materials which they have to offer:

• Hierarchy of values  
• Cost-benefits analysis worksheet  .  
• Change plan worksheet. 

Just as reading a book on surgery will not make you into a surgeon, and reading an exercise manual will not build muscles, merely reading a Blog posting on how to train yourself to avoid stress will not be enough to enable you to get rid of it. People who practice meditation do not hope to attain enlightenment merely by reading about it, Regular practice using the thought record for a variety of situations is the key to making CBT work for you 

Confucius said, "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." No matter how long the journey, cognitive-behavioral psychology, especially when undertaken with professional guidance, can be of great assistance in successfully reaching your destination.

See also: 
How to Keep Your Boss from Driving You Crazy
Toxic People who can Wreck Your Life

 

How to Include "Comprehensive Coverage" in Your Hypnotic Sessions

A 52 year old divorced woman came in for her first hypnosis session to eliminate chronic anxiety stemming from what she referred to as "empty nest syndrome" after her son had left to join the military.

She said that she was a Wiccan, and asked me what I thought about psychic ability. In the long conversation which followed, l told me her that the research often showed dramatic results; but in order to be accepted by the scientific community, these results had to be repeated by others who carried out the same research under the same conditions. So far, this has not been.found to be the case. Then I added that many physicists now believe that there are eleven different dimensions of reality instead of the.three that we are used to, and perhaps psychic abilities operate in these dimensions. This might explain why we could often obtain such dramatic results without being able to replicate them under controlled conditions in the laboratory

She seemed satisfied with this conclusion, but most of our session time had been used up. So, after the hypnotic induction had been completed, I suggested that she would obtain everything she wanted from today's session, regardless of whether or not it had been included in the suggestions she was given and. regardless of whether or not she was completely aware if it herself at the time

.

When she returned for the next appointment, she showed me a picture of her son, who had just begun. his first day of training at Marine boot camp and thanked me profusely.  She had been using her newly strengthened beliefs about her psychic abilities to "will" a curtain of protection around him and keep him from harm. Her anxiety attacks and much of her chronic anxiety had completely vanished. 

Since that time, I have always included suggestions for "comprehensive coverage" in all my hypnosis sessions, in. order to allow for the possibility that there might be something that either I or the client may have overlooked or not been able to include.

Was she really psychic, or was she merely deluding herself? Since  noobody can know what "truth" is in these maters, we should help our clients to put together a world view that helps them to make the best of their lives, regardless of our own beliefs. She had made the choice herself. And, in the unlikely event that she should ever find out that she is wrong, we can deal with that problem when it arises.

Multiversal Meditation for Inducing Mystical Experiences at Will

(An earlier version of this posting was published in the Swedish journal, Hypnos, 2004, Vol. XXXI, No. 2, pp. 89-93).

Many clients approach life from a primarily religious point of view. Such believers -- particularly those who are elderly, infirm, or who have experienced a number of personal tragedies -- may experience a "dark night of the soul" (Peers, 1990) as they struggle to deal with the stresses of life without access to sources of experiential spiritual support for their beliefs. In working with clients such as these, it should be of little consequence whether the religious and metaphysical beliefs of the client are shared by the therapist or are in conflict with those of the therapist, or whether the therapist has no theological or metaphysical beliefs at all.

People of many different religious traditions have attested to the life changing potential of mystical and transcendental experiences involving the experience of contact with a consciousness beyond one's own. In one study of the Fundamentalist Christian experience of "salvation," for example, subjects readily attested to both the personal reality of the experience and its subsequent influence upon their lives, although such experiences did not seem to be universally attainable and did appear to be related to the ability to respond to suggestion (Gibbons & DeJarnette, 1972; Gibbons, 1988).Mother Theresa (now Saint Theresa) had a mystical experience while she was still in her teens, and spent the rest of her life trying to re-capture it. But you don't have to closet yourself away and spend years in meditation, which may or may not be effective. With high-responding hypnotic clients who are willing to to undertake the journey, we are able to induce these types of experiences practically at will (Gibbons & Woods, 2016).

A 58 year old retired English teacher and mother of five grown children recently had been divorced after a marriage of forty years and came to me for help with depression. She was spending the greater part of each day in bed, with the blankets drawn up over her head. She was taking antidepressants, but they did not seem to help. 

Early in the course of therapy, she mentioned that when she was about sixteen, she had a mystical experience: "I could step beyond the ordinary world of reality, and I felt totally loved." I asked her if she would like to re-visit this mystical experience in hypnosis as a way of getting over her depression, and she immediately agreed.

She responded very well to hypnosis. I regressed her to her earlier mystical event, and told her that we were going to make it even stronger using hyperempiria, or suggestion-enhanced experience. I suggested that we were reaching down into her vast, untapped potential for feeling happiness and joy. This happiness and joy was flowing out from the innermost depths of her being in many different ways and on many different levels, like water from a hundred secret springs. As these feelings continued to flow without limit, they were healing and cleansing every muscle and fiber and nerve of her body, driving out all of the worry, and all of the stress, and all of the care that she had ever felt, and leaving her glowing from head to toe with such an intensity of happiness that she could not bear it if she were not hypnotized.

She remained outwardly impassive as I continued in this vein, emphasizing that this happiness was greater and more intense than anything she had ever hoped for, dreamed of, longed for, or imagined. To further emphasize its strength, I suggested that when she returned from hypnosis, she would not be able to bring all of this intensity back with her, because it would be more than she could bear in the everyday state of consciousness in which we live and move and have our being. But nevertheless, it would transform her life, and turn each new day into a thing of wondrous beauty.

Her depression lifted within two more sessions. Because she was a Buddhist, it was easy to frame her mystical experience as evidence that true happiness comes from within. She no longer remains in bed all day, and frequently goes out to go shopping, play cards, or visit with friends. Her demeanor is pleasant, relaxed, and cheerful. She is continuing to come in for monthly sessions in order to keep her orientation focused on the positive aspects of life, and as a means of continuing her personal and spiritual development.

From the standpoint of the therapist who is well-versed in the techniques of hypnosis, experiences of this type may easily be made available to clients who desire them and are sufficiently responsive to suggestion. From the first glow of anticipation to the enduring treasures of fondest memory, suggestion provides us with a brush with which it is possible to paint upon the canvas of human experience virtually any masterpiece we may desire. Although most of us routinely provide a considerable amount of detail with the experiences we suggest in order to make them more realistic, the Best Me Technique provides a systematic, comprehensive framework for maximum involvement and effectiveness of experiential learning (Gibbons & Lynn, 

The theme and content of such experiences should be determined by the needs and preferences of the client, with the goal of providing reassurance, strength, and encouragement.

Lawrence (M. A. Lawrence, personal communication, June 27, 2003) reports the successful application of the Best Me Technique with nursing home residents who are dealing with end-of-life issues.

The Best Me Technique would appear to possess numerous other potential applications. Good results have been reported using the Best Me Technique to enable experientially gifted clients to experience now, and in intensified form, the rewards which would not normally be theirs until a goal has actually been attained, thereby eliminating the need for "will power" or external environmental incentives (Gibbons, 2003).Sexual relations in multimodal trance between committed partners who respond well to suggestion can take on near sacramental qualities as the lovers consecrate themselves to one another anew (Gibbons & Woods, 2016).  

Recently, Kelley Woods and I (Gibbons & Woods, 2016) have been suggesting to hypnotized clients that they are being transported to an alternate universe where time and space do not exist. After orienting them to the Multiverse and inducing emotions which are as pleasant as possible -- i.e., "dissolving  into an ocean of infinite, unbounded, and everlasting love," we are then able to provide suggestions such as the following: "with practice, you will be able to feel this kind of fulfillment whenever you put your whole self into working towards a goal you have chosen. As you think about achieving the goal ahead of time, you can believe it will happen, expect it to happen, and feel it happening! And with practice, you will be able to act, think, and feel as if it were impossible to fail!"  

Experientialism is the philosophical theory that experience is the source of knowledge. It is indeed an honor to work with the imaginatively gifted among us; for they are truly "the bearers of the light," which all humankind will one day follow.
  

Bibliography

Bányai, E. I., & Hilgard, E. R. (1976). A comparison of active-alert hypnotic induction with traditional relaxation induction. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 85, 218-224

Gibbons, D. E. (1975, August). Hypnotic vs. hyperempiric induction: An experimental comparison. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Psychological Association, Chicago.

Gibbons, D. E. (1976). Hypnotic vs. hyperempiric induction: An experimental comparison. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 42, 834.

Gibbons, D. E. (1988). Were you saved or were you hypnotized? The Humanist, 48, pp. 17-18.

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

Gibbons, D. E. (2001). Experience as an art form. .New York, NY: Authors Choice Press.

Gibbons, D. E. (2003, July). The best me technique for constructing hypnotic suggestions. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the British Societies of Medical, Clinical, Dental, and Experimental Hypnosis, London.

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., & Woods, K. T. (2016) Virtual reality hypnosis: Exploring alternate and parallel universes. Amazon Books, 2016. (Both print and Kindle editions are available.) 

Hammond, D. C. (1990). Hypnotic suggestions and metaphors. New York: Norton.

Heap, M. & Aravind, K. K. (2001). Hartland's Medical & Dental Hypnosis, 4th ed. London: Churchill Livingstone.

Lazarus, A. A. (1989). The practice of multimodal therapy. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Lazarus, A. A. (1997). Brief comprehensive psychotherapy: The multimodal way. New York: Springer.

Peers, E. A. (1990). Dark Night of the Soul. New York: Doubleday.

Phillips, B. D. (2006) Experimental approaches to interactive drama involving experiential trance. Journal of Interactive Drama, 2(1), pp. 21-55.

Shor, R. E. & Orne, E. C. (1962) Harvard group scale of hypnotic susceptibility, Form A. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.

Yapko, M. D. (2003). Trancework: An introduction to the practice of clinical hypnosis, 3rd ed. Philadelphia, PA: Brunner-Routledge. 

The BEST ME Technique for Constructing Multimodal Suggestions

We all try to compose our suggestions as carefully as possible to completely involve our hypnosis partners in their content. Once we have done so, the BEST ME Technique can serve as a final checklist to ensure comprehensiveness. . (Gibbons & Woods, 2016). 

The Best Me Technique utilizes the simultaneous involvement of Beliefs, Emotions, Sensationand physical perceptions, Thoughts and images, Motives, and Expectations, to involve one's entire being in the content of s suggested experience. Taken together, the elements of this technique form the acronym, BEST ME (Gibbons & Lynn, 2008), and may be summarized as follows.

Belief systems which orient an individual to person, place, time, and events may be suggested as being different, allowing the participant to mentally transcend present realities.

Emotions may be enriched, intensified, weakened, or combined with others.

Sensations and physical perceptions may be suggested and experienced with an intensity approaching those of real events.

Thoughts and images may be created and guided in response to explicit or indirect suggestions.

Motives may either be suggested directly or implied as a consequence of other events.

Expectations may be structured concerning the manner in which the participant will look forward to and remember suggested events which will occur in the future, and the manner in which suggested experiences will subsequently be recalled and interpreted in memory.

Here is a case example. I was working with a client who has PTSD, stemming primarily from previous sexual abuse by her husband. She married him on her eighteenth birthday in order to get away from home. He was from South America, and he only stayed married to her long enough to get his Green Card to become a U.S citizen. He would watch pornography morning, noon, and night; and when they did have sex, it was "all for himself," as she put it.

After a spree of wild promiscuity induced by anger at her husband, ("World, here I am!" she once said to me, in reference to this period in her life). she began living with a pilot who was several years older than she was, with whom she had fallen in love. But, every time they got emotionally too close for comfort, it would trigger her previous trauma. She would turn hostile and pick a quarrel, nagging him endlessly until they would briefly break up. 

Using the Best Me Technique to provide suggestions to induce a higher state of awareness I provided suggestions as follows:

B. In this higher state of consciousness and in this higher level of reality, focus the power of your mind to recapture and concentrate into one single moment, all of the love that you and your lover have shared in the past. If you can believe in it you can believe it, and if you can believe it you can make it happen!

E Now,  multiply  this love 10 times over. Believe it will happen, expect it to happen, and feel it happening!

S, Concentrate this love and send it  to him like a laser beam. Feel it now, flowing into every fiber and muscle and nerve of his body and feel him beaming it back to you.  Believe it will happen, expect to happen, and feel it happening!

T His love for you is now so great that it is impossible for him to be romantically or physically or emotionally attracted to anyone else.

M.  Your fears of abandonment have been eliminated, and you are able now to surrender yourself to loving him totally and completely, in body, heart, mind, and spirit.

E. Whenever you and he make love in the future, you will be so intensely aroused and so highly responsive that it will fulfill you as a woman more deeply than anything you have never known before. Let yourself believe in it with every ounce of strength that is in you If you can believe in it, you can believe it; and if you can believe it,  you can make it happen!

After the suggestions described above, I provided an opportunity for my client to mentally make love to her boyfriend, while I remain silent to protect her privacy and allow her to imagine every detail of the experience herself, in much more intimate detail.

No matter how freely they discuss the intimate details of their lovemaking, there are still certain explicit details which they might prefer to remain private. The following application of the Best Me Technique allows a client to pave over previous experiences which have inhibited their ability to completely let go during the most intimate moments of the act of love:

The client had told me that she is especially fond of making love in the woods behind the house which she shares with her boyfriend. After the foregoing suggestions were given, I would proceed as follows:

 B. Now the scene is changing once again, and you and your lover are all alone in the woods. He has brought a blanket with him, and he and spreading it out on the ground so that you can make love under the stars.

 E. We are going to use this passion to pave over all of the thoughts that have been bothering you Believe it will happen expect it to happen, and feel it happening.

 S, as the night slowly passes, you Join. so çompletely in  mind, and body and spirit that you have become one in every sense of the word. Believe it will happen, expect it to happen, and feel it happening.

 Now I will stop speaking for a few moments so that you can guide the rest of the experience yourself.

 [After about a five-minute pause;]

T. Finally, as the sky above you begins to lighten, you sink back exhausted with joy, The intrusive thoughts you may have had in the past have been completely covered over by the power of your love,  and you are truly one in body, heart, mind, and spirit.

 M  You will have neither the energy nor the inclination for thoughts of   any other type of release; for your fulfillment here as a woman [or a man]  has led you to joy beyond your wildest dreams

 E. Each time these hypnotic experiences are repeated, they will become more vivid,more desirable, more intense and more fulfilling.

The client reported that these suggestions were effective in ending their pattern of frequent quarrels resulting in a temporary breakup whenever their emotional relationship became too intense. She referred to the current portion of their relationship as a "honeymoon." The last time I saw her, however, she said that the old fears had surfaced once more.

I suggested that this time, she and her boyfriend would be making love in a parallel universe, in which the stormy and traumatic events which she experienced during her adolescence and early adulthood never happened. 

She is employed as a flight attendant, and on this latest visit she had to leave her phone on because she was on call for the upcoming Thanksgiving week end. Halfway into the self-directed portion of the experience, her phone went off. She gave no indication of having heard it. I apologetically spoke to her, and she opened her eyes as if being awakened from a nap. The caller turned out to be her brother. "We have twenty minutes to respond," she told me, and decided to turn the phone off for the remainder of the session.

"Now you can go all the way back into hypnosis, very rapidly," I said, and began an abbreviated progressive relaxation induction to take her back to the portion of the experience where she was making love to her boyfriend in a parallel universe, and directing the experience herself.

A few seconds into this induction, she giggled suddenly. I stopped and asked her what was the matter. She sad, "I didn't know I could go all the way back there so fast. WHEEE!" We both laughed, and I completed the induction. She later reported that the experience was highly effective. When I last heard fromher, she and her boyfriend were looking for a houwe in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania -- near a school!

References

Gibbons, D. E., & Lynn, S. J. (2008). Hyonotic 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