Metamorphosis issue5 spring2014

METAMORPHOSIS CHANGING IN A CHANGING WORLD - FREE

Phobias are us

Hypnobaby Sharp Scratch?

Golfers yips What motivates us?

Metamorphosis | 1

CNHC

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SPRING 2014 | VOL. 2 | NO 1

W

elcome to this edition of Metamorphosis, the magazine published by the Association for Solution Focused Hypnotherapy. It’s our pleasure in sharing some of the fine work we do across the UK in helping people change problems into solutions.

I H

share my strange phobias, Clementine and Miranda talk about hypnobabies, Alan Wick tells us about needle phobias and Sam Luxford shows how she helped Mr Golf! Finally Trevor Eddolls motivates us. ope you enjoy the magazine, any questions or queries please send to me at journal@afsfh.com

Penny Ling - Editor

METAMORPHOSIS

Publisher: the Association for Solution Focused Hypnotherapy.

8-10 Whiteladies Road Bristol BS8 1PD Editor: Penny Ling Email: journal@afsfh.com Design & Advertising: Redhed Design UK http://redheddesignuk. wordpress.com 07508 658934 Metamorphosis can be found on-line at issuu.com

The Association for Solution Focused Hypnotherapy established 2010 represents the practice of solution focused hypnotherapists as a distinct profession in its own right. Membership is open to those practitioners who have the appropriate qualifications and experience within the field.

The contents of this magazine are protected by copyright and nothing may be reprinted without prior permission. The publishers cannot accept liability for content of material in the magazine.

CONTENTS Phobias are us p4 ...................................

Hypnobaby p9 ...................................

Sharp Scratch p12 ...................................

Hole in one p16 ...................................

Motivational theories p24 ...................................

Distribution is UK wide.

Metamorphosis | 3

Phobias are us Penny Ling shares her deepest fears

I

have always maintained that I was an expert on phobias.

Not because I have helped many change their lives using solution focused hypnotherapy, but because I have always suffered with them myself.

My list of phobias is strange - some phobias lasted only a few weeks where as others lasted many, many years.

The strangest ones I have to say were developed when I was very young.

My first recollection of a phobia came when I was only about 2 years old. Thanks to Bill and Ben, I developed a fear of bellows! One episode of the programme had bellows chasing the two around the garden and about a week later I stumbled upon a similar set of bellows at the bottom of my aunt’s garden – shoved down the side of the shed... I ran for the hills!

TV was prominent in another phobia I developed - that of chimney pots. I would often have nightmares about standing high up looking across chimneys and watching London burn. Whenever Coronation Street was on the telly, just the first bars of the music would have me leaping in the air and out of the door, to

4 | Metamorphosis

spare myself having to see a scene of roof tops and chimney pots. Even to this day, the music sends shivers down my spine.

By about 3 I can remember developing a deep distrust of lifts, as my father had an experience being trapped in a lift with a Dalek at Christmas in Selfridges. Luckily for my father, the Dalek decided not to exterminate him, but it left me with a fear of Daleks and lifts for a few years at least.

By the time I was about 5, I had developed a phobia about trains; this manifested because my aunt used to live in a house backing onto a railway line and every time a train went past I would race up the garden and hide in the front parlour. My sister and cousins came up with an idea to cure me of this phobia once and for all, by holding me down next to the track when a train went by. It worked! The train in question was one of those really long coal trains; it was bringing coal down from the north to be used in the power station – that’s showing my age! – I remember lying on the ground mesmerised by the kerchunk kerchunk noise of the train over the points, and by the end of the experience I wanted to do it again. I became a massive fan of trains as a result. This is how you would use exposure treatment on those with mild phobias, but we didn’t twig that

at the time.

The next phobia was needles and this came about because I had to go into hospital for an operation, and I still remember vividly what happened. The nurse came into the room, she ushered out my mother, almost threw me on my stomach and jabbed a huge needle into my bottom. Not a word of comfort, or “this will hurt only for a second” or “sharp scratch”.

Nothing. No empathy. In my eyes she was a heartless cruel brute and I developed a deep mistrust of medical professionals from that moment forward.

Then there was my dentist. Mr Roberts looked like Christopher Lee. He was very tall and sounded like him as well. It makes

me laugh when watching the remake of Charlie and the chocolate factory, that he played Willie Wonka’s dentist father!

Oh, I forgot to add spiders – thanks largely to my mother screaming at them.

But all those paled into insignificance and are slightly amusing compared to my biggest phobia – that of driving.

I never was a confident driver. My instructor Terry was lovely and the one claim to fame I have is that he was also teaching Uri Geller to drive at the same time. I used to tease Terry that one day he’d turn up and the handbrake would have been knotted!

Even as a passenger I was never comfortable and an incident when I was

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about 11 - a caravan overturned in front of us on the Newmarket bypass - would often flash into my mind as I grew up and when I started driving myself.

There were a number of episodes driving around Oxford that sent my anxiety rocketing – my car dying on me whilst overtaking, 2 occasions where we were nearly run off the road by lorries and the final straw came when I had to take a pool car out and I could only get third gear, which was interesting at junctions.

But it wasn’t just restricted to my experiences, one of the jobs I had as a graphics journalist. We were involved with a community education scheme run by the ambulance service and my job was to put together a PowerPoint presentation of car accidents – along with the dead bodies – of young men between 17 to 24. For someone so sensitive I think this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. It was very upsetting – which was the point of it – if it had that effect on me I do hope it had the same effect on the young people in schools this presentation was aimed at.

By 2001 I was working in the IT industry and I was desperate to find a new job.

The problem I had was that I was living in rural Oxfordshire and I had worked for all the companies in the vicinity – I needed to be able to drive. The answer I hoped lay in hypnotherapy. I went to see a local

6 | Metamorphosis

therapist in Witney. He sat me in a chair, asked me to close my eyes and count backwards from 100 and then asked me to go as far back in time where this problem first occurred.

I told him it was the Newmarket event, but he was insistent it was something much earlier. I sat there and waited – nothing. He prompted me – nothing.

After a few minutes I was thinking what a waste of time and money when I had a memory of the upstairs hall of the house where I was born and lived in until I was 18. There was nothing about this scene that was exceptional; I was just stood in the hall. On speaking with my mother later I described the scene and she said that

Practice course because I was interested in the subject and I wanted to understand it more and do some research into it.

Tutor, David Newton was very adamant that whatever the problems we had that hypnotherapy could treat, then we had to treat them. I learnt the process I had to follow, listened to my relaxation CD and then I went and sat in the driving seat for the first time in years. It was a range rover and I was expecting that panic and dread.

Instead, there was nothing.

Amazed, I drove the car around the block!

the hall wasn’t like that at the age I was supposed to be, that was much later – so, all in all, completely useless.

I went on to have another four sessions but all I found was that they only helped with the stress of work, but after I was made redundant, so was the need for the therapy.

So for 13 years in total I did not drive at all –I did try and take the occasional small journey but the anxiety never subsided, and if that’s the method CBT uses with exposure therapy then that didn’t work either.

Forward to 2007 and I was on the Clifton

I realised that I needed to go into this slowly, so over the next week I went further and further. By the time the next teaching weekend at the Clifton Practice came round, I had driven on my own to the clinic in Bristol. Words cannot describe how I felt – on a scale from 0 to 10, I was 100!.

Now in 2014, I’m back living in the country and driving around from clinic to clinic and the occasional client who is house bound. No problem at all. SFH works with phobias such as these.

There is often some confusion though as to what constitutes a specific phobia and a non-specific one. I have seen people who have been nervous of driving but no one thing has been the trigger. Often the rewind will not have much of an effect on these people and one has to treat it as a

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non-specific phobia. Of all the phobias, driving I think can fall into both camps, often stress of work or other events can effect the way we feel about driving, so that’s non-specific as there is not one thing that triggers the anxiety.

Non-specific phobias like agoraphobia – open spaces – and emetophobia – fear of sickness, are not treated with rewind.

Often there is not one trigger people are panicked by; it’s often a mix of lots of different things. Non- specific phobias can take quite a while to sort out compared with the specific kind. I remember one lady I saw for emetophobia took 9 sessions before she realised the sickness she was feeling had nothing to do with what she was eating, but the anxiety. Once the penny had dropped it proved easier to work with her. In total we had 19 sessions.

but I believe that is because I don’t have injections that often - unlike the driving which I do several days a week.

There is no doubt to many people, phobias are funny things - I know people who have had phobias of belly buttons and bananas, Father Christmas and peanut butter sticking to the top of the mouth – actually, I came across the latter as a spoof phobia that a clinic in the USA listed as treating; it turned out it was invented

by Charlie Schultz, author of the Peanuts cartoon... 

So what became of all my strange phobias from early childhood? Well, like many people, I just grew out of them, with the exception of needles, for which I now use hypnotherapy and glove anaesthesia to deaden my arm before an injection. I still haven’t got rid of that specific phobia

Penny Ling is a solution focused hypnotherapist and supervisor working in Oxfordshire. www.pennyling.co.uk

8 | Metamorphosis

Hypnobaby – how two

hypnotherapists began running their hypnobirthing classes in Bristol

Clementine O’shaughnessy and Miranda Robarts-Arnold are Solution focused hypnotherapists working in Bristol. www.hypnobabybristol.com

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M

iranda and Clementine began to think about running a hypno-birthing course in 2010.

We did lots of research into the legalities of using the name “hypno-birthing’’ in our advertising, which was complicated as it was copyrighted. We discovered that inserting a hyphen was legal. So we chose the name “hypnobaby’’ and created a website using hypnobabybristol so we could be easily found in this city.

We both read up a lot about childbirth.

This included; the history of birth in the UK, the medicalisation during Queen Victoria’s reign, common anxieties during pregnancy, the many dangers during labour, pain relief, how to have the best birth possible. Basically we read all the advice we could get our hands on to help us become experts. We interviewed midwives, searched the Internet and talked to many women to hear their views on this complex and often frightening experience of giving birth.

When we’d stopped scaring ourselves stupid, we took a deep breath (using one of our many handouts on breathing techniques for labouring Mum’s!) and decided to book a room in our local

10 | Metamorphosis

Community Centre in Southville. We advertised in The Pigeon magazine, NCT newsletter, and magazine Clifton Life, Redland Directory…and leafleted Granby House, The Maternity hospital, nearly new baby clothes sales, any shops, hairdressers, pubs, GP surgeries, libraries and schools that would let us.

Our first course had 6 women attending, which we felt pleased about. We didn’t make much profit after deducting rent, printing leaflets, building the website, printing handouts and course notes, and providing refreshments. However, we kept the long-term picture in our minds and remembered that you have ‘to speculate to accumulate’ with a business. We continued to run the classes after that from the Natural Health Clinic as Clementine worked there practising hypnotherapy during the day. They were kind enough to advertise our courses for free and didn’t charge us for the room if we failed to run the course due to lack of participants. Here’s how our advert ran:Hypnobaby is a 5 week course run by expert hypnotherapists and hypnobirthers – Miranda and Clementine.

The course teaches pregnant women: How to deeply relax –including breathing techniques

      

Self hypnosis techniques for labour To feel confident about your body To be positive and ready for the birth To voice your hopes and fears To feel empowered About The Brain and hypnosis The role of positivity and the chemical response

It’s been lovely to work with pregnant women and a delight to receive emails and photos of the new born babies when they arrive. Obviously we don’t have 100% natural births, but as the national percentage of caesarean born babies at an all time high of 24%, we aim for Mums to feel more in control, even if their birth goes down the medical Emai route  l

Research shows that using from hypnosis in childbirth helps produce a hap py M a safer and more comfortable ‘’Labo um ur st birth, increases production of arted some at 5.3 hous oxytocin, less need for drugs ewor 0am, a bit k and ate a worry and intervention, often lowers b y bana ing, b 10am by 11 na, d u blood pressure, cervix is more t s tarted all n o am a id rmal. nd co b e the b i n relaxed, labour often quicker, Contr g sick ming reath actio every ing a ns reg bonding is stronger, Mum By 12 nd fe 2 min u . l 5 a l 0Iw t real r utes. less exhausted and a more as 3c ly con Pract singin m dil i fi s d e g lou d e satisfying experience during nt an ated. dly. M d h ap push At 3p idwif ing w labour. py. m e f a o r h u r i i n c v h d e that l d l m a a s yself t 3.40 ted 5 ong).

0 min and I Felt in natur Since 2010 we have s s t a a ( t r w h ted al en ough e of m dorp run about 2-3 courses a didn’t y ama but n hins z f i e o n w el g bod ere a probl year. We discovered that mazin y and em. T your hank g! I d fabul the Winter classes were not id tea ous you b chan r a bi oth s so popular, probably ged m advice an t, o d sup much y wh It’s be p due to the weather f o o or all le ou rt. Th en su e the tlook ch a s and light. rapy and a ucces has pproa sful t ch to ime.’’ life.

Metamorphosis | 11

Sharp Scratch?

By Alan Wick

T

here are so many euphemisms available for a title surrounding fear of needles that I shall allow you to carry on……

There are several terms, of Latin origin, which can and have been used to define/describe the fear of needles, the most common (though still rarely used) being Trypanophobia, but we all know exactly what somebody means by ‘fear of needles’. That a person fears or dreads medical interventions designed to deliver substances (usually drugs), or draw substances (usually blood), through penetration of their skin using a hypodermic syringe, to such an extent that they avoid the intervention altogether.

This avoidance will manifest, even to the extent of risking or damaging their own health, or even that of others, such as where a person is pregnant, or where their fear influences their willingness to consent to the inoculation of their children.

In common with most Hypnotherapists, I have seen clients with a fear of needles.

In 6 years of practice, they nicely average out at one a year, though in early and then in more recent concentrations. In common with most phobics (though most GP visits too, if research is to be believed), the visits

12 | Metamorphosis

my clients have made to me has been when the fear has finally come to stand in the way of something that they have wanted, or perceived themselves to need.

That is certainly how I remember my client presenting with a fear of needles., who I will call Emily. Emily was an Italian, living in this country with her apparently ‘high flying’ partner who worked under contract to the UK Government. Emily designed childrens’ clothes, with some apparent success, and with interest that suggested she was going to do well. She was confident, evidently ‘well off’, very attractive, and had a level of confidence that could be described as going with ‘the territory’, until, that is, we came to discussing why she was presenting. Emily was required to undergo blood tests for ‘pre conceptual’ reasons by her husband’s medical insurers.

By this (early) stage of my career as a Hypnotherapist I had seen a number of aerophobic clients and some anxious drivers, but when I saw just how anxious Emily became about needles, I felt a little out of my depth. She was clearly terrified, even in the absence of immediate ‘threat’.

Nevertheless, from the Initial Consultation, I could see no justification in doing anything other than the Rewind Technique I had used for those flyers, and had been taught so relatively recently,

Sports Psychology by Penny Ling

and that is how we set about things. Emily attended for a first session in which she became acclimatised to the process, and in which I could use some direct suggestion within hypnosis. The next sessions were the rewind and reframe sessions, with which we are all familiar, and off she went.

Within just 6 months of seeing Emily I saw 2 other clients for fear of needles, and found my observation of the level of fear to be consistent with Emily’s. She had reported fainting, they reported fainting, she had reported feeling very foolish, and interestingly, so did they. I also approached these clients through the Rewind/Reframe method.

At the end of my first year in practice I

decided (through curiosity) to run a routine review of my clients in the past year. I was aware of the risk of introducing doubt and took trouble to stress the routine and inclusive nature of the review. Around 20% of clients approached responded (a level that has remained consistent since, as I have kept the annual review up), and amongst them was Emily (though sadly not the other two clients). I annotate her ‘testimonial’ on my website thus:; ‘ “Alan was very personable and there was never a feeling of unease. It helped me relax and not to stress as much over the impending blood test for the month prior.....”

(Alan’s note; This client goes on to

Metamorphosis | 13

describe an unhappy experience, which I have omitted out of respect. Suffice to say, she scores the overall benefit as 5 out of 10. Sometimes just coping [she had the blood tests] can be a victory. Some situations require more than one ‘bite’, and sometimes the best we can hope for is to cope, and thankfully Emily did cope) ‘ I won’t write here what Emily wrote about her experience having her blood tests, but it could only be seen as positive in a relative light of how it would have been should she have not gone through with them, and after all, she didn’t faint, and the bloods were taken, so it was a success (of a sort). However, I was also all too ready to read negatively into the absence of replies from the other two clients who had attended for fear of needles, and so I’m sure was not looking forward to the next.

I was to spend over three years without seeing another client for fear of needles until quite recently and then, like buses, along came another two at the same time.

By now I had a ‘few more years’ under my belt, and the experience that comes with that. My memory of the visceral fear shown by Emily, and by her two early contemporaries, remained with me, and I had seen it again in limited circumstances, most notably in a Tokophobic Client (fear of childbirth or pregnancy) and several Emetophobic (fear of vomiting, though more none specific than the name

14 | Metamorphosis

suggests) clients.

That ‘primal’ fear was present again in these two clients that I have described before. This time, and in the case of the first of the two clients, it moved me to take a ‘belt and braces’ approach, and so I suggested he should attend for 3 preparatory sessions, and then we’d do the rewind and the reframe. I was tempted to do that with the second client, but sensed that money was an issue so limited my approach to the standard 3 sessions.

The two clients are an interesting contrast, for a range of reasons. In the case of the first (male) I got caught up in the ‘belt and braces‘ business, and found myself suggesting that I’d go with him for the blood tests. I was reasonably honest and admitted it was, at least in part, an indulgence on my part. Nevertheless he was reassured by the idea of my presence and was only too keen. The other client (female) was going to attend for her travel inoculations with her Grandmother.

By the time my male clients appointment. had arrived, I had allowed my better judgement to go properly awry, and when I met him outside the clinic, we went to his car and I induced him, but then I ‘brought him out’ (whatever that means) with the strong suggestion that when I told him it was ‘time to get on with it’ he would find himself rapidly and comfortably back

Alan Wick is a Solution Focused hypnotherapist, Supervisor , tutor and runs the Manchester CPHT where he had been when I invited him to open his eyes in the car. We waited in reception, got called through, and as he sat down and introduced me (and he had prepared the Dr to expect me) I told him in no uncertain terms that it was ‘time to get on with it’……..somewhere on the other side of the River Mersey my female client got on with it as well, without the posturing.

If I’m honest, I’ve been wondering for some time what difference there is between an SFH and the old school ‘show’ Hypnosis, in terms of capabilities. I had become convinced that it was nothing more than a matter of confidence, or bluff, but it’s hard to put down, when you’ve never really picked it up, and I wanted to know if I could pull that kind of thing off. Well, I could, clearly… the Doctor’s only words to me, when the male’s blood test had been done were ‘leave your card at the desk please’ (more business) and the client’s annual review makes it clear where he’ll come next time he needs a blood test (more business)! But but but that female client, who was just as scared and certainly younger did it with her Grandma, and she sent a note as well, but it was the sort of healthy note I’ve come to expect from clients, the type that’s already letting you go, the type that tells you that a resourceful client has gone about their life and won’t be needing you again, and so my fear of needles clients have shown me the way to carry on 

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Hole in One?

Golfer’s Yips – done in FOUR

A case study by Sam Luxford of Aberdeen hypnotherapy

I

am a trained Registered General Nurse and Registered Mental Nurse and have worked within the NHS since 1986. Developing my interest I made a natural progression into Clinical Hypnotherapy.

work as a hypnotherapist and have a busy full time practise in Aberdeen. I came across this case for Golfer’s Yips. I only had four sessions with my Mr Golf and he achieved all the changes he wanted to make – really showing that what we do works, and if it works, well, we should do more of it!

Now, as a Clinical Hypnotherapist, I am committed to helping people to gain positive control of their lives through ‘solution focused’ therapy – concentrating on the future and what can be achieved rather than dwell on the past and on what might have been. I thoroughly enjoy my

Before I was contacted by Mr Golf I didn’t know much about Golfer’s Yips – I had heard of it but that was about it. The font of wisdom that is Wikipedia tells us that: “In golf, the yips is a movement disorder known to interfere with putting. The term yips is said to have been popularized

16 | Metamorphosis

What is Golfer’s Yips?

by Tommy Armour—a golf champion and later golf teacher—to explain the difficulties that led him to abandon tournament play. In describing the yips, golfers have used terms such as twitches, staggers, jitters and jerks. The yips affects between one-quarter and one-half of all mature golfers. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic found that 33 per cent to 48 per cent of all serious golfers have experienced the yips. Golfers who have played for more than 25 years appear to be most prone to the condition.”

Also known as the jitters, the jerks, the staggers, and “balky putter,” the condition has affected some of the greatest names in the sport including Bernhard Langer, Ben Hogan, Harry Vardon and Sam Snead.

More than one quarter of all mature golfers are thought to experience it at some point and are left bewildered as involuntary twitches lead to easy 3ft putts sailing by the hole. The so-called “golfer’s curse” has led many of them to give up completely out of frustration and embarrassment at the state of their short game.

Mr Golf Age: 65 Occupation: semi-retired consultant in oil & gas Why call him Mr Golf… well aside from laziness it is to highlight the fact that for Mr Golf, golf was is life and was to be his

retirement, if he couldn’t play golf what could he do? These thoughts were very prevalent at the start of our time together and he was doing an awful lot of negatively forecasting his future golf playing because of the yips. Mr. Golfs Yips affected his putting and driving shots.

The Initial consultation went well and in addition to the yips the main areas that came to the fore were issues around his job.

Mr Golf was making the transition from work to retirement, he has a foot in each camp so to speak and this was certainly a source of stress for him.

In session one he scored 7/10 on general happiness and during the Miracle Question he discussed delegating at work more in order to free up more time for him. Most of our talk was centred on positive mental rehearsal, creating visual mental images and positive thinking. I told him about the piano players, the study that involved groups actually playing the piano and another group who only imagined playing it: “What the scientists found was that after a week of practice, the stretch of motor cortex devoted to these finger movements took over surrounding areas like dandelions on a suburban lawn. “Mental practice resulted in a similar reorganization” of the brain, Pascal Leone later wrote.

If his results hold for other forms of

Metamorphosis | 17

movement (and there is no reason to think they don’t), then mentally practicing a golf swing or a forward pass or a swimming turn could lead to mastery with less physical practice. Even more profound, the discovery showed that mental training had the power to change the physical structure of the brain.” Leone also said that: “The brain is more playdoh than porcelain”.

It was in 1994 that Harvard scientists taught a simple 5-fingered combination of piano notes to a group of volunteers, which they played over and over for two hours a day for five consecutive days. Another group didn’t actually play the notes but just imagined playing them and imagined hearing them for the same period of time.

The brain scans taken over the five days show the changes to the brain are almost identical, the stretch of motor cortex devoted to these finger movements took over surrounding areas “like dandelions on a suburban lawn.” “Mental practice resulted in a similar reorganization” of the brain, Pascal-Leone noted that the brain cannot tell the difference between reality and imaginary. Focused attention holds together and stabilises brain circuits so that they can wire together by Hebb’s law. Once they are wired together, the brain will respond to similar situations in a reliable hardwired way. This is known as the Quantum Zeno effect as explained by Dr Henry Strapp of UC Berkeley’s Lawrence

18 | Metamorphosis

Berkeley National Laboratory. “The power is the focus!” The power of this for sport’s performance is abundantly clear – it was easy for Mr Golf to be able to take on board this information and ‘think it’ through to his own case of yips.

This is powerful knowledge and it was clear that Mr Golf was really engaging with the information and the therapy. I also used the prisoner of war metaphor that David Newton often recounts… how the prisoner of war only has one thing he can control, what he does with his thoughts. Every day he was in the prisoner of war camp he visualised his favourite golf courses, each fairway, each green and each individual shot. After years of being a prisoner of war and rehearsing these golf games in his mind the prisoner was eventually returned home. Upon his return he played golf again and found his handicap was significantly reduced.

Neural pathways had opened up and his mind knew what to do. The scripts I used were ‘Confidence - key to success’, ‘Tropical Island’ (to reduce anxiety) and ‘The Village’.

At session two Mr Golf was 8/10 on the happiness scale and he recounted that he had started to delegate more at work, we explored the differences this was making and he was indeed pleased! Mr Golf was beginning to extract himself from work. He reported that his golf had seen an improvement. In this

session it was much more of the same… we really focused a lot on positive visualisations, visualising him playing golf, re-framing the perfect game of golf with lots and lots of positive and confidence boosting stuff thrown in for good measure. I also discussed with him 7/11 breathing which he found helpful and a calm anchor using his thumb and middle finger pressure points to relive stress levels and help refocus on his golf swing.

During the key process of revision I again highlighted the enormous learning benefits for the brain of positive mental rehearsal.

Prof. Davidson in his discussions on “Engineering the left prefrontal cortex” has noted that: Since the 1990s, the Dalai Lama has been lending monks and lamas to Prof.

Davidson for studies of how meditation alters activity in the brain. The idea was not to document brain changes during meditation but to provide evidence that mental training produces enduring changes in the brain.

“This positive state is a skill that can be trained,’ Prof. Davidson says. ‘Our findings clearly indicate that meditation can change the function of the brain in an enduring way.”

Moreover the importance of mental exercise is clear: “Modern neuroscience research leads to the inevitable conclusion that we can actually enhance well-being by training that induces neuroplastic changes in the brain.” , says Prof. Richard Davidson, professor of psychology at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“If you go back to the 1950s, the majority of middle-class citizens in Western countries did not regularly engage in physical exercise. It was because of scientific research that established the importance of physical exercise in

Metamorphosis | 19

promoting health and well-being that more people now engage in regular physical exercise. I think mental exercise will be regarded in a similar way 20 years from now.”

“We can take responsibility for our own brains.

They are not pawns to external influences; we can be more proactive in shaping the positive influences on the brain.”

We also had a good deal of talk based on success and positive visualisation and we touched on the following two stories, again showing the importance of those powerful adjacent metaphors. Before a fight, World Heavy Weight boxer, Muhammad Ali would focus intensely on visualising how he would take on his opponent in the ring move by move, round by round. When Ali was clear how he would defeat his opponent, he would call a press conference and confidently announce in which round and how he would win the fight. Ali’s predictions were no empty boasts as they invariably came true. Ali was not engaging in idle talk but was really sharing his vision of his desire outcome with the press. Also the fact that in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, the Russian team took 11 hypnotists to develop mental clarity and help the athletes with visualisation.

Dr Charles Garfield in his book Mental Training of the World’s Greatest Athletes stated that “Without a doubt, the most dramatic contribution to the advancement of goal-setting skills in recent years has been the Soviets introduction of visualisation.

During mental rehearsal athletes create mental images of the exact movements they want to emulate in their sport. Use of this skill substantially increased

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the effectiveness of goal-setting.”

This focus on positive mental rehearsal was really the crux of our work together; and with so much research to reinforce all I was explaining the mental pennies were soon dropping for Mr Golf.

Session three and we were going great guns… Mr Golf reported 9/10 on the happiness scale and exclaimed that the yips were 90% gone, fantastic! He felt his confidence was back and he was more organised at work and generally feeling more in control (control is after all a constant!). He was freeing time for himself and felt a reduction in anxious thoughts.

This session was pretty much a repeat of the previous one with again a large focus on positive mental rehearsal – the perfect game (yes, golf!). I again used re-framing and Game Player’s Planet. Throughout the session again taking the time to remind Mr Golf about our neuroplasticity and how that includes any process that results in a change in the brains structure, chemical composition or functions in response to changes in the brains environment.

It is a property of the brain and is best understood as a capacity (or potential) for brain areas and circuits to take on new roles and functions.

Dr Jeffrey M Schwartz said of self directed Neuroplasticity: “Using the power of focused attention, along with the ability to apply commitment, hard work

and dedication to direct your choices and actions, thereby rewiring your brain to work for you and with your true self. And I used that lovely phrase that is so well remembered by clients: “Neurons that “fire together wire together”. This means that when groups of nerve cells (or brain regions) are repeatedly activated at the same time, they form a circuit and are essentially “locked in” together. Again, this knowledge was clearly sprouting off those dandelions for Mr Golf.

Four!

Mr Golf was pleased to report that he was 10/10 on the happiness scale and the yips had disappeared. He was thinking much more positively generally and about his golf, there was a reduction in anxiety across the key areas of job, relationships and self. Revision was based on how the subconscious mind knows HOW to do something – it is the conscious mind that gets in the way. All the golf he has played over his life was stored in there and so he knows how to play golf. I spent time highlighting positive thoughts and how important they are to our physiology and also repeating that we must trust the subconscious to get on with it. The key areas really were reducing anxiety, increasing positivity and challenging negative thoughts and any negative forecasting. Ensuring Mr Golf avoided over-thinking things in order to

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remain firmly in intellectual control. I used confidence boosting scripts, the dial up confidence script, the lovely metaphor for trusting your own subconscious written

by Michael Hughes ‘Guide and Seek’. It was important to give Mr Golf tools for the future, to capitalise on this great start and ensure he could continue to enjoy his golf. I centered revision around positives futures, the importance of optimism, seeing things as we WANT them to be and the importance of continuing this, repeating these patterns. I mentioned Aristotle, “We are what we repeatedly do.

Excellence, then is not an act, but a habit.”

Dr Jeffrey M Schwartz in his discussions on ATTENTION DENSITY REPITITION noted that: “Repeatedly focusing your attention on something (a thought, sensation, event, response, action) over and over.

The more you sustain your focus of attention on something (i.e. the denser your attention is), the more likely a specific habit will be wired into your brain. In the brain, attention density is the first - and most important - step in creating strong enduring brain circuits.” and why stick with the new? It was Aristotle that asked can optimism change reality?

An experiment by cognitive neuroscientist Sara Bengtsson manipulated positive and negative expectations of students by priming some with words such as “smart, intelligent

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and clever” and others with “stupid and ignorant”. Unsurprisingly the study showed students performed better after being primed with an affirmation message. However the brain imaging data also showed that the students brains responded differently to any mistakes made.

When a mistake was made following a positive word there was enhanced activity in the anterior medial part of the prefrontal cortex (a region involved in self-reflection and recollection) there was no heightened activity in this area in the students who had been primed with a negative expectation.

A brain that doesn’t expect good results lacks a signal telling it when it does make a mistake and these brains will fail to learn from their mistakes and are less likely to improve over time. Expectations become self-fulfilling by altering out performance and actions, which ultimately affects what happens in the future. This really ‘hammers home’ the importance of positive thought and imagining things how we want them to be.

We said our goodbyes and two months later I was pleased to see an email from Mr Golf in my inbox telling me how his golf had continued to improve, so much so in fact that he had gone on to win a seniors tournament! This really reminds us what Solution Focused hypnotherapy can achieve and it is brief! In four sessions

Sam Luxford is a Solution Focused Hypnotherapist working from Aberdeen.

Mr Golf made all his desired changes and; significantly went on to improve, as we know he would - those dandelions continue to take root. In fact Schwartz has himself touted the benefits of relaxation.

Relaxation is important... It helps us recharge and unwind, which is critical to maintaining balance and restoring our energy levels.

“So make sure you spend some time each day relaxing and doing healthy wholesome things that bring you pleasure, satisfaction and fulfilment.”

“The power is the focus!” Dr Jeffrey M Schwartz 

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Motivational Theories

By Trevor Eddolls

F

or most people, we only do things that we want to do, or that we feel we ought to do, or because we’d rather do that than any of the alternatives.

But what psychological theories are there?

What have psychologists come up with about motivation? And how can we use those theories?

Let’s start with a definition of what we mean by motivation. Motivation is what starts, steers, and sustains (initiates, directs, and maintains) a particular behaviour.

Motivation has at least three components – activation, persistence, and intensity.

So let’s take a look at some of those theories…

The first theory is called the ‘incentive theory’, and that basically assumes that we do anything because we get rewarded (ie the incentive) for doing anything. So a positive meaning is associated with a behaviour. This is mummy telling a child they are a ‘good boy/girl’ for performing a particular action. It’s your friends saying well done for doing something, your country giving you a medal or your own TV show, or your organization giving you a pay rise. And you continue performing the behaviour while you’re rewarded. A bit like smokers getting rewarded by their

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smoking friends by going outside together, or people who can’t sleep getting up and opening the whisky. Reinforcement encourages the behaviour, lack of reinforcement extinguishes the behaviour.

In incentive theory, stimuli ‘attract’ a person towards them and positive reinforcement keeps them doing it. With a client, you can use intrinsic rewards – the feeling that they are doing the right thing - or extrinsic rewards – give them £5 for every day they don’t have a cigarette!

Drive Reduction theory comes from the idea that there are specific biological drives, e.g. hunger. If a drive isn’t satisfied, its strength increases – so if you don’t eat for a long time, all you can think about are your favourite menus! But once you have a meal, the drive is reduced. Observable behaviour is more complex than this, but that might be ascribed to the primitive brain working in this way, and the intellectual brain overruling which behaviours occur.

Freud’s psychoanalytic theories of motivation suggested that all action or behaviour resulted from internal biological instincts that are either to do with life (sexual) or death (aggression).

Sullivan and Erikson (1993) thought that interpersonal and social relationships were fundamental. Adler thought people were driven by power. Jung was more focused on temperament and a search for the soul or personal meaningfulness as a motivator.

Selfactualisation Pursue inner talent creativity, fulfillment Self-esteem Achievement, mastery recognition, respect Belonging - love Friends, family, spouse, lover Safety Stability, security, freedom from fear Physiological Food, water, shelter, warmth Leon Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory suggests that cognitive dissonance occurs when a person feels a degree of discomfort because there’s an inconsistency between two cognitions. What that means is that they have a model of the world (one cognition) and then there’s their senses’ view of the world (a second and perhaps different cognition). So a person may like a tidy house, but there are children’s toys left everywhere, so cognitive dissonance motivates them to tidy up! This theory explains why groups of people trying to lose weight together works. A client agrees to try to lose weight by next week. Cognitive dissonance stops them eating a large slab of cake (etc) the night before a weigh-in day! Simply put, people are motivated to reduce dissonance. Hypnotherapists can help people to change their views about things so that cognitive dissonance brings about desired behaviours.

motivation is the process used to allocate energy to maximize the satisfaction of needs. And there are plenty of ‘need’ theories of motivation.

Pritchard and Ashwood suggested that

Herzberg proposed the motivator-hygiene

Maslow came up with a hierarchy of needs – from the simplest needed to survive to the highest – see above.

According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, people are motivated by unsatisfied needs.

Lower level needs need to be satisfied before higher level needs can be satisfied.

So, there’s no point trying to encourage a client to write a reframe (which might be the self-actualization level) if they’re hungry (the physiological level). Or maybe a client simply needs to go to the toilet before the trance work starts, otherwise they will be more concerned about that than relaxing. Only unsatisfied needs influence behaviour, satisfied needs don’t.

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theory. With this workplace theory, certain factors result in job satisfaction.

He suggested that there were motivators such as challenging work, recognition, responsibility that led to job satisfaction, and hygiene factors such as status, job security, salary and fringe benefits that when absent led to demotivation.

Alderfer proposed the ERG theory, which derived from Maslow’s work. This theory suggests that there are three groups of core needs — existence, relatedness, and growth. The existence group is basic material existence requirements. The relatedness needs are to do with maintaining important personal relationships. Growth needs are a desire for personal development.

David McClelland’s need theory assumes that our basic needs are for achievement, affiliation, and power. It might be worth noting at this stage that any TV copperama assumes the motives for murder are money, sex, or power! Achievement-motivated people like to master a task or situation. You can set them tasks of moderate difficulty and give them feedback on their work.

Affiliation-motivated people like creating and maintaining social relationships, being a part of a group, and feeling loved and accepted. Peer pressure is a good way to get them to do anything (stop smoking, lose weight, etc). And power-motivated people need to influence, teach, or

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encourage others (sounds like a therapist to me!). Get them to encourage others to stop smoking, etc. Let them show their control of their lives in front of a group.

Manfred Max-Neef and others at the school of Human Scale Development produced a list of fundamental human needs, which are constant through all human cultures and across different time periods.

The list is:  Subsistence – physical and mental health  Protection – care, adaptability, autonomy  Affection – respect, sense of humour, generosity, sensuality  Understanding – critical capacity, curiosity, intuition  Participation – receptiveness, dedication, sense of humour  Leisure – imagination, tranquillity, spontaneity  Creation – imagination, boldness, inventiveness, curiosity  Identity – sense of belonging, self-esteem, consistency  Freedom – autonomy, passion, self-esteem, open-mindedness.

Deci and Ryan’s self-determination theory (SDT) assumes intrinsic motivation for growth and development is what drives people. And they need active encouragement from the environment to continue. How competent you are the

more you are able to look after yourself.

When it comes to intrinsic motivation, Reiss found 16 basic desires that affect behaviour.

They are:  Acceptance – the need for approval  Curiosity – the need to learn  Eating – the need for food  Family – the need to raise children  Honour – the need to be loyal to the traditional values of one’s clan/ethnic group  Idealism – the need for social justice  Independence – the need for individuality  Order – the need for organised, stable predictable environments  Physical activity – the need for exercise  Power – the need for influence of will  Romance – the need for sex  Saving – the need to collect  Social contact – the need for friends (peer relationships)  Social status – the need for social standing/ importance  Tranquility – the need to be safe  Vengeance – the need to strike back.

You may look at the list and wonder how many apply to you. You might also wonder how much is culturally dependent. And where’s being happy on the list? What it does illustrate is that at any time,

competing behaviours are trying to ‘get out’ and your ‘control brain’ can decide which one to allow.

Goal setting theory suggests that people may have a drive to reach a clearly defined ‘end state’. The effectiveness of the goal as a way of changing behaviour depends on how close it is (proximity), how hard it is to achieve (difficulty), and how clearly it is defined (specificity). SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely) criteria can be used to define the goal. It may make sense to break up a distant goal into steps so that success is never too far away and the client can see progress and celebrate success.

So, how do we, motivate ourselves to achieve goals? Certainly gaining more control stops us ‘shooting ourselves in the foot’ whenever we attempt to make changes in our lives. But the reality is that where there are lots of theories, there is going to be a lot of confusion. It’s down to the us to find what works best. Certainly, an understanding of the different theories can help with this  Trevor Eddolls is a solution focused hypnotherapist and supervisor working in Chippenham Wiltshire. http://itech-ed.com

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