Beyond The Swinging Watch - Hypnosis and Psychology in Everyday Life

  Don’t even bother trying…it’s bound to go wrong… If I go to that party, everyone is going to stare at me… There are people far better for that job… there is no point in applying… You know you are scared of that… avoid it… that’s the safest option… These worries, fears, phobias, and panic attacks are your mind lying to you! It’s fake news… your mind is telling you there is something to be fearful, worried about, when it’s not true. Like all fake news, you can ignore it, but it will find a way of creeping back in, and each time it tries to be more and more convincing. It is still lies from your mind. Think of anxiety as unconscious stress; stress that originates inside your mind. Your mind wants you to avoid anything similar to that unconscious stress so it interrupts your behaviour to prevent that happening. And not just your behaviour… Unconscious stress intrudes on your thoughts. Ask anyone who suffers with anxiety and they will tell you how much they think about it. It is ...

  Let’s imagine you are talking to someone who has been trying to manage anxiety… what would be the best question to ask? What symptoms have you been experiencing?  What seems to trigger the anxiety?    Is there anything that has helped previously?  We might even ask… how long have you been feeling anxious?  Obviously all are important questions…but what about… WHY have you been suffering with anxiety? When did you first remember feeling anxious? These might be the most illuminating questions because they are moving away from focusing on the direct symptoms of anxiety and beginning to consider what the CAUSE of the anxiety might be. Anyone with anxiety is going to have thought about where it might have started. They will have spent many hours pondering over the possible causes, but even then they will admit that those causes somehow don’t seem right. This leads to the hypothesis that there must be a cause that they haven’t worked out yet; perhaps an uncons...

‘There is an “it” which thinks in me and makes  me doubt whether it is I that think.’ Claude Levi-Strauss If you had to describe Hypnosis to someone, what would you say? It’s okay, the whole issue of an agreed definition has troubled academics and practitioners for many years. Often words like: relaxation, focused thinking, trance and sleep, are the first selected, and sometimes people talk about a hypnotic state. I work with this definition: A state of relaxation and heightened awareness, induced by suggestion How’s that?  It combines the idea that experiencing hypnosis is relaxing with the very common phenomenon that our senses become more sensitive. We become more aware of our surroundings while experiencing hypnosis and make sharper isolations of thought, even though to the observer we look perfectly relaxed. The definition also makes the point that the state is induced (either by themselves or another) by suggesting that it is going to happen. Think about that… a situa...

What is the purpose of Coaching? There are times when we find it difficult to ‘see the wood from the trees’. The problem with being IN a situation it is often difficult to see where you need to go next, or what is stopping you doing what you know you need to do. Coaching - like an ‘external you’ - helps you assess the whole situation and quite often can highlight the obstacles which have been getting in the way of you being more motivated, happier, productive or successful. Coaching is a process of helping a person formulate and act upon a plan to be the person you want to be. Like a sports coach, a psychology coach is someone who will assess what you are doing and help you to challenge things that stop you progressing. Imagine what you changes you could make to your life if you had the skills and psychological coaching. Like sports coaching, professional coaching helps you improve your psychological performance in the game…the game of life The Psychological Wish List If you stopped ...

It’s unsurprising that negative life changes cause stress, however research has acknowledged that even positive life changes produce stress. Why? Any life change requires extra mental effort. A life change needs extra processing of emotions (positive or negative) as well as adjusting to new beginnings. It is the change that is most important. The change requires extra mental effort as we adjust, and that’s what causes the stress. It is largely agreed that any event that was unexpected, unpredictable and uncontrollable has the potential to be stressful in an unhelpful way. The impact of COVID19 lockdown applies here easily. The lockdown was largely unexpected and unpredictable added to the fact that, in our lifetime, we have not experienced anything like this pandemic.  It feels uncontrollable and so we manage the stress by gaining control through seeking out information and following guidance. We take part in charity events online or help our friends and relatives with shopping ...

Job Strain: The workplace causes stress and illness in two ways: High workload (high job demand) and Low Job Control (low control of deadlines e.t.c.) The Research Marmot et. al.(1997) researched workplace stress and referred to job strain as being a toxic mixture of high workload, low job control and a lack of social support. The combination of these factors was most likely to produce destructive stress in an individual.  The study followed 10,000 civil servants who had worked in Whitehall since 1985. Some of them worked in high-grade jobs (such as accountants) and others worked in low-grade positions such as administration. It was suggested that those in high-grade jobs would have a greater level of workload and control in comparison to the lower grade positions who while having a lower workload they also had lower job control. The job strain model would suggest that they would both suffer from workplace stress for different reasons. The researchers began by assessing the level ...

How many times have you had great intentions to make a positive change in your life only to find you lose enthusiasm for it after a few days or weeks?  You start off with great vigour and drive only to find yourself drifting away from your goal and going back to your old ways of thinking. Why? Maybe your goal was a nice idea rather than a firm intention? The Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 2011) The likelihood of a person engaging in a particular behaviour can be predicted by their intention to succeed. Take, for example, the person having the intention to tackle their problem with self-confidence… When the person believes that they will be able to be more confident rather than simply hoping that they will be able to, they are move from a desire to an intention. Likewise, when they have experience of other’s having success in a similar way, they have a greater investment in their own abilities succeed too. Without a belief in our abilities, what appears  to be an inten...