Beyond The Swinging Watch - Hypnosis and Psychology in Everyday Life

  Take a moment to list all the things you associate with being happy. Now compare them to someone else's list. You will most probably find that while some are similar, others are unique to you. What makes me happy, you may well be indifferent to; this is the problem of applying a one-size-fits-all to psychological wellbeing. Think of wellbeing as being at ease given the current circumstances alongside a view to the future. Our circumstances change our feelings of contentment associated with that change. Our emotions and reactions unfixed; they interact with each other. It is entirely possible to feel content with one aspect of our lives without having an overall positive effect on everything we do. If we think of wellbeing as a fixed state, we are likely to become frustrated when we reach obstacles. Our goals and desires for the future form part of what makes us feel a strong sense of wellbeing; we have a sense of purpose and feel that something is happening. It gives us a sense o...

    If you are hoping to read that Hypnosis is a magical, mystical, controlling power that can make people behave in ways they choose not to, then you are certainly going to be disappointed. Any assumption that a person is asleep or unconscious is also not the case.  So have you ever experienced Hypnosis? Think back over the last 24 hours…. When you woke up this morning, do you remember that half-awake half-asleep feeling? On that commute to work, perhaps you drifted into auto-pilot and as you were driving along? Perhaps your mind drifted to the things you had to do.  You could be forgiven for thinking that you were daydreaming. Tonight, just as you drift off to sleep you are very likely to experience that same half-awake half-asleep feeling. Every one of those experiences could be given the name Hypnosis. Hypnosis is a natural state we all experience many times throughout the day. It is as much part of our lives as breathing. The idea of being under the control of ...

  A phobia is a pathological fear of something or a situation. A Phobiais more than a dislike for something, it is an uncontrollable fear. The person who suffers from panic attacks is all too aware of the problem. They know what that all-consuming fear is like, but of course, the phobic sufferer is experiencing that most strongly in the presence of the triggering situation. Take a look at a working description of the anxiety attack: The heart is beating significantly faster than we are used to. There is a shortness of breath, as though we fighting for air; which can be accompanied by a tightening of the chest. An increase in sweating will commonly accompany a desire to remove themselves from the current environment. At times that desire is not successfully achieved as the individual will feel rooted to the spot. The observer will note that the behaviour shows all the hallmarks of a person in intense danger. The individual who is in the presence of their phobic stimulus will be expe...

  Did you find it hard to concentrate on anything during the lockdown? Perhaps you found your memory was worse, what has commonly been called brain fog? How many times have you felt exhausted after a day of online meetings? You were not alone. The good news is that as we come out of the restrictions we are likely to find the fog will clear, but researchers are interested in why this happened. I read an interesting article in the Guardian today, that explored some of the work that has been going on studying the behavioural and cognitive effects of a restricted lifestyle during the lockdown, and I wanted to share some of the points as a way of reassuring ourselves that it appears to be a normal psychological response. A Normal Response to Abnormal Circumstances Psychologists agree that cognitive impairment is an expected response to trauma. We remind ourselves that trauma is as much the change to our everyday routine as being directly affected by the pandemic itself. We remember th...

  “I know what I should do, but I’m not sure that I could do it.”  This is a ‘what if?’ comment. When we think about making changes in our lives we can sometimes put blocks in our way with ‘what if’s”. What if I fail? What if it is a mistake? What if I regret it?  More often than not we spend time thinking about the downsides of the change rather than the benefits, even though the positives were exactly what created the desire to change in the first place.  Negative focusing is a powerful force in stopping us from progressing in the way we should. The key is to get into the habit of reframing the negative ‘what if?’ into a positive statement of what is going to happen. I am all in favour of positive imagination and dwelling on what our life will be like when the goal is achieved, but it is important that it is always framed in a positive way.  The most important thing to understand is how to reframe or rather change that negative view into dwelling on what if y...

  The term Smiling Depression has become more common over the last few years and refers to the way many people can have low mood while still functioning day-to-day.  Often they are so successful that friends, family and work colleagues would be surprised to know how they were feeling behind the smile. Typically a client will explain how they have learned to put up a front of being okay because that’s what everyone expects from them. They go through the motions of playing along with the ‘role’ they have learned to play which hides the truth that their low mood is more persistent than many would believe. When we think of famous people like Robin Williams it is clear that he was smiling through his depression, playing the comedy role the world loved him for. What does this tell us? How people look on the outside is not a good indicator of how they feel on the inside. Low mood and mild depression are not just feeling sad, it can be an absence of emotion. Often we refer to a flatt...

  What’s your Talent? Have a think about it… because you do have one, I promise. You might not know that you do, but we all have a talent for something. If you haven’t recognised what it is yet, think of what a benefit it would be to you and other’s once you understand your talents and exploit those in your day-to-day life. The experiences we have (including our interactions with others) shape our expectations about future outcomes. As a way of dealing with potential ‘threats’ in our lives, we use models of past experience to inform us about what we should do. Of course, we haven’t experienced everything, so we used the best fit option. We match similar experiences with future ones and develop an expectation based on those. It stands to reason that a person who has had experiences and interactions that were interpreted as evidence that they are not as good as others, will be less successful and just have to make do with what they have. They are more likely going to find it difficul...