Wednesday 5 February 2014

The road less travelled...treatment of depression and mood disorders with hypnotherapy and coaching

Reading a paper by one of the speakers at the upcoming NCH hypnotherapy 'extravaganza' (Michael Yapko  on a live transatlantic hook up on 15/2/14 at Royal College of Medicine), I came across this statement about the value (or not) of CBT in treating depression - that it wasn't so much changes in cognition (thinking) that brought about positive results as 'the activation of purposeful
and goal-oriented behavior'. And this set me thinking that this is exactly what coaching does (with a bit of hypnotherapeutic technique thrown in). This is what I am currently learning. I am in the throes of completing the last of my 4 case studies. When finished by the end of this month I hope to become a fully ILM accredited wellbeing coach.

Hypnotherapy and coaching have many things in common even though the latter does not specifically use hypnosis. For one thing they both empower the person to bring about improvements in their lives by tackling unconscious beliefs and behaviours. They also go beyond the therapy room in that they both require tasks to be completed outside of the session. In case there is any doubt about why this is necessary therapeutic change is likely to be greater in those therapies that employ homework (according to much research quoted by Yapko in his paper Intl. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 58(2): 186–201, 2010. This concurs with what I have found in my experience too. Those people who engage fully outside the session are likely to gain a lot more than those who are passive and dependent on the therapist to effect a 'cure'. In fact this is the basis of all the therapies that I employ - to believe in the person where perhaps they don't believe in themselves and to educate and empower them beyond the therapy to create meaningful changes in their lives. Erikson always believed the client had everything they needed already within them (so called 'utilisation' approach) but clearly modern medicine has the opposite belief.

My recent experience at the dentist confirms this - my dentist wanting to take all the credit for the rapid healing of my tooth when I have been doing so much to restore it (Neem oil pulling, taking extra doses of vitamin c and chlorella for detoxification etc.). His comment to me when I suggested this, was to point to the credit card I was about to pay with saying 'that's your credit!'. I hope he was joking...

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