Due to popular demand, Melodie is once again offering separate hypnotherapy sessions. There is a 4 session minimum because it takes that long for you to be
comfortable with our work and the changes we make. Most single issues can be resolved in 4 to 7 sessions, using the last session as a
final follow up.
The fee is $135 per session. The first session will
last about 2 hours (you get 30 minutes free as the initial consult), while
following sessions run about 90 minutes each. If you pay for all 4 sessions
up front, there's a
20% discount, so instead of $540 for 4 sessions, it
would be $432.
Also, if you are an existing
Triquetra Therapy(TM) client (i.e., you've had at least one
Triquetra Therapy(TM) session with me),
you receive the 20% discount, and you are not subject to the 4 session mimimum. That brings your rate to $108 per session.
History of Hypnosis & Hypnotherapy
This section provides a brief history of hypnosis and hypnotherapy, and also introduces some concepts on how we influence the mind/body connection that science is now verifying has such an impact on our physical health.
The mind/body connection lyes in the immune system and the endocrine system, and more and more studies are now verifying this. Hypnosis can directly influence the immune system, and bioenergy treatments can influence the endocrine system via the body's chakra or energy systems, each of which is associated with an endocrine gland. See the Bioenergy Treatment section for more details on the endocrine system and chakras.
The reason for providing this brief history is to try and alleviate any
fears that may be lingering out there about it. You know the ones: "Is
it mind control?" "Will I lose control?" "Will I cluck like a
chicken?" "Isn't it the devil's work?" "And what about those Dracula
movies? Didn't he hypnotize his victims?"
Hypnotherapy is the first component of Triquetra Therapytm, and it is also the part where you the client do most of the work.
During hypnotherapy and hypnosis You are in absolute control at all times.
You're the one doing the work, not me. You're the one that allows me
to guide you through your own subconscious to the part that's been
troubling you or causing you problems. The subconscious is where we can get at those monsters under the bed or in the closet, and finally dissipate them and set YOU free.
First Story Tellers, First Medicine People, First Hypnotists
All
those fears and stigmas and stories and myths that have come to be
associated with hypnosis and hypnotherapy over the years. And it has
been many, many years. The history of hypnosis and hypnotherapy goes
back to long before Mesmer in the 18th Century to those first story
tellers and medicine people who helped others sitting around the fires
night after night after long days full of the physical exertion of
hunting and gathering.
Many shamanistic techniques such as chanting, drumming, and dancing are
really techniques designed to induce a hypnotic trance state; an
altered state of consciousness. These techniques allow the mind to drop
into automatic, and once this occurs, the subconscious comes to
fore.
Listening to an excellent story-teller by the fire after a long
day of physical exertion also allows the mind to drop into the
subconscious and the trance state. The combination of physical
exhaustion allows one to slip into the trance state, and then the
subconscious mind is much easier to access and the dancing words of the
story-teller ebb and flow inside, hypnotically luring and easing us,
penetrating our deepest depths. Even the rock paintings, so beautiful
and simple and elegant could also be used as a way to induce a trance
state. You've seen the Hitchock classic thriller Vertigo haven't you?
Spinning circles can tire the eyes, and tiring the eyes is yet another
way to induce a hypnotic trance state. Just imagine how those rock
paintings looked when the only light available was the fire in the
middle of the cave . . .
Hypnotic
techniques are used by all good speakers, preachers, teachers,
story-tellers, helpers, and healers of all kinds, even if they are using them subconsciously. And you can bet your
butt, the advertising firms on Madison Avenue know about it and they
use it very well when you plop down in front of the TV at night after a
long day of work and are exhausted, whether that is physically or
mentally. They use the trance state induced by the flickering light of the TV... and they use it well.
In the Beginning . . .
As far back as 3,000 BC, the Egyptians
had knowledge of and were using hypnotism, which is proven by
hieroglyphics found on tombs of that period. The hieroglyphics show a
person apparently asleep in a sitting position with others gathered
about. The Greeks also understood it, as well as the Maya
of South America. It was also used by Hindu Fakirs, the Chinese Teachers of Religion, the Persian Magi,
the Celtic Druids, and African Witch Doctors. Rituals around the world handed down since the dawn of time
incorporate it.
Some
believe that hypnosis was spontaneously discovered in each civilization
of the world as its history unfolded, and that it will become known by
any group of people in any setting. In all likelihood, the first
hypnotists soon became the first witch doctors, wise men, shamen, and
medicine people, and the art of hypnosis was jealously guarded by
shrouding it in mysticism and religion. So, is it any wonder then that
it has taken, and is taking, so long for it to gain widespread
recognition and acceptance? Absolutely not, because its secrets were
kept secret from the average human for millenia.
Another reason for the general lack of knowledge of hypnotism is even more
inherent in humans because of our natural tendency to fear and ridicule what we don't understand.
Fear of the unknown is a basic human fear found in all cultures of the
world. However, every science of the world, and hypnosis is a science
as well as an art, has traveled the same path from disbelief, to fear,
to common acceptance.
Even the Wall Street Journal
recently ran an article on how the traditional medical community is now
doing studies that show if the doctor is upbeat and positive about a
new drug or therapy they prescribe for their patients, the patients
respond better and faster to the treatment. That's hypnosis because for
many, many years our Western society viewed (and some still do) medical
doctors as nearly Gods, not body mechanics. And the medical doctors'
belief in the treatment heavily influences the patients' belief and
faith in the treatment. Today, more and more scientific studies come to
light expanding on the interaction between the mind and the body.
Hypnosis uses this connection between the mind and the body to
accomplish what some describe as waving a magic wand.
More and more studies are coming to pinpoint the mind/body connection as lying in the immune system and the endocrine system. The immune system is easily impacted by your core beliefs and thoughts. This is why creative visualization (we have many names for hypnosis that seem more palatable somehow) and viewing your white blood cells as PacMen eating cancer cells or "bad" cells is so effective.
The endocrine system we'll address more in the page discussing bioenergy treatments because each endocrine gland is associated with a major chakra (energy center) in the body.
Today, hypnosis is recognized as both an art and a science:
The art comes from the hypnotist or hypnotherapist and the techniques and tools they use to help anyone
who wants to reach the hypnotic trance state. The science
comes from the numerous studies done on the various states of mind and
brainwave patterns found in those different states of mind, as well as
the numerous studies on the mind-body connection. (Please see the FAQ for the brainwave pattern distinctions.)
The hypnotic pioneers fall generally into four categories: (1) Early,
Unscientific Group, (2) Semi-Scientific Group, (3) Scientific Group, and (4) Modern Groups.
Hypnosis has become more recognized by the scientific community because
increasing numbers of its proponents are more scientific in their
approaches. Thousands have contributed to the advancement of hypnotism
and those recognized by the scientific community are those who took a
more scientific, as opposed to anecdotal, approach.
Early Unscientific Group
This group includes most of those who experimented with hypnosis without
knowing it by that particular name. The word itself is a misnomer derived from the Greek word Hypnos,
meaning sleep. But hypnosis is not a state of sleep; it is instead an
altered state of conscious awareness that each and every one of us
enters at least twice a day: When we wake up, and when we go to sleep.
That half-awake, half-asleep state we pass through where we are aware
of our surroundings, but really don't want to elicit the effort to
open our eyes and see what's going one.
Those in this group share in common that they generally misunderstood the
things they were accomplishing, and instead accredited their achievements to magic, or magnetism, divine power, or some
other outside force. Those in this group include Genghis Kahn, who used group suggestion to create hallucinations.
Albertus Magnum, Roger Bacon, Raymond Lully, Pico della Mirandola, Paracelsus, Holinotius, Robert Fludd, Father Kirchner,
Maxwell, Burcq, and Father Hell, as well as many others whose names never made it into the history books. This
group also includes the Seers and Sages of Ancient Greece, the leaders in self-hypnosis, as well as the
Ancient Egyptians, and all those other story tellers and medicine persons dating back to the dawn of time. Some even
believe Jesus used hypnosis as part of his healings.
Semi-Scientific Group
This
group started experimenting and researching hypnotism as a science,
although some of them never heard the term "hypnosis" during their
lifetime. Probably the most famous pioneer of the hypnotic trance state
was Anton Mesmer, who most call the "Father of Hypnosis." Others include Father Gassner,
the Marquis De Puysegur, as well as James Martin Charcot.
Scientific Group
This group includes those who first removed hypnosis from the realms of
"mysticism" and started experimenting with what hypnosis could actually do. Elliotson, Braid, and Esdaile made
much progress towards establishing its use in medicine, ending the
first dark age of hypnosis. (The American Medical Association has
recognized hypnosis as effective treatment to stop smoking since 1958.)
Other scientific pioneers include Liebeault,
Bernheim, Brewer, and Freud.
Freud
At
this point the mention of Freud deserves some clarification. According
to many accounts, Freud took up hypnotism before fathering
psychoanalysis. The story is that he was just so very bad at hypnosis
that he went back to cognitive talk therapy and started using many
hypnotic techniques. This combination of talk therapy
and hypnotic techniques birthed what the world came to know as Psychoanalysis.
Unfortunately, Freud also became responsible for another dark age of
hypnosis, and we can only speculate on why he started deriding it.
Modern Group
This
group includes those who teach and promote hypnotherapy as an art and
profession of its own, as well as those who research it as a science.
Unfortunately, there seems to be a chasm between the scientific
community and those many dedicated full time hypnotherapists who are and
have been successfully helping their clients change their lives. You
could legitimately divide this group into the modern scientific group and the modern
artistic group.
Probably the most famous and brilliant 20th-Century scientific researcher
is recognized as Milton Erickson, MD. Trained
as a psychiatrist, Erickson's metaphorical stories and techniques are
legendary in the hypnosis community. It is said that he could place
folks in trance without formal inductions, just by talking to them and
telling them stories. Stories rich in metaphor that the subconscious
mind latches onto and where it recognizes itself and its own
behavior. Many recognize Erickson as the Grandfather of Hypnotherapy and the Father of Counseling
Hypnotherapy.
The
interesting thing about Erickson is that those with advanced degrees
and/or medical backgrounds look at Erickson's work analytically, trying
to analyze why he did things the way he did. From the other end of the
spectrum, practicing, professional hypnotherapists, those practicing it
as an art, consider
Erickson a master who worked intuitively.
In my humble opinion, I believe Erickson combined the best of both worlds,
analyzing himself and what he did after he did it, but also going with the flow and listening to his intuition while
in the session with
those he helped. Erickson could reach people when no other had been
able to. There are stories of those in institutions no one could reach,
no one could calm, and yet Erickson the Master was able to reach them
and calm them and do therapy with them, and the way he did it was by
using hypnotic techniques to enter the patient's world. Once there, he
established rapport, because only after this is established --- only after the connection and the trust
is established --- could he then begin therapy that could help.
If
you look at scientific research historically, if you look at the
brilliant minds of history, they all combined this analytical side of
themselves with their intuition. Following what they could logically
and analytically, and then when they had to or needed to, following
their instinct and intuition.
The
modern artistic group is what the scientific community refers to as
"lay hypnotism" because although the practitioners may have been doing it
for 40 or 50 years, and although many in the scientific community have
actually learned their techniques from those "lay hypnotists," they do
not have medical certifications or doctorates of psychology or
psychiatry. These are the ones recognized as Masters of the Art of Hypnosis. Names like Ormond
McGill, Charles Tebbetts, Roy Hunter, Gerald Kein, and Gil Boyne.
Some of these have formed professional hypnosis associations, some of
them came up through the stage hypnotist ranks. All have dedicated
themselves to helping people using the arts of hypnosis and
hypnotherapy.
Please
understand that there is an overlap between these two modern groups
because some of the 20th Century researchers did not obtain the usual
advanced degrees common to today's scientific researchers. Likewise,
some with outstanding credentials and degrees have also recognized
hypnosis as an art and have accepted the validity of hypnotherapists
who are competent artists even though they might lack advanced academic degrees.
