The three no-no’s
A huge study was undertaken last year in the UK around causes of mental health problems such as depression.
Not surprisingly these mental health issues were often triggered by difficult or even traumatic life events, and were more likely to occur in people with a personal or family history of mental health issues.
However, a key finding was that it was primarily the way the individual responded to these traumatic life events that determined whether or not they would result in mental health problems. There were three mental behaviors which were much more likely to lead to mental health issues.
Rumination
The first of these mental behaviors was ‘rumination’. Rumination simply refers to the habit of turning negative thoughts over and over in your mind. The more times you relive a traumatic event, the more likely it is to lead to long-term mental problems.
Application to hypnosis
One of our key responsibilities as a hypnotist is to interrupt our hypnosis client’s negative mental patterns. If our client keeps repeating their woeful story it is our responsibility to say, “Stop!”, and leave them in some more positive territory. A great way to lead them into more positive territory is using our favorite coaching phrase, “That’s how you’ve been, how do you want to be different?”
Self blame
The second mental habit which can cause mental health issues is self blame. Self blame obviously refers to the habit for blaming oneself when something goes wrong. This mental habit of self blame piles misery on the misery and simply makes things worse.
Application to hypnosis
The opposite of self blame is self-acceptance. There are several hypnosis techniques that can help a client to reach self-acceptance. One of these techniques is re-imprinting where the client gifts additional resources to the ‘younger them’ who experienced the trauma. Once these additional resources are in place the clients can be encouraged to forgive all those involved in the trauma, especially themselves!
Lack of adaptive coping
The third and final mental habits which can lead to mental health problems is a lack of ‘adaptive coping’. Adaptive coping simply refers to the ability to seek ways to deal with problems, whether that means joining a support group, or simply taking a long walk in nature to take one’s mind off what happened.
Application to hypnosis
A candidate should be beneficial to encourage your hypnosis client to find outlets for their fears and frustrations. The simplest way of doing this is to ‘task’ your client to engage in some social activity for long enough for it to become a habit, but in this case a positive habit.
a family history of mental health difficulties, social deprivation, and traumatic or abusive life-experiences all strongly predicted higher levels of anxiety and depression. However, these relationships were strongly mediated by psychological processes; specifically lack of adaptive coping, rumination and self-blame. Read more…
Related Posts
