Book Review… Hypnosis – An Essential guide

Nov 01, 2020 Book Review…, News

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Hypnosis: Smile On Your Face – Money in Your Pocket
Author: Shelley Stockwell-Nicholas, PhD
Critic: Glenville Ashby, PhD

Kaieteur News – The word hypnosis conjures diverse responses unrelated to its true meaning, i.e., an induction to a responsive state of awareness caused by suggestion. Erroneously viewed as mesmerism and magic, hypnosis still struggles to find its place in wellness and medicine.
Seeking legitimacy, professionals have used the related terms, hypnotherapy and hypnoanalysis, to lend clinical credibility to the field.
Author and hypnotherapist Dr. Shelley Stockwell-Nicholas’ pioneering contribution has now added to the groundswell of information on this intriguing subject.
The author’s approach is multi-layered and stripped of theatrics and delphic dribble. Hypnosis is less complicated than imagined. Moreover, it affords practical and accessible solutions to the most burdensome of problems. Here, hypnosis is presented as a veritable modality, not only profitable for the highly trained professional, but also as an expedient tool that can be ‘self-administered’ by laypersons. Of the latter, Dr. Stockwell-Nicholas presents effective, self-inductive techniques.
Her utilitarian presentation is refreshingly agreeable and there’s much to glean from this literary treasure trove. It spurs introspection. We re-evaluate how we process information, and the implications are far-reaching.
Surely, we can draw parallels between the author’s ethical precepts and the Hippocratic Oath. Good ethics are essential, a desideratum for the professional hypnotist.
The author explores the layers of the psyche, levels of suggestibility, and awareness (beta, alpha and delta); and the role of imagination in healing and self-realization. Change, she argues, takes place in the present. “What do you want?” she poses.
“If you say, “Next week I’ll make more money” or “Tomorrow I’ll stop smoking,” the future time never comes. The subconscious will wait for next week or tomorrow before it begins to carry out instructions.”
Moreover, she offers a slew of techniques, some of which are uniquely inviting.
Visualization she writes, “increases the flow of blood, thereby increasing the oxygen and nutrition that nourishes and heals. A hypnotherapist helps you “real-eyes” your desires, tell yourself the truth, and the big picture.”
Throughout, the Socratic precept: ‘Man Know Thyself,’ is invoked.’ We should be mindful of our thoughts, she pens. They are foundational to our behaviour and our station in life. Invariably, we hypnotize ourselves creating mental constructs that work for or against our best interests. In other words, hypnosis occurs outside well-defined therapeutic settings. Indeed, hypnosis is a quotidian phenomenon evidenced in marketing, politics and religion.
Overtime, thoughts form pattens that bury themselves in the subconscious mind, creating in time, our heaven or hell.
“Thoughts are things,” the author posits. “You intuit energy and thoughts are energy! What you think consciously and subconsciously manifests as reality. Your thoughts influence your behaviour. Your thoughts also create the energy between yourself and others.”
The mind, she contends, harbours infinite potential. She belabours the point.
“Create joy and abundance, weed limiting attitudes from your garden of mind. Then replant positive attitudes. Fertilize and till the soil by identifying limiting beliefs and patterns.
“Your superconscious mind encompasses and permeates all levels of awareness. It is the big picture. Your higher self blesses you with profound wisdom. All personal transformation, healing, and bliss, tap this consciousness. When you bring subconscious patterns to conscious awareness you can easily revise or replace them.
We are reminded that the hypnotist is neither magician nor hierophant and that suggestions “work best with a readiness for change.”
The author expounds, “Changing something starts with a decision. We transform our lives only when we are ready. Success revolves around our decision to change. What are you ready to change now?”
She adds, “Most people, who make an appointment with a hypnotist, expect and are ready to accept positive results. What you expect becomes your reality. Readiness for a change stacks the deck for successful hypnosis.”
On suggestions, the crux of hypnosis, Dr. Stockwell-Nicholas cautions, “Keep suggestions simple and direct. The subconscious takes and carries out brief and definitive suggestions. Link suggestions to personal images and personal emotions: for example: ‘I am filled with pride as I see myself as slim and trim and attractive in everyway.’”
To the practicing hypnotherapist, she adjures, “Speak directly and communicate clearly, actively listen, speak to the person’s dominant senses,
If you give visual suggestions and the client is not visually dominant they may think they weren’t hypnotized. A common misconception is that all people are visually dominant. You perceive via your dominant senses.”
And of self-hypnosis, the author presents several methods to induce the hypnotic state. She explains, “The easiest way to practice self-hypnosis is to take advantage of natural spontaneous trances. Just before getting out of bed in the morning and just before drifting to sleep at night are good times to take on suggestions. What you say to yourself as you fall asleep is repeated inside your brain again and again as you slumber. So “sleep-on” a decision and the right answer will reveal itself in the morning. Your diligent deeper mind continues to work on request all the time.
She instructs, “Count backwards from ten to one, and sense yourself entering step-by-step, into a special place in your imagination. Imagine going down, down, down a stairway step-by-step… You now go deeper and deeper and deeper…”
Another technique offered is counting of the breath while using the dominant sense.
And quite interesting is the ‘Chair Reverse Dizzy‘ induction, a boon for the professional hypnotist.
“Put a coin on a chair seat and have the client look at the coin while walking round and round the chair. Go round and round the chair looking at the coin. Round and round. Good. In a moment you’ll reverse your direction and sit down. As I gently rotate your head you’ll go deep into hypnosis.”
Dr. Stockwell-Nicholas has delivered a tome of instructive and relevant lessons – timely -especially in an age of competing digital information driven by excess and groupthink. That we are creators of our reality is unmistakably and repeatedly spelled out. The author own words: “what you expect becomes your reality,” leaves much to the imagination.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)
‘Hypnosis: Smile On Your Face – Money in Your Pocket’ by Shelley Stockwell-Nicholas, PhD
Publisher: Creativity Unlimited Press, California, USA
www.HypnosisFederation.com
ISBN 978-0-912559-17-9
Available at Amazon
Ratings: ***** Essential

 

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