Look into my eyes!
By Carl Munson
One of my duties as a natural health centre owner, and keen writer on all things holistic, is to put people straight on their perceptions of so-called alternative therapies.
It’s an unending task, because just about every complementary (a term I loathe, although not as much as ‘alternative’) modality is cursed with misunderstandings, confusion and occasionally the effects of downright ignorance.
Now is not the time to share my anger over how benignly powerful complementary approaches tend to face unjust scrutiny and condescension from a medical system that leaves many dead and injured in its wake, so I’ll just get on with my look this week at hypnotherapy; an approach well used to misconception.
Look into my eyes, look into my eyes,” is the now famous Little Britain parody that has taken over from that earlier caricature – the Germanic shrink swinging a pocket watch who tells you: “You are feeling sleepy”.
Helping me put the record straight, is Georgina Crawford, a hypnotherapist who – I came to realise in conversation – had no wish to brainwash, control or any other devious motive, for that matter, which her hugely effective discipline is often associated with.
It became clear that Georgina, like many hypnotherapists I’ve met, is a gentle soul whose mission is simply to help people feel and perform better.
“I’ve spent around 20 years helping people,” she told me, “the road into caring for others began when I started my nurse training back in 1985, and I quickly found I had the knack of looking after other people.”
Georgina even packed up her caring impulse in her old kit bag and set off for India and Nepal where she spent some time working at the Kathmandu Ophthalmic hospital - which she told me “was a bit of an eye opener”!
Many patients and a bout of amoebic dysentery later, her wish to aid others found expression in some basic listening and counselling courses back in the UK, as she found nursing just wasn’t enough.
Under the influence of a Sister Christiane - whose vision was to have a skilled listener in every church and supermarket in the country to help ordinary people with their day to day problems – Georgina progressed through several counselling courses and became a volunteer counsellor for Parentline UK, helping stressed and distressed parents.
Incomplete however in her quest for knowledge about people and their problems, Georgina enrolled on an Open University degree course, studying Psychology and Social Science in addition to bringing up a family, working as a Nurse and volunteering for Parentline.
“I progressed to Sister level in nursing,” she told me, “and armed with the Asthma Diploma from the British Thoracic Society, my brief as ‘the breathing nurse’ was to stop people from smoking, which was easier said than done - even with all the support on offer”.
“It was at this time that a friend, who was extremely addicted to her ciggies went to visit a hypnotherapist who guaranteed to stop her smoking in one hour,” Georgina explained. “She stopped – just like that! This person, who had been visiting her GP Practice for smoking cessation support for months, and who could wear six nicotine patches a day whilst smoking 60 fags and still crave more, just stopped.”
Georgina was impressed to say the least and her long-held interest in caring, the human mind and helping people with their problems, all gelled into an interest in hypnotherapy. Now in professional practice, she offers two hypnotherapeutic approaches.
The first, ‘suggestion’ therapy, is where “the client is put into a nice relaxing hypnotic state and I make positive suggestions to them about how to change their life – useful for straightforward problems, such as weight-loss, smoking cessation and nail-biting,” explained Georgina who often gets results like this in just one hourly session.
The other, is ‘Hypnoanalysis’, where the client is put into a light hypnotic state and is encouraged to free-associate as taught by Freud, the ‘father of psychoanalysis’. In this longer-term relationship, usually 6-8 sessions, “the client will come to the event in their life, which is now causing their current problems and is useful for all problems emotional and psychological.”
So no eye gazing and no pocket watch for Georgina, who to me, is like a modern-day Florence Nightingale with a powerful life-changing therapeutic lamp that lights the way to a better life for many people.
Georgina Crawford is a member of the International Association of Hypno-Analysts and can be contacted for hypnotherapy consultations on 01647 440268
This article was posted by Carl Munson
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