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Pat Russell Psychotherapy & Hypnotherapy |
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| 30th July 2010 | ||||||||||||||||
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 Terrible things do happen. Occasionally we need a place to deal with crises. When life has been turned inside out and you don’t know how to cope, let alone sort the good from the bad or find enjoyment again. Illness Professional change Family issues Serious accident or assault When we are brought very low by events or people, we fall back on familiar ways of thinking and feeling, even if the experience is new and those familiar ways aren’t suitable or helpful. They are, after all, what we know. Could there be another way? Well, yes. DEPRESSION – some background notes GPs have seen an increase in people presenting with depression from four to nine million per year 1994 to 1998. The most rapid increase is in the young including, tragically, the incidence of suicide in young men. In adults it is reported more, by a factor of three, in women than in men. Perhaps women are more ‘atuned’ to changes in their emotions but they are also more likely to seek help. Certainly we are all more accepting of the existence of emotional distress which creates as much pain and grief as do physical problems. Depression is likely to have a component of learned beliefs. With early developing awareness a person learns ways of responding to stress; learns whether the world is a threatening place, whether he/she has any power and influence in life, any sense of control of events. Feeling low/unhappy vs clinical depression A low mood passes, the colour is temporarily drained from the day. A person with low mood is capable of finding happy memories and has moments that show the current feeling will not last. Depressed individuals exhaust their precious energy by being confronted with unhappy memories and by scanning their daily reality, reaffirming that they are unworthy and the situation will never change. They loathe every moment of doing so, it is not by choice. Accomplishments are nothing, whereas minor mistakes or social slights, blemishes or even thoughts are seized as evidence of being useless, wrong, bad. Anyone looking on would likely see a normal person, although one in distress. Winston Churchill had his ‘black dog days’ and many, many people with depression still function well in their professional responsibilities. It is the challenge of therapy for the individual to gain insight, to question beliefs and safely look at changing behaviours that clearly don’t work for them; to identify alternatives to paths that have appeared hopelessly black.  More help is available than you might think. Solution-focused help is available for Life stresses Work-related stress Professional change Unresolved anxiety Avoidance behaviours Stress is a frequent visitor in our lives and we learn to adapt. A little stress is actually beneficial. But long term stress can seriously affect your quality of life, certainly your performance and eventually your health. Anxiety expresses itself in a variety of ways – Panic Attacks Obsessions & compulsions Insomnia and may lead to Depression Solution-focused therapy can make a real difference, incorporating hypnosis can aid the speed and process of change. ** If you are experiencing physical symptoms, an appointment with your GP must be the first step.  Have you missed a great holiday due to fear of flying? Or a much wanted job promotion that would involve air travel? Does your mind go blank when facing exam papers - yet you know you should do well? Do you find it impossible to give presentations or to speak up at meetings? Has your life become limited by fear of open spaces of what is beyond your front door? Having a phobia or fear can ruin a person’s life. Solution-focused therapy can make a real and rapid difference. Incorporating hypnotherapy greatly aids the speed and process of change.  ** If you have physical symptoms, a visit to your GP must be the first step. Individuals who experience the extreme fear and truly awful physical sensations of a panic attack can tend to think they are the only ones who feel that way. The reality is that not thousands, but millions, of people experience fear and panic in their everyday surroundings. It would surprise people to know how terrifying and painful are panic attacks. Some sufferers find themselves at a hospital A&E experiencing one or more of the following –
A person pretends to cope, then withdraws more and more and the panic can spread like ripples on a pond after a stone has been skipped on the surface. Often family members are drawn in to give constant reassurance, generally making the person even less sure of their own ability to be in control and safe. Sadly, depression often follows as a reaction to the panic. Life can become safe again. To leave the house, to board a plane, to go into shops, to drive a car, to speak publicly, to have a necessary hospital treatment. We are not born with panic attacks, we acquire them – and we can regain a sense of comfort and control.  Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) can occur following the experience of shocking or terrifying or life-threatening events such as military combat, natural disasters, serious accidents or violent personal assaults like rape. Or, from any single event shocking to that person and that has lodged itself in the mind and so person lives partly in the past with a sense of fear. People who suffer from PTSD relive - not just remember - the experience during nightmares and flashbacks, they might have difficulty sleeping and can feel detached or estranged. These symptoms can be severe and last for years, certainly long enough to significantly impair a person's life. What occurs is that the brain has not processed the original (trigger) event sufficiently for it to be laid down in longterm memory. The body still responds as though the shock has just happened, a dreadful experience for the person. We very safely complete the process so the event is only recalled, not relived and the sensations and emotions are no longer giving such pain.  Perhaps you have experienced a difficult death or illness in the family or friends due to smoking? Have you finally focused on the warnings on cigarette packets? Have you felt the anguish of the patients in the current anti-smoking ads - real people, not actors; real regret, real fear, real death? What would they give to have another opportunity to just stop before it is too late! Perhaps you are considering how your family feels now, how they will cope without you, what you will miss and all that you could have? And all because you smoke. Cigarettes are known to have traces of more than 4000 chemicals, including 30 cancer-producing agents. The scientific data and death/illness statistics are not pleasant reading.  NOW is the right time to -breathe easily feel cleaner think more clearly not worry about clothes and breath smelling feel comfortable socially have A LOT more money to spend TAKE BACK CONTROL. You probably burn up £35 - even £70 a week, every week. £18,000 to £36,000 over ten years. ONE EXTENDED SESSION - £150.00 because a habit exists or it is broken. If you are genuinely ready and fully determined to stop smoking but need some help – then hypnotherapy can give you the edge. Your subconscious ‘buys in’ to the fact that you no longer smoke, you redefine yourself to yourself as a non-smoker. And as a non-smoker, you just don't smoke. That's in the past. Hypnotherapy has a very high success rate if you genuinely want to take control and kick the habit of smoking. And it is designed to minimise the effects of weight gain because you don't substitute food. New Scientist vol 136(1845):6 To find the most effective method to stop smoking Frank Schmidt, University of Iowa, used a meta-analysis of more than 600 studies totalling almost 72,000 subjects. The results, published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, included 48 studies of hypnosis covering 6000 smokers which clearly showed that hypnosis was three times more effective than nicotine replacement therapy(NRT). This should lead us to ask if quit-smoking organisations want smokers to quit, why do they advocate NRT or drugs? “At a time when smoking still causes one in every five deaths in Britain, measures designed to achieve further reductions in smoking are clearly important Effective smoking cessation services should be universally available to smokers.” February 2000 KGMM ALBERTI President, Royal College of Physicians because a habit exists or it is broken. I am in the National Register of Practitioners in Smoking Cessation. |
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