The words we use, the way we say them, the syntax of how they are put together, and the representations of the metaphors and symbols we use within, all are representative of the thoughts in our heads. So if you want to get a better understanding of how someone is thinking then listen carefully to the language they use.
As my study moves deeper into cognitive linguistics the more I understand about language and communication, and exactly what is being communicated to me. Because when you look a little closer people tend to tell you far more than they may be aware of.
I will often take time to study a piece of communication to see exactly what message is being communicated. Here’s an example. Have a read of this extract which comes from a report issued to me by a Local Authority Planning Department, in respect to a proposed development for a small block of flats:
“The block plan does not show the proposed development in relation to properties on **** Avenue. However it appears that the proposed development will result in an overbearing impact to the occupiers of these dwellings.”
First read, and the meaning probably is quite straight forward.
Now read it again and look for a deeper meaning – what can you gleam from the words used, the order, the syntax. Because when I read it, it suggests to me that this is nothing but ‘fluff’ or ‘filler’, and that the person writing the report has not carried out her job properly.
Let’s break down the statement.
The first sentence sets the scene – it provides the information for the statement that follows. The second sentence provides the opinion of this person following consideration of the first sentence. The word ‘however’ links yet at the same time dismisses the first sentence, leading to the conclusions of the second.
If you look at the words used, in the first sentence, ‘does not show’ means that information is not there. Yet, then ‘it appears’. So the author has hallucinated something which is not there, and then goes on to state an opinion based on this hallucination. Without the required information how can they offer an opinion?
So I would question whether this person is actually doing their job, as it is clear to me that they are forming opinions without the true facts to support them. Or they are just providing 'fluff' and 'filler' to a report. And as this statement has a massive financial and business impact (via any planning decision on the proposed development) I would question whether this is acceptable.
I wonder if the author of the extract would have valued the words they used a little more if they had read this blog post first. Do you value the words that you use?
Tuesday, 10 August 2010
Tuesday, 3 August 2010
The Perfect Strike
Poor Rob, I didn’t mean for him to collapse on the floor. My knee (during sparring) came effortlessly into his abdomen forcing all the air out of his lungs giving him no option – his legs buckled and he dropped to the floor. As I remember him gasping for air down there, I also remember how easily and effectively the strike was made. And for that, I guess I can thank my studies of NLP.
Now, whereas I am certified to Master NLP Practitioner level, I would never call myself an ‘NLPer’, as I am far more than that. There are also some misguided views on what NLP is and isn’t by some of the public and also scarily by some NLP Practitioners! So sometimes it's best not to label yourself with what a few people may perceive as a limitation. But here I feel it is definitely relevant to give a quick explanation of what it is.
NLP stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming, a field of work started by two academics who ‘modelled’ several of the top therapists of the time. The idea is that if they worked out how they used their bodies, their language, and how they think - then they could produce a ‘model’ of that person’s performance. And once you have a model, other people could follow that model to get similar responses.
On a really basic level this is exactly how we learn as a child – we observe, we replicate, we learn.
The modelling of these therapists also left behind a trail of highly effective techniques and patterns, originally basically ‘swiped’ from top fields of psychology, psychiatry, linguistics and physiology. These techniques are utilised by hypnotherapists such as me, life coaches, business and management consultants, politicians, marketers, advertisers, and sports persons – every walk of life.
Yet if you go back to base principles NLP is nothing more than a system of modelling.
And that is how I achieved this knee strike.
During my fight training I like to learn and develop, whilst reinforcing what I know, expanding knowledge, and aiming to leave a training session better than when I started. So when I spar people, and find they have an effective technique or application, I like to learn how they do it.
One of my training partners, Jesse, has a lovely technique he often uses during sparring. He has a ‘walk through knee’ which he uses to great effect. It is a simple technique – you just step forward and lift your knee into your opponent – yet he seems to make this more effective than most. So the last few weeks I’ve set out to model how he does this, so I can gain some of his effectiveness.
The first week I sparred him normally, and started to notice what positions and movements I made that allowed Jesse to use this knee. Every time he used this technique I ran the movie of this event back in my head, working out exactly what position I was in when he did it. How was I positioning myself for the knee?
In following weeks I developed this knowledge, using my sensory acuity to notice his position immediately prior to throwing the technique, every part of his posture, noting where his attention was – I now had the ‘trigger’ positions set in my head that allowed him to throw it.
Then I worked on noting the individual movements of the knee – everything from breathing to posture, to all the little micro-movements, the tension and relaxation, the acceleration, the focus and attention – all the way from before the technique to after the technique.
Again, I stored it as a movie, complete with added sounds and feelings, making it a sensory ‘recording’ of exactly how Jesse went about throwing the knee. I ran this many times in my head, using self-hypnosis and visualising the recording time and time again. I now had the base information from which to work.
And then I started to ‘mirror’ his movements, working on everything from posture down to the smallest micro-movement I could detect. In doing this I found a key element was the positioning of the feet – the angle, the weight distribution, and the contact points with the canvas. Following this mirroring I started to copy his exact movements, using my mind to fill in any gaps, or to make any adjustments for the fact that our bodies are physiologically different.
This last step was actually quite easy – I had practised already with a technique known as ‘deep trance identification’, or DTI. It sounds fancy, but it’s quite simple. I run the recording time and time again in my head of Jesse throwing the knee. And then I allow myself to become Jesse, kind of ‘possessing his body’ in the recording, seeing through his own eyes, hearing what he would hear, and feeling what he would feel. Think of it like Casper the Friendly Ghost going into someone else’s body. And then, experiencing this knee strike completely from Jesse’s perspective, I allowed Jesse to ‘morph’ into me, so I was running the recording with me totally experiencing the perfect knee strikes completely from my perspective, and totally immersed in the complete experience.
One of the best bits of our neurology is that our minds cannot determine between vividly imagined and reality – both are treated the same. And if you add in the kinaesthetic element, or actually throwing the knee as you are running the recording, you really strengthen the neurology – you are totally throwing the knee exactly how you want to.
So last Friday at sparring I tested my work. I did a round with Jesse, and did a last bit of fine tuning as I observed (and then felt!) a perfect knee strike from him. It was time to put my work into practice.
And Rob was my ‘victim’. I started the round as usual, got myself prepared mentally, and then allowed myself to become this recording I had worked on. The moment Rob fell into the perfect position according to my recording I instantly stepped forward and executed the perfect knee strike. It was so effortless, so easy, so perfect it kind of went in a whole lot further than I had intended. I had mixed emotions as I looked at Rob gasping for air like a fish out of water on the floor. One part of me was feeling bad and thinking ‘oh sh*t!’ for hurting a training partner even though I was never intending to – the other part of me was thinking ‘cool’ for how effective I had been in developing this knee!
The above is the bare bones of the process I used, there is far more detail that can be added, as I do when I’m working with my sports clients. Yet at the same time every reader who plays sport can use exactly the techniques listed above to help them improve any technical element of the game.
Now I have got the perfect ‘walk through knee’ I wonder what, and who, I will start to work on next…
Now, whereas I am certified to Master NLP Practitioner level, I would never call myself an ‘NLPer’, as I am far more than that. There are also some misguided views on what NLP is and isn’t by some of the public and also scarily by some NLP Practitioners! So sometimes it's best not to label yourself with what a few people may perceive as a limitation. But here I feel it is definitely relevant to give a quick explanation of what it is.
NLP stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming, a field of work started by two academics who ‘modelled’ several of the top therapists of the time. The idea is that if they worked out how they used their bodies, their language, and how they think - then they could produce a ‘model’ of that person’s performance. And once you have a model, other people could follow that model to get similar responses.
On a really basic level this is exactly how we learn as a child – we observe, we replicate, we learn.
The modelling of these therapists also left behind a trail of highly effective techniques and patterns, originally basically ‘swiped’ from top fields of psychology, psychiatry, linguistics and physiology. These techniques are utilised by hypnotherapists such as me, life coaches, business and management consultants, politicians, marketers, advertisers, and sports persons – every walk of life.
Yet if you go back to base principles NLP is nothing more than a system of modelling.
And that is how I achieved this knee strike.
During my fight training I like to learn and develop, whilst reinforcing what I know, expanding knowledge, and aiming to leave a training session better than when I started. So when I spar people, and find they have an effective technique or application, I like to learn how they do it.
One of my training partners, Jesse, has a lovely technique he often uses during sparring. He has a ‘walk through knee’ which he uses to great effect. It is a simple technique – you just step forward and lift your knee into your opponent – yet he seems to make this more effective than most. So the last few weeks I’ve set out to model how he does this, so I can gain some of his effectiveness.
The first week I sparred him normally, and started to notice what positions and movements I made that allowed Jesse to use this knee. Every time he used this technique I ran the movie of this event back in my head, working out exactly what position I was in when he did it. How was I positioning myself for the knee?
In following weeks I developed this knowledge, using my sensory acuity to notice his position immediately prior to throwing the technique, every part of his posture, noting where his attention was – I now had the ‘trigger’ positions set in my head that allowed him to throw it.
Then I worked on noting the individual movements of the knee – everything from breathing to posture, to all the little micro-movements, the tension and relaxation, the acceleration, the focus and attention – all the way from before the technique to after the technique.
Again, I stored it as a movie, complete with added sounds and feelings, making it a sensory ‘recording’ of exactly how Jesse went about throwing the knee. I ran this many times in my head, using self-hypnosis and visualising the recording time and time again. I now had the base information from which to work.
And then I started to ‘mirror’ his movements, working on everything from posture down to the smallest micro-movement I could detect. In doing this I found a key element was the positioning of the feet – the angle, the weight distribution, and the contact points with the canvas. Following this mirroring I started to copy his exact movements, using my mind to fill in any gaps, or to make any adjustments for the fact that our bodies are physiologically different.
This last step was actually quite easy – I had practised already with a technique known as ‘deep trance identification’, or DTI. It sounds fancy, but it’s quite simple. I run the recording time and time again in my head of Jesse throwing the knee. And then I allow myself to become Jesse, kind of ‘possessing his body’ in the recording, seeing through his own eyes, hearing what he would hear, and feeling what he would feel. Think of it like Casper the Friendly Ghost going into someone else’s body. And then, experiencing this knee strike completely from Jesse’s perspective, I allowed Jesse to ‘morph’ into me, so I was running the recording with me totally experiencing the perfect knee strikes completely from my perspective, and totally immersed in the complete experience.
One of the best bits of our neurology is that our minds cannot determine between vividly imagined and reality – both are treated the same. And if you add in the kinaesthetic element, or actually throwing the knee as you are running the recording, you really strengthen the neurology – you are totally throwing the knee exactly how you want to.
So last Friday at sparring I tested my work. I did a round with Jesse, and did a last bit of fine tuning as I observed (and then felt!) a perfect knee strike from him. It was time to put my work into practice.
And Rob was my ‘victim’. I started the round as usual, got myself prepared mentally, and then allowed myself to become this recording I had worked on. The moment Rob fell into the perfect position according to my recording I instantly stepped forward and executed the perfect knee strike. It was so effortless, so easy, so perfect it kind of went in a whole lot further than I had intended. I had mixed emotions as I looked at Rob gasping for air like a fish out of water on the floor. One part of me was feeling bad and thinking ‘oh sh*t!’ for hurting a training partner even though I was never intending to – the other part of me was thinking ‘cool’ for how effective I had been in developing this knee!
The above is the bare bones of the process I used, there is far more detail that can be added, as I do when I’m working with my sports clients. Yet at the same time every reader who plays sport can use exactly the techniques listed above to help them improve any technical element of the game.
Now I have got the perfect ‘walk through knee’ I wonder what, and who, I will start to work on next…
Tuesday, 27 July 2010
How Do You Knock Someone Out?
So how do you knock someone out? This is a very misunderstood subject especially in the fight world. If you ask a number of fighters how you knock someone out you will get a bevy of answers ranging from speed, brute strength, accuracy, timing, explosiveness, kinetic linking, penetration and follow through – and the list goes on.
And yet I’ve dropped someone to their knees with a couple of taps on their head. This doesn’t seem to fit in with the above list, doesn’t it?
In order to understand how to knock someone out I believe you must understand the knockout process – what is going on inside that person. Only then can you apply yourself effectively and achieve that knockout you desire.
There are two ways of knocking someone out – concussion, or by inducing the General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS, commonly and in my opinion incorrectly termed the fight or flight response.)
For concussion you need to literally rattle the brain around inside the skull, causing damage to the cell structure, resulting in shut down to protect itself. This is trauma within a fight at its most brutal. To effect this trauma on the brain you need to create movement in the head, allowing the brain therefore to crash and rub against the skull and the deviations in the internal surface of the brain, damaging cells, breaking neurology, creating bruising – not very nice!
This movement can be achieved two ways. The first would be sheer force of violent impact, displacing shocking and moving the head through pure force of impact. Here power development and the application of this behind a shot is paramount.
The next way would be through identifying the mechanical weaknesses in your opponent, in particular how the head sits on the neck. A hook to the side of the point of the chin could create a much greater twisting movement in an opponent’s head. Compare this to just hitting the side of the opponent’s head with a hook where his strong neck may absorb and prevent the required violent movement.
Concussive blows are accumulative – the more times you hit someone with power and create the violent movement in the head the more damage and the closer to a concussive knockout. Of course, this is the one element of our fight sports that no fighter should forget. If any of us get hit concussively in training or competition we must monitor ourselves and take precautions, including no alcohol or returning to impact too soon. If in doubt, any doubt, seek appropriate medical attention. Actually, if you take a concussive blow seek appropriate medical attention anyway – let’s play safe hey?
The next way to effect a knock out is by inducing the GAS. This response prepares for the freeze-flight-fight (fear-faint) response, which happens in that order. When we suffer a shock we freeze. If this doesn’t release the stress we know this response is not working, and we quickly move to flight directly away from the source of the stress. Again, if this doesn’t remove the stress we increase our response yet again, now to the fight response. If this doesn’t resolve the stress then we enter a state of fear, similar but different to the freeze. And when we come to the last of the body’s defences there’s nothing left to do but to shut down everything apart from our life support systems – we faint.
And it is possibly for the shock to be so great that we can almost instantaneously shoot through the responses to the faint response. This is what happens with a ‘flash knockdown’.
To induce the flash knockdown stress has to be induced, and rapidly increased. This is why the ‘shot we didn’t see’ can create the stress and therefore the reaction.
Stress is much easier to induce in a novice or intermediate fighter than at the higher echelons of our sports. With the novice and intermediate fighters in training I often set up what I term the ‘limbic loop’ (the limbic system creates the GAS), inducing stress gradually, hitting once to increase stress and the freeze, then again to get them to move away with flight, once more for fight and reading their physiology to instantly hit them as they respond again inducing fear, then tapping them on their head to induce the knockdown, usually a drop to the knee.
Sometimes, as its training, the stress doesn’t quite reach the fear as I keep the contact light, instead sometimes trapping my partners in a never ending limbic loop of rotation through freeze-flight-fight.
So that’s how you induce a knockout. Either by concussion or by inducing the GAS. Hopefully now you’ll be better placed to get the knockouts you desire – and I’ll have to watch out for you in sparring and competition! I'll better blog on evasion and defence pretty soon...
And yet I’ve dropped someone to their knees with a couple of taps on their head. This doesn’t seem to fit in with the above list, doesn’t it?
In order to understand how to knock someone out I believe you must understand the knockout process – what is going on inside that person. Only then can you apply yourself effectively and achieve that knockout you desire.
There are two ways of knocking someone out – concussion, or by inducing the General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS, commonly and in my opinion incorrectly termed the fight or flight response.)
For concussion you need to literally rattle the brain around inside the skull, causing damage to the cell structure, resulting in shut down to protect itself. This is trauma within a fight at its most brutal. To effect this trauma on the brain you need to create movement in the head, allowing the brain therefore to crash and rub against the skull and the deviations in the internal surface of the brain, damaging cells, breaking neurology, creating bruising – not very nice!
This movement can be achieved two ways. The first would be sheer force of violent impact, displacing shocking and moving the head through pure force of impact. Here power development and the application of this behind a shot is paramount.
The next way would be through identifying the mechanical weaknesses in your opponent, in particular how the head sits on the neck. A hook to the side of the point of the chin could create a much greater twisting movement in an opponent’s head. Compare this to just hitting the side of the opponent’s head with a hook where his strong neck may absorb and prevent the required violent movement.
Concussive blows are accumulative – the more times you hit someone with power and create the violent movement in the head the more damage and the closer to a concussive knockout. Of course, this is the one element of our fight sports that no fighter should forget. If any of us get hit concussively in training or competition we must monitor ourselves and take precautions, including no alcohol or returning to impact too soon. If in doubt, any doubt, seek appropriate medical attention. Actually, if you take a concussive blow seek appropriate medical attention anyway – let’s play safe hey?
The next way to effect a knock out is by inducing the GAS. This response prepares for the freeze-flight-fight (fear-faint) response, which happens in that order. When we suffer a shock we freeze. If this doesn’t release the stress we know this response is not working, and we quickly move to flight directly away from the source of the stress. Again, if this doesn’t remove the stress we increase our response yet again, now to the fight response. If this doesn’t resolve the stress then we enter a state of fear, similar but different to the freeze. And when we come to the last of the body’s defences there’s nothing left to do but to shut down everything apart from our life support systems – we faint.
And it is possibly for the shock to be so great that we can almost instantaneously shoot through the responses to the faint response. This is what happens with a ‘flash knockdown’.
To induce the flash knockdown stress has to be induced, and rapidly increased. This is why the ‘shot we didn’t see’ can create the stress and therefore the reaction.
Stress is much easier to induce in a novice or intermediate fighter than at the higher echelons of our sports. With the novice and intermediate fighters in training I often set up what I term the ‘limbic loop’ (the limbic system creates the GAS), inducing stress gradually, hitting once to increase stress and the freeze, then again to get them to move away with flight, once more for fight and reading their physiology to instantly hit them as they respond again inducing fear, then tapping them on their head to induce the knockdown, usually a drop to the knee.
Sometimes, as its training, the stress doesn’t quite reach the fear as I keep the contact light, instead sometimes trapping my partners in a never ending limbic loop of rotation through freeze-flight-fight.
So that’s how you induce a knockout. Either by concussion or by inducing the GAS. Hopefully now you’ll be better placed to get the knockouts you desire – and I’ll have to watch out for you in sparring and competition! I'll better blog on evasion and defence pretty soon...
Friday, 23 July 2010
Listen To Yourself – You Know What You Need To Do!
I’ve had several hypnotherapy clients recently that have wasted their time. They haven’t wasted mine, as I’ve been paid, and have got some great learning from working with them too. And this is the reason I’ve written this blog post, so other potential clients might not waste their time either.
These clients came to see me with problems that were definitely real. And they left without their problems. So why did they waste their time? Read on and all will be explained.
And then you may not be surprised when I solved all of one of these client’s problems with three words. Yes, literally three words.
When a client talks with me I listen to the words and structure they use, the way they say those words, and the body language that they use as they tell me. With the body language I look at everything, from their overall posture down to the smallest of undetectable movements, the pupil dilation, even the skin tone and colouration. I swear I know one of my peers that see pores actually opening! All of this tells me more than you could possibly imagine.
So in a session when I ask a client to tell me how they do their problem, I receive an incredible amount of information. And, being lucky to have had (and continue to have) some good mentors, I’ve learned that a client will always make my job easy. All I have to do is listen with my whole body, listening to their words, listening to their body, and listening to their eyes, and of course listening with my intuition.
And through listening to them I realised that they weren’t just telling me how they did their problem – they were also telling me exactly what they needed to do to solve it.They literally told me in their own words EXACTLY what they needed to do to solve their issues.
A recent depressive told me that he “couldn’t see” what he needed to do. So as he told me how he did his depression, through listening to the message he was telling me, he was also telling exactly what he needed to do to lift him from everything that caused his depression. I made lots of notes, and showed him these notes. He could then literally ‘see’ exactly what he needed to do. The realisation on his face was, well, just special. He always knew what he needed to do. He couldn’t see it. Now he could.
Though my best one was a stop smoker – forty a day plus for thirty years. Lung problems, health problems, complications, asthma – the smoking was literally about to drop him dead. And then he told me exactly what he needed to do. “I just need someone to tell me to stop smoking!” he said, exasperated.
So I held my nerve, and obliged.
“Stop smoking, now.”
Priceless!
These clients came to see me with problems that were definitely real. And they left without their problems. So why did they waste their time? Read on and all will be explained.
And then you may not be surprised when I solved all of one of these client’s problems with three words. Yes, literally three words.
When a client talks with me I listen to the words and structure they use, the way they say those words, and the body language that they use as they tell me. With the body language I look at everything, from their overall posture down to the smallest of undetectable movements, the pupil dilation, even the skin tone and colouration. I swear I know one of my peers that see pores actually opening! All of this tells me more than you could possibly imagine.
So in a session when I ask a client to tell me how they do their problem, I receive an incredible amount of information. And, being lucky to have had (and continue to have) some good mentors, I’ve learned that a client will always make my job easy. All I have to do is listen with my whole body, listening to their words, listening to their body, and listening to their eyes, and of course listening with my intuition.
And through listening to them I realised that they weren’t just telling me how they did their problem – they were also telling me exactly what they needed to do to solve it.They literally told me in their own words EXACTLY what they needed to do to solve their issues.
A recent depressive told me that he “couldn’t see” what he needed to do. So as he told me how he did his depression, through listening to the message he was telling me, he was also telling exactly what he needed to do to lift him from everything that caused his depression. I made lots of notes, and showed him these notes. He could then literally ‘see’ exactly what he needed to do. The realisation on his face was, well, just special. He always knew what he needed to do. He couldn’t see it. Now he could.
Though my best one was a stop smoker – forty a day plus for thirty years. Lung problems, health problems, complications, asthma – the smoking was literally about to drop him dead. And then he told me exactly what he needed to do. “I just need someone to tell me to stop smoking!” he said, exasperated.
So I held my nerve, and obliged.
“Stop smoking, now.”
Priceless!
Tuesday, 20 July 2010
Pain Management – Hypnotherapy
This carries on from my last two posts on pain, and here I will give a ‘general’ approach I often use when working with clients who have pain. Please note that every client is an individual, and as such, deserves an individual approach relevant to them. This is just a general approach I may utilise.
Hypnosis and the management of pain have a long documented history and hypnosis is commonly used as an analgesic and an anaesthetic during operations – and has been for centuries. Yet this is just one aspect where hypnosis (and other tools that a hypnotherapist has) can be used to work with pain.
Of course, the first thing in respect to working with pain is to ensure the client has appropriate medical attention. The last thing you want to do is remove a person’s migraine pain is if the pain is actually a signal from a growing tumour! It doesn’t matter whether it is knee pain, migraines, joint pain, back pain – I want to know what I am working with, and ensure that my client is actually getting the right medical attention where necessary. I know I am not a medical doctor – I know my limitations.
I also get a list of any drugs, painkillers, or any other treatments they have been having, together with a history of the pain. I want to know whether the drugs are preventing the process of nociception (the pain signal from tissue damage or risk of tissue damage), or are working inside the neurology of the brain, or even whether they aren’t working at all. The history will give me a great starting place too and let me know the origins of the pain.
If it is ethical and morally right to continue, and the client is happy with the process, I then start work on the emotional and learned behaviours behind the pain. Examples of these I am often presented with include:
“I’ve had a rear end shunt so I must have whiplash.”
“I pulled my back bending down and now every time I bend down I get a pain.”
“I only get my knee pain on the way to training.”
“My migraines started around the time of a severe emotional trauma.”
“Even though the doctors say nothing’s wrong, it still hurts.”
All these are clear examples to me of psychosomatic pain. The first task I undertake is to educate my client to what pain is, and that by paying attention to the signals of pain then there is no need to feel the pain. I also explain the origins of pain. Often, this is all it takes. It seems this is quite usual with sportspersons who train hard or are competitive. They tend to have ‘niggly’ pains on the way to training but at no other times. Educating them about pain often removes the problem immediately.
Actually, according to people like Dr Sarno, a medical doctor who is a leading pain specialist, if an injury is not getting worse and is not being aggravated and the pain has persisted for more than 6 weeks then it exists at the psychosomatic level only. And he includes amputees in this category too.
If the pain persists following education I then look for learned behaviours or unresolved/repressed emotions behind the pain. I often use hypnosis for this although often the client can present the signal behind the pain immediately – pain is a great inducer of hypnosis! I use all the tools in my hypnotherapy kit as appropriate to reframe the learned behaviour or resolve the emotions – I work with the client to pay attention to the signal.
With recent clients this has immediately removed or reduced pains from backs, shoulders, necks and knees. More than that, with pain just being one form of psychosomatic signals, this afternoon I worked with a stop smoking client who also has severe psoriasis. Interestingly as I was paying attention to the emotions driving him to smoke, the psoriasis started to considerably improve. Whether the psoriasis has psychosomatic origins here or not is not really important – what is important is the clear and tangible change for the better has taken place and exactly at the time of dealing with an unresolved emotion.
Of course, not all pain is psychosomatic, from learned behaviour or unresolved emotions. Some pain is obviously from tissue damage. Two of my recent clients have had pain almost across their entire bodies. Their consultants haven’t known what pain to attend to medically – there was so much of it. So together we are working first on the emotional pain, then the learned behaviours – so all that should be left is pain from actual damage to tissue, giving the medical consultants clearer signals to work with.
Once the medical practitioners are paying attention to these signals of damage, I can then work with my clients to turn down the pain. This pain is an important signal, and one that needs to be paid attention to. However, where it is interfering with a person’s recovery from that injury, such as prohibiting good sleep, then it is appropriate to turn it right down – or even off for certain parts of the day. As all pain is a perception within the mind, and again let me assure you that all pain is very real, I find that hypnosis is a great tool with which to do this.
Some damage to tissue is also untreatable. Think about certain long term conditions here, degenerative orders, or worse. Here whatever the signal there is no attention that can be paid to the source of the signal. Hypnosis is well documented in assisting these persons have a much more comfortable time.
I have had some good experimentation with control of pain (switching on and off), and regulation of pain (extent of the perception of pain) with my fighting friends. Last year on the Combined Services Judo Course I would often get a shout of “Gary, another one!” from the coaches. Often a twisted knee, impact trauma or the like was the source of pain. I’ve also carried out similar experimentation with my fight training partners.
This experimentation has often centred on their ‘perception’ of the pain – after, of course, I check that they will be paying attention to the signal. I ask them to visualise the pain. What does it look like? How big is it? What colour? Is it moving? And as they visualise it and experience it, I get them to change their experience by shrinking it, moving it away, fading it out, ‘sucking it out’ of the body. This is a surprisingly quick way of regulating, and often controlling, pain. Give it a go – after you make sure you’ll be paying attention to the signal that is!
So there we go – a three post journey through pain. So that’s a few thoughts, a few bits of my study, and a few thoughts all thrown into the mix. I wonder how many of you who read these three posts find that just by understanding pain a little better, your own pain becomes easier to manage?
As always, I welcome all feedback – please feel free to add comments!
Hypnosis and the management of pain have a long documented history and hypnosis is commonly used as an analgesic and an anaesthetic during operations – and has been for centuries. Yet this is just one aspect where hypnosis (and other tools that a hypnotherapist has) can be used to work with pain.
Of course, the first thing in respect to working with pain is to ensure the client has appropriate medical attention. The last thing you want to do is remove a person’s migraine pain is if the pain is actually a signal from a growing tumour! It doesn’t matter whether it is knee pain, migraines, joint pain, back pain – I want to know what I am working with, and ensure that my client is actually getting the right medical attention where necessary. I know I am not a medical doctor – I know my limitations.
I also get a list of any drugs, painkillers, or any other treatments they have been having, together with a history of the pain. I want to know whether the drugs are preventing the process of nociception (the pain signal from tissue damage or risk of tissue damage), or are working inside the neurology of the brain, or even whether they aren’t working at all. The history will give me a great starting place too and let me know the origins of the pain.
If it is ethical and morally right to continue, and the client is happy with the process, I then start work on the emotional and learned behaviours behind the pain. Examples of these I am often presented with include:
“I’ve had a rear end shunt so I must have whiplash.”
“I pulled my back bending down and now every time I bend down I get a pain.”
“I only get my knee pain on the way to training.”
“My migraines started around the time of a severe emotional trauma.”
“Even though the doctors say nothing’s wrong, it still hurts.”
All these are clear examples to me of psychosomatic pain. The first task I undertake is to educate my client to what pain is, and that by paying attention to the signals of pain then there is no need to feel the pain. I also explain the origins of pain. Often, this is all it takes. It seems this is quite usual with sportspersons who train hard or are competitive. They tend to have ‘niggly’ pains on the way to training but at no other times. Educating them about pain often removes the problem immediately.
Actually, according to people like Dr Sarno, a medical doctor who is a leading pain specialist, if an injury is not getting worse and is not being aggravated and the pain has persisted for more than 6 weeks then it exists at the psychosomatic level only. And he includes amputees in this category too.
If the pain persists following education I then look for learned behaviours or unresolved/repressed emotions behind the pain. I often use hypnosis for this although often the client can present the signal behind the pain immediately – pain is a great inducer of hypnosis! I use all the tools in my hypnotherapy kit as appropriate to reframe the learned behaviour or resolve the emotions – I work with the client to pay attention to the signal.
With recent clients this has immediately removed or reduced pains from backs, shoulders, necks and knees. More than that, with pain just being one form of psychosomatic signals, this afternoon I worked with a stop smoking client who also has severe psoriasis. Interestingly as I was paying attention to the emotions driving him to smoke, the psoriasis started to considerably improve. Whether the psoriasis has psychosomatic origins here or not is not really important – what is important is the clear and tangible change for the better has taken place and exactly at the time of dealing with an unresolved emotion.
Of course, not all pain is psychosomatic, from learned behaviour or unresolved emotions. Some pain is obviously from tissue damage. Two of my recent clients have had pain almost across their entire bodies. Their consultants haven’t known what pain to attend to medically – there was so much of it. So together we are working first on the emotional pain, then the learned behaviours – so all that should be left is pain from actual damage to tissue, giving the medical consultants clearer signals to work with.
Once the medical practitioners are paying attention to these signals of damage, I can then work with my clients to turn down the pain. This pain is an important signal, and one that needs to be paid attention to. However, where it is interfering with a person’s recovery from that injury, such as prohibiting good sleep, then it is appropriate to turn it right down – or even off for certain parts of the day. As all pain is a perception within the mind, and again let me assure you that all pain is very real, I find that hypnosis is a great tool with which to do this.
Some damage to tissue is also untreatable. Think about certain long term conditions here, degenerative orders, or worse. Here whatever the signal there is no attention that can be paid to the source of the signal. Hypnosis is well documented in assisting these persons have a much more comfortable time.
I have had some good experimentation with control of pain (switching on and off), and regulation of pain (extent of the perception of pain) with my fighting friends. Last year on the Combined Services Judo Course I would often get a shout of “Gary, another one!” from the coaches. Often a twisted knee, impact trauma or the like was the source of pain. I’ve also carried out similar experimentation with my fight training partners.
This experimentation has often centred on their ‘perception’ of the pain – after, of course, I check that they will be paying attention to the signal. I ask them to visualise the pain. What does it look like? How big is it? What colour? Is it moving? And as they visualise it and experience it, I get them to change their experience by shrinking it, moving it away, fading it out, ‘sucking it out’ of the body. This is a surprisingly quick way of regulating, and often controlling, pain. Give it a go – after you make sure you’ll be paying attention to the signal that is!
So there we go – a three post journey through pain. So that’s a few thoughts, a few bits of my study, and a few thoughts all thrown into the mix. I wonder how many of you who read these three posts find that just by understanding pain a little better, your own pain becomes easier to manage?
As always, I welcome all feedback – please feel free to add comments!
Friday, 16 July 2010
Pain - Control, Regulation and Management
In my previous article I had a look at what ‘pain’ actually is - the signals and the neurology behind it. So now we have a better understanding of pain this blog post introduces approaches to control pain, as well as the management and regulation as to when, and how much we feel.
In summary of my previous post pain is the result of a signal, a signal that says we need to pay attention to something. The source of that signal could be tissue damage or risk of tissue damage, learned behaviour, or unresolved emotions. These signals are passed to our brain where we interpret the signals and pain is perceived. This process is there to protect us from harm – pain is in our best interests for our health and safety.
Some quick definitions for you. Control is a digital switch, a switch on, or a switch off – black and white. Regulation is an analogue scale, the amount, the extent, and timing of pain – shades of grey. Management is the process of allowing life to continue with pain and the process of control and regulation. The good news is that a hypnosis approach can help with all three of these, and my next post will explain some of the methods that we can use.
But first, pain is a perception in our minds, although very real, it is a perception created in our minds. And as such we actually control, regulate and manage pain on an every day basis. This is a usual every day occurrence. Have you notice your pain coming and going, varying at different times and in different circumstances?
Let’s start with pain from nociception – the pain that results from damage or risk of damage to tissue. The two ways of regulating the pain are ‘afferent regulation’ and ‘descending regulation’.
Afferent regulation is the process that can most easily be explained by rubbing your shin after bruising it to reduce the pain. The ‘let mummy rub it better’ approach. This can be explained by the ‘gate theory of pain’ where the neurology is both excited by the nociceptors detecting the pain and inhibited by the signal of rubbing it. Perhaps it could be simple put that by rubbing the injury, further signals from the rubbing are sent to the brain as well as the nociceptors signal that results in pain, therefore giving too much information and dulling the nociceptors signal – and therefore less signal for pain is received.
Descending regulation is something that as a fighter I use on a daily basis. Especially when we compete, and often in heavy sparring, we have to ‘switch off’ from pain. This is common in athletes and soldiers where injuries are incurred but no pain is felt. The suppression of the pain is thought to be carried out in the brain including the area known as PAG (periaqueductal grey matter). This area of the brain sends signals down the neurology effectively depressing the nociception signals coming up.
Pain from learned behaviour has a slightly different approach. Here we have been hurt in the past and therefore our minds look to protect us in the present by giving us a pain signal – often, though not exclusively, from the source of the original pain. I work with many athletes who have pain from old injuries on the way to training, but at no other times. To regulate or control the pain we need to work out what the signal is that the pain is telling us, and pay attention to it in order for the signal to not be necessary. And then we can switch off as it’s not needed.
The final source of pain is unresolved emotions. Dr Sarno is a leading name in the field of psychosomatic conditions including pain coming from unresolved emotions. If you are suffering from long term pain I would definitely recommend reading his works – just by reading his books many people become pain free as they understand the sources of their conditions. I regularly am helping people turn off and turn down long term pain by paying attention to unresolved emotions. Often this pain is first experienced around the time of emotional stress or trauma. As the emotions from this time are repressed by our unconscious minds the pain is a reminder that we need to process or resolve these emotions, even though we are mostly not consciously aware of them. Resolve the emotions, and then there is no need to feel the pain.
It is interesting to note that in my studies I have come across numerous reports as to the use of placebos in pain relief. A patient may be given sterile saline instead of an analgesic and report relief from the pain despite having no drug. A belief that the treatment will work can be enough to cause activation of the pain relief systems of the brain.
In my pain control/management/regulation I work with an understanding of all of these methods, the processes by which we experience pain. And by understanding these methods I am better placed to ethically assist people in living free from pain. In my next blog post I will explain some methods that I use, including some that you can try without a hypnotherapist, to control, regulate and manage pain.
In summary of my previous post pain is the result of a signal, a signal that says we need to pay attention to something. The source of that signal could be tissue damage or risk of tissue damage, learned behaviour, or unresolved emotions. These signals are passed to our brain where we interpret the signals and pain is perceived. This process is there to protect us from harm – pain is in our best interests for our health and safety.
Some quick definitions for you. Control is a digital switch, a switch on, or a switch off – black and white. Regulation is an analogue scale, the amount, the extent, and timing of pain – shades of grey. Management is the process of allowing life to continue with pain and the process of control and regulation. The good news is that a hypnosis approach can help with all three of these, and my next post will explain some of the methods that we can use.
But first, pain is a perception in our minds, although very real, it is a perception created in our minds. And as such we actually control, regulate and manage pain on an every day basis. This is a usual every day occurrence. Have you notice your pain coming and going, varying at different times and in different circumstances?
Let’s start with pain from nociception – the pain that results from damage or risk of damage to tissue. The two ways of regulating the pain are ‘afferent regulation’ and ‘descending regulation’.
Afferent regulation is the process that can most easily be explained by rubbing your shin after bruising it to reduce the pain. The ‘let mummy rub it better’ approach. This can be explained by the ‘gate theory of pain’ where the neurology is both excited by the nociceptors detecting the pain and inhibited by the signal of rubbing it. Perhaps it could be simple put that by rubbing the injury, further signals from the rubbing are sent to the brain as well as the nociceptors signal that results in pain, therefore giving too much information and dulling the nociceptors signal – and therefore less signal for pain is received.
Descending regulation is something that as a fighter I use on a daily basis. Especially when we compete, and often in heavy sparring, we have to ‘switch off’ from pain. This is common in athletes and soldiers where injuries are incurred but no pain is felt. The suppression of the pain is thought to be carried out in the brain including the area known as PAG (periaqueductal grey matter). This area of the brain sends signals down the neurology effectively depressing the nociception signals coming up.
Pain from learned behaviour has a slightly different approach. Here we have been hurt in the past and therefore our minds look to protect us in the present by giving us a pain signal – often, though not exclusively, from the source of the original pain. I work with many athletes who have pain from old injuries on the way to training, but at no other times. To regulate or control the pain we need to work out what the signal is that the pain is telling us, and pay attention to it in order for the signal to not be necessary. And then we can switch off as it’s not needed.
The final source of pain is unresolved emotions. Dr Sarno is a leading name in the field of psychosomatic conditions including pain coming from unresolved emotions. If you are suffering from long term pain I would definitely recommend reading his works – just by reading his books many people become pain free as they understand the sources of their conditions. I regularly am helping people turn off and turn down long term pain by paying attention to unresolved emotions. Often this pain is first experienced around the time of emotional stress or trauma. As the emotions from this time are repressed by our unconscious minds the pain is a reminder that we need to process or resolve these emotions, even though we are mostly not consciously aware of them. Resolve the emotions, and then there is no need to feel the pain.
It is interesting to note that in my studies I have come across numerous reports as to the use of placebos in pain relief. A patient may be given sterile saline instead of an analgesic and report relief from the pain despite having no drug. A belief that the treatment will work can be enough to cause activation of the pain relief systems of the brain.
In my pain control/management/regulation I work with an understanding of all of these methods, the processes by which we experience pain. And by understanding these methods I am better placed to ethically assist people in living free from pain. In my next blog post I will explain some methods that I use, including some that you can try without a hypnotherapist, to control, regulate and manage pain.
Tuesday, 13 July 2010
What is Pain?
I’ve been working with several patients in respect to their ‘pain’ lately, including in conjunction with their consultants at their Pain Clinics. In this blog post I thought I’d explain what pain actually is, and how we experience it. (Everything here is put as a generalisation to enable simpler understanding.)
In later posts I’ll talk about pain control, management and regulation, together with the uses of hypnosis in the same. But first, what is pain?
Pain exists to keep us safe. It is a response to an alarm signal, our body’s way of saying ‘pay attention’. And this response helps us to avoid harm. Pain and withdrawal reflexes help us to keep ourselves safe. Pain makes us rest injured parts of the body which assists in recovery from any damage. It also reminds us to keep away from situations where in the past we had pain, or to pay attention to emotions that are not yet resolved.
Pain is a ‘somatic sensation’, in other words, it is a sensation felt in the body. But how is it created? Pain is a response to a signal. That signal could be from tissue damage, risk of tissue damage, learned behaviour, or unresolved emotions.
Pain as a result of tissue damage or risk of tissue damage is through a process called ‘nociception’. This starts with the nerve endings, or nociceptors, detecting the damage or risk, and sending this signal through our neurology to our brain. In the brain the signal is received, interpreted, and the synapses within our neurology fire accordingly and often produce the sensation of pain.
It is worth pointing out that the process of nociception is not in itself pain – it is just a signal that we can interpret as pain.
Pain can be as a result of learned behaviour. In the past we may have incurred injury and experienced pain, so if we are about to do that behaviour again, or are doing that behaviour we may experience pain, telling us not to do so. It is also well documented that current social norms also influence pain, and we can learn to feel pain as a result of other people’s behaviour, or even just hearing about it.
Unresolved emotions are also a source of pain, especially those with chronic pain. It has been documented that unless an injury is getting worse or being aggravated pain shouldn’t be felt six weeks after the injury – if it is, there is very likely an emotional element to that pain. Often repressed emotions become a source of pain – the pain being the signal that we need to pay attention and process that emotion through to resolution.
Pain is a cognitive process and it is due to this that our perception of pain can vary. Pain can come and go, may be intense, or just in the background, or we may just not feel it at all. And we can also experience pain whilst having no tissue damage or risk of damage to that tissue. We can control it by turning it off or on, or regulate or manage it to lessen or increase its intensity. And we can do all this because pain is created in the brain.
Now, whilst it is true that all pain is a perception in the brain, whether from tissue damage, threat of tissue damage, learned behaviour or unresolved emotions – all pain is most definitely real. And we all know how real that pain can be. So in future posts I’ll describe pain can be controlled, regulated and managed, so when we experience pain, we know how to pay attention to it.
In later posts I’ll talk about pain control, management and regulation, together with the uses of hypnosis in the same. But first, what is pain?
Pain exists to keep us safe. It is a response to an alarm signal, our body’s way of saying ‘pay attention’. And this response helps us to avoid harm. Pain and withdrawal reflexes help us to keep ourselves safe. Pain makes us rest injured parts of the body which assists in recovery from any damage. It also reminds us to keep away from situations where in the past we had pain, or to pay attention to emotions that are not yet resolved.
Pain is a ‘somatic sensation’, in other words, it is a sensation felt in the body. But how is it created? Pain is a response to a signal. That signal could be from tissue damage, risk of tissue damage, learned behaviour, or unresolved emotions.
Pain as a result of tissue damage or risk of tissue damage is through a process called ‘nociception’. This starts with the nerve endings, or nociceptors, detecting the damage or risk, and sending this signal through our neurology to our brain. In the brain the signal is received, interpreted, and the synapses within our neurology fire accordingly and often produce the sensation of pain.
It is worth pointing out that the process of nociception is not in itself pain – it is just a signal that we can interpret as pain.
Pain can be as a result of learned behaviour. In the past we may have incurred injury and experienced pain, so if we are about to do that behaviour again, or are doing that behaviour we may experience pain, telling us not to do so. It is also well documented that current social norms also influence pain, and we can learn to feel pain as a result of other people’s behaviour, or even just hearing about it.
Unresolved emotions are also a source of pain, especially those with chronic pain. It has been documented that unless an injury is getting worse or being aggravated pain shouldn’t be felt six weeks after the injury – if it is, there is very likely an emotional element to that pain. Often repressed emotions become a source of pain – the pain being the signal that we need to pay attention and process that emotion through to resolution.
Pain is a cognitive process and it is due to this that our perception of pain can vary. Pain can come and go, may be intense, or just in the background, or we may just not feel it at all. And we can also experience pain whilst having no tissue damage or risk of damage to that tissue. We can control it by turning it off or on, or regulate or manage it to lessen or increase its intensity. And we can do all this because pain is created in the brain.
Now, whilst it is true that all pain is a perception in the brain, whether from tissue damage, threat of tissue damage, learned behaviour or unresolved emotions – all pain is most definitely real. And we all know how real that pain can be. So in future posts I’ll describe pain can be controlled, regulated and managed, so when we experience pain, we know how to pay attention to it.
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