GUIDED IMAGERY & HYPNOSIS
By Rhona Jordan, C.GIt, C.CHt
Guided Imagery
Imagery is something we experience all the time, usually without knowing it, and it’s as natural as breathing. Images are simply the sensory thoughts that we can perceive in our imaginations. The things we imagine that we see, hear, smell, taste and touch, our memories, dreams, visions and plans, are made of images.
So are most worries and fears. In fact, worrying could be called the most common form of imagery. Worries are thoughts about things that may or may not have actually happened in the past, or things that may or may not ever happen in the future. All worries are fantasies that exist only as possibilities in our imagination.
However, worries can have important physiological consequences. When we worry, our bodies respond as they do when faced with actual dangers and threats. This can create changes in our circulation, muscle tension, blood pressure, breathing, digestion, sexual function and even changes in immunity that over time can affect our health.
The good news is that if our imagination can affect our health in negative ways, we can also use our imagination to help us relax, release stress and anxiety, overcome obstacles, and make important changes in our lives.
These changes can include: increased self esteem, release of fears and grief, increased peaceful sleep, pain management, sports enhancement, surgery preparation, relaxed childbirth, improved creativity, cessation of smoking, weight release, and much more.
Hypnosis
When you’re driving your car and your mind is totally focused on your thoughts, and you drive past your exit and discover that you’ve driven an extra mile or two, you were in a focused state of awareness known as self hypnosis.
When you are reading a good book or watching an interesting TV show and you suddenly notice it’s 1 a.m. and you wonder how did those last two hours go by so quickly, you were in a state of self hypnosis.
When your body and critical mind are sleeping, your subconscious mind is totally alert and hears everything.
Children are in a constant state of hypnosis, and they really don’t hear you most of the time. Their minds are in a focused state of awareness of whatever is interesting, such as a snail on the sidewalk.
Guided Imagery and Hypnosis Together
During a session, I may invite you to allow your imagination to form an image of different parts of you. For example, the part of you that wants a cigarette and the part of you that does not want a cigarette, or the part of you that puts on the extra pounds and the part of you that wants to release the extra pounds.
I may ask you to allow an image to form of your resistance to stopping smoking or resistance to releasing the extra pounds. I may also ask you to allow an image to form that represents any pain, illness or emotional challenge.
Using imagery, we talk directly to the image that comes to mind. Your subconscious mind will direct you, and tell you what the body or emotional needs are, and how those needs can be met.
Using hypnosis, the information that was gathered during the guided imagery session is now reframed into positive suggestions that are accepted by the unconscious mind.
These focused positive thoughts create changes in the physical and emotional body. Your powerful thoughts can manage pain, lower blood pressure, release extra pounds, stop smoking, change a behavior, release a phobia, or really make you smile while sitting in the dental chair.
The difference between Visualization, Guided Imagery,
Hypnosis, NLP and Interactive Guided Imagery
VISUALIZATION is a form of imagery that usually utilizes the imagination through scripted images. It is often for a particular outcome. One visualizes an approach towards problems or situations or the healing of an illness. This type of visualization is also common with Neurolinguistic Programming, or NLP, as a way to reprogram or reframe a past situation.
NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming) involves an individual who attempts to route and re-route the neural connections that make up a particular behavior with the hope of altering the outcome. There is an emphasis on the practitioner analyzing and understanding the client’s patterns, and then creating an alternative strategy.
HYPNOSIS often requires an individual to enter a kind of hypnotic state of consciousness that allows entry for suggestion to the unconscious mind. It is mainly through suggestive interaction that individual changes occur.
GUIDED IMAGERY is a way to access the images of the unconscious mind to help resolve problems, gain understanding on issues, and promote insights into situations. It may or may not be interactive and it usually uses prompted or suggested imagery. The guide is often expected to provide “better” images for the client.
INTERACTIVE GUIDED IMAGERY is a process that includes all the features of guided imagery and adds an element of interactivity to the mix. Interactive Guided Imagery works directly with the images that arise from an individuals own imagination. This provides a unique window of personal exploration into the inner workings of one’s own healing process. In this process, the Interactive Guide assists the client with learning to access and utilize the insights and solutions in their own subconscious which is both specific and empowering to the client.
TRANCED
By traveling deep into the recess of your unconscious mind, you easily find the key that unlocks the hidden answers to events and questions.
Memories are easily retrieved by a simple method called Regression Therapy. The unconscious mind is much like a computer. Every bit of information you have ever seen, smelled, touched, heard, imagined or experienced, and every emotion – love, hate, fear, sadness, excitement, celebration, grief – is downloaded into your subconscious mind.
Trance is a concentrated focused state of awareness in which you are wide awake, not sleeping. For example, you’re thinking about something and do not hear the conversations around you until someone calls your name and you wake up from your trance.
Regression is going back in your thoughts to retrieve a memory of an event—it’s the program used to download the information from your unconscious hard drive.
In your unconscious mind reside long forgotten stories. Some stories may be buried to protect the conscious mind from trauma or pain of an event.
Regression Therapy is used by forensic hypnotists, who are hired by law enforcement and attorneys for victims or clients to remember descriptions of people, license plates and the sequence of events. It is also used by Hypnotherapists for healing past memories, recalling a special event, or remembering the location of a misplaced item.
Hypnotherapists also use regression for remembered wellness. If a basketball player is injured, regression hypnosis can help the athlete remember the wellness of his body before the injury. With expert guidance from a hypnotist, the basketball player continues to play the game many times in his head. The athlete’s brain fires the same neurons, affecting the same muscles as if he were on the court playing the game. Bones, muscles, tissues, cells and molecules rearrange themselves for healing.
When the physical recovery is complete, the athlete playing the game in his mind returns to the court as though he had never left and had been physically practicing on the court.
This cutting-edge tool also works well for pain management and overcoming illness.
ACCIDENTAL HYPNOSIS
Concentrated Focused Attention
Inadvertent Hypnosis
What we see on TV, read, and listen to on the radio can hypnotize us. Advertisers pay big bucks to advertise late at night when people generally are falling asleep while watching TV. Advertisers say “Cheerios are good for you” and sooner or later you may buy a box of Cheerios.
Emergency Situations
You assist a person that has been in an accident—not too serious, you’ll be okay. Help is on the way. In the emergency room: Not too serious, you’ll be better in no time. Those magic words “Not too serious” calm the emotions. Such words have saved many lives. Conversely, what happens if someone says “This is serious, I doubt that you’ll make it.” And what about the documents you must sign before surgery, the ones that describe in detail all of the potential negative outcomes. How many lives have those words effected?
Society Belief Hypnosis
One race of people against another race of people.
Religious Belief Hypnosis
My religion is the only true religion, therefore my beliefs are better than your beliefs.
The Media
The whole world sounds like it’s in trouble all the time. What if the news media reported “Today you are safe and can expect good things to happen.”
Parental Hypnosis
Mother kisses the scratch on a child’s arm, the child immediately feels better.
Non-Verbal Waking Hypnosis Suggestions
If someone yawns, you will yawn. If someone is scratching, you will scratch. If someone is looking up, you will look up. If someone is sucking on a lemon, you will salivate. If you even think about sucking on a lemon, you will salivate.
Self Talk Hypnosis
We talk to ourselves all the time. We hypnotize ourselves and believe our own words. Have you every said to yourself “I am so stupid?” Change your self talk hypnosis by saying things like “That was an interesting experience, I learned from that. I choose now to make better choices.
All Hypnosis is Self-Hypnosis
Hypnosis works well because the body responds to commands from the mind like a car responds to the driver. You have control of your body as you accept positive suggestions. During hypnosis, you are given positive suggestions, and because the body is controlled through the subconscious mind, it strives for preservation, and accepts positive suggestions that are good for you. Hypnosis is deep relaxation, not sleep. You are in a very pleasant relaxed, yet heightened state of awareness.
Six Million People Use Imagery
The US Department of Health and Human Services estimates that more than six million Americans across the country from the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic, and New York City’s Columbia University Medical Center use guided imagery. The US Dept. of Veteran’s Affairs uses the technique to help veterans recover from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, Hoag
Memorial Hospital and St. Joseph Hospital in Orange County, CA have guided imagery CD’s available for their patients.
Who Is Rhona Jordan?
Rhona Jordan is a Clinical Hypnosis Instructor for the International Hypnosis Federation, a Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist; American Board of Hypnotherapy, the International Association of Clinical Hypnotherapists, The International Hypnosis Federation, and The American Institute of Hypnotherapy. Rhona is also a Certified Guided Imagery Guide (sm) and Therapist with over thirty years of experience. Rhona is a member of International Hypnosis Federation, Academy for Guided Imagery, Association for Integrative Psychology, American Holistic Health Association, American Association for the Study of Mental Imagery, Association for Humanistic Psychology, International Medical and Dental Hypnotherapy Association and The National Guild of Hypnotherapists. Rhona has a private practice in Orange and Mission Viejo, and is available for private sessions, lectures and workshops. She also facilitates relaxation and self-appreciation guided imageries for business meetings, luncheons and conventions.
For more information, visit www.RhonaImagery.com, or call (714) 974-4094.
