Mindhacks blog today has a great synopsis of some research on post-hypnotic amnesia. It's most commonly used when the subject is given a suggestion to forget part of the session.

From my perspective, it's most useful when there is emotionally strong content or when there might be conscious resistance (but subconscious agreement) with a stated goal. I never use post-hypnotic suggestions to forget things outside of a session. I do use hypnotic awareness training to "simply not notice" things. A common example would be to not notice the candy dish at the office. People can still see the bowl, but they don't notice it. It sounds strange, but it works. The hypnotic suggestion I use in such a case either creates context reframing so that the candy bowl means something different than it used to, or it actually trains attention elsewhere so the candy dish is always in the background.

Think of the famous image that flips back and forth from a grail to two faces facing each other, depending on how you focus your eyes. It's a figure-ground shift. We have habitual ways of perceiving things that are usually subconscious...i.e., we tend to either see the grail first or the two faces (most people see the grail). Hypnosis can help change those habitual patterns of perception. There is a saying, "where attention goes, energy flows" so it's good to have more choice in what you pay attention to and what you ignore. To me, the ability to re-train awareness is one of the most powerful properties of hypnosis!

Wellspring Hypnosis

Wow! I received this amazing hypnosis success story from a client this week.

"On 6-15-2006 at 4p.m. was when I first met you. After smoking most of my life (well over 20 + years all combined) and many failed attempts at quitting I smoked my last cigarette at 3:59 p.m. that day.

I just wanted to send Thanks to you. Becoming a non-smoker (and thinking of it that way) helped me to make radical changes in my life.

Through learning how to eat healthy and exercise (lots of exercise that I wouldn't have been able to do as a smoker) I have lost almost 100 pounds and am now healthier than I have ever been. If I had continued smoking I would not have been able to accomplish these things, nor would I have been able to walk/jog the 5 mile Austin Turkey Trot this past week.

Thank You for helping me change my life.  ~ Robin"

This client also purchased my weight  loss hypnosis CDs. I love my job!

Wow! I just finished a three-day NLP intensive with Tom Best. It was just amazing. A lot of my behaviors have changed in positive directions already.

We practiced Parts Polarity Integration. I picked the part of myself that likes to stay up late (I named this part "the slacker") vs. the part that wants to go to bed early and get up early to be more productive (I named this part Benjamin Franklin because he was so motivated to get things done).

The polarity parts integration worked so beautifully. Here's how I know:

The first thing I did when I got home on Sunday was to put a plan in place to read before bed. My bed didn't have an easy way to sit up and read and there wasn't enough light. So I rearranged the bedroom and it made it conducive to reading. Now instead of surfing the internet until 11:30 - 12pm, I can go to bed at 10:00 or so, read for a while, and go to sleep early.

This meets the underlying goals that my "slacker" part desired by providing amusement and relaxation.

It also meets the underlying goals of my Benjamin Franklin part by being productive and educational by reading and going to bed early.

Reading also makes me drowsy so I will go to sleep faster. So now those conflicting parts are working together and they are on the same team. Yay! Win-win.

Okay, off to bed to read my current book:
Love is the Killer App

Check it out!

Austin Hypnosis and Hypnosis CDs 

I am still learning how to use this messaging program called TWITTER.

 Here is  my link

 http://twitter.com/hypnotherapy

 I plan to use if for professional business stuff Does anyone else here uses 

Twitter besides Cal, let me know, or add me to your Tweets list.

Thanks,

Aisha 

 The excellent blog, MindHacks (click link) had a great post today on

Hypnosis as a surgical tool. 

"Altering perception using hypnosis results in brain changes that literally reduce pain perception [rather than merely altering the response to pain]. Indeed, simply changing the wording of the hypnotic instruction from "you will feel cool, tingling numbness more than pain" to "the pain will not bother you" alters the brain location of the analgesia from the somatosensory cortex to the anterior cingulate gyrus."