SLIMMER AND HEALTHIER CREATING A SLIM, HEALTHY BODY FOR LIFE

Hypnotherapists have the skills, experience and, above all, the powerful techniques to help people to achieve their weight loss goals. In these challenging times, I believe we are called upon to take our work out into the world and show what we can do. This may be with individual clients or by promoting hypnotherapy to other health professionals, government bodies, research establishments or even the diet industry. Because … we know that weight loss is not simply about diet and exercise. If it were that simple, there would not be an obesity problem across the world. The Slimmer and Healthier book, available from amazon stores worldwide, is an affordable starting point to gain greater understanding about treatment options for clients. The book is written for an audience with little or no understanding about hypnosis but it aims to inform the reader in a way that is accessible and appropriate for general use. Not only is the book a powerful learning resource for professionals, it also provides great background reading for clients who are working one-to-one with a therapist. In my practice I always get clients to read around the subject, depending on what they want help with. I’m a big fan of client homework and believe this sets the tone for the work we do together. Up front, it’s important to understand the clients most likely to consult a therapist are those with deep, long standing weight problems who need targeted help. These clients will require our help using all the treatment resources we have at our disposal. However, several of the tracks on the album have done all the hard work for you. You can ‘prescribe’ them to your clients to use at home. For example: • Release the Past - a gentle but effective alternative to regression or NLP reframing. • Slim While You Sleep - a repatterning track that eliminates a negative mind-set towards losing weight. • Self-Sabotage - for those clients who press the self- destruct button, those who are often termed ‘psychologically reversed’. • Overcoming Obstacles - includes a motivational future pacing exercise. • Iron Willpower - works at the 6 skills of willpower, skills that can be learned.

Designing a treatment plan

I taught student hypnotherapists for 10 years at the Institute of Clinical Hypnosis in London and also had my methodology published in the Hypnotherapy Journal* in 2007/8. I taught a 5-step programme that included the majority of the content that is now published in the book. To summarise: Step 1 - behaviour change or ‘habit reversal’.  Step 2 - removing or reframing the ‘can’t do’ mind-set. I utilise energy techniques such as EFT for this. Step 3 - installing a slim future (as if it is already predestined) by future pacing the client using visualisation/timeline therapy. Step 4 - often regression, sometimes past life regression, depending on individual circumstances. Step 5 - troubleshooting problems and more energy techniques, either Choices or Be Set Free Fast. Includes a hypnosis track for ongoing work which is now track 12, Slim and Healthy for Life. 2 weeks minimum between sessions. Test the work before going on to the next stage. These 5 steps can be expanded, amended and adjusted according to each clients’ requirements. I often found that more energy work or regression was needed if there was a lot of ‘stuff’ to work through. While clients would often be happy to work at home, in private, to release past memories or negative beliefs, sometimes they wanted to work through difficult issues with me to support them. And, as we know, the therapist’s skill is in spotting problems that the client can’t see because they are too close to the problem. Step 1 is all about getting the eating habits changed for good so weight loss can begin. This is the most important part. If you dive in with some inner child work or regression, I’d argue it’s much too soon. Honour the client’s wishes and get the weight loss going. This is track 1 on the album. Step 2 is all about removing the mental and emotional blocks that may prevent step 1 from working. It’s about removing ’won’t power’ so willpower can flourish. This is extensively explained in the book. During one-to-one therapy I use energy techniques for this step. While I’ve included some energy work in the Craving Control and Self Sabotage tracks, using a simplified format, I would recommend EFT which is probably the most well known of the energy techniques. It works well both with individual clients and in groups. If you don’t have EFT in your therapeutic armoury, let me recommend it as a highly effective and targeted treatment. The best part is that clients can use it at home, practising getting good at it and working on their ‘stuff’ in their own time. Once a client is confident with EFT, progress can be rapid. When I first began, I realised quickly that hypnotherapy and EFT are symbiotic, significantly enhancing the benefits from both treatments. EFT clears away the obstacles that can block hypnotherapy from working as well as it can. Once the client’s mind is clearer, with self- limiting beliefs and emotions released using EFT, the hypnotherapy suggestions for behaviour change can have a free run. I like to think there is more room in the client’s mind for them to take root. Step 3 is about installing a slim future for the client to aim at. As we already know, the subconscious mind does not differentiate well between ‘real’ and ‘imagined’ material. Think false memory syndrome, for example. I was always taught to make the imagined material as real and as believable as possible. Once this is accomplished the client’s mind automatically turns towards this imagined future and ‘walks right into it’. Step 4 is all about the past. I set aside this session for a bit of progress monitoring, EFT coaching and then regression. I use muscle testing (kinaesiology) to check for past life memories that need resolution before proceeding. A regression through this life can progress to a PLR to cover all bases. By the time you and your client are at session 4, there is sufficient trust and empathy for this to be a success. I find there is less work to do during regression because the EFT and hypnotherapy have already resolved all but the most intractable memories. Release the Past accomplishes the same result without the need for a live regression. It can be used over and over by the client for thoroughness. Also, there is the added benefit from some creative mothering** from the client’s current self. Step 5 is for assessing progress and troubleshooting lingering issues. These may only surface late on during treatment, as layers and layers of ‘stuff’ is stripped away. You may find the roots of the problem … and need to ‘pull them out’ or you discover unresolved negative beliefs that are blocking your client. I like to offer a further energy treatment such as Choices (which utilises positive phrases) and also Be Set Free Fast. Both these techniques can be learned from widely available courses or online, see below. * Journal of the National Council for Hypnotherapy in the UK. ** Creative Mothering is a technique where you regress a client back to childhood, then encourage their current self to comfort them in the past, as their own mother would have. It goes without saying that this technique was first developed to help those who had difficult childhoods. And while ‘mother’ is used in the script title, ‘father’ or ‘parent’ is also appropriate. In the Release the Past track, the ‘wise inner self’ is the comforter. Gary Craig, the designer and developer of EFT, has a website with extensive information, articles and training reources at www.emofree.com.  Choices by Patricia Carrington builds on the principals of EFT to incorporate a positive choice in the procedure. Check Patricia’s website here. Be Set Free Fast official website with training courses and information can be found here. A final word … I was fortunate enough to learn EFT around the time of its debut. To put it in perspective, I still have the original training video tapes I ordered direct from Gary Craig. I also have a wealth of material in transcripts of workshops and seminars, hundreds of pages of priceless knowledge, much of which is now not freely accessible. I absorbed the knowledge and used it to inform my practice. Much of that thinking has been integrated into the album and the books. I hope you find them informative and use them to expand your understanding so your own weight loss practice can positively thrive.