Training on Clinical Hypnosis: Transform Your Treatment of Trauma, Anxiety, Depression, Addiction and Chronic Pain

CPD

Handouts

Speaker

Eric K. Willmarth, PhD Related seminars and products

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Eric K. Willmarth, Ph.D., is the president of the Society for Psychological Hypnosis (APA Division 30) and a past-president of both the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis and the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis. He has used hypnosis in clinical practice for over 40 years, including over 30 years in a chronic pain management setting.

Dr. Willmarth is the chair of the department of applied psychophysiology department in the College of Integrative Medicine and Health Sciences, Saybrook University. He oversees the hypnosis certificate program at Saybrook, which involves basic, intermediate and advance hypnosis courses and he is a frequent presenter and Keynote speaker at national and international hypnosis conferences and workshops. He is the winner of the Distinguished Contributions to Professional Hypnosis Award from the American Psychological Association and the Ericka Fromm Excellence in Teaching Award from the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis.

In addition to his teaching, Eric has recorded hundreds of interviews with prominent hypnosis clinicians and researchers from around the world. Many of these video clips can be viewed at www.hypnosiscentral.com

 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Eric Willmarth has employment relationships with Saybrook University, Michigan Behavioral Consultants, and Michigan Pain Consultants. He receives a speaking honorarium from the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis. Eric Willmarth receives a speaking honorarium and recording royalties from PESI, Inc. He has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Eric Willmarth is a fellow of the American Academy of Pain Management and the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis. He is on the council of representatives for the American Psychological Association and a member of the Michigan Psychological Association, the AAPB Counsel of Chapters, and the International Society of Hypnosis.

Objectives

1. Assess the clinical relevance of the relationship between hypnosis and memory.
2. Specify how clinicians can identify situations in which hypnosis could be beneficial.
3. Establish how hypnotic language can be utilized with various treatment modalities.
4. Communicate 3 techniques that can be used to elicit a constructive trance experience in therapy.
5. Present a synopsis of the three-stage skeleton of an hypnotic induction sequence.
6. Provide the names of 3 different hypnotic phenomena that can be utilized to enhance therapy.
7. Characterize how the hypnotic phenomena present in a client can help the clinician individualize treatment.
8. Establish how verbal indirect suggestions can be employed in session to move clients toward positive changes in behaviour.
9. Articulate how non-verbal communication skills from clinical hypnosis can be used to help calm hyper-aroused clients.
10. Establish how metaphor and anecdotes can be used in a hypnosis session to help facilitate new patterns of thoughts, feelings and behaviours in clients.
11. Communicate how confusion techniques can be used to capture the attention of clients in sessions.
12. Connect specific hypnotic techniques to the clinical treatment of trauma, anxiety, depression and pain.

Outline

Discover the Core Skills of Hypnosis

• Brief history of clinical/medical hypnosis
• Ethics of clinical hypnosis
• When should hypnosis be used in therapy?
• Hypnotic change language for clinicians
• Intrapersonal and interpersonal dynamics
• How to disrupt patterns to encourage flexibility
• Hypnosis as an adjunctive technique
• The neurophysiology of Hypnosis

Methods to Elicit a Trance Experience: Increase Focus and Relaxation to Intensify Therapy

• Assess for willingness and hypnotic ability
• Hypnotic phenomena
• Three-stage “skeleton” of an induction sequence
• Relaxation techniques
• Visualization to recall positive memories
• Countdown breathing

How to Structure a Hypnosis Session

• How to use hypnosis across modalities
  • Relaxation
  • Rapport
  • Induction
  • Deepening
  • Waking
• Hypnotic techniques to work with resistances
• Apply hypnosis methods without a formal trance

Hypnosis Skills and Techniques for Specific Disorders and Conditions 

Trauma: Restore Control and Process Traumatic Memories

• How hypnosis works with exposure
• Hypnosis techniques to restore control to clients
• Regression for processing traumatic memories
• Practices to alter distorted beliefs
• Hypnotic suggestions to foster greater emotional control

Anxiety: Shift Clients to Calm with Hypnotic Suggestion

• Strategies to get to the root of your client’s anxiety
• Hypnosis and metaphor to redefine anxiety
• Exercises to manage the energy of anxiety
• Hypnotic techniques to improve sleep in anxious clients

Depression: Breaking the Cycles of Depression

• Combining hypnosis and CBT for mood control
• Using hypnotic age regression and progression for depression
• Mesmer, music, mood and movement
• Using creative stories to reconceptualize depression

Acute and Chronic Pain: Interventions to Change Clients’ Minds and Pain

• Altering the perception of pain
• Hypnotic interventions to dissociate clients from the reality of pain
• Shift clients’ attention from painful sensations
• Forgetting about the pain with amnesia
• Expand time and expand comfort
• Elicit vivid memories to obviate pain

Addiction: Release Clients from Addictive Behavior Patterns

• How to use hypnosis to create a different perspective
• Hypnotic suggestions to strengthen willpower
• Self-hypnosis to overcome addictive urges and cravings
• Ease withdrawal symptoms with hypnosis

Experiential Workshop: Elicit a Trance State for Enhanced Responsiveness in Therapy

Target Audience

• Psychologists
• Counselors
• Social Workers
• Marriage and Family Therapists
• Addiction Counselors
• Nurses
• Other Mental Health Professionals

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