J.P. Noble Award
24/07/2017 20:01
Back in June I attended the annual conference of the National Society for Hypnosis, Psychotherapy & Mindfulness, and was very surprised, and also very honoured to find a dissertation I had submitted to the National College of Hypnosis & Psychotherapy had won the J.P. Noble Award for 2017. The dissertation was titled 'Working with Mindfulness & Hypnosis in Psychotherapy; a challenge and an opportunity', and covered the ways in which mindfulness can inform, integrate with, or work as an adjunct to psychotherapy, and also the similarities, differences and tensions that exist between hypnosis and mindfulness in a psychotherapeutic setting.
A blog post on this subject is probably long overdue, especially as I am increasing finding clients become confused around the similarities of their experiences in mindfulness meditation practices and in self-hypnosis. This is not particularly surprising, as both states tend to be characterised by coming to rest, and turning our attention inwards. However, there is a fundamental difference too: Mindfulness involves an intentional awareness of our present moment experience; we turn towards our experience, however, in hypnosis, we tend to disconnect from some aspects of our present moment experience and become absorbed instead by internal images, or imagined sensations and experiences, or perhaps we visit past or future moments, rather than the present. Quite a substantial difference!
A blog post on this subject is probably long overdue, especially as I am increasing finding clients become confused around the similarities of their experiences in mindfulness meditation practices and in self-hypnosis. This is not particularly surprising, as both states tend to be characterised by coming to rest, and turning our attention inwards. However, there is a fundamental difference too: Mindfulness involves an intentional awareness of our present moment experience; we turn towards our experience, however, in hypnosis, we tend to disconnect from some aspects of our present moment experience and become absorbed instead by internal images, or imagined sensations and experiences, or perhaps we visit past or future moments, rather than the present. Quite a substantial difference!
New web site, new Blog...
14/07/2016 14:57
So, a new web site comes at a cost. Roughly $99 and a couple of days work. But it also brings the opportunity for a few changes, one of which is a new blog, which should be a lot easier than trying to transfer the old one. This is all happening as it seems a certain well-known search engine was 'punishing' my web site for not being friendly enough to mobile devices; I'll not name them in case they punish me for that too. Aren't near-monopolies great? Anyway, enough whinging, it had to be done, and so far I'm quite pleased with the results.
A few of the more useful posts from the past will probably end up here, especially anything that I know has been helpful to clients.
Back in June I gave a talk at the 2016 Conference of the National Society of Hypnosis & Psychotherapy, the subject was Hypnosis, Mindfulness and Compassion; three areas that overlap in interesting and sometimes confusing ways. Hopefully I'll be adding some posts on that subjects once I get a bit more time to write. Meanwhile, back to tweaking web pages.
A few of the more useful posts from the past will probably end up here, especially anything that I know has been helpful to clients.
Back in June I gave a talk at the 2016 Conference of the National Society of Hypnosis & Psychotherapy, the subject was Hypnosis, Mindfulness and Compassion; three areas that overlap in interesting and sometimes confusing ways. Hopefully I'll be adding some posts on that subjects once I get a bit more time to write. Meanwhile, back to tweaking web pages.