Stop the Insanity Health Care System!

 2

Before we became the age of sound bite history and edutainment we had – wait for it – history. Yes boys and girls people actually learned ‘what has gone before’ in many fields – so they didn’t waste money reinventing the wheel. Not anymore.

The Health system has ‘discovered’ hallucinogenic drugs! Whoopee! Already one doctor has found that an Amazon substance can actually interfere with and stop addictions. He used it. Of course he was shut down. This is this year’s history soon to be buried in the lack of entertainment pile.

Now we hear [again] that magic mushrooms can slow down brain action in depressives and OCD sufferers [both a huge profit to the drug industry]. It’s found that when this happens new ways of doing things and perceiving life  also seems to happen for these people. Again whoopee!

Dr. Stanislof Grof in the 1960s introduced LSD to mental health. It worked within monitored circumstances. Timothy Leary Ph.D. carried it on and it became the darling and illicit drug of the pop culture. It was corrupted and misused by fashion. It was banned. The rest as they say is history. Oh you don’t know about history? See a previous Ontario premier about that. He abolished that learning.

Now the whole reason for this writing is not that I want to see the drug culture make trillions on hallucinogenic drugs. It’s because I am telling you that hypnosis does the same thing without the side effect of those drugs and with a skilled practitioner and your own common sense you can create new brain patterns and change your issues – just by thinking. [Norman Doidge M.D., Cdn., has proven this and written about it.]

Then again we’d likely have to ban freedom of thought too because it might conflict with our drug industry. And it’s freedom of thinking within hypnosis which makes the change.

Don’t know much about hypnosis except its use as a side show or New Age incantation? Of course you don’t. That’s history.

Stop the Insanity

Health care!

It’s getting harder and harder to support the medical system. I suppose there really are medical healers and real medical researchers ‘out there’ but the mind boggles when hit with real contradictions – provided by the medical system itself.

In the second week of January 2012 The Star [much as I question its reporting accuracy] published the report, front page, that nicotine replacement, patches and gum had been proven not to work for tobacco addiction. Period. Point Blank.

Soooooo today Jan. 19^th we read, in the same Star, that [lucky us] the Ontario government is providing free nicotine replacement therapy for drug addicts and alcoholics. What?! This will cost us, you and me, 4.5 million. And this is something that has just been proven does NOT work. Oh yes they will also get counselling. Tobacco addicts alone will get no help. But we know this nicotine stuff doesn’t work anyway, don’t we. So if they want to shell out for gum, patches and nicotine replacement I wonder what doctor will tell them not to. Of course the doctor may have to give up the kick backs from the drug companies if he or she starts telling the truth.

Chalk this right up with info from a person I worked with for pain. This person was given an addictive drug for pain. When this person queried why the person was told that it was called a ‘supportive drug’ and was regarded the same as insulin for diabetics. True it was addictive but ‘suck it up’.

Stop the Insanity Health Care! Shame on You!!!! You are taking advantage of the issues with which people come to you.

Lest you wonder about smoking help. Hypnosis has been proven to be the second most beneficial modality to help people stop. The first most powerful intervention? A major heart attack caused  by smoking.

Sadly both of them aren’t 100%. Hypnosis is about 80% successful. Still hypnosis has no side effects and doesn’t chalk up 4.5 million – for proven noneffective products.

How much more will we buy into the insanity?

Occupy health care – please.

I’ve seen it happen

There’s more to your own conscious ability than you know.

It can reduce or eliminate fibromyalgia. It can regulate the blood sugar of diabetics. It can control pain and even bleeding. It can stop airborne allergies. It can even eliminate Tourette syndrome. The medical studies are there to prove this. And – I’ve seen it happen.

In the hands of a well trained hypnotist these things happen.

In the hands of a client who insists on change for the better – no matter what – these things  happen.

Start your new year by making your change. Use the competencies of Innisfree Hypnosis to help you make these things happen.

Too short!  Too Little!

You get what they get – if you want it.

Hypnosis weekend trainings

Sometimes I am asked why my fees are higher than the hypnotist down the street or in the mall or who also practices reflexology, runes, aromatherapy etc. etc……. Fair question.

First

My training has been  far longer and more extensive and more intensive than anybody who has taken only 3 weekends – at a stretch 6 weekends.

My training began as 6 weekends but I considered it a rip off of my clients because I didn’t know enough to help them with the major issues they brought to me. Nor would my conscience allow me to lie to them that I did know. I quit cold.

Then I looked for more intensive and extensive training. I found it in United States at an on line university accredited in Alabama. [Strangely one of the most prolific schools of 6 weekend warriors also comes from the U.S., has infiltrated the Ontario government and has the audacity to use the term ‘master’ when a student completes the sixth weekend.]

My training had the prerequisite of a B.A. plus further academic training as well as the requirement to be a fully trained hypnotist – before I was allowed to begin it. It took me three years and  $7000 to complete – and it came with a title I refuse to use except as some letters after my name, sometimes. The head of the program was and is a Canadian psychologist. I felt satisfied at the end of the training to begin to comprehend this enormous field of consciousness – and I’m still learning, and reading, and researching……..

Secondly

You are paying for my academic background and my hours of training to do what I do in hypnosis. You can expect that I will know how to approach your issue and if  it is new to me you can expect I will research everything about it.

Thirdly

Any student in my school has a college or university background and has had rigorous training and mentoring for 6 months. I’d like this to be 3 years at a university as it is in Britain but it’s far more than what is done in this province. I must be fully satisfied that a graduate from Innisfree can and will research and is ready to take on all areas of consciousness no matter that student’s comfort level with those areas. I do not certify a student merely because he or she paid the money. I do not pass a student unless I am satisfied. I encourage dropouts if the students aren’t ready to work to their maximum level continuously – making mastering the basic competencies a priority over other things in their lives. I don’t give them titles but I hope I give them credibility and the possibility of 400 + hours training. I am on call for those graduates whenever something new comes up – and it does.

Fourthly

I do not encourage modality collecting. The field of hypnosis is far too powerful to be combined with weekend courses – that is if the field of hypnosis is taught correctly. Hypnosis itself should be enough to manage most issues for a client. I must be convinced of a modality to teach a student who practices it.

Fifthly

I am incensed and appalled by people who should know better teaching 3 or 6 weekend courses to anybody - without a background check or academic requirement. How dare that person lower the power of what I do by putting out ill informed people with a false sense of knowledge. Shame on you trainers! Shame on you!

Still you, the public, will be bamboozled by these trainees. You will be told about spirituality and metaphysics by some  who mistakenly believe the field of hypnosis to be the domain of the New Age religion. You will be given many repeated suggestions and no explanations as well as have half baked and poorly understood processes used upon you. And when they don’t work you will be told it is your fault. You likely will be processed by the hour and be paying for more time after that hour.

My sessions can be 3 hours long and you pay only the standard flat rate. Any process I use I teach you about. Indeed I train you so you don’t have to come back to me – and I stay in touch daily. So do the Innisfree graduates. While I have extensive spiritual knowledge that knowledge is found in and from the field of hypnosis not an external religious form such as the New Age religion. And that knowledge is only used if the situation requires it. Go to the 3 weekend people if you want a recreational past life session which I believe you will find unsatisfying. I do past lives but only to heal and only when you have experienced enough hypnosis so you can have a very deep experience.

Innisfree is not instant gratification hypnosis. I won’t tell you it is a relaxing time for you to give up your power to me. You have to work between sessions.

However – and this is a big however – it is through this training, my own and the Innisfree graduates, that big things are done, big issues stopped.

I’d like to know how many 3 or  6 weekend hypnosis graduates have stopped Tourette Syndrome, stopped air borne allergies, stopped IBS – and those are only a few.

And a little aside – 3 weekends don’t make a psychic either. Psychics are born, not made. 3 weekends may help you use hypnosis [call it any name you will, it’s hypnosis to sharpen your intuition] Certainly any energies invited in aren’t necessarily the highest or even positive. And those weekends don’t tell you how to get rid of them. Any real psychic who I have helped has worked for 6 months to a year with me – free. That’s because I take very few and must be convinced of the integrity of the person and their ability to 1] clean up their conscious acts and 2] push past their discomfort level as their vibrational levels rise.

Working with psychics is a very small part of what Innisfree does. Seeing you change your issues is about 85% of what Innisfree does.

Shame on you hypnosis weekend warrior trainers.  Hypnosis to help cannot be taught in entertaining 3 weekend courses. You say this is so. I say it is not.

I’ll show you my successes and you can show me yours.

Kudos to Ms McLarnon, Executive Director of the Tourette Foundation of Canada for being open to learning more about hypnosis and Tourette syndrome

Amazing! I received a reply from Ms McLarnon, Executive Director of the Tourette Foundation of Canada.

Not only does she apologize that the information I previously sent about the successful elimination of TS never reached her, she is 3 months new to the Foundation.

And….wonder or wonders….she is open to other fields of wellness to create change with TS.

As you could see from the facts in my previous blog hypnosis stopping TS has been in use since 1981. It was of course not understood how it worked.

Now we know more.

It requires 3 factors

1.a family open to making tough changes

2.a child who also will make tough changes and do the work

3. a well trained hypnotist [preferably with some educational/psychological knowledge]

And we know still more

Dr. Norman Doidge M.D. in his book The Brain that Changes Itself has shown that the brain can create new patterns based on thought. And thought/mind is the area of the subconscious, the area of hypnosis.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if this great field of hypnosis would receive acceptance for use for the many children caught in the TS trap?

Yes Ms. McLarnon, Executive Director Tourette Syndrome Foundation of Canada Tourette Syndrome can be stopped! – Open Letter

I’ve done it at Innisfree Hypnosis, Niagara Falls.

You didn’t want to know.

I sent you news of this occurrence, the background and research.

You  didn’t want to know.

I asked you to bring this to the attention of parents who didn’t want to drug their children – the drugs having harmful side effects.

You didn’t want to know.

Now you spread your lack of ‘wanting to know’ in the letter to the editor page of the Toronto Star. You even feel that improving grammar is appropriate here. Yet in looking up what many medical doctors say when they name this syndrome I often see the possessive [‘s] used correctly with the word Tourette. And what is the importance of this correction Ms. McLarnon when discussing the bullying, the hell of having Tourette [‘s] [Tourette’s syndrome]?

You may give many findings for the reasons for the syndrome but I quote Ms. McLarnon – about a syndrome –

“It is most often used to refer to the set of detectable characteristics when the reason that they occur together … has not yet been discovered. A familiar syndrome name often continues to be used even after an underlying cause has been found, or when there are a number of different primary causes that all give rise to the same combination of symptoms and signs.” wikipedia

So Ms McLarnon you are referring to a “…set of detectable characteristics” and you can quote what medicine seems to think is the reason for these characteristics but the real reason for them “…has not been discovered”.

Still when a discovery, and not just by myself Ms. Maclarnon but by medical doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists. stops Tourette[‘s] Syndrome – you don’t want to know.

Imagine for one moment that  family counselling, educational counselling and hypnosis are used to stop Tourette[‘s] in an 11 year old. And this 11 year old has had the condition for 6 years. And this 11 year old loses - completely - the syndrome in 4 hypnosis sessions and daily encouragement from the hypnosis practitioner, over 3 months. She learns to deal with emotional situations and school differently. Her family learns to change to support their child’s emotional change. And, no, that change wasn’t easy but they cared that deeply about their child.

Imagine, if you will Ms McLarnon, a new  year, a new school class, a happy non-bullied student who knows coping skills for anxiety which used to trigger Tourette’[‘s] – no drugs, no drugs at all.

It happened at Innisfree.

When I wrote to you about this Ms. McLarnon you refused to consider  bringing this method to the attention of the members of your Foundation. You said you would keep the letter ‘on file’ so that IF anybody ever asked about hypnosis for Tourette[‘s] you would refer them there. You didn’t Ms. McLarnon.

I know this because the mother of this child tried a simple experiment. She contacted your Foundation and asked specifically for information about hypnosis and Tourette[’s]. She received no response. So it seems that you and your foundation simply – don’t want to know.

Since this is an open letter and my Innisfree blog I will once more give you evidence that people “you would find credible” are using hypnosis and self-hypnosis training as well as family counselling with great success to stop Tourette[‘s]

First

call up PubMed on line. This is the collection of all medical writings on processes used with every issue people have. Medical doctors and hospitals post there.

Next type in hypnosis and Tourette or Tourette’s [you’ll find them both there].

Up will come the findings

Note please

Nonpharmacological treatment of tics in Tourette syndrome adding videotape training to self-hypnosis

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20585264

Department of Pediatrics, University Hospitals Case Medical Center, Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital; daggerCase Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA. JeffLazarusMD@gmail.com

“…Of the responders, 46% achieved tic control with SH after only 2 sessions and 96% after 3 visits. One patient required 4 visits.”

And

Elucidating Tourette's syndrome: perspectives from hypnosis, attention and self-regulation.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17444366

Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute. dramirraz@gmail.com

“…drug treatments for TS involve side effects and are potentially toxic to the central nervous system. Moreover, current pharmacological treatments are largely ineffective and at best only provide a modest symptom reduction”

“…we describe how non-pharmacological treatments such as focused attention can modulate, reduce, or indeed entirely eliminate the symptoms of TS as well as elucidate the underlying neural mechanisms. Showing that the symptoms of TS are susceptible to self-regulatory interventions such as hypnosis, we propose that attentional training could be used to both treat the disorder and better understand it.”

There’s more Ms. McLarnon, much more

Read this book by Dr. Karen Olness M.D and G.Gail Gardner Ph.D.

1^st addition 1981

Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy with Children

pgs 148 – 150 and 205

Yes, Ms. McLarnon this information has been around since 1981

Or read the 3^rd edition 1996

Dr. Karen Olness M.D. and Dr. Daniel P. Kohen M.D.

Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy with Children

pgs 255, 256, 163 –166, 399, 400

I tried to bring this information to your attention earlier this year. I gave you these facts.

Sadly Canada doesn’t understand the use of hypnosis even though my school for the training of it, Innisfree school of Hypnosis Education, is government authorized by the governments of Ontario and Canada [The Ministry of Human Resources and Skills Development]. The lack of Canadian regulation of hypnosis standards allows any level of learning or lack of it.

Innisfree practices only non-medical interventions in hypnosis. Any practitioner at Innisfree has a very strong academic background and has studied hypnosis far further, longer and more intensively than weekend workshops give. This means that Innisfree accepts very few students but those students are ready to help by using their powerful understanding of hypnosis and using non medical interventions

So it is to be hoped Ms. McLarnon that you don’t see yourself as the gatekeeper against this information. You represent many people who would like to be out of your Foundation because they stop the syndrome. Surely they deserve this information. Do you and they want to know?

I’ll be happy to discuss this further with you or any parent who wants to know more about using hypnosis to stop Tourette[‘s] Syndrome. It works.

The News Today

Dec. 4, 2011

Shame on you Ontario Medical Association & The Toronto Star

Well it took the Toronto Star 3 weeks but it has achieved its aim of stopping a forward movement against uninformed medical bullies.

A small ray of hope for progress was put forth by the head of the OMA which requested that medical doctors not speak about what they don’t know in holistic health and above all to  not be derogatory.

Clearly that pricked the ego of many M.D’s.

Aided and abetted by the Toronto Star, which refused to interview any M.D.s practicing integrative medicine – or publish my letters pointing out much proof of holistic success  - we have reverted back to the Canadian medical flat earth stance.

So informed people with money will be flying to other countries for informed health practices rather than staying where blood letting and leeches likely would be regarded more positively than those practices uninformed m.d.s denigrate.

It won’t last. The medical consumer is getting more savvy about things docs. He or she is reading books and thinking that the proven modalities ought to be available  to them in Canada. You will lose. And by your uninformed, derogatory stance you will permit unhelpful modalities to exist in this country. Imagine what you guys could have done with sufficient study of the hospitals in Britain and United States which use these modalities. Imagine how you could have helped weed out the weekend warriors and praised those who have spent years learning.

But you didn’t.

 Guess you are worried about your $$ territory shrinking.

Guess you don’t believe in preventative health care.

Guess there are enough of you to adequately serve all of  Canada.

Guess you are being successful in your techniques.

Anybody cured fibro and IBS lately? As I said in a previous post  I’ll show you mine if you show me yours. And I used non-medial interventions. I’m still waiting for the responses to that challenge.

So to the medical bullies out there, the 1%, congratulations. You have yet to invent the wheel. Much could be said about your patient attitude. It doesn’t need to be said here. Everybody knows. Next time one of you makes fun of what I do it will not be met with silence. Your lack of education is showing and I only want well informed practitioners working on me.

Thanks Star for spouting your conservative party line and NOT giving both sides. [Bad journalism.]

As you Mr. Editor say   “Well Done’’.

Today in the News

The Toronto Star

Nov. 28, 2011

Shame on you Mr. Editor

Let Doctor’s speak

Clearly they do. Too much!

Clearly you aren’t reading my blogs. Your lack of fair investigative journalism is showing.

Mr. Editor how can I believe what you say about other things when you are so obviously, blatantly, wrong in what you state about holistic health.

Stop the generalizations!

Many, many holistic methods are both proven and used beyond Canada’s borders. My own field – consciousness, hypnosis, is one of them. Even many of those medical doctors whom you adulate have written books about it. Clearly you don’t want to know. Clearly you kneel at the feet of ignorance found in an ill-informed medical doctor.

You can interview as many ill-informed doctors as you want for your editorials and the criteria will always turn out the same thing – the earth is flat.

Or you could be the journalist you profess to be and interview Dr. Robert Banner M.D. President, Ontario Society of Physicians for Complementary Medicine and others of his like to find out the truth. Of course I likely offended you with that word ‘truth’. Remember it? It used to be part of journalism.

Of course you can talk about crystal rods as reflecting your generalism about holistic methods. What a naive way of swaying public opinion.

I have personally been insulted by a flat earth doctor [who I waited in line to be registered with, with suitable humility] when I said that as well as being a retired teacher I was a hypnotist she ridiculed [with hand movements] what I do. So I now have a family doctor who I refuse to see. I do believe in family doctors for broken bones. Occasionally I am called from that office with the question as to why I don’t come in. I don’t choose to be sick and I certainly wouldn’t trust an unknowledgeable doctor.

Shame on you Mr. Editor! I also suggest you look at my 2 other blogs on your editorials. They give facts.

The News Today

Saturday Nov. 26

Sunday, Nov. 20, 2011

Re: Doctor’s told to be accurate and non derogatory about treatments other than those in medicine

Well as I expected the Star’s editorial use of an uninformed allergist, Dr. David Fisher, as an expert on treatments other than those in medicine has reaped its reward in the letters to the editor section. As I pointed out – the right wing stance of the Toronto Star could expect little less. Its role is to sell not inform. Otherwise why wasn’t Dr. Robert Banner M.D. President, Ontario Society of Physicians for Complementary Medicine interviewed? Fortunately he made up for this oversight by writing to the Star. And fortunately the Star actually carried his letter [something it never does with mine even when I include my academic degrees but that’s yet another discussion based on actual reporting. I’ll get to that some other time.]

Now in spite of the  flat earth thinking of the ‘scientifics’ much research IS in evidence about treatments outside of the medical model. And this research is also being done by those within the medical model. I recommend to anybody who wants to truly find out what is being said about things, such as my field of hypnosis, helping those with diagnosed medical issues - the Pub Med on line research files. Simply type in hypnosis and the issue [there’s a great deal on cancer]. Here’s the link

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/

So who came out of the woodwork to prevent us knowing more – in the letters to the editor. Scientifically and involving the art of argument I will examine their responses through the following criteria [much as they should do]. Are references cited?[identified as NR for no references] Is this sober second thought or is this emotion based opinion? [identified as EB for emotion based]

I will use only initials here to protect the innocent. For the full letters go to the Star editorial section Nov. 26.

Here is what M.B. has to say

“There is no such things as alternative medicine.” [NR. & NB]

“Treatments that succeed and continue to succeed are classified as medicine. All others have been proven ineffective or worse.” [NR] See the Pub Med link Mr. M.B. Indeed based upon this comment several ‘alternatives’ should be called medicine because they do succeed and continue to succeed. [My reference Pub Med.. Larry Dossey M.D Reinventing Medicine.]

Then we have

Dr. H.B. [he gives his full tile for weight here]

When patients ask me for ‘natural’ solutions, I offer the advice that snake poison, sun burns and poison ivy are examples of ‘natural’ and they are usually not very helpful [NR. & EB] Scary that this M.D. has closed off his reading to find that there are ‘other solutions’. Indeed see the Star today about a para-olympian who has redeveloped her ability to walk [through her own deep focus] and the M.D’s don’t know why. I’ll bet their toes are curling. She was supposed to be an ambulatory write off. I’ll write more about that later.

We now have

Mr. D.H.

His put down of the public which would use alternative methods is interesting.

“…increasingly, even two plus two equaling four must be affirmed by calculator” [EB & NR]. He first shows off his vocabulary ability by excessive verbiage “The social construct that underpins our civilization is the scientific ethos of reproducible, experimental results garnered at arms length.” [NR] Read The Field by Lynne McTaggert Mr. D.H. you’ll find how ‘arm’s length’ and ‘reproducible’ those experiments really are. They are killing people even as we speak [note Lyrica and the recall of several meds which have the side effect of death].

We now see how

 Mr. I.L feels

“Yet it is a reflection of our society that continues to pattern its beliefs without using critical thinking skills to formulate those beliefs.” [NR & EB] Oh Mr I.L. your lack of critical thinking is showing. Have you read Norman Doidge’s book The Brain that Changes itself? And he’s an M.D, with [I hope] critical thinking skills. You go on to show your lack of reading by saying “…without science based evidence…”. Please refer to the Pub Med link above. You ask us to avail ourselves of books and libraries. I certainly avail myself of books. Libraries are strongly governed by the minds of those in control. They may be just like you. No I don’t want to be ‘informed’ because I am ‘not medically and scientifically literate’ by an M.D who is unaware of other treatments that work which have the proof with them.

Now to the sober thoughts of those who do read and do look for proof and think the strangle  hold of science recreating the wheel should be challenged

Ms. C. S.

“Obviously if 75% of Canadians are willing to pay out of pocket for natural methods to maximize health, then the governing health bodies have a responsibility to investigate further the validity of any natural treatments that show promise.” [point taken from the Star]

And Mr. G.D.

“The proof that it works is in the large and growing volumes of research on, for example, herbal and homeopathic remedies as well as the traditional therapies of….” To this I add the ever increasing volumes concerning hypnosis. Yes it is practiced by M.D.s themselves – and written about. See Michael Yapko’s writing.

And I’d like to end with the most courageous writer of all

Dr. Robert Banner M.D. President, Ontario Society of Physicians for Complementary Medicine.

“It is a fact that properly used prescription drugs kill people. Is this where people are asked to place their blind trust? Where is freedom of choice and individual right to choose based on informed consent? A ‘trend’ exists simply because in many cases complementary or integrative medicine works when the ‘convention’ has failed.”

and

“There is nothing wrong with saying you don’t know anything about a CAM therapy or that you have no comment, but to use the derogatory term ‘quackery’ is unprofessional and unethical.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself Dr. Banner.

[Funny how these comments include facts and absence of emotional posturing.]

As a matter of fact I challenge any medical doctor to show me his or her successful results for stopping Tourette’s Syndrome or Fibromyalgia.

I’ll show you mind if you show me yours!

The News Today

Nov. 28, 2011

From Paralympian to pro cyclist

Athlete leaves Muscular Dystrophy and regains the use of her legs

Well how about that doctors? The article in the Star goes as far as saying this is “…a recovery doctors can’t explain” and “…though doctors can’t explain her miraculous recovery it didn’t come without a lot of sweat.”

Allow me to tell you about another person who regained the use of his body which was not only quadriplegic but like Monique van der Vorst predicted for demise by the medical doctors.. This person is none other than Dr. Milton Erickson M.D., a noted psychiatrist, a teacher of hypnosis to doctors, an one of the foremost influences on the practice of ‘good’ hypnosis today. Can’t get much more proof than that.

Milton Hyland Erickson, MD (born 5th December 1901 in Aurum, Nevada, died 25th March 1980 in Phoenix, Arizona) specialized in medical hypnosis and family therapy. Through his form of hypnosis he was able to address therapeutic changes in relatively few sessions.

Here are his facts

Erickson grew up in a farming family and intended to become a farmer like his father. When he was 17 he contracted polio and was so severely paralysed that the doctors said he would die. He himself gives the events of how he overcame this prognosis. He says when he overheard this he was damned if he didn’t see one more great sunset. All his focus was on this. He asked his parents to move his bed so he could do so. [You’ll note nothing about saving his life or regaining his physical abilities]. He focussed fully on that sunset and survived. He lost consciousness for 3 days. When he returned to consciousness he asked his parents how they had moved the tree and boulder which blocked the sunset. They hadn’t. His subconscious had dome it for him. A full, unimpeded sunset. Self- hypnosis.

Little things encourage people to change and I suppose his honesty that he had overcome death though his mind encouraged Erickson to continue to use his mind to overcome being a quadriplegic. He used the same inner focus to regain his muscular ability. It was slow and it was hard and it wasn’t all at once. As van der Vorst says: “It was a hard fight to get my body back…and then when you achieve that goal…” Like Erickson. Little bit by little bit. But neither Erickson or van der Vorst did this by, or with, drugs. They did it by deep inner focus – not New Age, not voodoo, just brooking no interruptions or arguments.

Erickson walked again, occasionally he used a cane. Before becoming completely ambulatory he took a solitary canoe trip down the Colorado river for 5 weeks. When he came back he was walking. He believed in continually challenging himself and using deep focus to overcome the challenge. So does van der Vorst.

Now I don’t think van der Vorst would call this self-hypnosis. Certainly most medical doctors, who have never heard of, or studied hypnosis, would, but any ‘good’ hypnotist recognizes this inner work for exactly what it is self-hypnosis.

Using his own self hypnosis Erickson cured himself of dyslexia – twice.

In 1973 Jay Haley Ph.D wrote the book Uncommon Therapy about Erickson. In 1979 came Hypnotherapy: An Exploratory Casebook by Milton H. Erickson and Ernest L. Rossi. To this day books on Erickson’s techniques and successes continue to appear. But these techniques are so different from the scientific model they can’t be screened by traditional psychological criteria. Erickson moved off from those criteria because he saw that what he was doing worked. In the words of one of my students “He had balls’. And that’s what it takes to do hypnosis – your own or the practice of it.

Van der Vorst was a fighter – in the right way. I certainly don’t think she focussed [until she saw the little signs] upon losing Muscular Dystrophy and regaining her ability to walk. She focussed on being the best she could be – no matter what. And she did this through deep concentrated thought. She became that paralympian – no matter what. She came back from accidents – no matter what. And somewhere her subconscious thoughts grooved out a new brain pattern [as Norman Doidge M.D would say in The Brain that Changes Itself] and she walked. Doidge’s techniques are in advanced hospitals and stroke centres even as I write.

So Toronto Star connect the dots. The doctors don’t know how this has happened. Likely they’ll talk placebo effect and misdiagnosis. God forbid they say the inner mind did it. Self-hypnosis. That would turn the ‘flat earthers’ on their ear – and they are the 1% here. Of course Toronto Star it would take ‘balls’ to challenge those ‘flat earthers’.

.Should I hold my breath?

Good going Monique Van der Vorst!