Gordon Leith

Change and Hypnosis: How it Works

2012-01-23T22:35:00.000-08:00

Change and hypnosis go hand in hand. Through relaxation, with the help of a hypnotist-facilitator or autogenically (self-directed) induced, you can focus on a specific issue or situation in an altered way that rearranges the order of internal percepts and thereby reshapes your internal reality. When someone asks, "How many sessions does it take me to stop smoking?" I tell them there are some key factors that one needs to consider when considering such a question: individual differences that include level of motivation, level of suggestibility, and other resources that they might take advantage of--medications, Nicotine Anonymous, family support, etc. .

Defer Common Sense to the Supreme Court? I Think Not.

2012-01-20T19:57:00.000-08:00

Hurray Gov. Walker for waiting to see if the receipt of Federal money is constitutional. What courage this legislator has. I wonder what kind of benefit package Walker has? I wonder if he ever becomes disenfranchised, which is doubtful, will he ask for a determination of the constitutionality of the funding of his hospital services if he ever gets cancer? I'm not a bleeding heart liberal; in fact,... grew up a conservative because of my parents and their parents political leanings, but the political point-scoring and divisiveness of our legislators is abhorrent...no matter what side of the political fence you're on. Is the Supreme Court, nothing but people--priveleged people, I might add--going to make a determination that will provide economic safeguards? Of course not. One of the justices went five years without even asking one single question during Supreme Court hearings. What's so bad about using Fed money to help healthcare? The Fed is investing in its own people on its own soil rather than the prioritization of blowing holes in the ground on the other side of the globe, and Governor Walker defers to the Supreme Court to milk his own political agenda driven by big business. Yes, I get it, FDR was evil, Herbert Hoover should have been given more rope to pull the country out of the economic ruins of greed and deregulation, purchasing of stocks at 9:1 margins, and government over[under]sight akin to foxes stationed outside the chickenhouse. Bravo Gov. Walker. You remind me of the pedestrian who stands by an injured man lying in the road and does nothing for fear of the legal repurcussions of causing injury to a broken wrist whilst the victims's body lies in harm's way. Political sacrifice is in order for both democrats and republicans in the name of doing the right thing, not doing things right.

EAP Blog -- the #1 Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) Blog*: Training and Reaching Supervisors with EAP Essentials

2011-12-07T22:59:00.000-08:00

EAP Blog -- the #1 Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) Blog*: Training and Reaching Supervisors with EAP Essentials

The Psychodynamics of Psychiatry II

2011-10-09T22:20:00.001-07:00

As I mentioned before, the cognitive model of counseling purports that a changed thought results in a changed feeling. If a thought is more reality-based, which is more healthy, perhaps more self-supporting rather than self-blaming, for example, then a person will tend to feel better. Then how does a person change that thought? In the rational (thought-based)-emotive (feeling-based)-behavioral model of therapy, the therapist challenges the patient to examine his thought-processes involving one's self-view, for example, such as when the patient says, "Oh, I know I can't get a job, I haven't had one in eight months, no one will hire me," the therapist might question the client, "Well, how has is that thought helping you better become employable?" By offering the client an alternative perspective coming from outside the client's internal loop, or stuck thought-processes, like a needle stuck in a groove on the surface of a viny record and plays the sound track over and over, the client can self-examine their thought's efficacy outside the therapist's office, and come up with different ways to take on life's challenges. Motivation to change old patterns of thought processes also helps to predict a positive outcome (prognosis) of treatment episode. Why is one person more motivated than another? Who knows, but a high level of positive expectation is a indicator of the forward movement a person will make to instill change in one's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

The Psychodyamics of Psychiatry

2011-10-08T22:07:00.000-07:00

I am not an M.D. psychiatrist but I've worked on psychiatric units since 1988, which is to say I have an understanding of the 'psychodynamics' that occur in the interventions on an acute, inpatient psychiatric hospital treatment unit. The models of counseling are the contexts in which I 'make sense' of the application of psychiatric, or psychopharmacologic (medicines used by the psychiatrist), interventions. What I tell patients during the group therapy sessions is that the brain, or central topic of the field of psychiatry, is one of the most complex things known to man. In fact, an inherent characteristic of the brain is the inability to understand itself. To give some perspective to the levels of understanding of the brain, I use the analogy of a cruise ship floating atop the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Far below, some 1500 feet below the water's surface, lie the answers to the mysterious complexities of the workings of the brain. I suggest that a scale of understanding could be viewed this way: on the eleventh floor of the cruise ship, the laymen looks down at the surface of the water, and view down upon the hidden answers far below the water surface. On the seventh floor, the counselor peers down upon the gulf and is a miniscule distance closer to a clear view of the answers. And the psychiatrist, armed with water goggles, pokes his head just below the water surface and gazes downward perhaps a couple of hundred feet, at best in clear water, and gazes in the direction whereupon which the answers to the workings of the brain lie. But you don't have to know the mechanical intricacies of an engine to drive a car, and neither do you have to understand everything about the brain to introduce chemicals to the system (body) above which it rests to effect positive change of a thought or emotional disturbance. In the cognitive (thought-based) model of counseling we look at the interplay of the effect of thoughts on feelings (referred to as 'affect' in psychiatry). The premise is, "If we can change our thoughts, we can change our feelings." And if we can change our feelings, we can change our behaviors, but that's another chapter in this story to which we'll get later. A model of counseling is only a way to look at the interplay of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. After a patient receives psychiatric drugs they hopefully begin to feel better as hallucinations, either sounds of voices, for example, or visual experiences of people, or scary things like flaming faces shooting out from the walls, diminish and/or cease to exist. If the disturbance of thoughts is successfully addressed, then the feelings will change as well. And if one is not experiencing disturbing thoughts and feelings, then their behaviors will follow suit in accord with the more reality-based, healthier state-of-mind. I will talk more about the cognitive based model of counseling in the psychiatric setting, and in the outpatient setting, in the next blog.

Hypnosis as an Focusing Tool

2011-06-06T07:22:00.000-07:00

Hypnosis is an effective means to focus on a task, or set of tasks, through relaxation and facilitated guided imagery. This is what we help people do at the San Antonio Hypnosis Center. Initially, I used to help people with concrete tasks such as smoking, weight loss, or test-taking, among others; however, I have found that a mindset can be altered through hypnotic suggestions--as long as the subject wants the change to occur. There may be resistances to those changes, as we all have some sort of mental or attitudinal resistance(s) to change, but that's what the therapist can help with.

Accomplishing Goals With Hypnosis

2011-01-04T23:57:00.000-08:00

Whether through the use of medical hypnosis in the amelioration of acute or chronic pain, or for the purpose of accomplishing a specific goal activity in sports, social behaviors (extinguishing blushing, managing social phobias, conquering fear of speaking in front of groups), health concerns (smoking or chewing tobacco; drinking alcohol excessively), or confidence and competence improvement (test-taking; task-performance enhancement) hypnosis can be a powerful tool in helping one to pull it all together. Depending on the client, I use variations of the above components--relaxation, rhythmic breathing, and guided imagery--to induce the hypnotic trance in which suggested scripts are virtually structured by the client. Many people from many walks of life have come to the San Antonio Hypnosis Center (SAHC) to accomplish many of the above goals. Fear of driving over these new 'fly-away' overpasses ('ribbons in the sky') brought two people to the SAHC in the same week. The fear was too much for them, causing them both to pull their car over and change drivers: "Fortunately my friend was riding with me! I don't know what I would have done!" Crisis situations often bring people to our office. Sometimes it's not one thing, but the one thing on top of all the others that results in making a decision to change an aspect of one's lifestyle, whether it was a doctor telling them they really should lose weight for their health, or seeing the deleterious effects that smoking had on a close friend or loved one. www.sahypnosis.net 210-590-9292 or 210-710-8768.

2010 Glad to Turn the Reigns over to 2011

2010-12-27T14:03:00.000-08:00

The economy is still very sluggish as the rate of mortgage foreclosures is not slowing down and new-home building remains at a fifty-year low. The government's mortgage foreclosure assistance program has disappointed countless homeowners and the banks continue to bog down the relief-application process with mysteriously missing documentation, right-hand-not-knowing-what-the-left-hand-is-doing-syndrome, and myriad failures in data processing processes entirely inconsistent with the spirit of economic recovery. Government-sponsored medical insurance relief programs (created, in part, to lighten the financial burden of those having pre-existing medical conditions) impose more red-tape in the relief process such as the requirement to prove denied applications to private insurance companies based on ineligibility for coverage based on pre-existing conditions. This results in further delays that cost time which is needed in critical medical conditions. You either need relief or you don't. No need to delay an already cumbersome process. People don't apply to private insurance companies because they know their medical condition excludes them from participating in the insurance coverage plan. Unethical and illegal misbehavior runs rampant across all levels of politics, bringing to mind the crazily over-paid municipal employees in Bell, California, the manager and police chief being paid annual salaries of $787, 637 and $457,000, respectively. Why, in my own hometown of Windcrest, Texas(2000 pop. 24,868), a municipality inside the northeast corner of San Antonio, Texas, the city manager and his real-estate developer brother are out on bond for an upcoming January 2011 trial for crimal charges of stealing approximately $4,000,000 from the Windcrest city coffers and Rackspace, a company collaborating with Windcrest's Economic Development Board. Hyper-politics, polarized pseudo-news channels, and the dark clouds of a recessionary economy hang overhead. Who's to say the 'Great Recession' is not the harbinger of 'The Second Great Depression'? Is it realistic to think that the deleterious effects of years of, to borrow Alan Greenspan's words (albeit who is much the culprit), "irrational exuberance," a laissez-faire government failing to regulate an economy of a developing housing bubble, the easy credit conditions, the weak and fraudulent underwriting practices, the sub-prime lending practices, the predatory lending, the deregulation by a laissez-faire government that, like the drunken lion-tamer, took the leash off the tiger and forgot to shut the cage door on the way out, the boom and collapse of the shadow banking system,the increased debt burden or over-leveraging, the financial innovation and complexity, the incorrect pricing of risk, the commodities boom, the systemic crisis, and the irresponsible role of innaccurate economic forecasting--have all but passed? For heaven's sake, let's work together in 2011. Let's turn off the hyper-political, pseudo-news television and radio shows on both sides of the spectrum. 2011 calls for an Age of Enlightenment in the sense of the opening of Emmanuel Kant's essay on the topic: "Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! [dare to know] "Have courage to use your own understanding!"--that is the motto of enlightenment." Let's use our own heads, for no other mind is more useful to us than that of our own. It's time to call to our own conscience for action rather than from that voice of a commercially driven, false, and excited talking head on television and radio whose purpose is to incite controversy, foster divisiveness, and pretend to be the voice of our morals only for the self-serving purpose to create an illusion of legitimacy by its association with moral ideals.

A Few Thoughts on the Mind

2010-08-15T01:24:00.001-07:00

I'll never forget what a neurologist said in an interview on an episode of the television show "Nova", that "an inherent characteristic of the brain is the inabilty to understand itself." That struck me as a profound statement, not really knowing why, but a statement that has returned to mind on many, many occasions as I work as a psychotherapist, counselor, therapist, what have you. The mind/brain processes data looping back and forth from the seeming infinite locations in the body, sorting information and transmitting encoded impulses to various organs, in multidinous processes that somehow work in unison with the others. And it's all done automatically, as I understand automation. And as the body, with the facilitation of the processing unit of the brain, seeks homeostasis of its internal events and processes, all is not well in that, as the neurologist said, "a life-threatening immunological crisis developes and resolves itself about three times every hour."
I, frankly, am not surprised what with all the complex processes that would, in comparison, make a major oil refinery look like a game of "Mousetrap!". As in refineries where things occasionally go wrong and engineering sets out to isolate the constellation of pertinent variables and devise measures to return the refinery to a safe level of functioning, so the body experiences variable conditions and events that spin temporarily out of balance; and all the while the brain automatically registers, sorts, and processes the multitudinous permutations of hazardous events and inexplicably returns the body back again to an optimal level of functioning. www.gordonleith.com

Speaking to an audience

2010-08-09T10:46:00.000-07:00

Dr. Weil mentions in his blog some things that help one to help allay fear resulting in making a better speech (http://www.drweilblog.com/home/2010/8/9/5-ways-to-minimize-public-speaking-fears.html), namely, "consider drink passionflower tea, don't drink caffeine because it can make one more anxious, breathing exercises, consider supplementing with B vitamins and magnesium, and consider seeking professional therapy", he says. I always appreciate his knowledgeable words. As a professional counselor, I would like to add that hypnotism can be a useful weapon in the armamentarium to combat anxiety and thereby help one speak more effectively to audiences. In hypnotism that I facilitate, I have the person (while in a deep trance) visualize/project onto a screen themself speaking in front of an audience. Their anxiety level may rise some even while in an entranced state, but his or her memorization faculties imprint the experience during this relaxed state and transfer the calmer experience to the individual's conscious state while speaking. Hypnotism is a tool, not a panacea, but a power tool indeed it is.

Gordon Leith: Hypnotism

2010-08-09T10:45:00.000-07:00

Gordon Leith: Hypnotism: "Hypnotism is an effective tool for so many challenges: smoking/chewing/snuffing; weight control; bladder control; insomnia; and others. I h..."

Hypnotism

2010-08-03T20:52:00.000-07:00

Hypnotism is an effective tool for so many challenges: smoking/chewing/snuffing; weight control; bladder control; insomnia; and others. I had an interesting discussion with a client today who is an avid reader. He mentioned that he believes for hypnotism to work, one has to believe it will work. Which is why I like hypnotist clients, because they believe it will work. There is something that motivated the person to trust another human being to facilitate the process of hypnotism to assist them in accomplishing the goal they have in mind. My hypnosis includes progressive muscle group relaxation in the first stage, simultaneously woven in and out with breathing rhythms conducive to relaxation, cognitive-imagery (thought-pictures) and, finally, relaxation reversal toward alertness.