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A pattern I have long since noticed with therapists is a generally over-rated sense of self-importance.

Too many therapists seem to proclaim how they are busy changing the world, making the world better, and so forth. Some might be actually doing this, of course, but most are not.

In the world of the hypnotherapy and NLP “communities”, this is well demonstrated by the ever-growing trend of incestuously bestowing upon one another grandiose titles and “qualifications” that imply greatness and status.

While the titles “Practitioner,” “Master Practitioner,” and “Trainer” have developed a clear hierarchy of authority, I am increasingly hearing people say they have completed their Practitioner training and then gone on to do their “masters” in NLP, as if the week or two of training is equivalent to a university degree.

NLPers seem to have taken the term “Trainer” and claimed it as an NLP title and seem to have forgotten that trainers existed long before NLP came about and that the term “trainer” is a reference to function and role, not status.

At social gatherings, NLPers tend to be ever keen to show off their incredible NLP-ness (sic) and impress upon people their own “state” and skills at anchoring, swishing, and so forth.

There appears to be a need to “spread the message” of NLP/EFT/TFT or whatnot, and the evangelical fervour runs high.

Now, this is no bad thing in and of itself. NLP has proved immensely useful in so many applications and has been used to provide hope and ability to improve so many lives – mine included – where previously hope and ability may not have existed.

Here’s the rub though: for all the talk of changing the world, feeling great, being great, etc., when I enquire as to what many of these evangelists actually do, I meet a brick wall.

Despite possessing websites proclaiming that they have trained with the best mystical masters and trainers in the world, travelled long and far in search of ancient and secret knowledge, and have a hefty fee advertised for services that promise to fulfil your every dream, it seems that too many of those individuals waving their NLP-ness in the faces of the profane don’t actually do a great deal.

It is a charade.

Many have no experience with their tools anywhere except among the excitable mass of bodies that makes up the NLP/EFT/TFT/etc. “community.” Everyone else seems to stay away from them, prospective clients included.

In a community so obsessed with perfecting the map, it seems that all too often, the territory simply gets forgotten.

In the words of comedian Bob Monkhouse, “No one on his deathbed has actually said, ‘I think the end is near; send for a comedian.” No airline pilot has ever told his passengers, “Ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry to tell you, but the engines are out. We’re about to crash into the ocean, but thank God, we have a comedian on board.” I don’t think you’ll ever hear a government minister on Question Time saying, “The Middle East crisis deadlock must be tolerated no longer—send in the clowns!”

I turned another client down this week, the fourth prospective client this year that I have declined to give an appointment to.

It surprises many people that I turn down clients, but ethically it is important that therapists don’t try to fix a problem that either: 1. cannot be fixed by NLP or hypnotherapy and is better fixed by a different treatment modality; and 2. Some clients are themselves completely misunderstanding what hypnotherapy is and refuse to accept a version that differs from their [mis]understanding.

The case in point was a pleasant enough man who wanted me to hypnotise him to lose weight. I knew his intentions because he said to me, “I want you to hypnotise me to lose weight.”

“OK,” I say, “I just need to check what your understanding is of how a session works,” I tell him.

Well, I’ve seen the TV programmes, so what I expect you to do is knock me out with hypnosis and do whatever it is that you people do to make me lose weight.

I recalled a similar situation several years ago when I was a little more naive than I am today.

A lady arrived for a weight loss session. I went through various things with her, did some trance work, went through some other things with her, finished the session, and she left. Two hours later, I received a phone call from her.

“I’m not very happy,” she told me, “and I want a refund.”

This surprised me, as when she left, she was smiling and appeared quite happy with the way the session went. Mortified and keen to try to appease an unhappy client, I agreed immediately that if she wasn’t happy, then, of course, I would offer a full refund without question.

Once I said this, I thought about it momentarily and then asked a question, “What is it that you are unhappy with?”

“Well, I don’t feel any different, and I have just weighed myself, and I weigh exactly the same.”

I was speechless for once and made a mental note to check for clients’ expectations set before booking appointments in the future.

So, I told this story to my caller, who wanted me to give him an appointment to “make him lose weight.”

“You are not filling me with much confidence about your work,” is what he told me.

“That’s right,” I told my caller, “and I thank you for calling.”

I have noticed that hypnotherapists tend to worry a lot about epilepsy, and a question that gets raised quite often on forums takes the form of, “I have a client coming with problem X who also has epilepsy. Is it safe to work with them?” Not an unreasonable question.

Now, I’ve seen rather a lot of epilepsy in my time working as a nurse, both in Accident and Emergency and in Neurology/Neurosurgery. In the neuro departments, epileptic seizures are something the staff become very used to dealing with, ranging from “pseudo-seizures” through to full-blown “grand mal” seizures.

I’ll write more about this shortly. But first, I want to look a little at why it is that hypnotherapists are overly sensitive to epilepsy. After all, I rarely see any concerns expressed about hypnosis and diabetes, and realistically, underlying diabetes is much more likely to cause problems than an underlying seizure problem.

It’s all about culturally bound anxieties. In Britain, though less so these days, a common concern around children used to be “appendicitis” — it was one of our enduring worries every time a child got a stomachache. It is actually quite rare, but regardless, I can recall being warned extensively about the perils of an inflamed appendix in classes at junior school and, later, the endless stream of worried parents bringing their children into A&E with the immortal words, “I think he has suspected appendicitis, doctor!”

But meanwhile, unlike in the USA, people here in the UK rarely suffer “hypoglycaemia” as a condition, though this trend is increasing. Nor do we yet suffer systemic yeast/candida infections, as people do in the USA. The culturally bound health anxieties differ across the continents.

I was told last year that systemic candida infection has reached epidemic proportions over there, although I think this is most unlikely to really exist at the levels reported. Victorian Britain was somewhat worried about its bowels, and the state of the nation depended very much upon its collective movements and flow. The Chinese concern themselves with Chi, and in parts of Africa and Asia, penis function and penis health are of the highest cultural importance, with the rather inevitable mass “penis panics” occurring periodically.

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Penis-Snatching Panics Resurface in Africa

“It seems that the day before, a traveller visiting the town had shaken hands with a tea vendor who immediately claimed he felt a shock and sensed that his penis had shrunk. He cried out in alarm, gathering a crowd, and a second man then said it also happened to him.”

More here: https://www.livescience.com/28015-penis-snatching-panics-koro.html

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As a subculture, hypnotherapists tend to worry about epilepsy. I don’t really know why; they just do. I think there is still a residual fear in the condition itself that lies subtly in the cultural background. After all, it wasn’t so long ago that epileptics were institutionalised and kept away from normal folks, as they were all potential maniacs who would attack nice people and corrupt the masses.

This social role was soon replaced by the “dope fiend”, but that didn’t stop epileptics from being relegated to special schools and mental hospitals to keep the rest of us safe from their strangeness.

That prejudice is much less these days, but cultural beliefs and understandings take a long time to change.

So for me, the question is, “Does hypnosis cause epilepsy?” The answer is, of course, yes.

And no.

Some individuals will only convulse in a certain state, like agitation or sleep, whilst others will just convulse regardless of their “state.”

But does hypnosis cause epilepsy? Well, no, of course, it doesn’t, but it might be a trigger. Unlikely, but it is possible. A meteorite might crash through the roof and kill you, too. Possible, but unlikely.

The real issue is not so much, “will my work with this client cause them to have a seizure?” but rather, “if they should have a seizure, what am I going to do?” It all comes down to standard risk assessment and protocols. I just have to add that if you really think you are going to cause a seizure in your client, then might I suggest you seriously rethink what you are doing?

Anyway, if you see enough people with problems, then eventually at least one of the following will happen: sudden death, heart attack, diabetic collapse, asthma attack (the most likely, I think), hysterical freakout with self-harm, and so forth. I think it is a mistake to think just in terms of, “What if they have a seizure?” but rather, “What if there is a medical emergency, what shall I do?”

Well, the answer is simply, “Deal with it!” And if a therapist does not know how, well, then they can jolly well go and find out.

It appears that some “members” of the “fetish community” (I’m assuming there is such a thing) have taken a bit of an exception to my work in treating sexual fetishes and unwanted sexual attraction.

Here’s one comment: ‘Fetish does not need to be “treated”. It is healthy and wonderful. I am completely against what you are doing.’

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See my much longer article on Fetishes: “Sexual fetishes and what I learned about them as a treating psychotherapist.“

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And another, ‘Instead of helping the world “embrace diversity”, you choose to treat individuality and personal preference as a disease.’

Fair enough, and I understand their perspective. After all, it wasn’t too long ago that homosexuality was illegal and then a disease to be treated. Clinically and socially, any form of fetish was viewed as a weird kink, demarcating the fetishist as some kind of deviant and social outcast.

However, the fetishists that have written to me seem to have a remarkable level of naivety. Whilst there are individuals who are lucky enough to be able to embrace their fetish and their diversity, there are equal numbers who are not so lucky.

There are two main reasons for this:

1. The person’s social and cultural background does not allow for such deviance, and embracing such risks serious social ostracism, family conflict, employment difficulties, relationship difficulties, and so on. and,
2. The nature of the fetish itself brings great distress and/or is illegal, involves non-consenting partners/animals/property (technically making it a “paraphilia”), and presents significant logistical and psychological impracticalities.

The response to this situation from a couple of fetishists from “the community” takes the form of, “Well, fuck it, they should be empowered to be free and do what they want, and it is a therapist’s job to enable them to be able to do that.“

Again, this is a remarkably naive viewpoint and an interesting case of measuring how other people should live by comparing them to one’s own standards. It also removes choice from the client who does not want their fetish and wants to retain all their normal family ties and relationships.

So my response to the fetish community is this: I agree that choice is important, but you do not get to choose whether everyone embraces their fetish and rejects convention. It is important to remember that some people don’t want this and instead want the ability to choose to reject their fetish and embrace convention, despite what you might believe to the contrary.

I recently came across this interesting video on YouTube. This dog appears to be either suffering from a very specific and unusual form of brain damage or suffering from a very specific and fixed perceptual position.

It reminds me of the situation faced by so many anxiety sufferers. Anxiety sufferers invariably experience anxiety as happening to them rather than being something that they are actively doing.

Thus, the anxiety, or panic attack, sufferer seeks relief from the symptoms rather than seeking to change the active behaviour that is the anxiety.

It is a bit like this dog arriving for therapy and saying, “Well, it is like this: I keep getting threatened by this leg that wants to take my bone. I want relief from this.”

When pointed out what is actually going on, the dog replies, “Don’t tell me I am doing this harm to myself. Are you saying I am imagining this? Just make it stop happening and stop blaming me for this!”

In watching the video, it is clear that the dog does not associate its output behaviours, including the leg, with the threat to the bone.

The dog is paying attention to the threat it presents, rather than to what he is doing with the leg in the first place. I can only ponder how the dog explains the additional pain caused by the bite he gives the leg.