Peter George of the Institute of Clinical Hypnotherapy and Psychotherapy in Australia, truly is a master at his craft. As I mention on the podcast, you will want to take notes. His vast knowledge and experience is very evident as we progress through the podcast. And I know you will get immense pleasure and benefit from listening.
http://www.hypnotherapy-australia.com
Hi there, thanks for listening and please like this podcast where you listen to your podcasts.
The European Association of Professional Hypnotherapists is a group of like-minded hypnotherapists who are accredited professionals in their field. Many of our therapists have many many years of experience behind them which means you are probably in the best possible hands, available to you.
Why not pop on over to eaph.ie and choose the hypnotherapist that suits you. Many provide online hypnotherapy. eaph.ie
We welcome feedback on your listening experience at eaph.ie
Peter George of the Institute of Clinical Hypnotherapy and Psychotherapy in Australia, truly is a master at his craft. As I mention on the podcast, you will want to take notes. His vast knowledge and experience is very evident as we progress through the podcast. And I know you will get immense pleasure and benefit from listening.
http://www.hypnotherapy-australia.com
Hi there, thanks for listening and please like this podcast where you listen to your podcasts.
The European Association of Professional Hypnotherapists is a group of like-minded hypnotherapists who are accredited professionals in their field. Many of our therapists have many many years of experience behind them which means you are probably in the best possible hands, available to you.
Why not pop on over to eaph.ie and choose the hypnotherapist that suits you. Many provide online hypnotherapy. eaph.ie
We welcome feedback on your listening experience at eaph.ie
Aidan Noone
00:00 - 00:13
This is the professional hypnotherapist podcast session number 0017, Peter George of the Institute of clinical hypnotherapy and psychotherapy Australia.
Aidan Noone
00:37 - 01:17
Before we get started, why not pop over to EAPH.ie and find solutions for you right there right now, because all of our hypnotherapists are standing by waiting on your call. That's EAPH.ie In today's podcast. We hear from Peter George of the Institute of clinical hypnotherapy and psychotherapy in Australia. Peter George is a master at his craft, and I suggest that during this podcast, you have a notebook to take notes because you will want to take notes. Peter, George, welcome to the professional hypnotherapist podcast.
Peter George
01:17 - 01:18
Thank you. Thank you.
Aidan Noone
01:20 - 01:43
Now, Peter, you are in a unique position and that you are the principal and senior lecturer in the Institute of clinical hypnotherapy and psychotherapy in Australia. Now there's a unique position in that the ICHP in Australia is closely allied and linked to the ICHP here in Ireland. Isn't that correct
Peter George
01:44 - 01:45
That's absolutely correct. Yes.
Aidan Noone
01:48 - 01:52
Maybe it just explain the connectedness there apart from the obvious name.
Peter George
01:52 - 02:55
Well, it's a, it, it has a long history. I had a background as a scientist, for some 20 years or so before I entered in therapy. I was granted an overseas scholarship in the seventies, I trained whilst I was, acting as a scientist in the U S where Aaron Beck, the father of cognitive therapy and became interested in therapy. And that's where my, my, my pathway started in the therapy world. When I came back to Australia, I ran a research group, was a principal research scientist, and that required a PhD training in communications and intelligence. And, around about 1984, I, I decided that I could contribute more. How is it about the top of my, my career in defense science I could contribute more in the community if I went out and, did some of the work that I'd learned with Aaron Beck.
Peter George
02:55 - 03:51
And I started to do that align training and counseling and psychotherapy. We have a graduate diploma or postgraduate diploma, and I did that for some years in the early nineties, and then decided that there were a lot of things that I couldn't do it because I wasn't speaking with the total mind. I was speaking largely with the conscious mind, even though the conscious mind can be very biased. It's excellent at making choices and making assessments and decisions when sometimes it is extremely biased. And so I, I looked around Australia to try to find hypnotherapy training at the same level I was already using in counseling on psychotherapy in my clinic. And I couldn't find anything. I went overseas. I went through Europe from a number of countries and I ended up in the UK and somebody said to me, you need to go to Ireland and talk to Dr Keeney.
Peter George
03:52 - 05:18
so I went to Ireland and I talked to Dr. Keeney and about three hours after I got there. And I sat in on one of his classes and decided that was where I needed to be. And that's how I came into contact with ICHP in Ireland. And the first case I, did a number of courses with Joe up to the advanced diploma. I also did hypnoanalysis. And I was probably one of the last members of the Irish association of Hypnoanalysts. And then, in 2000, she suggested to me that I might consider teaching in Australia, which I did and my wife and I started my wife as a hypnotherapist as well. She was trained by Joe and, we started teaching here and it's gone from, from there around about, 19, no, sorry, 2014. I decided that having just done six years of contract work in a division of general practice with 77 GPS and tested the tools that were developed through five clinics that I'm rotating through south Australia, which is a very large state, by the way, it's a couple of million people in geographically, very large and three hospitals, that we really needed to go one on one level further than the advanced diploma.
Peter George
05:18 - 06:15
So we, we, trained people in the associate degree, which is possible here as enhancement the advanced diploma. And then we wrote the master's course, with Joe's encouragement and contributable help. And in 2016 together with Joe, we started teaching it in Ireland and it's a four year course. It doesn't have to be what it was a four year course with 350 hours per year. And it was written according to the European association of psychotherapy standards. And I think we graduated something like 15 or 16 people in 2019 just before COVID hit. And we have a number of people graduating in that, at that level here as well. So that's really where we are Aiden. That's how we got to where we are.
Aidan Noone
06:16 - 06:52
Yeah. Again, Peter, you are in that unique position in that you you're living and working in Australia. And at the same time, you have an experience in Did work all over the world, but specifically I'm referring to Ireland , what happens in Ireland and you know, what happens in Australia. And is there any, is there any similarities in terms of, regulation of hypnotherapy or we know hypnotherapy therapy isn't necessarily regulated, but in terms of the practice of hypnotherapy and Hypnopsychotherapy,
Peter George
06:54 - 08:05
Not at the level of Joe is to trim in the postgraduate courses No, not at all. He, he, you know, as well as I do, Aiden hypnotherapy is a very defined, diverse subject. Yeah. Wide range of tools and a wide ways of applying the altered state of consciousness. we, and Joe operate towards the end, the medical profession. And most definitely, because basically we, we do regression and we use regression tools and we are the only talk therapy that uses regression tools, the vast bulk of hypnotherapists do not in fact, and this might surprise you, but the vast bulk of hypnotherapists do not use regression tools simply in straightforward verbal suggestion. And there's nothing wrong with that at all, except that if you want to deal with neuroses and the level that we have to do with them here in our Medicare funded organizations in Australia, you have to be able to take a client back to their younger years.
Peter George
08:05 - 09:12
We are after all a product of yesterday. There's no question about that. We bring with us learning and experiences that we had as a child. So, so hops through the teenage years into adulthood, young adulthood and later adult. So we are unique in that respect and the medical profession, certainly in Australia, is very opposed to the type of hypnotist who makes wild and exaggerated claims as unfortunately some do. And that is common throughout the world. When I was doing my doctorate in education and clinical level of therapy, I spent nearly 10 years looking at what everybody else was doing on hypnotherapy. And there are a lot of wild exaggerated claims and certainly some in Australia. there are people who claim to be able to cure a post-traumatic stress disorder and complex trauma in one or two or three sessions with complete nonsense and so on and so on and so on.
Peter George
09:12 - 10:27
And they don't do the rest of us a great deal of credit. Unfortunately. I think the biggest difference I have seen between Ireland and Australia is the, because up till now, it has been soft regulated in Australia formally, but not so formally in Ireland. But the biggest difference has been the postgraduate associations. When I started with Joan, Karen in 1998, there was a very powerful post-graduate or association with hundreds of members. I well remember attending every year, workshops, which were set up by Joe Kearney with, Michael Yapo and the U S number of workers. I think I did four of them with him, Gil Bowen, who was still alive then, Terrence Watts from the Uk Henry bulldog from, from the U S on the list goes on and on and on. And, just before the global financial crisis, Joe Keeny wrote very voluminous quality assurance documents for the postgraduate association and handed them over to the minister of health in Ireland and got some credit for doing that.
Peter George
10:29 - 11:33
But, when you handed the school over with every hope, I think all of us hope that the association would continue to be a viable organization and eventually ended up in the regulation mode as we did in Australia. It didn't happen. I maintain membership for a couple of years, but it was obvious after a couple of years that was not going to happen. And I think that's the biggest difference. The, the discipline on Australia has, is represented best by the senior professionals association. It's called the Australian hypnotherapists association existed since 1949 has a very strong history. And the department of health and aging actively encourages the aha and some smaller associations to promote the status of voluntary suffering self regulation as they do in the UK. In fact, and we have a set of standards, which we're called for entry to the clinic, and we are working through a process at the moment.
Peter George
11:33 - 12:23
They're establishing various levels above the entry standard. We'll eventually take take members right up to degree and beyond, but that's an eventual process that has not yet happened. It is in the process of happening at the moment. The entry standard is, is a level six. perhaps five, the RS, the RS levels are slightly different. European levels have slightly different to the Australian ones. but it's certainly not at a master's degree entrance for clinical practice. And the vast majority of the professional hypnotherapist I've met in Ireland, don't have master's degrees. I'm not sure what that would contribute to their practice in any case, unless they're working towards the medical end of the business.
Aidan Noone
12:25 - 12:26
Sorry,
Peter George
12:26 - 12:27
That's a very long answer within,
Aidan Noone
12:31 - 12:39
when you speak about self regulation, what specifically do you mean when you mentioned, when you've mentioned that term
Peter George
12:41 - 13:57
Well, self-regulation requires the us and Australia. It stands for the associations as it is in Britain, and it requires them to do certain things for that practicing members. They do require some to engage in regular supervision. For example, with the caused them to engage with continuing professional development at a certain level of a certain number of hours or a certain volume of learning through the year and so on and so on. And generally speaking, we're across publish and we have an IHI journal that publishes as worldwide journal. the ongoing registration of individual practitioners is the responsibility of the association. yes, it is true that in Britain and in Australia, you can do a very short course and hang, hang a shingle on the wall and claim to be a hypnotherapist. But as in Britain, you wouldn't survive very long in Australia because the aha on the other smaller, smaller associations provide the basic recognition that the practitioner requires.
Peter George
13:58 - 15:02
And you need to put those things on your website. And when you put the aha logo on the website and most members of the public will come to you, they won't go to somebody who doesn't have any accreditation, any form at all. So it's a very formal process in Australia, as it has been in the UK. The UK does have one advantage over Australia. At the moment. It has a complimentary health council that lays down standards and core curriculum for things like hypnotherapy and the, the three or four major associations in Britain that are counseling psychotherapy and hypnotherapy associations, all accede to those common standards. We don't yet have that in Australia. That is in the process of being done right at this moment, the standards have been written, there an AGM, I think on November the seventh and the peak body, and somebody will certainly put forward a motion that those standards will be accepted.
Peter George
15:02 - 15:60
And that will be interesting because it will bring us pretty much in line to what is happening in the UK. But I don't see that happening in Ireland. It appears to me that Ireland has gone on a different path altogether. The government agreed to consider input from the counseling association, the major one, and also the psychotherapy association separately. And that's not surprising and Australia, that's not happened. They insisted that they both speak with one voice. and I don't have any idea how the counseling associations and the psychotherapy association will view, Hypnos psychotherapy. If they were to look at the volume of material that Joe Keeney has provided them the master's course in training in Ireland, I think they would go into a shock, frankly,
Peter George
16:01 - 16:54
Because all the standard psychotherapy and counseling techniques that I have used in the past exists within that volume of learning. But of course now psychotherapy techniques like psychosynthesis solution focused therapy gestalt and so on are done in the ultimate state of consciousness with vastly improved results. That that's why we use the ultimate state. And, we know that that reason that, that in my view is the future of psychotherapy. People in the future will eventually come to the point where they do their psychotherapy on the foundation of good counseling, but they will also use many of the tools in psychotherapy in the altered state of consciousness that we would call trans because the results are quite dramatic, sorry.
Aidan Noone
16:54 - 17:22
And Peter, we have the European association of professional hypnotherapists and which of which I'm a member of and all our members and only members who are trained in hypnosis psychotherapy are allowed admission to that organization and its self-regulating party. And this podcast that you're speaking on is a product of the European association of professionals.
Peter George
17:23 - 17:25
And how many members you have,
Aidan Noone
17:26 - 17:28
We have about 25.
Peter George
17:30 - 17:42
Yeah. It's a very small number compared to the original hundreds that existed in the original postgraduate association. I'm astonished what has happened to all the other therapists
Aidan Noone
17:42 - 17:46
What are they in practice
Peter George
17:48 - 17:49
Oh, yes. There's hundreds of them.
Aidan Noone
17:51 - 18:19
Well, there is another, there is another organization out there who, is a, is a, an association similar, in context to what we are doing as well, because we have, we have our CPD requirements, you know, codes of ethics, you know, all the regulation regulation, tick boxes are there. So you must meet those requirements before you're admitted to the ERPH
Peter George
18:20 - 19:33
But that's not a very strong base to like represented to government. I mean, by, by contrast to the IHI has over 700 members in Australia, but in Ireland, the, the original ICH post-graduate association, I don't know about the other associations or others, but the original had hundreds of members I'm astonished its less than 50. There's not a, not a solid base on which to make representations concerning hypnotherapy. But you know, this is, this is where I depart a little from many of the hypnotherapists that are trained. I, I view hypnotherapy, in the world and with, within which I work, which is very much towards top level coaching and, and medicine. I view it as an adjunct to good psychotherapy. I remember being interviewed for my mental health coalition job in the division of general practice. And I was asked by the chairman of the committee, whether I would guarantee you that I would do cognitive behavioral therapy.
Peter George
19:34 - 21:19
And I said, yes, I absolutely promise I will use cognitive behavioral therapy entirely because your mental health plans require me to do so, but I will also enhance it by using it in the altered state of consciousness. And that wasn't a wild claim because over 8,000 sessions, we had a team of 12 people, comprising counselors, mental health nurses with, with high-level training, social workers with mental health training, clinical psychologists. And, I think that's about it. There were 12 in law and I was one of them over my 8,000 sessions. The dropout rate from my sessions was 3.6%. The dropout rate from all the others that were using classical CBT are not using the altered state at all was 28%. That is a very, very large difference in cognitive behavioral therapy suffers from a tremendously large drop out, right. It is a necessary therapy in my view, absolutely necessary, we assume. And we do misinterpret and we sometimes distort, or sometimes we have inadequate core believes it's necessary, but it's by no means sufficient. So efficiency is only obtained when you also do the extra work required in the altered state, and then you get the results. So talking to the total mind, it's really quite obvious to me, but it appears not to be Obvious to a lot of other therapists I am astonished psychotherapy. Generally speaking does not use the altered state,
Aidan Noone
21:21 - 21:39
Not a Peter. There, there have been many advances. you mentioned Aaron Beck before, there'd be many advances in psychotherapy and they're very popular. one, that's getting a lot of press and a lot of, writings about it at the moment is the polyvagal theory.
Peter George
21:40 - 23:00
Yes, we use it. It's embedded in our courses entirely because neurophysiology, which is what polyvagal theory is all about was completely ignored for decades. And Stephen Porges quietly went on working for 35 to 40 years from only a few years ago. What matters at about a decade, I suppose, eight, eight or nine years. You've heard, we wrote his book and started talking about it in public. And the whole concept of threat and safety and social engagement is absolutely fundamental to the success that we have was bureau with, with hypnosis , and the older students. Now do that. And as students certainly do, and we've got quite a few hundred as well, practicing, it's absolutely essential. I regarded as one of the big missing links in, in, in, in general therapy. And in point of fact, and many of our clinical psychologists that come to be trained well now using polyvagal theory, the concept of threatened safety, was there quite early on Paul McClain and the seventies once talked about the triune brain and the reptilian mammalian and the conscious mind and the difficulties you had when you were faced with threats.
Peter George
23:00 - 24:22
But, Aaron Beck understood it very well. There is no not quoted very often doing anything other than pure cognitive control. I have notes from courses with him where he said, if you want to change an image, you better go back to where that image was formed and reframe it. And he knew very well what we needed to do, and I'm continually surprised that psychotherapy hasn't taken on the altered state. And there are a number of, psychotherapies for which polyvagal theory is, is proving to be very helpful, particularly psychosynthesis, which is, a full, psychological therapy that runs from birth right through to a spiritual work. In fact, and, and polyvagal theory helps enormously in that regard. And it's also enormously helpful when you're dealing with issues of attachment the whole business. So prior to becoming apparent threats, false threats, and being allowed to socially engage as a result of doing that is absolutely basic to a modern cycle. So I would view any modern hopeless therapy that doesn't take some account of the neurophysiology of polyvagol theory with the outmost suspicion.
Aidan Noone
24:24 - 24:55
Okay. if you will allow me Peter, for example, say a client, if it's okay to, to, to just go with me on this, if not, tell me otherwise, if a client presents to you with, depression. No, I know we're not talking about major depressive illness, but we say reactive depression and they are on, let's say they're, they're hyper they're up there. And the, the clouds is where they're really, really hyper what's the best course of intervention to help them.
Peter George
24:55 - 24:59
Can you talk to me about full clinical depression as defined by the DSM
Aidan Noone
25:01 - 25:01
Yes.
Peter George
25:02 - 25:31
Okay. Well, I, you will not worry. I'm sure there, Michael Yapko. is , the, the person to whom credit should be given for turning the treatment of depression using hypnotherapy into a practice rather than a contrary indication, which is what it was before he did the work. I attended his original workshop, which Joe Keeney organized in Ireland and Dublin Marino Institute,
Aidan Noone
25:31 - 25:32
As
Peter George
25:33 - 26:34
It was called up from down. You were there as well. Yes, it was brilliant. Brilliant. It really, it really, really was brilliant. I use Michael CO's basic techniques, but we've adapted and enhanced it as the years have gone by, I produce results that are substantially better than classical CBT. we've published from 300 odd pages and it has data in there that shows those probably the most, the most rewarding part. Also with the altered state work that we do with clinical depression is that when we bring them people down to w they were covered slightly faster than classical CBT, but not a lot faster. I have to say that perhaps two us two sessions or three sessions at most faster, but they reach a level where they do not cycle and they longer. And that's the problem with classical CBT when it's limited, the treatment is limited to that.
Peter George
26:35 - 27:34
They come down perhaps three weeks later, three sessions, or so later than the way we do it now, but they cycle. and it is often said that if you, if you've had one serious episode or two, you've got depression, you have a 50% chance of having another. And if you have two, you have a 75% chance of having a third. And if you have a third, you're probably beginning to go on having them. And that is what classical CBT shows, but enhanced CBT, brings them down slightly faster, but it keeps them at a very low level. In fact, they improve slowly over time, rather like psychodynamic therapy has the same characteristics. People are often, if you, if you read about John Shedler, who's the expert in psychodynamics therapy, who will tell you that people who go through the psychodynamic therapy process often improve out of session and continue to improve slowly over time.
Aidan Noone
27:36 - 27:45
And at what stage Peter, in your opinion, would trans work be you were used with a client who presents with such,
Peter George
27:45 - 29:11
Okay. That's a, that's a very good question. It's a very important question, actually, because, let me say, by the way, just before I go to that, that when, when doing cognitive behavioral therapy, classically, you're taught to look at the misinterpretations and distortions in thinking and maladaptive core beliefs, right upfront, perhaps in the first or second session. The difficulty with that is that many Clients and I've had hundreds of them tell me this, interpret or they're being told by the therapist are suggesting that the difficulties they experience when they're clinically depressed and feeling completely lost in a losing situation are entirely due to the way of thinking. I don't know, on a high percentage opt out immediately. And typically between 15 and 50%, which is awful. I strongly recommend anybody that wants to treat clinical depression does not do the necessary cognitive reconstruction until they get to session three, four or five, by which time that client should be moving positively and benevolently. And they will not. That's the difference between the way we do it when the way clinical psychology does it. And I'm sorry, I didn't having talked my self into that. You'll have to repeat your question.
Aidan Noone
29:13 - 29:22
No. Okay. Now my question was related to, when a press client presents, what stage is trans work
Peter George
29:23 - 30:34
And very good question. We have two things. we have two types of integration. We're just distinguish just, it's a matter of language between global interventions and unique interventions. The global interventions, we apply to every client coming into the clinic and their primary purpose is, is twofold to stop them ruminating badly and negatively between sessions, which we've stood up their emotional pot and sent them away. The mind doesn't stop working. Sometimes it overwhelms negative. So firstly, we need to do that. And secondly, the, we also teach them to witness, to bear with us step back, as a prelude to using mindfulness techniques. that's the global thing. And we also do. We create, have them create them, create their safe place in the first session. But at the end of my first sessions, I give my, all my clients a 10 minute audio file on the phone and ask them to play at a couple of times, consciously so they can hear it.
Peter George
30:34 - 31:40
So the conscious mind knows what is going on. It likes to be in control and that doesn't like to give up control. Then I tell them to down it, turn it down to subliminal level and play it preferably with ear buds two or three times a day. whilst they're doing some sort of conscious work, perhaps on a computer, perhaps gardening, cooking, anything, it doesn't matter. because it is very clear, biophysics, which I know something about, that neuro pathways start to rewrote Roe write themselves after 12 to 15 repetitions of the right words without any ambiguity. And those audio files provide the right words without ambiguity. If you play them for two or three weeks, you're going to play them 40 or 50 times, by which time you are establishing complete new neuro pathways. So that first session is quite complex. It's, it's all about exploration.
Peter George
31:40 - 32:41
It's about caring and commitment to go forward. It's about using a cognitive payroll map in the form that we use it. An enhanced form has three pathways instead of one. and then we teach them witnessing and we teach them what is called a stop and redirect technique, all in the first session and give them an audio file at the end of it all, all in one hour. in the second session, we re-examine what has been happening during the previous time. And hopefully we find that the rumination that's been going on between sessions is diminished substantially. And that is usually the case by the end of the session, second session, we are using trans work for something like 20 minutes or so, but we're now into what we call unique interventions. Every client that we have is unique, but it doesn't matter what they're labeled with.
Peter George
32:42 - 34:29
If you take half a dozen people with social anxiety, they're all exhibited in their own way and react independently because they are unique individuals. So every unique person, we having established what their principal is, who is their principle concern, and any subsidiary issues. We then look at four or five psychotherapies, typically typically, solution focused therapy, questioning techniques, that miracle script, for example, exceptions. And so on much of which came from Milton Erickson, incidentally, a hypnotherapist . and, psychosynthesis for any area of actualizing potential or self-development and perhaps spiritual work transpersonal work as well. and NLP tactics in trans. there are some very good ones that are better used in trance and, and Richard Bandler, says that as well, and, and two or three other, psychotherapists. So what we do is we, you know, there's over 400 psychotherapies and so there's no shortage of tools and psychotherapy and those four or five psychotherapies, we choose match the requirements of the unique client. And all of those tools are do alert in the altered state and translate all of them. So all of our subsequent sessions, excuse me, from the end of the second session onwards on, down in the altered state, apart from some conscious cognitive talk upfront in the session, perhaps to see what has been happening and in past weeks when the client is not with us, I hope that answered your question.
Aidan Noone
34:29 - 34:56
Absolutely. It's very, very comprehensive answer. you know, when clients, present with depression, as we know, they, they are usually hypervigilant and the, the job is bring them down from that. And I presume by doing some CBT you're, you're, you know, you're breaking up their, their current map of the world as it were.
Peter George
34:56 - 36:01
Yes, it is heightened the problem with Hypervigilant on some , you will know that any traumatic experience in a person's earlier life, even including a childhood distress platform that has played repetitively can be traumatic as well. Any experience like that, the body keeps the score as it does with even minor surgery, which is regarded as intrusive. And it will drop the fear threshold or the individual. And they can become hypervigilant had a experience here with a CEO of a local hospital who came to me, who's four foot, six foot, two, powerfully built told me he very rarely felt nervous in his life, but he just had his timeless gland removed, which is not a, not a difficult operation. It's nasty because you then have to take a whole spectrum of antibiotics to, to resist infections. But within three weeks, he was virtually paranoid looking over his shoulder, wondering what was going to happen next.
Peter George
36:02 - 37:07
And I spoke to his local GP and he told me that all his surgery clients almost without exception within three or four weeks become hypervigilant because their fear threshold does drop. Now that's a problem. The hypervigilance itself was a problem, but the greater problem is the fact that when you're hypervigilant, let me, let me, let me pose a metaphor. Imagine literal your salience network, which is responsible for finding now what is potentially threatening and sounding the alarm. It's a frontal network in the brain. You can think of that metaphorically as a sentry . And generally speaking, the century just stands out aside. The sentry box keeps watch, but when you're a hypervigilant renewal on your threat threshold drops, what effectively happened in metaphoric terms as the sentry leaves the box and starts patrolling the perimeter, looking for threats. Now, the problem with that is not the hypervigilance.
Peter George
37:07 - 38:20
It's the fact that the hypervigilance gives rights to a lot of false alarms on the false alarms are automatic give rise to automatic conditioned responses like anger, for example. Yeah. I get angered clients from the corrections office regularly. The magistrates decided that the individuals need anger management. And first question, I always ask them when they're in the clinic, is do you choose to be angry I have never yet in hundreds of clients had somebody say yes, because they don't. What has happened is their awareness and attention has been brought to a situation that causes them to believe in the deeper mind that they're under some sort of threat and the mind will automatically react to that threat very fast and trying to, to create the situation where you can control that anger. One show actually being angry is very difficult. The alternatives to it comes from polyvagal theory and neurophysiology.
Peter George
38:20 - 39:40
And that is you have to be aware of the sensation in your body, wherever it is. It might be heart palpitation that might be shortness of breath at my beer, pressure and muscles in the body. It might be nausea wherever it is. There is a very short period of time, 5, 6, 7 seconds, often called the space between the precedings. You reacting badly to a situation that you think is threatening rightly or wrongly. And during that time, you can Institute a stop with a mental image. What you're doing is helping your autonomic nervous system to self-regulate. And when you do that, stop has a bad reputation in psychology, because if you don't do anything else, the mind will come back and try again and again and again and again for neuro imaging has shown very clearly that if you redirect the cellular network or century to another task, in other words, it's a second process as a stop with a mental image and then a redirection to a task and the default mode network, and the brain will collapse, diminish it's active, but the mind will turn towards the task.
Peter George
39:41 - 41:03
And that that new task can be benevolent, subtle responses. It can be the difference between reacting and socially engaging and perhaps adopting a response. So that includes patients words, perhaps the right actions instead of the original anger. That's the general technique that we use. We set that up in the very first session, both consciously and a very short, onto the state. But we, from the second session, onwards we use stop and redirect, and the redirect has done in a number of different ways. behaviorally as, as our basic tool, one of the ways that you can do it in fact is very useful as stop and redirect to their safe place. Because people who come to sessions, we, we asked them to create their safe place and create the same safe place. Each time they become very, very efficient at doing that. And if circumstances in their everyday life spontaneously caused them to be nervous or apprehensive, they can take a deep breath. They can anchor, they can move themselves to the safe place and calm down to a level of calmness where they're much better equipped to socially engage with whatever is going on. Oh, I hope that's clear.
Aidan Noone
41:03 - 41:18
Absolutely. so what is it, Peter, in your estimation and all of your years of experience, what is it about hypnosis psychotherapy that gives it an added plus our mix It that unique.
Peter George
41:20 - 42:17
Yeah. Well that sort of, that has been a difficult question to answer until we had a lot of neuroimaging data or I'm continually surprised at how, how, how correct our interpretations of what was happening in past decades has been in fact, just, just through observational experience, but there is newer imaging data now available, and we show it to our students. And there's one particular slide that comes straight to mind. There's a slide that shows four sections, four sideways looks at the brain. You know, what they look like, who see the color areas, where the oxygen is flowing because that part of the brain is working. You see them light up. And the first, the first of the four is speaking the words and you'll see brokers areas on the left frontal side of the brain light up because it controls the mechanics of speaking, the vocal chords that trickier the software, et cetera.
Peter George
42:18 - 43:12
And then the next one, number two is listening to the words and Wernicke's area lights on, which is a bit further back in the brain on the same side left side. And it's the interpretive thing, which is in my view, absolutely fantastic how it manages to interpret language, but it does the third one. The third one is reading the words. And when you look at the neuroimaging of the person reading the words you find that it goes to back to the back of the brain, low, lower back of the brain. So the, the, the, part of the brain that is the visual cortex now, but the fourth one is a really interesting one because the fourth one is where you start to speak to the client in a trance state. And guess what happens There are areas all over both hemispheres left and right lighting up on the neuroimaging picture.
Peter George
43:13 - 44:51
It is very clear that in the altered state, the person is able to access and recruit a whole range of neural circuits in the brain. It's a pattern recognition process that the left brain cognitive brain is, is it's a poor analogy, but I guess it's adequate, is a single computer . And it deals with it serially, serially Lynn, early step by step by step and produces a result. It's not that fast. but the right brain in particular and parts of the left brain that they engage, are engaged by the client. When they're doing trance work is a pattern recognition process. That's a lot of publicity it's, it's used in signal processing and systems in an area which is part of my background. Pattern recognition requires a number of computers is rather slow, which is why we have to give clients time to do things when they're in a trance state or not speak up them too quickly and move on too fast. It's quite slow. but it's all about patterns and not all about, have I seen this before Does it have a new threat content or is it safe and so on and so on and so on, that's the big difference in the altered state You don't get that access. You can't recruit those resources. You don't engage in pattern recognition that that, that uses your auto-biography from day one and your life was a reference point. you don't get that in conscious cognitive work.
Peter George
44:53 - 46:16
Some sometimes I get somebody who doesn't believe this, my, particularly analytic people. One of the things I often ask them to do is just whilst they're sitting there consciously talking to me, take their mind back to her an important birthday party in their younger years, perhaps when they got a bike or some significant present. and they do that. And I said, now tell me everything you remember, and they usually can talk for about 20 or 30 seconds about what they do. and then in the altered state with their permission, I asked them exactly the same question. And of course they immediately access their autobiography, which is a multiplicity of regions in the brain. And it is full of feelings and sensations and actual experience. And some of them will talk for minutes on end. At that point, the amount of material they recover is very considerable. The shallow memory, the shallow conscious memories, very shallow, and they are almost when they come out of the trance state. So when you ask me, what is the difference between altered state work and conscious work largely speaking, it's accessing and being able to recruit her very large number of resources and the autobiography of what ever event is relevant.
Aidan Noone
46:18 - 46:26
Peter, George, your a man of experience and knowledge. And I could talk to you all day, but unforced,
Peter George
46:27 - 46:50
For subject and anything that could keep me engaged with it in this, this, you know, the level of live school workout has got to be a damn good subject. I tell you a fulfilling subject. Although I did high level work in defense science, I regard this as infinitely more fulfilling, but I don't propose to stop until something stops me.
Aidan Noone
46:51 - 46:58
Okay, excellent. So when we leave it at that, Peter, and I want to just say, thank you so much for being with me here today. Wow.
Peter George
46:58 - 47:10
I prefer the opportunity to talk to you or it's, it's always, always a pleasure to talk, to talk to all the hypnotherapists about this extremely fulfilling some treat and discipline that we're in together.
Aidan Noone
47:11 - 47:29
Great. So that was Peter George, the principal, and the chief lecturer with the Institute of clinical hypnotherapy and psychotherapy in Australia. Thank you so much, Peter pleasure. You helping this name to the professional hypnotherapist podcast. I do appreciate you
Speaker 4
47:30 - 47:35
And thank you so much until next time. Why not visit E APH.ie