This blogging thing, leads me in many different directions.  I’ve been thinking about my progression… evolution as a “cognitive therapist.”  I still hang onto that title, though, somewhere may have forgotten completely what that means.  My focus has been, and will likely always be,  about  the mental juggle that we all have going on in our brain.  We have random thoughts, thinking errors, mind chatter, under-currents all going on simultaneously with the actual “things” we have to think about throughout our day.  It is often this jumble of thoughts that get us into trouble mentally, emotionally, and behaviourally.  It may be truly dangerous that my thinking has been allowed to evolve without “supervision” to keep me in check.  My evolution has lead me into the world of solution focused thinking, clinical hypnosis and mindfulness… none of which are a far stones throw away from pure cognitive therapy.  I added thinking to the end of solution focussed in replacement of therapy, because I don’t just see it as a therapy, but, truly a way of perceiving things and, I as I see the clients thoughts in a certain way, I tend to manipulate my clients into seeing things a certain way (I’ve touched on this in a previous blog).

Clinical hypnosis has been an interesting addition to the way in which I deal with thinking patterns with my clients.  I suppose hypnosis may well be the purest way to observe and manipulate thinking (I know people are cringing as they observe my use of the word manipulate when it comes to working with people.. but lets face it, that is truly what we are doing… manipulating the way people think about things so that they can “get better”).  We use words as our tools to help heal.  We use words to help peel back layers of barriers to get to the heart of the matter.  Hypnosis has a way of teaching people their own ability to metaphorically and literally search within themselves to find answers, correct thinking errors, or to simply manage unwanted symptoms.  I explain to people that I am not doing anything them.  I cannot really get inside their head and rewire stuff.  I can make suggestions that they can choose to follow.  Hypnotically gluing someone’s eyes shut is a neat trick, but on another level, it is a truly interesting way to help someone understand how much their own thoughts control their behaviour.  If they simply think they can’t open their eyes and they can’t… what else are their thoughts stopping them from doing?  What could they do if they knew how to manipulate their thoughts in a more positive direction?  I think, I’ll spend the next few blogs talking about hypnosis, mindfulness, eft and other tricky ways to the get the brain to behave.

*The views expressed by our authors are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA