» Listings for 2014

1. How to stop Trichotillomania or hair pulling with the speakmans

   Posted on 6:38pm Wednesday 16th Jul 2014

   The Speakmans are celebrity therapists who appear on This Morning on ITV often working with people who have phobias or issues that are quite unusual. In this third Episode of their new television series "The Speakmans" we met Danni who suffers from hair pulling issues. The condition is also known as Trichotillomania. So today Danni wanted to stop hair pulling with the Speakmans help...how did she get on?
   

   According to Nik and Eva Speakman and their experience it always happens (they stated) because of a previous trauma and once they uncover that they can move on. As a Clinical Hypnotherapist I would never diagnose what an issue was or how it was caused before I met a client, but the Speakmans do have a very different approach.

   We met Gillian who is Danni's mother and also her Father Nigel in a group setting. It is becoming clear now that in each episode of this show they gather the family together to all talk about the issue. I understand that this makes better television because of the raw emotions that are shown but I can't help thinking that many of the people who applied who did not have family around them would have been turned down for the show. Often those people would have been the most in need of help because there was no one else to turn to.

   We heard about the fact that Nigel, her father did not like to talk about the Trichotillomania problem. Danni explained that her father never says "I Love you" back on the phone. Nigel explained that was not how he was brought up. It seems like we are now delving into someone else's past rather than that of Danni.

   After some more discussion it emerged that Danni was bullied at school because she had nice hair. She would be stabbed in the back with a compass by the bullies. She told us about the first day that she started the hair pulling. She felt a longer wiry hair and it felt painful but it made her feel alive to pull the hair. Because of the bullies it reminded her she was still a person.

   She hid the fact that this happened from her parents as she was ashamed like many people who suffer in silence. Both her parents were sad that they had never really spoken. This is something that we see time and time again. A lack of opening up and communication can often mean that we hold on to feelings that we can in fact let go of. It may not always be the case that your family want to talk in a group therapy session but there is a benefit that we can see in the programme for the trichotillomania or hair pulling sufferer.

   The format of this show seems to be a little fixed and this group therapy session seems to be something that shows us part of how the Speakmans treat a problem but we miss a great deal of the other interventions in therapy that they use. Talking therapies can take a longer time to have an effect but these shows are often filmed in a tight time slot. The Speakmans themselves had admitted that they only had an afternoon slot for at least one of the episodes. I still feel that we are missing a lot of what they do and I am not sure why they would not want that to be shown. Many people will not be able to sit in a room with family talking about their feelings and if that is the case you should be assured that you can get help and overcome your issues as well as the way we are seeing this hair pulling problem being treated.

   If you would like to listen to a free MP3 to help with anxiety and take the first step to feeling better then just click on the FREE MP3 tab at the top of this page. You can contact me on [email protected] if you would like any help or advice.

   It is clear that Danni has not overcome her feelings and memory of bullying and so I can see that this is the area that will be focussed on. As a single mum she also needs to be aware that her behavior will influence her son and change how he feels about himself and others.

   Once Nik and Eva had Danni alone they asked her to feel her hair and she how much she wanted to pull it out. She told them that it felt nice so they replied that meant she wanted to keep her hair. In common with their unusual approach they pulled a toy out of a toy box with a girls hair play set and told her they wanted her to pull the hair out of it. She said that she didn't want to pull it out. As this point I am starting to see some interesting patterns in the interventions that they make as they often seem designed for television rather than therapy. Not having seen them in person of course I can't be sure how they work, because as I mention, they seem to be keeping quite a lot of what they do to themselves.

   Once she told them that she would not pull her hair again they took her to a hair specialist to have her hair replaced and cover up the patches that she had left. A photo shoot followed and her delight was a pleasure to see.

   If you suffer from hair pulling then you can ask for help. We are not born with any issues such as this. That means that you had to learn to pull hair...and if you learnt to pull it then you can unlearn that too. The same goes for any bad habit, fear or phobia. Reaching out for help is often the hardest part and things will get easier once you have taken that first step.

2. past life therapy hypnosis for regression to the past

   Posted on 4:32pm Wednesday 16th Jul 2014

    Past Life regression therapy is a very interesting area for both clients and therapists. Often the thoughts around past life therapy are based on media reports about people who remember being a soldier in the war or working in the fields and seem to be just about entertainment. My experience working with past life therapy clients is that what often happens is a resolution of an issue in their life which means they are able to move on and forward and let go of something that has been troubling them.

   The following article appeared in the national press and was brought to my attention by a client. I think it makes for very interesting reading.

   The women who believe a past life is to blame for their ailments

   By Polly Dunbar

   The full article originally appeared in the Daily Mail on June 8^th 2014

   Sherrie Jenner believes her crippling migraines were due to an eye injury in a past life
   

   Once a month for the past 27 years, Sherrie Jenner suffered a blinding migraine. Each time they struck, the 64-year-old would endure three days of searing pain behind her right eye, leaving her unable to do anything other than lie in a darkened room.

   No wonder, then, that having spent the past three months pain-free after trying every treatment available, the retired medical receptionist from Horsham, Surrey, can’t rave enough about her ‘miracle cure’.

   But rather than a cutting-edge medical procedure or super-strength painkiller, Sherrie, a grandmother-of-two, believes the key to solving her health problem was something altogether more unusual: past-life regression therapy. 

   This involved being hypnotised to ‘recover’ what therapists believe are subconscious memories of past lives  or incarnations.

   The idea we’ve all been here before sounds, to many of us, as far-fetched as an episode of Star Trek, and scientists scoff at the notion.

   But exponents of past-life regression therapy believe ‘accessing’ our different lives from previous eras is not only possible, but could hold the key to solving the problems we experience in this life.

   These, they claim, are a manifestation of our subconscious holding on to traumas we experienced in other lives — and, as such, we can be helped to let them go.

   Sherrie went to see Nicolas Aujula, a London-based regression therapist, after spotting an advert for an open day during which migraine sufferers were offered a free trial of the treatment — which usually costs £150 for up to two-and-a-half hours.

   ‘I’ve never tried alternative therapies before — I’m usually very cynical. After all, I worked in the medical profession,’ she says. ‘But I’d tried everything and my migraines were so debilitating I thought it was worth a go. My husband Graham laughed and said it would never work, but I didn’t care.’

   During the session, Sherrie sat in a comfortable chair while Nicolas put her into a state of relaxation with deep-breathing and visualisation exercises.

   Then he asked her to go back to a time that would explain her migraines.

   ‘I’d never been hypnotised before, so I didn’t know what to expect, but I felt extremely relaxed and I was aware of my surroundings,’ she says.

   ‘I saw a little pair of tanned feet. It was the strangest thing I’d ever seen, but somehow I felt calm and accepting.

   ‘As I looked at my body I saw I was wearing a loincloth. I appeared to be a 14-year-old boy standing in a lush rainforest. I knew instinctively that it was South America around 200 years ago. I could see my hut, and I was carving a bow because I was starving and needed to catch something to eat.

    ‘Nicolas asked if I was in pain, and I said: “My heart hurts. I’ve been rejected by everyone.”

   ‘He then took me back even further, and I seemed to be about two. I was sitting on my haunches in front of a fire when, suddenly, an ember flew into my eye. I could hear my mother screaming.

   ‘Then I was 14 again, and I realised my face was burned and I’d lost my right eye — the same one I had searing pain behind during my migraines. I really believe that boy was me.’

   According to Nicolas, regression techniques bring people back to the source of their pain.

   ‘Certain patterns repeat themselves — I usually find that people with migraines suffered some sort of head injury in a previous life, and those with breathing difficulties suffered a chest trauma,’ he says.

   ‘Of course people are sceptical. I believe we’ve all lived before — but it’s not necessary to believe that for the therapy to be beneficial.

   ‘No harm is being done, and if it can help people with their problems it’s better than them taking drugs.’

   Sherrie and hundreds of others like her believe regression therapy is little short of a miracle cure. To ‘release’ her from her pain, Nicolas asked her to envisage the boy without the scarring and with his right eye intact, sitting with other children.

   ‘When I opened my eyes I felt slightly spaced out, but absolutely euphoric for this boy that his problems had been resolved.

   ‘Three months later, I still haven’t had a single migraine. Graham is still sceptical, but my friends have all been fascinated.

   ‘A few years ago, my optician noticed something at the back of my eye, and I was referred to a surgeon who told me it was scarring. He didn’t know what had caused it, or if it was related to my migraines, but said it had probably been there since birth. Now I think I’ve found the explanation.’

   But according to Dr Blumberg, what Sherrie had probably seen was a memory from her past.

   He says: ‘I’ve watched people having regression therapy and my sense is they’re experiencing crypto-amnesia — which is when forgotten memories linger in our subconscious and seem genuinely new when we think of them. Often they’re images from a Hollywood film they’ve seen a long time ago.’

   Jane Russell says past-life regression therapy cured her of psoriasis, caused by burns in her life as a man in the 1900s

    

   However it works, Jane Russell, 65, a model from Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, is another regression therapy devotee, believing it cured the psoriasis from which she suffered for two years.

   Last year, she had a session with Andrea Foulkes, who describes herself as an ‘intuitive soul whisperer’, and was astonished by the results.

   ‘I’m the biggest sceptic you could ever find, but I’ve known Andrea for years because we used to work together as models,’ Jane says. ‘When I told her about the terribly sore, dry skin condition I had on my hands and feet, which no cream seemed to help, she suggested I give regression a try.

   ‘It was incredible. She asked me to imagine walking down a corridor and told me to pick a door. She asked where I was and I said: “I’m in an apartment in Scotland.” There was a mirror and when I looked in it, I saw I was a man of around 36, wearing clothes of the early 1900s.

   No strings attached: Jane's therapist told her to imagine cutting the strings attaching her to her past life

   ‘The next thing I knew, I was the same man in the same era, but in a field with my two children, who were sitting on a horse-drawn hay wagon. The hay was alight and I was trying to put it out with my hands and feet.

   ‘Andrea told me to imagine I had strings attaching me to this man’s experiences, and I needed to cut them. Then she rang a little bell, and I was amazed to find two hours had passed. It felt like five minutes.’  

   Afterwards, Jane  felt exhausted and found she had been crying. She didn’t expect it to cure her condition, but she says: ‘Within two or three weeks, the psoriasis had gone, and I’ve had no problems since.

   ‘I think we carry a lot of tension inside ourselves, and it seemed to release that stress. I don’t know why it worked, but I’d recommend it to anybody.’

   Past life regression therapy to help cure IBS symptoms

   Jeane Trendhill, 47, believes regression therapy addressed the cause of the crippling IBS she had suffered since 2010. The pain in her stomach and constant need to use the bathroom often left her house-bound.

   Jeane, a photographer from Essex who is married to Leslie, 52, says: ‘Once, I went to A&E because I was in so much pain. When I read about Nicolas’s work, I was willing to give anything a try.’

   What she saw during her session in February is still vivid: ‘I was a little girl called Louise — which was strange because when I was a child, I used to tell my parents my name was Louise and that I remembered having a different mummy.

    ‘I was in America in a car with my father. I got out of the car and he hadn’t put the brakes on properly and it rolled over me, piercing my stomach. I could hear him crying out: “It’s my fault.” ’

   Most people would imagine Jeane’s brain conjured the name ‘Louise’ because of its resonance from her childhood — and that recent dietary changes, including cutting out wheat, are the real cause of her reduced symptoms.

   But Jeane is unwavering in her belief. ‘When Nicolas released me from these lives, I had an intense feeling of loss, as if I was saying goodbye to someone I knew very well. It was incredibly powerful.

   ‘I didn’t notice much of a change initially. But after a few days, I started to feel calmer, and the knot in my stomach seemed to loosen.

   ‘I went from having 20 bad days a month to just five, and it’s remained at that level ever since. I know it’s thanks to the therapy. It released something deep inside me.’

    

   Mark Powlett Comments...  As you can see these stories show how the clients have been able to let go of something that has been having a terrible effect on their lives. It doesn’t really matter if you believe that we had a past life or not. If you believe that you can let go of thing that have caused you worries, problems or pain then you are much more likely to be able to do that and move forward than if you think you have to live with things that do you harm.

   If you have a medical issue then it is very important that you see your GP about this first. I would always make sure that this was something that had been undertaken by any client before I would work with them. For instance I often work with clients who suffer with pain issues to help them turn down pain that they have been given medication for, but find they are still having discomfort. You must make sure that you see your GP before any therapy takes place. Always make sure that you visit a qualified Hypnotherapist such as much self.

    

   If you would like to read about my past life therapy sessions and the two session package that I offer then you can simply click HERE