Ms. Amos is licensed by the State of Florida as a Mental Health Counselor. She received her certification in Hypnotherapy from the National Guild of Hypnotists and holds a Masters degree in Counselor Education from Florida Atlantic University. Her areas of expertise include; psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, creative art therapies, sex therapy, and aromatherapy.

Ms. Amos is an adjunct faculty member for the National Guild of Hypnotists, psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, creative art therapist, teacher, speaker and author with over fifteen years experience in the field of mental health. She has been teaching hypnotherapy in private practice, workshops, hypnosis schools and at the National Guild of Hypnotists Annual conference. Ms. Amos is located in Boca Raton, Florida.

For more information, visit www.center4creativecounseling.com

by Tim Brunson, PhD

There is a trend in the healing professions that dogmatically mandates a naturalistic approach. It assumes that a person will always move toward a more healthy state, provided that the causes can be split from the symptoms. In the medical arena, this means that too often physicians focus only on eliminating the symptoms and trusting that their patient will naturally return to health. This sick-care approach – versus a health care approach – fails more often than they would like to admit. On the psychotherapy side of the fence, this same approach has been echoed in various schools of psychology. In fact, within the realm of hypnotherapy I see this as the major methodology preached by those who follow Ericksonian hypnosis and solution-oriented hypnosis, its offshoot. The premise here is that the subconscious mind is perfectly capable of finding a solution on its own, although apparently the subconscious mind is what caused the problem initially.

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Lorraine Flaherty is a practising hypnotherapist and Master NLP Practitioner who specialises in motivational work. She is currently writing a book on past life regression as a therapeutic tool.

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by Tim Brunson, PhD

A French philosopher once said, "Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains." No other phrase quite describes the struggle between our desire to be unique and our compulsion to fit in. Yes, we admire those who show us what it is like to be truly different, only to crucify them in the media as we hunger to find their imperfections. The recent Tiger Woods scandals, a spat of US governors resigning due to disclosures of immorality, and billionaires going bankrupt come to mind has glaring examples.

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Alien control phenomena are symptoms reported by patients with schizophrenia whereby feelings of control and ownership of thoughts and movements are lost. Comparable alien control experiences occur in culturally influenced dissociative states. We used fMRI and suggestions for automatic writing in highly hypnotically suggestible individuals to investigate the neural underpinnings of alien control. Targeted suggestions selectively reduced subjective ratings of control and ownership for both thought and movement. Thought insertion (TI) was associated with reduced activation of networks supporting language, movement, and self-related processing. In contrast, alien control of writing movement was associated with increased activity of a left-lateralised cerebellar-parietal network and decreased activity in brain regions involved in voluntary movement, including sensory-motor hand areas and the thalamus. Both experiences involved a reduction in activity of left supplementary motor area (SMA) and were associated with altered functional connectivity (FC) between SMA and brain regions involved in language processing and movement implementation. Collectively these results indicate the SMA plays a central role in alien control phenomena as a high level executive system involved in the sense that we control and own our thoughts and movements.

Cortex. 2014 Oct 5. pii: S0010-9452(14)00303-7. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2014.09.012.

Walsh E(1), Oakley DA(2), Halligan PW(3), Mehta MA(4), Deeley Q(5). Author information: (1)Cultural and Social Neuroscience Research Group, Forensic and Neurodevelopmental Sciences, Kings College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, London, UK; Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, London, UK. Electronic address: eamonn.walsh@kcl.ac.uk. (2)Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, UK. (3)School of Psychology, Cardiff University, UK. (4)Cultural and Social Neuroscience Research Group, Centre for Neuroimaging Sciences, Kings College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, London, UK. (5)Cultural and Social Neuroscience Research Group, Forensic and Neurodevelopmental Sciences, Kings College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, London, UK; South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, Bethlem Royal Hospital, Beckenham, Kent, UK.

Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

BACKGROUND: Chronic pain is frequent in persons living with spinal cord injury (SCI). Conventionally, the pain is treated pharmacologically, yet long-term pain medication is often refractory and associated with side effects. non-pharmacological interventions are frequently advocated, although the benefit and harm profiles of these treatments are not well established, in part because of methodological weaknesses of available studies. OBJECTIVES: To critically appraise and synthesise available research evidence on the effects of non-pharmacological interventions for the treatment of chronic neuropathic and nociceptive pain in people living with SCI. SEARCH METHODS: The search was run on the 1st March 2011. We searched the Cochrane Injuries Group's Specialised Register, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), MEDLINE (OvidSP), Embase (OvidSP), PsycINFO (OvidSP), four other databases and clinical trials registers. In addition, we manually searched the proceedings of three major scientific conferences on SCI. We updated this search in November 2014 but these results have not yet been incorporated. SELECTION CRITERIA: Randomised controlled trials of any intervention not involving intake of medication or other active substances to treat chronic pain in people with SCI. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: Two review authors independently extracted data and assessed risk of bias in the included studies. The primary outcome was any measure of pain intensity or pain relief. Secondary outcomes included adverse events, anxiety, depression and quality of life. When possible, meta-analyses were performed to calculate standardised mean differences for each type of intervention. MAIN RESULTS: We identified 16 trials involving a total of 616 participants. Eight different types of interventions were studied. Eight trials investigated the effects of electrical brain stimulation (transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and cranial electrotherapy stimulation (CES); five trials) or repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS; three trials). Interventions in the remaining studies included exercise programmes (three trials); acupuncture (two trials); self-hypnosis (one trial); transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) (one trial); and a cognitive behavioural programme (one trial). None of the included trials were considered to have low overall risk of bias. Twelve studies had high overall risk of bias, and in four studies risk of bias was unclear. The overall quality of the included studies was weak. Their validity was impaired by methodological weaknesses such as inappropriate choice of control groups. An additional search in November 2014 identified more recent studies that will be included in an update of this review. For tDCS the pooled mean difference between intervention and control groups in pain scores on an 11-point visual analogue scale (VAS) (0-10) was a reduction of -1.90 units (95% confidence interval (CI) -3.48 to -0.33; P value 0.02) in the short term and of -1.87 (95% CI -3.30 to -0.45; P value 0.01) in the mid term. Exercise programmes led to mean reductions in chronic shoulder pain of -1.9 score points for the Short Form (SF)-36 item for pain experience (95% CI -3.4 to -0.4; P value 0.01) and -2.8 pain VAS units (95% CI -3.77 to -1.83; P value < 0.00001); this represented the largest observed treatment effects in the included studies. Trials using rTMS, CES, acupuncture, self-hypnosis, TENS or a cognitive behavioural programme provided no evidence that these interventions reduce chronic pain. Ten trials examined study endpoints other than pain, including anxiety, depression and quality of life, but available data were too scarce for firm conclusions to be drawn. In four trials no side effects were reported with study interventions. Five trials reported transient mild side effects. Overall, a paucity of evidence was found on any serious or long-lasting side effects of the interventions. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: Evidence is insufficient to suggest that non-pharmacological treatments are effective in reducing chronic pain in people living with SCI. The benefits and harms of commonly used non-pharmacological pain treatments should be investigated in randomised controlled trials with adequate sample size and study methodology.

Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2014 Nov 28;11:CD009177. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD009177.pub2.

Boldt I(1), Eriks-Hoogland I, Brinkhof MW, de Bie R, Joggi D, von Elm E. Author information: (1)Swiss Paraplegic Research, Nottwil, Switzerland.

Peter Blum, C.Ht., C.I., M.S.C.is certified in Ericksonian hypnosis by the National Guild of Hypnotists (NGH), and the NY Training Institute for NLP. From 1993 to 1998 he was Director of the Stress Management Department at the Rhinebeck Health Center, working under the supervision of Kenneth Bock, M.D., and Steven Bock, M.D.

Peter has co-facilitated Whole Brain Functioning (WBF) trainings around the country. WBF combines Neurolinguistics, adventure-based learning (high and low ropes courses), Native American healing ceremonies and nutritional education. Since 1993, he has been a Certified Instructor in Basic and Advanced Clinical Hypnosis for the NGH, and has trained hundreds of counselors in these skills. He was ordained as an Interfaith Minister in 1995. He has offered lectures and private sessions on a monthly basis for the past decade to guests at the New Age Health Spa in Neversink, NY. Since 1995 he has also led sweat lodge purification ceremonies at the Spa.

The son of an operatic baritone, Peter has also been involved with the study of voice and music all of his life. Some of his teachers have been Ustad Jamaluddin Bhartiya (sitar), Karl Berger (rhythm and improvisation), Jill Purse (vocal), Pauline Oliveros (listening skills), and Beautiful Painted Arrow (shamanic use of sound). In 1999, his four-CD set, "Sounds For Healing" featuring the Tibetan Singing Bowls was released on the EnTranceWays label.

Peter has presented seminars at the NGH National Convention on topics such as "Developing a Hypnotic Voice," and "Sound and Music for Hypnosis." Since 1992 he has presented workshops on "Sound Healing" and "Breath, Voice, Rhythm and Trance." In 1994 an expanded five-day version of this was offered at Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY. His current work combines his training and skill as a practitioner of NLP and Ericksonian hypnosis with ancient techniques of healing with sound and music.

For more information visit: www.soundsforhealing.com

by Tim Brunson, PhD

Can we escape who we have become? From the moment of our birth our experiences shape who we are. Starting with the genetic makeup, which we inherit from our parents, the people and events that we encounter control the ever evolving wiring in our brain and our physiological reactions. In turn, should these programs include strong chemical responses, we run the risk that the neurological patterns will lead to strong addictions. In very many ways this programming defines who we have become. However, if the results of this process lead to unhappiness or poor health, I would hope that we also have the ability to change.

During the first 26 months of life, the parts of our brains that are already present are almost entirely a mass of disorganized neurons. Our experiences – especially when repeated and/or associated with stimulating responses such as excitement – begin emphasizing some networks and subordinating others. This process, which is called differentiation, is accelerated during that early period. As the brain continues to develop, the differentiation process continues. In fact, to some degree this remains an ongoing process through old age.

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Chronic pulmonary diseases represent a segment of pathology with an increasing prevalence worldwide, this requiring joint efforts from specialists in this field to (a) identify those factors insufficiently explored so far, but critical for their evolution and (b) address them via new therapies. This study aims to explore the existing data regarding the psychological factors involved in the dynamics of chronic pulmonary diseases and the main possibilities of psychological intervention, as a distinct part of pulmonary rehabilitation (PR). 49 articles published on this topic in peer-reviewed journals between 1979 and 2010, indexed in PubMed, ProQuest and EBSCO databases, were examined for evidence. Among psychological factors considered important by study authors were the following: 1) the deficient instruction of the patient, 2) decreased treatment motivation, 3) a marginal social role, 4) a disadaptive cognitive style and 5) psychiatric comorbidity (especially anxiety and depression). Efficient interventions were, for physicians, 1) patient education and 2) designing a personalized self-management plan, and for the clinical psychologists, 1) cognitive-behavioral therapy, 2) biofeedback, 3) family therapy, 4) relaxation and 5) hypnosis. Despite the undeniable effect of these methods in selected cases, the high heterogeneity of designs and personal affiliations of researchers do not allow new generalizations about their efficacy or their routine implementation into PR. Further research including larger samples, more uniform designs, construction of consensual international standards regarding the objectives of PR, and assessments done by experts from multiple study domains could contribute to a better understanding of the role psychological interventions could play in PR.

J Med Life. 2014 Jun 15;7(2):274-81. Epub 2014 Jun 25.

Popa-Velea O(1), Purcarea VL(2). Author information: (1)Department of Medical Psychology, "Carol Davila" University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Bucharest. (2)Department of Healthcare Marketing, Technology and Medical Devices, Medical informatics and Biostatistics, "Carol Davila" University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Bucharest.

OBJECTIVES: The goal of this article is to provide a thorough literature review of available noninvasive and alternative treatment options for chronic low back pain. In particular, the efficacy of each therapy is evaluated and pertinent outcomes are described. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A comprehensive search for available literature was done through PubMed and Cochrane data base for topics discussed in this paper. RESULTS: Relevant current and past references were reviewed and presented to reflect the efficacy of each therapy and related outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: There are a wide variety of noninvasive and alternative therapies for the treatment of chronic low back pain. Those with the strongest evidence in the literature for good efficacy and outcomes include exercise therapy with supervised physical therapy, multidisciplinary biopsychosocial rehabilitation, and acupuncture. Therapies with fair evidence or moderately supported by literature include yoga, back schools, thermal modalities, acupressure, and cognitive-behavioral therapy. Those therapies with poor evidence or little to no literature support include manipulation, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, low-level laser therapy, reflexology, biofeedback, progressive relaxation, hypnosis, and aromatherapy. Providers delivering care for patients with chronic low back pain must carefully evaluate these available treatment options related to their efficacy or lack thereof as well as relevant outcomes.

Neuromodulation. 2014 Oct;17 Suppl 2:24-30. doi: 10.1111/ner.12078.

Wellington J. Author information: Pain Medicine Center, Indiana University, Indianapolis, IN, USA.

© 2014 International Neuromodulation Society.

Are you worried that you've got too much stress in your life? How can you know what's healthy stress and what's too much?

Today I want to share 4 simple signs to look out for in your life, and perhaps more important, share a video that will not only show you what you can do to lessen and eliminate the stress, but will also take you through a process to eliminate it right now.

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by Tim Brunson, PhD

Frequently I hear or read therapists and members of the media loosely using the terms hypnosis and guided imagery. Rarely do their comments reflect any knowledge of the definition, similarities, or differences between the two. This gives the public the impression that they are two separate concepts. This is partially true and partially false.

Hypnosis has been defined many different ways. Many authorities, such as the American Medical Association, explain that hypnosis is an altered state in which the subject is highly suggestible. Others talk about increased access to the subconscious mind, a term which I often object to as an inaccurate concept. One of the definitions that I prefer is that hypnosis is a state where a person's critical faculty is bypassed and selective thinking can occur. This was David Elman's definition. There is another definition that I like even better – one that is based upon traditional thought as well as recent innovations in mind/body health and neurology. According to this train of thought, hypnosis is the process whereby resistance to change is reduced and selective thought becomes more efficient. It seems that final definition more closely explains why the phenomenon produces results. Note that with this view an altered state may occur. However, it is not a requirement.

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Carolyn Daitch, Ph.D., B.C.E.T.S., is a licensed psychologist and director of the Center for the Treatment of Anxiety Disorders in Farmington Hills, Michigan. She has over 25 years of clinical experience and currently divides her time between clinical practice, supervision, consultation and teaching. Dr. Daitch is a certified and approved consultant with the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis and is a member of its Board of Governors. She is an internationally recognized speaker and has trained advanced practitioners in Europe, Asia, and Canada as well as in the United States. Dr. Daitch is a consultant for the University Of Michigan School Of Medicine, department of Complementary and Alternative Research Center.

Dr. Daitch received her graduate training at the University of Michigan and completed post graduate training at the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland. She is a certified Imago Relationship therapist and has frequently presented on utilizing clinical hypnosis in relationship therapy.

For more information visit: http://www.anxiety-treatment.com