Well, over the past week, my beloved subject has received some tabloid attention… And in light of my fairly complex postings here on the blog recently, I am going to mention these tabloid snippets and move on… This is kind of like an exorcism of cr@p news in my field… And I’ll do my best not to smirk too loudly or snort too snootily…
So, one of the happiest hypnotherapists in the UK last week has to be the lady mentioned in this hypnosis article in the Halifax Courier, it states:
A BRIGHOUSE mum scooped £75,000 on TV’s ‘Deal Or No Deal’ in what host Noel Edmonds described as one of the most amazing games in the series.
Hypnotherapist Julie Holdsworth appeared on Tuesday night’s show which kept viewers on the edge of their seats.
Allocated box no.12, Julie was offered £12,500 halfway through the game but with £250,000 still in play she said no deal. She was told she needed an all blue round for a better offer.
To make it an even grander occasion, Noel Edmonds said it was one of the most amazing games’ he had played… You have to love local interest stories…
Ok, lets get onto a proper newspaper… The Daily Mail is sharing this hypnosis story with us:
After the heartbreak of her marriage breakdown, few would begrudge Jo Wood the comfort of an occasional cigarette.
But the estranged wife of Rolling Stone Ronnie is determined to quit. ‘I only smoke five or so a day but I want to quit once and for all,’ said Jo, 53.
‘I’ve booked myself in for hypnosis therapy with a girlfriend.’
Maybe she should just spend less time with pal Jerry Hall who, says Jo, ‘smokes everywhere, despite the ban’.
Jo reveals: ‘She waits until no one’s looking and lights up. She’s been known to throw the butts into a wine cooler to avoid being caught.’
Now, going to make a potentially life-saving move nd stop smoking is not like going to get your hair or your nails done, is it? Why is she going with a girlfriend?
Ok, the real tabloid ‘coup de gras’ today has to be in the Daily Star… They are highlighting NLP training as an ‘insane waste’ in this article:
COUNCIL chiefs have been slammed for blowing £400,000 on Paul McKenna-style staff training.
Bosses are forking out taxpayers’ cash to send 400 workers on the course, which uses techniques favoured by the hit telly hypnotist.
The lessons, run over five months, include a controversial training method called neuro-linguistic programming (NLP).
They are supposed to “mentally prepare” staff for the stress of work by helping them “adopt a successful mindset.” But critics say that the spending “beggars belief”.
And they have blasted Suffolk County Council, which is paying for the courses, for wasting money.
Deputy Lib Dem opposition group leader Andrew Cann stormed: “The council has clearly lost its way recently on delivering the basics at a cost people wish to pay.
“At a time when we are all feeling the pinch, the council should be working harder and harder to identify savings and stop wasting money on schemes designed to make it look better.
“It’s about time they just concentrated on getting on with the job.”
NLP is a popular corporate training technique and has been championed by McKenna, 44.
He shot to fame in the mid-90s with TV series which featured him hypnotising audience members.
Sally Marlow, Suffolk’s head of human resources, defended the training. She said: “The programme is aimed at all levels of staff.
“It is vitally important that we invest in our people so they are well equipped to meet the challenges of the future.”
I happen to think it is a forward thinking council that is having their staff equipped in this way… I’d love the employees at my council HQ to have a depth of training, communication excellence, and abilities and life skills that ensure my local council is run in a way that heightens the welfare of those in that area, no?
Yet at the time of the media revelling in recession, we need to abel such forward thinking as ‘insane’… Hmph…
So there you go… My first tabloid styled blog entry… I need a shower…
this is UK culture – whine, moan and denigrate, while simultaneously wondering why the country is going down the tubes..
irony used to be a British comedy staple…
I’ve several times had two women who were friends come for a session together. (I charge them a bit less each, but the total comes to more than a session with one person, so it works out well all round.)
It seems they are more comfortable coming together for a shared issue, and they can provide mutual support.
Mike, I have worked with hundreds couples… Often together…. Though have more often found it useful to work with them as individuals also…
I am a firm believer that if you work with people together, it’ll have to depend upon the nature of what you are working on for me to agree to such a thing.
If it as a simple behavioural change, then maybe that’s ok… I mean, if two women have a similar smoking habit and the session is going to be similar and delivered by an automatron of a hypnotherapist who reads scripts… Then I guess it is just about ok.
However, in the most part, if they are coming for therapy and want to be treated as an indivdual – as people cannot not communicate – the presence of another is always going to effect and influence the therapy… Maybe even hinder the progress and stop the individual being totally congruent or even honest about the core issues.
If a client wants mutual support, then they can go and have coffee together… Heck, the mutual support can sit in a room in the same building as an indicator of support… The therapy room is an intimate and delicate place that I mostly don’t want being contaminated with inter-personal dynamics…
Those are fair points, though I haven’t found it a problem myself. (I don’t read scripts, I always construct my suggestions in session based on what has been discussed in the pre-talk.) I try to make sure that I pay equal attention to both people and treat them as individuals.
Perhaps I’ve just been lucky and have had people who actually do have similar issues.
I do think that they probably get less value from a shared session than an individual one, which is why I charge them less, but as you say, the option is always there to do a subsequent individual session.
The other factor is that in NZ (don’t know about the UK) it’s a client’s legal right to have whoever they want in the room with them as support. If I thought it was going to hinder the process, of course, I would request that they wait elsewhere, but if the client wants them there I’m obliged to allow it. Again, so far I haven’t had an issue either from people who were also getting therapy or from those who were only observing.