Hi Travis, I am really saddened to hear that your professional peers do not think it possible to help with present belief systems. All training programmes should be offering up some of the masses of stuff which can be done.

I can’t run an entire training course in a small comment box on a blog entry, but I can offer up a couple of ideas to get people started…

Firstly, there are huge swathes of evidence to support belief updating with Scoratic questioning techniques and other assessment and thought distortion questioning models to identify and update irrational and outmoded beliefs.

Secondly, there are also many, many processes that aid cognitive restructuring by managing how we think in the present day. When we alter our thoughts, our state and our behaviours and cognitions, then beliefs tend to follow suit.

I am not suggesting the past is dismissed, I certainly think it should be respected… But there are so many things people can be doing in the now to enhance who and how they are.

When you talk about ‘releasing negative emotions from past experiences’ they are still being experienced in the ‘now’. In fact the ‘now’ is all we have in reality. How we deal with these moment that are ‘now’ is what ultimately effects our lives.

Good hearing from you Travis.

I was originally trained in regression therapy and have since stopped using it because of the obvious pain that it brings up in session… it just didn’t seem very nice of me to have my client regress back to a rape experience when she was 5.

Instead of doing regression, I’m now using meridian therapy/anchor collapse as a more gentle way of releasing negative emotions from past experiences. It works very well, but clients are still quite hesitant about “ripping off the band-aid” and delving into the past for resolution of their present condition.

I should it *should* be possible to help clients make changes without going to the past at all. However, the greatest transformations I’ve helped my clients make have been by going back and resolving the “ISE”, using either desensitization, anchor collapse or meridian therapy.

If the past provides experiential references for our beliefs, then is it even possible to change the present belief system without first bringing resolution to those past experiences that the belief is built on?

All the therapist I know seem to say that it is impossible to change the present belief system without some “healing” of the past. I’m really curious to know your take on the matter…

Thanks for reading!

Thanks for that Matt, I have been mentioning the article elsewhere, even though it is actually a bit of a late discovery by the Guardian as this work was orginally cited and quoted a few years back. Great stuff none the less, your contributuions are always very welcome 🙂

Richard, delighted to hear it.

I was expecting today´s blog to be about this.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2010/sep/30/hypnosis-neuroscience-psychology

Matt.