Discovery Hypnosis

WELCOME TO

DISCOVERY HYPNOSIS

LET US SHOW YOU HOW TO TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR LIFE, CHANGE UNDESIRABLE HABITS, IMPROVE YOUR HEALTH AND ACHIEVE “WHAT YOU NEVER THOUGHT POSSIBLE”.

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DISCOVERY HYPNOSIS

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discovery-hypnosis-nh

We practice Mindful Hypnosis

A close look at the processes, goals, and outcomes of both mindfulness meditation and clinical hypnosis reveals that they share fundamental similarities of purpose and practical knowledge. Within the framework of a trusting therapeutic relationship, we regularly employ Guided Mindfulness Meditation (GMM) in the same way we use clinical hypnosis. We help you discover how self-regulation strategies, such as how the use of your breath and guided imagery, can shift attention and help you experience the deep power within your subconscious mind. Both GMM and clinical hypnosis involve two people: a guide(teacher, or clinician), who uses suggestion to focus then alter the cognitive, sensory, relational, and emotional awareness of a client or student, to promote positive change. These alterations in awareness may give rise to dramatic and seemingly spontaneous shifts in perspective and even profound personal transformation as one’s self-definition expands. Hence, the word “BICE”.

o If you Believe it strongly enough…
o If you can Imagine it clearly enough…
o If you Convince yourself it will be…
o If you Expect it to be…

Then it probably will be!

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What is it and how does it work?

Hypnosis is a natural state of being that we all experience in some form, every day. Have you ever been so absorbed in a good book, movie or music that you don’t notice when someone speaks to you? Have you caught yourself in a daydream or get ‘lost in thought’? Have you ever left work, climbed into your car, pulled into your driveway and discovered that you don’t remember driving home? That’s hypnosis.

Hypnosis involves a narrowed focus of attention, with absorption in the inner experience. You will find yourself detached from your immediate surroundings but you remain awake, aware and in full control. 

During a hypnotherapy session, you are guided to relax down beneath the flow of your habitual patterns of thinking, This creates a narrowed focus of attention on the particular issues and goals you bring to therapy. Although your body is generally very relaxed, your subconscious mind will be very attentive. Hypnosis allows a receptive, open state of awareness, where suggestions can be accepted and embedded, without the critical analysis we so consciously engage in. 

Mindfulness based hypnosis is about learning to relax with and accept your present experience and to let go of troublesome thoughts, emotions and feelings. You can accept an unpleasant memory, a feeling of anxiety or self-doubt – that once would have really troubled you. Instead, you can calmly and non-judgmentally view that thought. From a place of calm relaxation it becomes much easier to discover choices to overcome undesirable patterns and habits, and to feel more confident in yourself.

Mindful hypnosis is not a magic wand, it’s not always an instant fix for every issue. It usually requires practice and persistence. It can be a powerful tool in bringing about positive change. Our goal is to help clients become self-empowered, to learn to enjoy the peaceful calm of mindfulness, and to utilize the powerful potential of self-hypnosis  – to bring positive change.

Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way; on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.’  (Jon Kabat Zinn,  Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction program).

Mindfulness is simply present moment awareness – watching, feeling and observing your life as it is happening.  We pay attention by simply noticing all the sensations and experiences that are occurring in the here and now – listening to sounds, watching our surroundings, noticing our thoughts, feeling our emotions, sensing our body – without judging or trying to change anything.  This noticing or self-awareness is known as the ‘observer state’ which can happen naturally when we relax, stay calm and simply notice.  Becoming an observer of our thoughts and emotions allows us to create a space between without letting them overwhelm us.  We can learn to allow thoughts and feelings to just exist, without needing to buy into them or allow them to drive our actions.

So often we spend time judging or criticizing our current experience, trying to fix ourselves or the way things are.  We want things to be different, better, more secure, easier – we find ourselves constantly striving, trying, fixing and worrying.  Our mind becomes stuck worrying about the future or ruminating about the past.

Mindfulness offers a way of noticing thoughts and feelings in an accepting and balanced way.  With time and practice, we can notice anxiety when it arises, watching it come and go in its own time.  Released from the grip of the worrying mind, we are free to feel and observe the present moment, to find that it is not as difficult and scary as our mind was telling us.   Mindfulness helps to increase a sense of  mental resilience and well-being.

Mindfulness also helps when your life is going well.  You can live more in the present moment You can be more focused, less stressed, and kinder to yourself and to those around you, You are more willing to forgive, have a greater enjoyment of life and your connection to the world around you.

Dissociation: The Driving Force. Both GMM and clinical hypnosis use suggestive methods to elicit beneficial, non-voluntary responses—suspension of pain, changes in undesirable habits and patterns, “spontaneous” feelings of compassion, and acceptance, These changes cannot be obtained through will-power.

A key to how this occurs can be found in the phenomenon of dissociation, which, simply defined, involves breaking a global, multifaceted emotional, sensory, and/or cognitive experience into its component parts. As soon as it is suggested that you focus on a specific stimulus, you experience, a sense of detachment from other thoughts or feelings. You’ are experiencing direct and indirect  dissociation. This focuses attention to one aspect of the experience, functionally separating it from the rest. When people speak about “parts” of themselves, as when someone says, “My head tells me this, but my heart tells me that,” or “Part of me cares, and the rest of me couldn’t care less,” they’re using the language—and suggested subjective reality—of dissociation.

During the experience of hypnosis, dissociation becomes evident when people respond without conscious effort, to a suggestion. For example, a clinician might suggest a feeling of lightness or warmth in the client’s body, and that the client allows this experience to develop. Without being aware of expending any effort to respond, the client readily experiences lightness or warmth that seems to “just happen.” Typically, the first time a client has this kind of dissociative experience, he or she is truly amazed.

In GMM, dissociation similarly becomes evident when people can separate themselves from their usual frames of reference. When someone drifts off into serenity through a narrowed focus on just the physical experience of breathing, the accompanying sense of depersonalization can be a beneficial dissociative response. The ability to detach oneself from one’s thoughts—externalizing angry or self-destructive thoughts by seeing them, for example, simply as “clouds passing in the sky”—has great therapeutic potential as a critical step in building impulse control, frustration tolerance, and reality-testing skills.

Mindfulness, may seem to many, like a mysterious, hidden, often spiritual source of energy or a kind of otherworldly magic that can grant profound gifts.  In fact, we understand this mindfulness phenomena much better as we study the empirically demonstrated mechanisms of clinical hypnosis.

GMM, just like hypnosis, incorporates active, directed suggestion to a client. Mindfulness is typically introduced in the context of a therapeutic relationship by a clinician  who understands it’s merits. He or she may say to the distressed client that “this will help,” and then begins the experience by conducting a guided mindfulness meditation. GMM engages the client’s attention and helps to focus on certain suggested experiences. These may involve breathing, scanning the body, meditating on acceptance, awakening to the truth, or cultivating compassion. Finally, the point is made, either implicitly or explicitly, that this experience will have some lasting impact on your well-being and that repeated practice will facilitate the desired effects. Is there any part of this process that does not rely on the use of suggestion to attain therapeutic results?

To acknowledge the inevitable role of suggestion in mindfulness is to acknowledge the principles and methods of clinical hypnosis. Hypnosis encompasses the study of how to compose and deliver suggestions that engage the client’s attention, foster a deep experiential absorption, and “spontaneously” elicit different kinds of empowering subjective experiences, such as analgesia or anesthesia for pain management or increased bodily and sensory awareness. Hypnosis, like mindfulness, encourages awareness and acceptance, especially an awareness of the personal resources one can bring to bear on a situation. All of the modern neuroscience of clinical hypnosis, and of mindfulness, emphasizes directing focused attention in clinically useful ways.

Some comments from others...

For the great human, who is reading this. You’re the most beautiful person, because you’re yourself. Everyone is beautiful in another way. You don’t have to care if you’re not like people want you to be – you should be like your heart and brain are telling you. If you don’t have something someone else has, remember – you have something, that person doesn’t have. Everyone has things, that no one has and that’s beautiful.

Mindfulness is simply being aware of what is happening right now without wishing it were different; enjoying the pleasant without holding on when it changes (which it will); being with the unpleasant without fearing it will always be this way (which it won’t).

Frequently Asked Questions

All hypnosis is self-hypnosis, it isn’t something that is ‘done’ to you.  Whenever you are thinking of something that is not happening in the ‘here and now’ then you enter a state of dissociation, that is, you are using your imagination to create or re-live images and experiences.  All of us have imagination.  We can either use to create stress and worry, or as a powerful agent for positive change and well-being. Hypnosis relies on your ability to imagine, and if you can also follow simple instructions, then you can be hypnotized.  The main thing is your willingness to allow yourself to relax and work together with the clinician.  Just about everyone can use hypnosis as a practical, therapeutic tool to make lasting changes in their lives.

You remain aware of your thoughts and feelings and will still feel like you are in control. You can bring yourself out of hypnosis whenever you want to; it’s always your choice how much you become immersed in hypnosis.

Some people think that being hypnotized will feel like an incredibly different ‘out of body’ experience, and sometimes it can be.  But more commonly, the experience will feel like daydreaming, drifting inwards, while still remaining aware of what is said to you. You feel very relaxed and tuned out from everyday worries and concerns. It doesn’t necessarily feel like something really different. After a session you will feel uplifted and relaxed. You may notice changes straight away, or effects may be subtle with a positive shift in how you are feeling.

You only need to discuss what you think is relevant to therapy and what you are comfortable talking about.  I am interested in helping you find solutions for your problems by focusing on your goals and the simplest steps to getting you there. Gaining some insight and understanding may help with this process but this does not involve unnecessary delving into the past.  The reason for using hypnosis is not to find out more information, but to reinforce the changes we have agreed on and to help them become instinctive for you.

I am a solution-focused clinician – more interested in finding ways to move forward toward a positive outcome We will not spend  a lot of time delving into the past. I will ask you about yourself and what your goals are from therapy. I will also ask about your strengths and resources so that together we can work out a plan of action and to optimize mindful  hypnosis for your benefit.

We’ll then work together to identify how you can stop struggling with your thoughts and feelings, to become the person you want to be, and take action towards leading the life that you want to live.  

That depends…. hypnosis can be a ‘quick fix’ for some problems, while for others it is best if you allow yourself the time to practice new learning.  Often, behaviors are really symptoms of underlying feelings like anxiety and lack of self-worth. Problems that have taken a long time to grow may need longer than a couple of sessions to resolve. I offer programs for problems that may need a bit more time (see below).

Again, it depends on how many sessions are required. I offer a 30 minute complimentary session to discuss the best plan. The initial session of 1.5 hours is $160.00 – this allows us time to talk about the problem and to start treatment. Further 1 hour sessions are $120.00. If your problems are longstanding or complex, I offer (4) 1 hour sessions for $395.00.  I may recommend some timeline work in addition to any programs outlined below. All programs require prepayment before the first session.

Initial session  90 mins $160.00  Follow-up sessions 60 mins $120.00  Four for three sessions $395.00

If you are like most people,  you’ve tried… and tried.  Whenever you react to a situation with the same old coping strategies (aka bad habits and patterns), your  subconscious mind is at work. For this reason, you react in the same ways over and over – even when you know it’s not helpful to do so. Often this results in anger, anxiety, avoidance, drinking too much, overeating, or other harmful behavior. Telling yourself that you ‘should’ change never really works for long. Resisting does not change the emotions that lie behind the problem behavior; ultimately emotions are far more powerful than logic.

Self-Assessment Questionnaire Intake & Release Form

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Sessions

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Initial Session

Follow-up Sessions

4 for 3 Sessions

About Allen

Hi,  I’m Allen Kelly, the founder and clinical hypnotherapist of Discovery Hypnosis. I originally began the study and practice of hypnosis in 1975. At that time, it  was an effort to improve my study habits and excel in nursing school. I graduated California State University, Sacramento School of nursing, in 1976 – with a BSN. I have since established and maintained the practice of both nursing and clinical hypnosis in all of the west coast states and Five of the six New England states.

My lifelong commitment to continuing education is evidenced by a rigorous schedule of professional certifications, continuing education seminars and workshops and online research in medical-surgical nursing, mindful meditation and hypnotherapy.
  • Clinical Hypnotherapy [1975] Sacramento, CA 
  • Bachelor of Science Nursing, (BSN) [1978] California State University, Sacramento, 
  • Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist [2005] Canyon College, Caldwell, Idaho 
  • Certified Medical-Surgical RN [2008-2023] Academy of Medical-Surgical Nurses (AMSN)
  • Hypnosis for Pain Management Certification [October 2013] American School of Clinical Hypnosis, Clinton, TN 
  • Washington State – Registered Clinical Hypnotherapist  (RCH) since 2013 (Washington State is one of only two states that requires education and certification verification to practice hypnotheraphy.)
 

Dr. Lynn Rossy Yoga Practice Videos

Lynn Rossy, PhD, is a health psychologist, author, researcher, and Kripalu yoga teacher specializing in mindfulness-based interventions for eating, stress, and workplace wellness. She developed a mindful eating program called Eat for Life. She is the President of The Center for Mindful Eating and Executive Director of Tasting Mindfulness. Below are links to Lynn’s Yoga practice videos.

Vide

73 MINDFULNESS EXERCISES

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