Conferences

A jointly organised conference of three sister medical Societies of Hypnosis was held in June 2009 at the Royal Society of Medicine. The three socieites being: The British Society of Clincial and Academic Hypnosis. The British Society of Clincial and Academic Hypnosis (Scotland). The Section of Hypnosis and Pyschosomatic Medicine at the Royal Society of Medicine

The programme and abstracts for day one appear below

Conference Papers and Abstracts

9:30 – 10:10        Ann Williamson.  Self Hypnosis and Wellbeing.

10:10 – 10:50      Michael Capek.  Healthy Emotional Skills.

    Coffee

11:20 – 12:00      David Byron.  I have a dream: The use of hypnosis with sleep and vision.

12:00 – 12:40      Geoff Ibbotson.  Treatment of PTSD using hypnosis and imagery.

     Lunch

13:40 – 14:20      Gill McCall.  Meaningful metaphor – Creating affect behind the scenes.

14:20 – 15:00      Deborah Mairs-Houghton.  Hypnosis as adjunct to CBT in the treatment of OCD.

15:00 – 15:40      Wilma Sponti.  Respect, emotion and time distortion.

       Tea

15:50 – 16:30      Deborah Bowden. A randomised controlled blind trial of the effects of Reiki and positive imagery on the immune system and well-being.

16:30 – 17:10      Peter Naish.  Hypnosis and the hemispheres.

Ann Williamson

In the current climate, where positive psychology and happiness studies are in the news, I would like to explore (a) what do we mean by wellbeing, (b) how we could measure it and (c) the place within this context for self hypnosis, meditation and other ways that we might utilise to increase our sense of wellbeing.  Arguably, it is part of our duty of care when seeing a client to teach self hypnosis in some way, so in this paper I would like to explore with examples some of the ways we might make it a vehicle for wellbeing.

Michael Capek

Healthy Emotional Skills are the skills that a person needs in order to function emotionally in life. Through observation of  people around me and from my clinical practice I have developed a list of what seem to be the key skills.  This paper will propose that a person becomes psychologically dysfunctional when this skill mix is  overwhelmed.  For certain people there may be one or two lacking, for  others an array missing. In reality the skills will be there -  just under-developed. The relevance to clinical practice is that if  the under-developed skills can be identified, it provides a focus for therapy that will have long lasting benefits.

David Byron

Is it possible to help a 60 year old, frustrated and angered by suffering from over 25 years of insomnia, who cannot fall asleep until 6:00 a.m.? This paper considers the use of hypnosis, with applied psychology and EMDR, to facilitate sleep and the attainment of goals with reference to and evaluation of  clinical casework.

Geoff Ibbotson

This presentation demonstrates Practice Based Evidence of treatment delivered in a normal NHS setting.  Outcome audit data will be presented from clients treated in a Primary Care Mental Health Unit in the North West of England.  The audit tools used were Clinical Outcomes Routine Evaluation (CORE) and the Impact of Event Scale (IES).  These instruments were administered at the beginning and end of therapy. Data will also be presented on the number of sessions of treatment and it will be seen that 70% had treatment completed in 6 or fewer sessions.

A typical case will be described in detail in order to demonstrate the techniques used.

Gill McCall

Some of us enjoy using metaphor in our work; some of us would even classify ourselves as Ericksonian therapists. Certainly, we may pat ourselves on the back and feel pleased with an apparent parallel that seems to fit with the patient’s narrative and allow for a therapeutic reframe; but

Why does metaphor work?

Where might we look for metaphorical inspiration?

When do we introduce metaphor into the therapeutic space?

How do we know the metaphor is being accepted?

This presentation will discuss the rationale that underpins the use of metaphor.  It will

explore sources for inspiring metaphor, including allegory, fable, poetry, parable and your holiday photos! Therapeutic themes will include raising self-esteem/ego, improving self-image, empowerment and objectivity.

Deborah Mairs-Houghton

This case presentation describes the use of hypnosis as an adjunct to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy in the ongoing treatment of a young female suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Her compulsions are to clean.

It describes some of the key elements in the treatment of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and how hypnosis is being used to help the client change her responses to her personal triggers.

The presentation will outline the client’s use of the therapist’s suggestions and images and how these are further developed and personalised by the client.

Wilma Sponti and Anna Maria Rapone

The authors will firstly present evidence of how the matrix of each psychotherapy is based on the non-specific factor of relationship,  then  evidence of how the synergetic use of Ericksonian Hypnosis and Systemic Relational Psychotherapy models helped them in the case of a boy who was terminally ill with cancer. The importance of minimal cues and hypnotic rapport will be stressed. 

Hypnotic Time Distortion was utilized to contain the boy’s dramatic feelings.  Through  a careful observation of the minimal cues of the patient, with respect to his space and time, and the  emotional resonance of a shared pain, the therapist could take charge of the young patient  and co-create a context and a space of freedom.

Deborah Bowden

35 healthy psychology undergraduates were randomly assigned to three self-hypnosis/relaxation groups, each subdivided by Reiki and no-Reiki. Participants experienced ten 20-minute intervention sessions over a period of two and a half to 12 weeks. Participants where blinded to Reiki group membership, where non-contact Reiki was directed towards the Reiki group by the experimenter who sat behind the participants as they experienced self-hypnosis or guided relaxation. Salivary cortisol was assessed pre-post intervention as were self-report measures of illness symptoms, mood, sleep and mindfulness. While the Reiki Group had a tendency towards a reduction in illness symptoms, a substantive increase was seen in the No-Reiki group - leading to a highly significant distinction between the groups. The Reiki group also had a near-significant comparative reduction in stress, although they also had significantly higher baseline illness symptoms and stress scores. Although the results are inconclusive due to the unequal baseline scores, they possibly suggest that the Reiki buffered the substantive decline in health seen in the no-Reiki group, which may have arisen due to the rigors of the academic year.

Peter Naish

Among members of the clinical community it is commonly asserted (directly or indirectly) that hypnosis is a ‘right-brain’ phenomenon.  The notion seems to have been based largely upon quite dated observations of split-brain patients; recent evidence relating to hypnosis is rather scant.  This paper will explore the general links between dissociative phenomena and rightward shifts in brain activity, and will describe data that do indeed support the right hem

The enjoyable social networking aspect of conference is shown here in photograpohic form