Book Reviews101
Healing Stories: Using Metaphors in Therapy Written
by a clinical psychologist and hypnotherapist this book has a foreword
by Michael Yapko. With such an introduction, you would of course expect
a great deal. Add to that the credentials that the author is director
of the Milton H Erickson Institute of Western Australia and the reader
suddenly expects their money's worth. I am happy to say every dollar of
the purchase price will be well spent. Burn's strength as a writer comes from his ability to structure and organise. This of course sounds initially at odds with a man who tells stories in an Ericksonian fashion, being guided by the unconscious. What non-Ericksonians often are unaware of though is how rehearsed and well-planned Ericksonian therapists actually are in the way they administer therapy - they just appear to be very casual. The book is suitable as a teaching aid for therapists in training to begin to get their confidence and understanding of storytelling and how it works. It is obvious from the writer's intricate and well-versed delivery that he has taught storytelling professionally. What also comes through very clearly in the book is a sense that all therapists can become good therapeutic storytellers by systematically breaking down the process into the steps that the writer suggests. The surprise in reading the book was that, as a therapist, I was also examining my own storytelling techniques as I read, which was a good self-assessment for me. I picked up on what I could do better in my own work so the book was very useful for me as a trained therapist too. There was a sort of checking program running as I evaluated and considered new ways of telling stories. I laughed when I abandoned the technical analogising and just enjoyed the stories themselves. There is a great choice of stories and they are all formatted to elicit different outcomes with a wide range of clients. Sometimes I find myself reading so much technical psychobabble that I forget to enjoy reading, but here I was able to have both. Burns tells us that the two components that make a good therapeutic storyteller are skill and art. The skill he delivers through his instruction as well as rehearsing the reader in effectively constructing healing stories. The art he encourages through suggesting that the reader goes on to rely upon their own life experiences to construct stories of their own that can be used in an engagingly effective teasing-out of the client's cognitive processes and resources. Since much of storytelling depends on indirect suggestion via association and modelling, Burns, as an Ericksonian, is well equipped to teach us in his own inimitable style. What makes this book special is the fact they he helps the reader to make storytelling fun and intriguing, which not only bypasses our own resistance, but also that of the client. This is a book written by an exquisite healing storyteller for storytellers who want to heal with stories exquisitely. Review by Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH
The
Wild Genie: The Healing Power of Menstruation This is a book about women experiencing their menstrual cycle and how to move from suffering to celebrating that, often hidden, biological function. The author, now a psychotherapist, started as an education professional, and it shows in the beautiful way she puts across the stories of many women's experiences and the clear and communicative layout of information. Pope says that modern society has robbed women of their right to menstruate and has medically and clinically turned it into something to be cured, rather than seen as a natural lunar event. The author suffered for many years with endometriosis and learned, by using many different therapies, to empower her own healing process. What is interesting is how she views the menses as a physically induced altered state which, considering the dissociation experienced by many women, makes a lot of sense. Many women also experience profound changes in personality and intense depression during the pre and post menstrual period, which could be handled better if a person structured their life more holistically, as the book suggests. Although the book does not specifically refer to hypnosis it does use Alpha states such as meditation and visualisation that amount to hypnotic processes. As hypnotists we do tend to be displacing, converting and moving sensory experiences of pain, when what the author of this book suggests is that women head into their pain, embrace it, and pass through it to relief. There are
powerful images suggested of the Wild Genie who is let out of the bottle
during the time of menstruation. She can wreak havoc, howl at the moon,
connect with the earth, commune with her sisters My only gripe about the book is that some of the dietary advice includes animal products and for me as a vegan practitioner, I would not use that part of the book. However, the rest of the book and the way it induces clients to use natural remedies and medications, herbs, and self-healing is excellent. I strongly recommend this book to all therapists, and particularly men who often really and truthfully have little knowledge about what happens to women experientially during their menstrual cycle. I have always asked about and considered women's menstrual cycles and their course during clinical diagnosis and working out a treatment plan to help them, whatever they want to achieve, but I know many therapists do not do so out of ignorance or fear of embarrassment. Using this book with clients by tasking them to read it at home will save a great deal of time and explaining within the clinical environment and allow those clients to have much more efficacy in their own development. This is a very informative and enjoyable book, which celebrates the positive experience of menstruation. Review by Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH
The
Letters of Milton H Erickson This foray into Milton Erickson's correspondence gives a wider view of his thinking and activities in psychotherapy, clinical and experimental hypnosis and the development of brief therapy. It reaffirms him as indeed the pioneer and father of brief strategic therapy that his many disciples repeatedly set him up to have been by the letters he received from his contemporaries. All posthumous publications in many ways leave great thinkers exposed in that they are unable to answer their criticism. Here, however, the editors have allowed the selection of letters to voice Erickson's manipulative personality and experimental difficulties as well as his inspirational inventiveness. Only by allowing readers to see the whole Erickson can we place him in perspective with regard to the development of historical and modern psychology, psychotherapeutic practice, medical theory and particularly psychosomatic theory. What becomes evident is how political as a therapist Erickson was and how extremely manipulative in guiding the forming of clinical and academic recognition of the use of hypnosis in the US. Erickson always admitted that he had gathered his protectors around him in his early day as a student and psychiatrist, but never before has the public been able to see his persistent guardedness of the reins of power in editing the Journal of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis. What also becomes clear is how some academic members of American hypnotherapy associations have pursued their career aims above those of the therapeutic betterment of hypnosis. The confusion of who should be allowed to practice therapeutic hypnosis is as fuzzy today as it was when Erickson was attempting to lead and clarify such matters. What is clear from this publication is that fraud is as rife in established academia as it is in lay hypnotherapy. There are no methodological revelations in this collection of letters but what is important to all those who are Ericksonian or who want to study Erickson is that they are able to see the development of his brilliant mind and methodology. Erickson was always cautious of laying down the parameters of his greatly accumulated skills, evidently understanding that treatment paradigms come and go in fashion. What he understood above all other psychotherapists is that the meeting of the patient on their own terms allows the kind of empathy to develop between clinician and patients that allows the clinician to guide the patient towards therapeutic goals. Many of Erickson's
strategic therapeutic solutions to patient's problems would today be considered
unethical in an age of greater ethical regulations, but one can distil
the essence of his teachings that can be applied in the clinical context.
He did, after all, always teach that he was not necessarily teaching content
but context. This is an essential collector's book for those who seek
to understand the development of hypnosis in co-ordination with brief
therapy and medicine. Jeffrey K
Zeig, PhD is the founder and director of the Milton H Erickson Foundation
in Phoenix, Arizona. Website:
http://www.erickson-foundation.org/
Better
Birthing with Hypnosis Leclaire proposes her own birthing system deriving her theory from the Lamaze method and even Read ideologies, but basically suggesting a female reliance on instinct during the birthing process. Whilst she gives a nodding acknowledgement and disclaimer with regard to obstetrics, one cannot help but register her intense dislike of the medicalisation of childbirth by the medical profession. It seemed to slip her attention that the infant mortality rate during the 20th century improved beyond recognition because of the intervention by medical professionals. However, she is, as as a mother of three, spot on when she suggests the natural method of vaginal birthing and the profound reduction of caesarean sections by assimilating the mother to the birthing process instead of separating her from it through excessive surgery and drugs. Babies, after all, are much happier being born upside down, allowing gravity to assist squatting mothers than being pulled out horizontally, and I suppose if you wanted to encapsulate Leclaire's philosophy, you would have to call it personal centered birthing. Obstetricians are being sued nowadays for damage to patients inflicted years ago through forceps. Midwives in Australia have also had considerable trouble getting good priced professional insurance of late. The book's title is somewhat misleading because the hypnosis is only a small element of the text and is very small in consideration of the main content about how to have a happy healthy pregnancy, birth and postpartum. The tapes that are constantly referred to throughout out can be sent off for to supplement Leclaire's birthing method and inevitably they will work for some people but not for others. There is also an analytical section on how to resolve life issues during pregnancy to clear the way for a happy birth. The suggestion that a person consults their analyst on issues strikes me as odd, especially in the US, a country where a major proportion of births are to poverty stricken single teenage mothers. For me as a woman who has never had children I found her birthing advice quite good. However, she failed to acknowledge that for many women, birthing is traumatic and painful, not because they are not trying or because they are not positive, but because birth in reality is meant to be life changing. For many women though, books like this will move them towards a more pain free and enjoyable birth. To be fair, this book is not aimed at professionals in hypnosis but at the parents to be, and if one is isolated on a property in the outback it could be an education. While I would be happy to recommend it for professionals to read and use with their clients, I would be wary of recommending clients to use the tapes that are mentioned in the book as I believe listening to a tape for hypnosis made by someone else needs that tape to be designed specifically for that individual, and one size does not fit all. Dr ONeill is a Registered Nurse and a Clinical Psychologist. Her post Doc work and training is in Psychoneuroimmunology. Her hypnosis training is from UCLA and Loyola, AIH and the Simonton Cancer Center. Review by Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH
Hartland's
Medical and Dental Hypnosis: Fourth Edition John Hartland (1901-1977), an MD, published his first edition of this volume, which has become a standard textbook for many studying hypnosis. Each edition has been a publication in its own right, taking on the knowledge, experience and perspective of the relevant authors. This edition by Heap, a Sheffield-based psychologist and Aravind a Rotherham-based general practitioner, both in Britain, also takes on the character of their knowledge and perspectives on hypnosis and its uses with clinical environments. Whilst this book does contain a great deal of information that can be useful to the reader and student of hypnosis, it does lack finish. Some of the research is without doubt inconclusive and selective, meaning that the editors do miss out major contributions to the field because they evidently do not fit in with their idea of what hypnosis might be or who practises it. What appears to be academic snobbery unfortunately is nothing less than scientific blindness. The editors' approach to hypnosis being an almost totally psychologically explainable phenomenon leaves the readers with a feeling of being cheated of the whole scientific viewpoint. The cursory dismissal of the NLP craze that has swept much of the globe over the past twenty years seems trite and inexcusable. Also the dubious use of negative governing suggestion once again lets this publication down. The circumstances under which hypnosis is safely practised is also very scarcely researched. All in all,
the novice to hypnosis will gain a lot of knowledge from this book but
the reader should not take all they read as chapter and verse or a scientific
consensus. What would be really interesting to any reader is to glean
the information within and then cross-check the other clinical options
on the same subjects. Review by Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH
Time
Distortion in Hypnosis: An Experimental and Clinical Investigation:
Second Edition. This is a reprint of the original work first published in 1959 by the authors. Since time distortion is a fundamental tool used by hypnotists today it is imperative for all hypnotists to have a profound and concise understanding of the phenomena. Hypnosis can give both the participant and the operator great opportunities to bend subjective time to facilitate goal-orientated tasks in trance. It is rare that a reprint ever stands the test of experimental or clinical intellectual retrospection. This book will be a great joy for the experienced and novice reader in hypnosis. One of the huge criticisms of Erickson's work has been what is often cited as his anecdotal style of teaching therapy by the use of qualitative reporting of his cases. Cooper and Erickson, however, do show us the mechanics and clarity of their research which at times has such simplicity and lack of pretension that it is deeply engaging to those who spend their lives working with hypnosis. What is also very nice about this book is that it squarely relates the findings of the authors' research into experimental and experiential time distortion to the clinical and practical application of those observed phenomena. Of course today we as clinicians are constantly using time distortion techniques derived from this and similar research such as pseudo-orientation in time, time line therapy, accelerated learning, photoreading, time contraction and expansion. Historically
to reprint this book is an act of profound literary responsibility by
the publishers and they should be congratulated for their insight. A practitioner
of hypnosis can gain so very much from having the opportunity to read
works such as this, which would otherwise be unobtainable, and exclusively
the property of distant reference libraries. For students studying hypnosis
this is indeed a must for their collection of experimental and clinical
references in time distortion. Review by Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH
Hypnosis
and Suggestibility: An Experimental Approach This book, first published in 1933, was undoubtedly a milestone and landmark in hypnosis in its time. Hull (1888-1952) was a psychologist and experimenter at Wisconsin university and later at Yale became a past president of the American Psychological Society. He was Milton Erickson's professor at the university of Wisconsin and largely responsible for igniting Erickson's experimental thirst for research, although Erickson never really acknowledged fully Hull's contribution to hypnosis in that area. This book was largely responsible for new interest in hypnosis at that time particularly after a very dry period of interest and experimentation in the subject because of Freud publicly turning his back on the subject. The criticism and cynicism that Hull received for his work was largely responsible for him distancing himself somewhat from hypnosis and later focusing on behaviorism. It is important for the reader to understand the way in which hypnosis was viewed by the scientific community of the time as hocus pocus mysticism. As Crown Publishing includes this book in its run of republications, Michael Yapko cautiously writes a new introduction, attempting to places Hull's work in its historical context. For its time this book conveyed a disciplined and experimental approach to the subject of hypnosis in the way it investigated and considered the phenomenon. It is a very interesting read for the seasoned hypnosis student practically who may consider Hull's techniques of inducing hypnosis by grammophone as naive. What does come across strongly, however, is his deep commitment to the genuine scientific experimental approach. This is a
thoroughly interesting read for any hypnotist and certainly a valued addition
to any library that considers hypnosis in its historical context. It is
a great pleasure to be able to access this material via reprinting and
I would advise any serious hypnotist to get their copy while stocks last.
Review by Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH
Hartland's
Medical and Dental Hypnosis: Fourth Edition John Hartland (1901-1977), an MD, published his first edition of this volume, which has become a standard textbook for many studying hypnosis. Each edition has been a publication in its own right, taking on the knowledge, experience and perspective of the relevant authors. This edition by Heap, a Sheffield-based psychologist and Aravind a Rotherham-based general practitioner, both in Britain, also takes on the character of their knowledge and perspectives on hypnosis and its uses with clinical environments. Whilst this book does contain a great deal of information that can be useful to the reader and student of hypnosis, it does lack finish. Some of the research is without doubt inconclusive and selective, meaning that the editors do miss out major contributions to the field because they evidently do not fit in with their idea of what hypnosis might be or who practises it. What appears to be academic snobbery unfortunately is nothing less than scientific blindness. The editors' approach to hypnosis being an almost totally psychologically explainable phenomenon leaves the readers with a feeling of being cheated of the whole scientific viewpoint. The cursory dismissal of the NLP craze that has swept much of the globe over the past twenty years seems trite and inexcusable. Also the dubious use of negative governing suggestion once again lets this publication down. The circumstances under which hypnosis is safely practised is also very scarcely researched. All in all,
the novice to hypnosis will gain a lot of knowledge from this book but
the reader should not take all they read as chapter and verse or a scientific
consensus. What would be really interesting to any reader is to glean
the information within and then cross-check the other clinical options
on the same subjects. Review by Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH
Time
Distortion in Hypnosis: An Experimental and Clinical Investigation:
Second Edition. This is a reprint of the original work first published in 1959 by the authors. Since time distortion is a fundamental tool used by hypnotists today it is imperative for all hypnotists to have a profound and concise understanding of the phenomena. Hypnosis can give both the participant and the operator great opportunities to bend subjective time to facilitate goal-orientated tasks in trance. It is rare that a reprint ever stands the test of experimental or clinical intellectual retrospection. This book will be a great joy for the experienced and novice reader in hypnosis. One of the huge criticisms of Erickson's work has been what is often cited as his anecdotal style of teaching therapy by the use of qualitative reporting of his cases. Cooper and Erickson, however, do show us the mechanics and clarity of their research which at times has such simplicity and lack of pretension that it is deeply engaging to those who spend their lives working with hypnosis. What is also very nice about this book is that it squarely relates the findings of the authors' research into experimental and experiential time distortion to the clinical and practical application of those observed phenomena. Of course today we as clinicians are constantly using time distortion techniques derived from this and similar research such as pseudo-orientation in time, time line therapy, accelerated learning, photoreading, time contraction and expansion. Historically
to reprint this book is an act of profound literary responsibility by
the publishers and they should be congratulated for their insight. A practitioner
of hypnosis can gain so very much from having the opportunity to read
works such as this, which would otherwise be unobtainable, and exclusively
the property of distant reference libraries. For students studying hypnosis
this is indeed a must for their collection of experimental and clinical
references in time distortion. Review by Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH
Practising
Safe Hypnosis: A Risk Management Guide This book is a very brave attempt to cover what is a deserving subject of the culpability of damage to people from side effects due to having undergone hypnotic procedures. It is not, however, what the title professes it to be - a risk management guide. Hambleton, a lawyer who also holds a Bachelor's degree in psychology and criminology, a Master's degree in law, MPhil research degree from Manchester University, and an advanced practitioner diploma in clinical hypnotherapy, fails to grasp many of the principles of the application of hypnosis. The most profound mistake that Hamilton makes is that he normalises hypnosis. Damage that is caused to people under hetero-hypnosis is rarely initiated by the hypnosis itself but by the ineptitude in suggestion or negligence on behalf of the hypnotiser. The author gives almost no criteria by which hypnosis can be used in a profoundly safe manner and the reader is left with the sense that he is very poorly read in hypnosis and its applied therapeutic uses and contraindications. Hambleton's hypnosis research at the beginning of the book seems to have been guided solely by a literature search and never with contact with people who may have been damaged by hypnotic procedures. The literature search is selective and contradictory. He quotes major hypnotists saying they believe people can and are damaged during hypnotic procedures and others who believe the opposite. In his conclusions he ignores those who presents evidence that people can suffer damage during hypnotic procedures. He personally has plainly joined the lobby that deludes itself that all in the garden is rosy and hypnosis applied inappropriately will do nothing more then annoy people. Those using hypnosis would do well to remember the principles of do no harm, and this makes the first half of his book very dangerous. However, the book changes halfway through when he addresses the legal implications of accusations of damage due to hypnotic procedures in the fields of research, clinical practice and entertainment. Hambleton, who has been both a prosecutor and defender, clearly understands the artful dodger characteristics of the law in England, America and Australia where it is virtually impossible for those damaged during hypnotic procedures to gain redress via the legal system. It seems that courts have refused time and time again to recognise the grievances of those who have been damaged using hypnotic procedures in any circumstance. When hypnotists can never be sued for their mistakes and negligence, society is truly failing to uphold the safety of the public. I have during my career met many people who have been severely disturbed and damaged in the short and long term by the inappropriate use of hypnotic procedures both in clinical settings and due to stage hypnosis. I have also met many academics and people selling hypnosis trainings and services that refuse to acknowledge that the dangers of procedures applied inappropriately in co-ordination with hypnosis can be as harmful as running a car into a tree. When the car is driven properly it is a useful and often life-saving tool, but when the same car is driven recklessly it is a maiming and killing machine. This book is written by a lawyer who confirms the idiom that justice is really achievable in law. Those who win in the courts are normally the ones with the smartest lawyers, and who have the money to carry on legal cases until the other side is bankrupt or driven insane by the legal process. Review by Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH
Metaphoria:
Metaphor and Guided Metaphor for Psychotherapy and Healing. This is a very well written book, which makes it a pleasure to read and even though it is about metaphor it has a disciplined readable structure. That is, it is a metaphor for the construction and delivery of metaphor, not just from an intuitive basis, but as a scientific perspective within the fields of healing and self-development. The accessibility draws the reader in for a good read and many stories about stories. The author teaches courses in the Department of Human Services as Adjunct Professor at Wright State University, and is president of the Milton Erickson Society of Dayton Ohio. He also has a practice specialising in very brief therapy in Yellow Spring Ohio. The foreword is by Stephen Lankton who has also written extensively about metaphor. Battino reviews major works in this field looking at and discussing the methodology of those practitioners as well as suggesting his own ways of working by using metaphor as a life changing experience. What is good, is that although much of his methodology is hypnotic, the text will also assist those who do not have a hypnosis training to understand the hypnotic effects of working with metaphor. Some of Buttino's other books include subjects such as use of guided imagery and Eriksonian approaches. He considers the history and structure of metaphor, its delivery, what makes metaphor work, application and use of metaphor for different disorders, maladjustments and diseases, language structure, Ericksonian delivery, and even the crossover to art and physical therapy as a metaphoric way of working. There are even sample scripts for his and other people's work. I highly
recommend this book for those learning to be storytellers and deliverers
of direct messages indirectly. It can also be a very good read for clinicians
who have been in practice for many years as a form of refresher and self-monitoring
tool of one's clinical practice skills. Review by Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH
Pioneer
Video Collection It is interesting that The Milton Erickson Foundation over the past twenty years expanded beyond its roots in the diversity of material they now sell to the wider public, much of which was often only available in university libraries or psychology departments. Its roots were in Erickson's books but now in addition to its books, audiotapes and CDs is a videotape collection that can be shipped anywhere in the world. Footage includes well known therapists in other fields like Rogers, Perls, Satir, Whitaker, Rossi, Wolpe, Beck and many more. Erickson was eclectic in his own way with dashes of Jung, Braid, Frankl and anyone's methods he could purloin to develop his own method of helping a client. Erickson himself was a man who believed that a wide diversity of knowledge was one of the keys to expanding the mind and to a therapist finding their own core talents. These tapes, as well as being used by therapists themselves and in supervision, can also be used in training to show us first hand the qualities of those therapists. I remember reading about cataleptic hands for months before I saw it induced in a hypnotic participant. When I saw Erickson do it on screen, my understanding moved to a whole new level. Second, third and fourth hand accounts of great therapists can often lose the essence of what they may actually have been doing, so to see them working first hand is both fascination and profoundly inspiring. Review by Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH
M.E.,
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia - The Reverse Therapy™
Approach What is often the result of an initial viral infection like the Epstein Barr virus can be seen to linger for many years as the patients experience sometimes more than a decade of tiredness, lethargy, temperature fluctuation, depression and mysterious gastrointestinal disorders - all of which generally get listed under non-specific etiologies. Eaton was trained as an Ericksonian hypno-psychotherapist, psychologist, NLP trainer and rational emotive therapist in England. He writes about the roots of Reverse Therapy coming out of his own background and the experimentation that he and a colleague did with ME sufferers in the early 2000s to what he says was great success. From his frank explanation of his ideas in the book, it is not hard to believe his claims. As hypnotists we are faced daily with clients suffering from psychosomatic manifestations in all bodily systems totally out of the client's unconscious awareness. Eaton in his therapy seeks the positive intent behind the symptoms which he believes that patient has ignored which kept the person in the fight or flight response when they should be moving on to resolution of unprocessed life issues. It is very pleasing to see that he is certainly cautious and subjects patients to medical screening before commencing treatment - something that is often ignored in the world of NLP, psychology and brief therapy. His therapy renames these disorders as hypothalamitis because he believes that they stem from the emotional over-stimulation of the hypothalamus, adrenal and thyroid glands. There is much anecdotal and serious scientific study to support his hypothesis. Although he adamantly maintains that Reverse Therapy is not hypnosis or psychotherapy, but mind body/therapy, the kind of bridging techniques and cognitive externalisation he uses does not convince me. Mind/body therapy is the premise of the hypnotists and perhaps he is forgetting what a hypnotist he actually is in all the therapy that he does. Perhaps we can remember Mesmer's effect of curing thousands of people through his mysterious magnetic forces and how Bandler has managed to convince the NLP contingent that they are definitely not doing hypnosis whilst chuckling into the wings. This book is simply an introduction to Reverse Therapy but certainly I can recommend that all mind/body therapists read it, whether they are calling themselves hypnotists or not. At this point I shall disclose that John Eaton was once one of my teachers so I know his work well. When he comes to Australia, whether you're an MD, psychologist or hypnotist, try to catch him because he is definitely value for money. Dr John Eaton will visit Melbourne November 10-13 and 24-27, 2005, and will be in Perth in early November for the Conscious Living Expo. For more information on the practitioner training course for Reverse Therapy, contact Kathleen Haden by email at Kathleen@reverse-therapy.com. For general enquiries email info@reverse-therapy.com Review by Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH
Investigating
Stage Hypnosis In this book, Dr O'Keefe throws a searchlight on a subject that many hypnotherapists wish would go away. However, this somewhat head-in-the-sand attitude will not address the increasingly controversial problem of stage hypnosis. In her previous book, Trans-X-U-All: The Naked Difference, Dr O'Keefe's treatment of that subject was both enlightening and frank. She brings the same fresh incisiveness of thinking to her latest publication Investigating Stage Hypnosis. This is a book that deals with historical background, expert, professional and public statements and opinion, and legal processes. Many would argue that stage hypnosis as a form of entertainment has been with us for many decades, and as such does not present any problems. Some maintain that clinical hypnotherapists have had much to learn from the techniques of the state hypnotist and they were in fact the first hypnotists to use the method of trance state. This cliam, as O'Keefe points out, is not true - clinical hypnotism goes back to the days of Mesmer and further. Hypnosis was practiced by the medically and scientifically qualified well before the days of carpet-bagging traveling shows. Even if the above claim could be substantiated, it would be no reason to allow such practices to continue today. Surgeons and physicians date their skills from the days of the barber-surgeon and itinerant quack remedy men; however, there is no way they would countenance this type of practice today. They have moved forward - it would seem we have not. O'Keefe's book is both informative and disturbing. She considers the many and serious possible side effects that may be suffered by participants in stage shows and focuses on the legal case of Sharron Tabarn. Tabarn's death followed a visit to a stage hypnosis show in which she was a participant. When defining stage hypnosis and the stage hypnotist, O'Keefe writes: "The stage hypnotist is a showperson; their job is to entertain, and the long-term mental welfare of the subjects is not of the highest priority." Furthermore the hypnotist may not have had any training and may be self-taught. There is no requirement for such a person to hold any qualifications in their chosen career. There is another interesting chapter in which can be found statements from people who claim to have suffered side effects after being active participants in stage hypnosis shows. There is a chapter on some of the shows themselves. There is plenty of evidence from eminent medical and scientific professionals, including Erickson, Kroger, Waxman, Crasilneck, Misra and MacHovec, all warning of the dangers of unqualified practicing hypnosis; "included in the category were stage hypnotists". The author reminds us that there is an organisation - Campaign Against Stage Hypnosis - that exists and while this book is written with a clear concern to bring to our notice the urgency to press for protective legislation, it is also a fair, well-researched and reasoned documented publication. O'Keefe reminds us that as a therapeutic tool, hypnosis used by a trained therapists is a valuable instrument. As a form of entertainment it seems to result in the exposure of questionable behaviour both on the part of the performer and the volunteer. Apart from the dubious tastelessness of such entertainment (a subjective view, I admit, yet one shared by many), the essential knowledge which would include the history, both personal and medical, personality, and state of a volunteer is not possible in the time allotted. One-to-one constant attention, an important and responsible component of any therapeutic process, is not possible when part of the performer's awareness is audience-orientated. This is a publication that everyone concerned in the healing professions should read. We have to spend too much time allaying the concerns of our patients in respect of stage or TV shows relating to hypnosis. It is perhaps now time to stand up and be counted, express more concern and support the campaign for legislation for the banning of hypnosis for entertainment purposes. This review
originally appeared in the United Kingdom Council of Psychotherapy (UKCP)
journal. Review by Josephine Lyons, hypnotherapist, psychotherapist
Clinical
Applications of Hypnosis Gafner is the co-director of the hypnosis training program and director of the family therapy training program at Southern Arizona Veterans Affairs Care System. He is also the co-author of Handbook of Hypnotic Inductions and Hypnotic Techniques. This is really quite an astute teaching book and also the kind of book that it would be good for hypnotists to read as a refresher with regard to indirect hypnotic processes. What particularly appealed to me was its simplicity and Ericksonian style of learning by osmosis. It really was a most unpretentious and accessible work and I like the author's sometimes chatty style in giving advice and tips to therapists. While Garner addresses indirect induction he also goes on to extoll brief therapy through the unconscious learning model for problem resolution. He is also not shy of placing direct suggestion within the context of that model. For far too long Ericksonian clones have poo-pooed direct suggestion as being the cause of resistance but this author makes use of different therapy modalities to find a system to suit the client and encourages the reader to do so. This is what Erickson himself did, but not many who report Erickson show that he did this, even though his writings make it clear. For psychotherapists, psychologists, psychiatrists and counsellors this book gives a good foundation for understanding indirect hypnotism within the context of those paradigms and some of its applications. It particularly focuses on metaphorical ego-strengthening and supports the premise that this must be the foundation of all resolution. There are case studies and many suggestions for the kinds of metaphors that therapists can use. The author has particular interest in anxiety, trauma, depression and PTSD having worked for many years with veterans. While this
is not a book on medical hypnosis, although it does touch on gastrointestinal
disorders and comments on medical hypnosis, it might be wise for those
practising medical hypnosis to read this text. There is no greater curse
to a healer than knowing only the pathologisation and prescriptive allopathic
model of healing that often fails to understand the deeper holistic powers
of the synchronicity between mind and body healing. Review by Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH
Welcome
to the Dance: Caffeine Allergy: A Masked Cerebral Allergy and Progressive
Toxic Dementia It is rare that a book about a person's personal story should ever be reviewed in an academic hypnosis journal. I knew, however, as soon as the promotional material came across my desk, this would be one of those exceptions. I must declare at the beginning of this review that I am solely prejudiced towards the contents of this book, operating, as a practitioner from more of a naturopathic perspective than an allopathic philosophy. This is a book about one woman's battle with illness and huge mental health issues that included being diagnosed as manic depressive, ADD and schizophrenic. The turn of the coin years later, after also being diagnosed with joint problems and liver dysfunction, is that Ruth discovers her whole host of problems are derived from an extreme allergy to caffeine. Caffeine not only has the same effects on the brain as amphetamines but also has profound consequences in not allowing certain nutrients to be absorbed correctly by the digestive system. So we must ask ourselves whether she was poorly diagnosed in the first place and the answer would be profoundly yes if her history is exactly as she reports it to be. Since hypnotists generally tend to work in alpha and sometimes theta brainwave activity with their clients, then surely it is contraindicated to working with clients who are taking amphetamines and why would caffeine be any different? The answer is very simple: hypnotists are insufficiently trained in screening their clients' toxic digestive ingestion. And when I say hypnotists, I include psychiatrists who are medically trained. Ruth is a
medical technician who has put together this fantastic book with much
technical information. The first book of its kind on the perils of both
blatant caffeine ingestion and caffeine hidden in food, it is a competent
directory of cause and effect. It will be on my list of recommended books
for many of my clients to help them reach both mental and physical rebalancing
of disturbed states of mind and body. Review by Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH
Ex-Gay
Research: Analysing the Spitzer Study and Its relation to Science Religions,
Politics and Culture. In 1973 Dr Robert Spitzer, an American psychiatrist, was one of the main players in having homosexuality removed from The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) which the majority of the world's mental health professionals take as their format to identify pathologies. The removal of homosexuality from the DSM was heavily responsible for the growth and spawning of the the gay liberation movement and made Spitzer a legend. In 2001 Spitzer presented a study at the American Psychiatric Association meeting in New Orleans on persons who had undergone what is termed "Reparative Therapy", generally practised by religious groups, to rid individuals of their homosexuality, which was later published. The editors of this volume Drescher, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst; and Zucker Professor of Psychology & Psychiatry at the University of Toronto have done an excellent job in putting together many published papers and articles by eminent authors reviewing the Spitzer study. Although Sptizer's study seemed to be deeply methodologically flawed, it attracted considerable attention from the press and was seized upon by right-wing religious movements as evidence that gay people can be restored to heterosexuality. Since I am both a hypnotherapist and a sexologist I often have quite disturbed patients turning up at my practice demanding that I hypnotise them to no longer have same-sex liaisons and homoerotic fantasies. Such people always come from orthodox religious backgrounds or sectors of society where homophobia is rife and may seek hypnosis as a miracle cure. As hypnotherapists we need to proceed with extreme caution in these circumstances, being aware of the damage that repressed sexual desires can do to a patient both physically and mentally. Even though
in the end Spitzer's study was so flawed that it proved to be not noteworthy,
the surrounding political and sociological reactions to such research
can be as damaging as the Nazi's proclamations that Jews and Blacks were
of inferior intelligence. In a political climate when the Howard Government
has overturned the ACT's proposed Civil Union Act for same-sex couples
and the Bush administration pushes to ban gay marriage in America, this
volume is timely. I am with Freud on this one because he was clear when
he philosophised that science was pretty improvable, art a matter of perspective,
politics changeable but religion he warned - watch out for religion. Spitzer
in championing the recognition of more than one sexuality fell into the
dichotomous gay/straight abyss, thereby obfuscating from his study the
common sense that people are simply sexual. I recommended this fascinating
volume to every health professional who values science over conjecture
as it has plenty of eloquent and intelligent comment that clearly stands
out from pseudo-science. Review by Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH
Change
101 Bill O'Hanlon is a certified counsellor, a licensed marriage and couples therapist and long-time author who studied with Erickson and was one of the architects of solution-focused therapy. I had specifically requested to review this book ahead of Bill's workshops in Australia and I lay down the pages of a heavy text on the behaviour of retroviruses to read it. At 150 pages, I had expected much more text. In fact, I think I had expected a weighty book crammed with technicalities since Bill has been a therapist for so many years. What I got instead made me laugh. In fact, I got therapy myself as I was reading it because Bill, as always, keeps it simple and weaves his messages into tales. Or is it tales within tales? This is lovely book for people starting out as therapists who may have an interest in the logistics of brief solution-focused therapy. For those of us longer in the tooth it also offers a refresher about how simple therapy can really be if we stop being therapists and pay more attention to being observationalists. So I laughed halfway through in remembering how much I had probably forgotten as a therapist in trying to know more. I laughed at the end, knowing that I had enjoyed taking a break from theorising and returned to the sensible practicalities of therapy but maybe not, maybe I am still processing Bill's tales. The author
relays tales of positioning clients' motivational drives, getting the
client to chunk the perceived impossible into the im and the possible,
pattern interruption, recontextualisation, reframing, crisis evolution,
situational submodalities, change through relationships, coming to the
self, and finally how not to change. The title says it all really because
that is what the author does - examine basic motivational change techniques
- and very well. Review by Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH
Hypnosis This is a
volume of reprinted scientific papers on hypnosis stretching over a period
of some 75 years. Heap is British clinical and forensic psychologist working
out of the Wathwood Hospital, UK who has held various university teaching
posts. Kirsch was an academic and researcher at University of Connecticut,
USA and now holds the Chair of Psychology, School of Applied Psychosocial
Studies, Plymouth, UK. The book's subject matter include the birth of
hypnosis, theories of hypnosis, hypnotic suggestibility, hypnotic phenomenon,
neuropsychological and neurophysiologic research and theory, clinical
applications and professional and legal issues. Review by Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH
Sex
and the Law This very easy to read 150-page book provides exactly what the back cover promises - a clear, concise and up-to-date information on how the law in New South Wales relates to sexual matters. The book was put together specifically for healthcare professionals to help them understand relative issues concerning the areas of reproduction and sexual health on a day-to-day basis. It covers medical treatment and the law, consent to medical treatment, the law relating to reproduction, sexual health issues, and sexuality and sexual offences. It also goes through the complaints and liability obligations and processes in which health care workers may find themselves. It includes case histories and clarification in the law for NSW but those issues would certainly pertain to other states even though they may differ slightly. As health carers we have to be so very careful that we do not transgress the law, not only out of intention, but also due to negligence. The law in these areas is always changing and open to the interpretation of new judgments and what might have been ethical treatment of patients last year may get a practitioner into trouble this year. The added complication that Commonwealth law can supersede state law means that even supervisors are at times unclear if practitioners are working ethically when therapy touches on issues of sexual acts and client-patient interactions. As practitioners it often not the therapy that is taxing but the delivery of it can be a legal minefield. I not only recommend this book to all hypnotherapists, counsellors, psychotherapists, psychologists, social workers, nurses and medical practitioners but also would advise all therapy schools from a legal perspective to include it on their reading lists for students. Review by Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH
Milton
H Erickson, MD, Explorer in Hypnosis and Therapy (DVD) The DVD is essentially Haley and what a funny thing for me to say when talking about a DVD about Milton Erickson MD, the profoundest medical hypnotist of the 20th century. What I am referring to is that the way the DVD is put together with the Haleys' smoothness and beautiful narrative style. If that were just it, however, I would not be reviewing its content. It is a treasure chest of Erickson's life and story with interviews with just about everyone who came within 10 yards of Erickson. There are interviews with family, children, colleagues, ex-patients, Erickson's doctor and last but certainly not least Mrs Betty Erickson. Added to this is a cause celebre of American hypnosis academics. The only ones missing are Erickson's dogs who one gets the impression may come through in trance at any moment. This is indeed an American adventure story starring no less than Erickson himself, the cripple who became the doyen of hypnosis. Kidding apart, there is footage of Erickson, working throughout the years with everything from the Monde interviews to a teenage girl with great pain control. This DVD is really for hypnotists who do not know very much about Erickson. It may also be useful as a teaching aid to help teachers introduce students to a collection of hypnotic phenomena. It does not, however, give insight into hypnotic techniques that Erickson used or in-depth analysis of those techniques. Neither does it really broach his evolution of brief therapy but simply gives a series of snapshots of him working with hypnosis. If you are
beginning with hypnosis, then I would advise you, the novice hypnotist,
to see this DVD even though it portrays at times very much of an overview
of Erickson and his journey. In 60 minutes it would be hard and over-ambitious
to really reveal all about this very complex and incredibly resourceful
man and clinician. Coupling this DVD with reading Erickson's own works
would help the fledgling hypnotist have a much greater understanding of
hypnosis and its remarkable potential. On finishing this review I hear
that Jay Haley had just died, and how we in hypnosis will miss him but
are happy he has left us much food for thought. Review by Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH
Gay
Sex, Gay Health I reviewed this book the day after Sydney's' Mardi Gras weekend. I picked it up off the pile of books on my desk of books to be reviewed because during the proceeding week it became clear in the press how little heterosexuals really understand about gay people and their culture. When asked at the Mardi Gras party how I knew which people were the undercover cops looking to arrest revellers for drug possession, my reply was clear, "They are the ones that look as if they are afraid of being arrested." Vass is a gay British GP who has worked in sexual health and HIV as well as having been the medical editor for The British Medical Journal. He also wrote a weekly column for a British gay men's street magazine called Boyz. The book is written in very base language and is meant to be very 'street' and accessible to gay men however far they are into the gay culture. It could also be very useful with men who have sex with men but who are not gay; and whose wives do not know they have sex with men. As therapists we need to be giving good safe sex information to all men who have sex with men. When teaching heterosexual people about gay culture in seminars I am often faced with open mouths. This book could be useful for the therapists who are unenlightened about what men do in bed with men, and there are no holds barred here. It could also be useful for young gay guys coming out in the cites who need to know their way around the scene and how to avoid becoming HIV-positive yet still getting as much pleasure from sex with men as they can. The drawbacks
of the book are that it does not really deal with the emotional wellbeing
of gay men or the guy who is trapped in the closet in suburbia or country.
Whilst sucking, fucking and trolling with a condom on is a very good safe-sex
message for men having sex with men, many men may be engaging in unsafe
sex because of deeply unmet emotional needs. The book does, however, touch
on party drugs and sexually transmitted diseases in a realistic way which
has to be one of the main reasons a therapist could recommend the book
to men having sex with men to introduce and re-enforce the safe-sex message. Review by Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH
Hello
Cruel World Kate Bornstein is one of America's greatest thinkers, writers and performers on gender issues today. Her very ethos of existence is to operate outside the box just as if she was a self-assembly person designed by Edward De Bono, marketed by Ikea superstore and delivered with no instruction of how to put her together. Suicide is one of the great untalked about issues in society and many isolated and disturbed youngsters often take their own lives without warning. The pressures in society on young people to fit into the box provided by the media and commercialism means that many youngsters think they can never achieve unrealistic standards for supposed success. As therapists we will have at least one suicide amongst our patients during a career but we also have to respect the choices of all sane adults to end their own lives if they think that is right for them. We as therapists are, however, left thinking: Is there something else we might have done to help that person choose life? This book is precisely what the title implies for society's suicidal teenage oddballs. For those of use who often encounter teenagers with a high risk of suicide in our practices this book may be a tool towards reaching them on their own level. Such teenagers are not just city dwellers but silent misfits in the heart of gladioli suburbia or deep in the dust bowl of the country. Bornstein, having been trained in computers, seems to understand the usefulness of small-chunk delivery to the confused and depressed mind. The beginning of the book is her own story of walking close to the edge of death and she furtively challenges the reader to keep reading. As the book progresses, order settles and 101 one suggestions are offered and explored to help the reader consider how to stay alive. The sound bites are youth-centric and relate well to younger generations so as a therapist you may score points for being hip and not just the old cardigan and bifocals in the corner of the consulting room. Sure, most teenagers think they do not fit in at times but many who commit suicide do so because they do not know how to not fit in, in ways that can be powerful for them. This is not a book to give to the indoctrinated in the Assembly of God or the shy depressed school punchbag because Bornstein's revelations about herself may be too much in the first two chapters for the unworldly to handle in their moments of crisis. For the goth, queer or misfit, reading this book would be very good tasking for such clients in order to get them re-engaged again in the thinking process and not just acquiescing to reactive self-deprecation. Oh! And in
getting those teenage suicidal freaks to read this book, the best recommendation
you can give to the client is to tell them that it is small enough to
successfully hide from prying eyes. Review by Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH
Hypnosis
In Pediatric Practice: Imaginative Medicine in Action This documentary, which is what it calls itself, is an excellent piece of work. The editing and content inclusion gives a wonderful overview of hypnosis in pediatrics medicine, and in my opinion ought to be course material for all medical students and hypnotherapists. It does not intrude into the field of child psychotherapy or psychiatry but stays well within the field of the use of hypnosis in pediatric medicine. Sugarman is a community pediatrician in Rochester, New York, where he serves as Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. He is joined by Robert Adder, PhD, MD; Robert Haggerty, MD; Daniel P, Kohen, MD; Richard E. Kreipe, MD; and Karen Olness MD. All of these professional participants in this documentary seem to have considerable experience in both clinical hypnosis, biofeedback and psychoneuroimmunology in pediatrics. Included is footage of those clinicians working with children and hypnosis in the fields of pain control, dealing with needle phobias, nocturnal enuresis, psychosomatic gastrointestinal disorders, juvenile migraines, medication tolerance, end-stage renal failure, leukaemia and asthma. Also, what is of great use to the viewer is footage of follow-up where those patients have clearly benefited by hypnotic intervention. Many a GP and practice nurse would do well to have this teaching footage on their shelves. As is well pointed out pediatric hypnosis requires different criteria than other applications including different approaches to induction and post-hypnotic suggestions. There is great emphasis on getting the little patients to practise self-hypnosis under their own volitions without parental pressure. In order to foster the sense of trust between the clinician and the pediatric patient, the socio-behavioural theory that all hypnosis being self-hypnosis is laboured, which is the only major blind spot in the production. Of all the
footage of child hypnosis in pediatrics I have seen, this documentary
is one that medical libraries would wisely have as standard upon their
shelves. It is blatantly suggesting medication reduction using autonomous
pediatric self-care through hypnosis in a very wise and down-to-earth
way. This can be quite surprising and brave of the documentary's creators
when one learns that some of the funding for this project actually came
from drug companies. Review by Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH
Hypnosis
with Kids McNeilly was a general practitioner of medicine as a family doctor for ten years before being exposed to Milton Erickson in the 1970s. He is now one of Australia's most vocal proponents of Ericksonian style of hypnotherapy and counselling and a member of the Association of Solution Oriented Counsellors & Hypnotherapists of Australia (ASOCHA), which is a member of the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA). He has been teaching hypnosis and solution-focused learning in Melbourne and at congresses for 25 years, where he is a director of The Centre of Effective Learning. There is little doubt that McNeilly's style is Ericksonian, yet he does allow himself to have a counselling style of his own to come through his work. The first case presented is that of fighting twins whose behavior has become a problem for their family. He very cleverly manoeuvres the twins into utilising their existing fraternal resources in order to alter their interactive behaviours into a more compatible camaraderie. Because twins often exclude people attempting outside interference into their relationships, this kind of approach could be very good viewing for social workers and family therapists as well as hypnotherapists. This case is also a very good demonstration of indirect suggestion through interactive narrative-induced role-playing with children. The second case was a young boy with enuresis and the third a girl with a dog phobia and soiling who also suffers from Asperger's Syndrome. This DVD is not prescriptive hypnosis, nor therapy dogma, but a demonstration of how practitioners can interact with young children hypnotically in non-combative, confrontational or direct styles to form learning alliances. Review by Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH
The
Hypnotic Use of Waking Dreams Dr Schenk is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Working in hypnosis for more than 25 years, he is an approved consultant with the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis. He is obviously a very skilled therapist and his style of writing is pleasant and easy to read. The title of the book, however, is slightly misleading because it is more about past-life work than near-death experiences; but that in no way detracts from it contents. It is well written, skillful and huge relief from yet another book on therapy by numbers. What the book is really about is personal narrative transformation through a cross between past-life work and hypnotic dream therapy. The author is without doubt a master of narrative and reframing, taking clients through past-life journeys that lead them to greater understandings and resource release in their present life path. Clients can undergo anything from an epiphany to slow conversion of self-realisation. Although the book does not tell us about Schenk's background, he can obviously be lusciously Jungian with touches of Erickson which hangs on the peg of Moody. So many hypnotherapists are afraid of past-life work because they don't want to appear left of Zelda The Crystal Ball Gazer. Schenk, however, shows us the pure depth and power of such work that can motivate great change within the client in a direct an indirect manipulation of physical development. His case examples are illustrative and instructive, showing his very high level of rapport with his clients while facilitating the multiple persona integration. The book also shows us that the art of past-life work requires creativity on the part of the therapist and how that pays off, not only for the client, but in hugely rewarding ways for the therapist. His analysis and integration skills can give us all lessons in how to work the story and underlying therapeutic techniques, out of the client's conscious awareness. I think almost all hypnotherapists will like this book because it clearly shows the skillful workings of a clinician who is unreservedly passionate about the way he uses hypnosis. Furthermore, reading through it is an exercise in itself of metaphor construction and deconstruction. Whether you believe in past lives or not, there is certainly is lot to commend that way of working in these pages. Having used past-life work for many years myself, I greatly enjoyed Schenk's skilled use of creative imagery to get the client to utilise whatever they needed from the past life and in between life experiences. Review by Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH
Therapeutic
Hypnosis with Children and Adolescents Having just reviewed a DVD on child hypnosis by Sugarman, I was reticent before reviewing this book, thinking it might be more of the same. Well, I have to say it was just as excellent but has also turned out to be one of my favorite books of the year and it's only May. The book is exactly what the title tells us it is with a plethora of great contributions and edited in very digestible chunks, making it most palatable for the busy hypnosis clinician. The whole text is illustrated by a profusion of case examples dealing with everything from inductions to specific techniques for a myriad of problem a pediatrician will encounter in practice. The work, while incredibly well referenced, lacks pretension, allowing it to be eminently readable for medical, psychological, nursing and paramedical practitioners alike. Part one addresses the broad therapeutic framework of hypnosis. Parts two and three are on key medical and psychological applications of hypnosis with children. The contents include inductions, deepening, hypnotic phenomena, disassociation, ethics, childhood trauma, habit elimination, assisting childhood depression, anxiety disorders, somatoform disorders, behavioural disorders, family therapy, acute care settings, pre-operative hypnosis, chronic disease, elimination disorders, recurrent pain and palliative care. Both the
editors and authors, which include a distinguished roll call of experienced
clinicians in hypnosis and working with children, have done an excellent
job. It would be a mistake, however, to think that this book is only suitable
for pediatricians because it is not. Any hypnotist would benefit much
from this analytical discourse for it addresses primary uses of hypnotic
psycho-imaginary techniques in an organised and therapeutic text. This
book is set to become a classic for many years and a standard text in
its field. Review by Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH
Published by Celestial Arts, USA, 2007 In reviewing a book for a professional journal of therapists, a reviewer has to ask themselves the relevancy of the author and their works. Carrellas, a New Yorker, teaches tantric sex and in this book she writes about it but that it itself does not draw my attention because there are many such teachers out there. The book, however, is beautifully written and I mean beautifully because it is completely without pretension and literally speaks to the second person in simple voice. Many hypnotherapists are very comfortable in eradication of smoking habits but have phobic reactions when clients venture into sexual issues particularly when they include tantra or bondage and sado masochism (BDSM). For the novice or initiated, this books has plenty of practical instruction, advice and coaching. It simplifies and demystifies tantric breathing, focused attention and extended or delayed orgasms. The fine lines between what is ritual practice, meditation or hypnosis are not laboured but abandoned in favour of simple experientialism. By recommending the book to your clients, rather than shocking them, you will enhance their understanding of how their own body and sexual experiences can work; but also extend the boundaries of their ability to enjoy physical and spiritual pleasure. No matter how scary it is for you as a therapist to suggest spiritual experiences, they are very much the foundation of the kind of high level of sexual pleasure this book teaches. The versatility of the text allows therapists to use this book with heterosexual, gay or queer clients regardless of their past experiences. Although the book was probably not necessarily written for therapists to use with their clients, it is one of those books I will be recommending time and time again. Whether it is sex for one, couples or group sex, this book honours the relationship boundaries that keep people safe within sexual role-playing. Iin the later part of the book Carrellas brings BDSM practices into tantric principles, so it is easy to see how such blending can add pleasure to both practices in a complementary way. Carrellas, like her good friend Annie Sprinkle who wrote the foreword to the book, is not an academic who teaches from a high chair of tutelage but a pragmatic who teaches through experience. Would it not be wonderful if these were some of the life skills taught in the final years of school instead of how to build bombs and create enemies of the state to point them at? When Carrellas called the book Urban Tantra, she evidently knew what she had written - namely pleasure for the masses. Review by Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH
Using Hypnosis in Family Therapy Published by Zeig, Tucker & Theisen USA, 2005 Dr Ritterman,
PhD is a psychologist and family therapist who was one of Milton Erickson's
students and a pioneer in the field of the integration of hypnosis and
family therapy. She has reportedly trained thousands of therapists around
the globe on using hypnosis in family therapy. This book was first published
in 1983 and republished as a second addition in 2005. As an individual,
couples, family therapist and a hypnotherapist this book made great sense
to me. Review by Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH
Published by Wiley USA, 2007 A therapist asked me at a workshop recently if I could recommend a book on metaphor and how to construct and become proficient in therapeutic story-telling. I told her I would consider putting such a book in the review section of the Hypnosis Australia online journal for the November issue, not really knowing what I would choose to review; but then this book arrived from the publisher for review and the book made the decision for me. George Burns, as a psychologist and therapist and hypnotherapist working in Western Australia, is famous for his story-telling and collections as well as teaching metaphor in workshops. Indeed I reviewed his 101 Healing Stories some years ago, and wondered how this book might be different. The first thing to say is that it is equally as beautifully put together as his previous books, simple, yet complexly clever in its simplicity. He bravely gathers together perspectives, stories and approaches from a wide collective of therapists and approaches including Richard Kopp, Steven C Hayes, Michael Yapko, Rubbin Battino, Carol A Hicks-Lankton, Roxanna Erickson-Klein, Robert McNeily, Burns himself and others. Because this book works from a multi-philosophical angle it helps us look into the minds of the difference kinds of ways therapy can be done through metaphor. When we are telling our clients those stories there is need for seamless metaphorical delivery of the therapeutic messages, even if that is done in an intentionally disjointed way. It takes practice to tell a good story badly and deliver a good therapeutic message within a package disguised as incident incompetence. The book
subject matter touches on the use of metaphor from a range of difficulties
a person may come into therapy for including depression, childhood separation
anxiety, behavioural change, transcending abusive relationships, divorce,
enhancing health and wellbeing, paradoxical prescription, paediatrics
or persecution. The approaches are as diverse as Jungian psychology, through
CBT and all the way to psychodynamic Ericksonianism. Its varied methodological
constructions of metaphors and how and why the contributors use metaphor
will be very good for the novice therapist but also pleasingly instructive
to the experienced therapist. This smorgasbord of a meeting of minds is
enjoyable for the therapist to read for themselves without even thinking
about how it might teach and influence us in our execution of metaphor
in therapy. Review by Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH
Published by American Psychological Association Professor Patterson is a rehabilitation psychologist, at the University of Washington, who has a great deal of experience in working with patients who are seeking pain relief through hypnosis. He has worked considerably with hypnotic analgesic effects of hypnosis with burns patients and his research interests are the long-term rehabilitation of trauma patients and adjustments to the reality of pain. Patterson earned his undergraduate degree at Emory University and his PhD at Florida State University. He completed an internship at the University of Southern California, a fellowship in Rehabilitation Psychology at Emory University, and a Medical Psychology residency at the Oregon Health Sciences Center. His clinical experience is both within a hospital and a university setting. Chronic pain control is a growing clinical problem as people continue to live longer due to new medical procedures bringing people back from what would previously have been fatal medical complications. Medications such as opiates, whilst being extremely useful for acute pain in triage and acute care situations, carry massive problems of addiction and failure to work on a long-term basis, leaving patients without the ability to cope with long-term pain. The DVD is divided into two sections with Patterson giving a 45-minute demonstration of pain adjustment and alleviation with a mature-aged women called Marian who experiences chronic pain due to the bone and neurological degeneration brought on by a rare form of cancer. His work does seem to be very indirect and fundamentally Ericksonian, and he is well versed in a psychotherapeutic skills for dealing with the psychosomatic elements of pain interpretation. Whilst this patient still suffers from untreated tumors and their effects upon her back, arm and headaches, it is plain to see that many other elements in her life, such as her daughter's life struggle, does add to her magnification of her own pain experiences. Patterson displays considerable eloquence in aiding Marian's pain control and also reframing her life experiences as well as soliciting her in strengthening her ego state through inner resources seeking through open suggestion. The demonstration deals strictly with chronic long-term pain and its concomitants and does not explore rapid induction techniques for acute pain although it is suggested that this is also Patterson's area of expertise. This is a fine demonstration and well worth watching, not only for students but also for seasoned hypnotists, both medical and psychotherapeutic, as it is meant for clinical training and continual education. The second part of the DVD is Patterson being interviewed by Carlson eliciting clarification on the induction and hypnotic phenomena used during the demonstration. Carlson also asks questions about the kind of psychotherapeutic techniques that Patterson is using in coordination with hypnosis. The interview is equally as enlightening as the demonstration itself and adds greatly to the edifying experience.. Review by Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH
A Discourse with Our Genes: The Psychosocial and Cultural Genomics Of Therapeutic Hypnosis and Psychotherapy Published by Editris, USA 2004 Ernest Rossi is an American psychologist who many years ago immortalised himself by editing the collection of Milton Erickson's papers. Few people alive in the hypnosis world could be unaware of the phenomenal contributions he has made to the field of hypnosis. He was a winner of the Milton H. Erickson Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award in 1980 for his outstanding contribution to the field of psychotherapy, and has won several other awards for his excellence in research and teaching hypnosis. This is why when a batch of these books arrived in Australia I decided to review this book three years after its publication. Three years you may think is a lifetime in the field of genetic research but this book is much more than the actions of genes by psychological and sociological activation cues. Rossi, who witnessed Erickson's ability to cope and manage pain and the devastating affects of polio on his body, opens the book with his own recovery from a stroke a couple of years previously. Like Erickson Rossi has the good sense to use his own life experiences as a teaching tool. Rossi was really the researcher who accelerated our understanding of the psychobiological theory of hypnosis, and clarification of the ultradian rhythm's affects on biological repair. Although other researchers in the field have published, it has been Rossi who has formulated the ideas of hypnotic and psychotherapeutic psychobiological body reparation and presented those concepts in way that was comprehensive to the average clinician using hypnosis. So for hypnotists it would be safe to call him the father of the theory of the field. His discourse on genetic activation and protein formation due to psychobiological integration and activation is strong. It certainly sees off the psycho-sociologists who had bought into the 'all in the mind' theory of hypnosis. It also supports Erickson's state-related hypnosis theory and he gives endless reviews of biological experimentations in the laboratory for monitoring genes' expression. He does, however, at times rely on animal experiments which in time he may regret as science begins to clearly show their unreliability. Hypnotherapy and hypno-psychotherapy are odd disciplines with a foot in both camps of psychology and biology, that have defied the Cartesian divide. I would recommend all hypnotherapists to review Rossi's work to gain a greater understanding of the biological consequences of what we are doing in therapy at deeper genetic level; and even for those not trained in biology it is an easy book to read. Review by Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH
Hypnosis For Smoking Cessation: An NLP and Hypnotherapy Practioner's Manual Published by Crown House Publishing, UK Botsford is hypnotherapist and NLP practitioner practising in the UK. This 250-page book also comes with a DVD that contains client handouts and transcripts. He is what is often called a lay hypnotherapist and there is little other indication in the book of what other training he may or may not have undergone. He is by all accounts your communal garden hypnotherapist who on a day-to-day basis performs countless smoking cessation sessions, sometimes with a money back guarantee. Every day in many parts of the world hypnotherapists help people quit the smoking habit which is endlessly killing millions of people and through passive smoking is killing others too. Smoking is one of the most destructive addictions there is but the tobacco companies, like the alcohol companies, are securely in bed with governments and tax revenue departments. Drug companies are also in league with governments and the medical system in prescribing what are often dangerous prescriptions to help people give up smoking, but there is no doubt that hypnotherapy is the most effective method in this field. The book contains a great deal of good advice for the novice practitioner of hypnotherapy in helping them work in the field of smoking cessation. I was very pleased, having helped thousands of people to stop smoking myself, that he had great respect for direct suggestion. Even though he seems to have had some Ericksonian training he understands that traditional hypnotic direct suggestion with modal operators of necessity are a must when working with addictions. Schools teaching only indirect, permissive suggestion to cure addictions generally turn out hypnotherapists who cannot achieve constant levels of habit cessation. There are also sections in the book on running group session and working with smoking cessation programs within the corporate sector. What did
jar with me about the book was its total lack of academic referencing,
minimal exploration of NLP methodology; insufficient history taking, and
the fact that Botsford says every treatment must be tailored to the individual
but he sells CDs direct to the public. The text really is his model of
the world about how to affect smoking cessation but it is a valid model
to a great extent. This book would be useful to beginners in hypnotherapy
who intend to be proficient in smoking cessation treatments. Review by Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH
Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Dread of Death Published by Scribe, Melbourne This book was not sent to us for review but actually handed onto me by my partner who is a journalist to whom it was sent. It is perhaps by chance that I am reviewing it for the journal or, as it turns out, possibly fate. Yalom is a Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at Stanford University, awarded The American Psychiatric Association 2000 Oscar Pfister prize (for important contributions to religion and psychiatry, a therapist from California, and also author of The Gift Of Therapy and other books. At times during the text he inferred that perhaps he was not the best of writers but I am immediately going to take him to task, because I thoroughly enjoyed the text. This book
really is exactly what the subtitle states: a manual for overcoming the
dread of dying. The text not only looks at an individual's fear of their
own mortality but also fear of others dying around them. He contends that
this is not always, as Freud proposed, a basic disguised conversion of
other neurosis but in many cases is just the pure raw and simple fear
of death which seems to be endemic to many modern-day cultures that worship
youth as the one of the ultimate states of being, and dismisses the joys
of older years. To say that Yalom is an existentialist would be short-changing him. He is at times analytical and widely philosophical, taking from Socrates, through Schopenhauer all the way up to Jewish kitchen soup storytelling. In many of his reflections he is Jungian looking into the shadow side and facing the darkness not only of death but of our own fears of aloneness as we try to run faster than the grim reaper. I was, however, baffled throughout the book to understand how he could have found such a well-balanced way to highlight the joy of life by looking at potential peaceful passages through death. The answer only really came at the end when I discovered he was 75 years old and in the process of considering his own passing and exploring the anxieties around his personal journey to come. This book will be a very good addition in the therapy room in helping therapists recognise death anxieties and bringing the client into present states of acclimatising and resolution around such issues. It will be of particular use to those working in palliative care, suicide prevention, harm minimisation and grief counselling as well as therapists in general practice. Review by Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH
The Pill: Are You Sure It's For You? Published by Allen and Unwin, Australia Bennett is a social worker, counsellor and facilitator in Natural Fertility Workshops. Pope is a psychotherapist, coach and facilitator of mother and daughter menarche workshops. They write in layperson's terms about the contraceptive pill - neither of them are medically trained and do not claim to be writing a medical book. In this boxing match of a book, however, they disclose many of the drawbacks of hormonal contraception that GPs conveniently forget to tell their patients about. No, strike that last comment: What GPs negligently omit telling their patients about. There is no question that the modern contraception pill revolutionised the world for the baby boomer generation. At last a generation of women found themselves with the option of not being chained to the kitchen sink knee deep in unwanted offspring. That generation of working-class women going out to work was the very foundation for future generations of girls deciding whether they would be doctors, engineers or judges. But the price of constantly hormonally tricking the body is hidden and unexplained to many young girls and women; and can include depression, infertility, cancer, chronic weight gain, loss of libido and even chronic nutritional deficiencies. It is important that when people go to see therapists that the therapist understand the consequences of any medications the patient is taking. This is particularly true for male therapists, who do not have medical training, who can mistake PMS for psychotic disorders or dysmenorrhea for neurosis. Certainly the women's moon cycle has been severely compromised by the five-day week industrialised, consumerist pro forma expectations of the female body. It would also be true to say that the modern woman has exchanged one kind of domestic slavery for a commercial slavery and according to the medical statistics throughout the world their bodies are not truly coping with that reality. This book goes on to talk about the different kinds of contraception including the rhythm and body awareness methods. It also seeks to dispel much of the harm done to menstruation by modern society where it is frequently seen as an inconvenient problem rather than a celebration of fertility. Let us be honest: people have sex, babies, urinate, vomit, murder each other, blow up buildings, go into outer space. But when was the last time you saw any reference to menstruation on a television drama or the screen unless it was an advert for sanitary products that would enable a women to hide her natural function? Bennett and Pope give lots of varying examples of women who had very serious problems taking the birth pill and how their lives changed when they ceased that form of contraception. I would like to have seen more precise medical referencing in the text but that is probably an oxymoron for a lay reader who might feel swamped by such detail. The authors, however, leave the reader in no doubt that the pill is not the only option for contraception choices. They also postulate that women's contraception has made men lazy in their contraceptive choices or lack of responsibility for making them. This book is a very good resource for individual and family therapists in helping people make their own decisions about what kind of contraception they would like to use. Review by Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH
Hypnosis & Counselling in the Treatment of Cancer and Other Chronic Illnesses Published by Crown House Publishing, UK David Frank is a counsellor who teaches and is a member of the British Association for Personal Centered Approaches to Counselling and Education, and The British Society of Clinical Hypnosis. Bernard Mooney is a counsellor and lecturer with over 50 years experience in counselling and is a founding member of the British Association for Personal Centered Counselling. This 124-page book, which is a reprint, is a primer for hypnotherapy students who wish to explore the concepts of psychosomatic recovery from chronic illness and cancer. It is a sort of analytical approach to psychoneuroimmunology without the technicalities or necessarily the behaviouralism. Whilst the authors describe their clinical approaches as a cross between Rogerian and Ericksonian, in truth there is a large element of hypnoanalytical methodology that they use with their own cases. Whilst there is much referencing in the book, each reference is not really explored in very much depth. The approach seems to be more validation of ideas via associative mentioning. At times they can be dismissive of the medical etiology of chronic diseases and veer towards philosophical and life event causation. This said, it is not a good idea to bog down new students in this field, who do not have medical training, with over complex science, genetics and pathologies that are often based on pseudo science and experimentation done on animals in laboratories that do not translate in reality to humans. Humanistic approaches to healing, after all, have as much of a valid contribution to make towards healthcare as do allopathic approaches; and placebo or not, can produce stunning results with psychosomatic chronic illnesses. A word of
caution for hypnotherapists practising in some states is that they may
not advertise or tell patients they can cure cancer though hypnosis without
having medical training. Even then no practitioner would ever promise
a cure because human beings are so complex and react to treatments in
different ways. For those only with medical training coming into hypnosis,
who are often obsessed with quantitative data, this book would be a good
exercise in learning how to allow clients to be part of their own psychosomatic
recovery. Review by Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH
Published by Routledge, London & NY This groundbreaking work from editors Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH and Katrina Fox offers a unique opportunity to hear first-hand extraordinary stories of love, lust, courage and sheer human transcendence. This is not some dry clinical tome discussing psychosocial theory around transgender issues. There is no pathologising or labelling here. The editors have allowed the contributors absolute freedom to talk directly to the reader in this candid and compelling collection of stories told openly and directly from the heart. The decision not to collate information through an interview process has allowed something far more intimate, raw and significant to take place in these first-person narratives. It seems absolutely appropriate that this all too often marginalised and stigmatised minority be given the chance to really tell it like it is. This book offers the same bittersweet experience as the best collection of short stories. There's the richness and joy of entering so personally into 25 people's lives and loves, but sadness when each story comes to an end. You can't help but want to hear and to know more. One of the advantages here is that many of the contributors have offered email or website addresses. Some of the titles chosen by the storytellers offer an insight into the humour and wealth of diversity here: 'My Husband had a sex change - Shit happens', 'Satan and Lady Babalon: Polyamory again at 64', 'I'm not a lesbian, my wife is'. Of course behind the wit there are accounts of trauma, and rejection consistently met with incredible resourcefulness and courage. We learn what happens when people are forced to negotiate their lives and loves in completely uncharted territory, devoid of the cookie cutter world of male/female stereotyping. How does the transgender or intersex individual create positive self-image, self-esteem, confidence or even basic trust in human nature, given the extreme complexity and depth of their challenge? The journeys
revealed here are utterly diverse. These include long-term relationships
that existed prior to disclosure/transition. How do these couples cope
with the threat of rejection, feelings of anger or betrayal? How does
a 'wife' adjust to living with and loving their now female partner? It
takes openness, flexibility, strength, and willingness and perhaps even
more than love itself, it takes a truly revolutionary outlook. In every
account there is a palpable independence of spirit and a very conscious
engagement with partners and indeed with the world. Review by Matthew Kalitowski, Gay Psychologist, Sydney, Australia
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