HYPNOSIS TO INCREASE THE FOCUS

Andrew Hardwick shares how the power of gentle suggestion can lead to a healthier body and mind.

Thirty-one years ago, and on the other side of the world, Andrew was in his first ever hospital placement as a pupil nurse. ‘Completely green’, is how he describes himself as he learned the ins and outs of his local Accident and Emergency Department, having only been learning nursing for about four months. During one particular shift, a nine-year-old girl came in with her mum. She had fallen and fractured her wrist, so her arm needed to be cleaned of debris, the bone straightened and set, and a tetanus shot given to top it all off. ‘She was terrified. She was screaming, spitting, biting, and throwing anything she could get her hands on. She was hysterical, and her mum was close to being the same.’

Over the road from the hospital was a phobia clinic which also doubled as the UK headquarters for what was then called the Association of Qualified Curative Hypnotherapists (now called the British Hypnotherapy Society). Conveniently, a trial was being conducted there on the use of hypnosis within the emergency department.

With the mum’s agreement, the staff called on one of the doctors from over the road, and Andrew got to watch the process of medical hypnosis for the first time.   ‘It was fascinating because I watched the girl listen and become really calm and still. She closed her eyes and then something was said to her, and she opened her eyes and watched as her wrist was manipulated back into place, cleaned, and put in a splint. Then she giggled when the tetanus needle went in because she was told it would tickle.

‘Then the hypnosis doctor said, “look at me – sleep”, and down she went.’ He gave her suggestions – that she would have a positive memory of going to the hospital, that it would be fun and interesting, and that she would heal quickly and easily. Then he woke her up.’ Andrew was impressed. ‘I went, “wow! I want to learn how to do that.”’

After this experience, Andrew says he knew he wanted to learn more, so he asked if he could come on board for his final month of nurse training in a couple of years. ‘I was only allowed to observe, but it was amazing the stuff I learned, and this peaked my interest in behaviour change.’

FURTHER EDUCATION

In the following years, Andrew says, he continued looking out for where he could see hypnosis used in a clinical setting. He kept up to date with trials, all while building his nursing career and getting further qualifications at night school, including in mental health – a prime area to work within behaviour modification.

‘I saw a lot of hypnosis,’ he says. ‘They were called “relaxation techniques”, but I’ve since learned that they are actually long hypnosis inductions.’ These skills were employed frequently within mental health, and Andrew went on to use them within a behaviour modification unit he later worked on. ‘That’s how I got interested in hypnotherapy, through work as a nurse.’

Hypnotherapy is a type of psychotherapy that uses hypnosis to help people relax and focus, making them more open to suggestions. During hypnosis, a trained hypnotherapist guides the patient into a trance-like state through mental imagery and verbal repetition. Once in this state, the patient can be more open to making changes to their thoughts, emotions, memories, and behaviours.

THE DIABETES LINK

Andrew immigrated to Aotearoa New Zealand 20 years ago and has run a clinic in Upper Hutt, just north of Wellington, for the past 15 years. This is where he offers hypnotherapy to clients who come to him for a variety of reasons. Some seek out his expertise in order to learn to work around or

shift an array of health issues, including mental health, physical ailments, phobias, and more. He finds when maximising what the mind and body can do folks can sometimes then lessen the amount of medications that they need. In time, this can lead to minimising the amount of surgery someone needs because, once a body is treated better, it can have a lesser need for medications.

Andrew often meets people who have type 2 diabetes or have just received a diagnosis of prediabetes, and this health scare prompts them into wanting to make lifestyle changes. Generally, they have already put effort into making changes, but for whatever reason they’re unable to make these changes stick, and this is where Andrew comes in. ‘My bit is to give them suggestions that will help them stick to what’s been recommended. So we use hypnosis to increase the focus.’

He helps people embrace and stick to the diets recommended by their doctors, dietitian, or diabetes nurse. He helps them to change their lifestyle habits, to want to exercise more, and to change their attitude and mindset so they can focus on what they can do, rather than what they think they cannot achieve. ‘I’m often working with people with a very negative mindset. And attitude is the most disabling thing in the world.’

By the time Andrew meets many clients, they are tired. They’ve tried all the ‘free’ therapies and have worked with their diabetes nurse and GP. Andrew joins the mind and body when doing his work. ‘I’m a hypnotherapist, a life coach, Neuro Linguistic Programming, I do the tapping, and I also do tai chi. It’s a whole mind and body thing, with hypnotherapy for mindset and tai chi for movement. We put the two together.’

FEAR FACTOR

In giving an example of how hypnosis can work, Andrew holds up a chocolate bar. ‘If this was my temptation and it’s in front of me, I might take it. But with hypnosis, I might not.’

Andrew says he treats temptation very differently to how a dietitian would. A dietitian or diabetes nurse would likely advise a patient to remove temptation from the house. ‘That’s not always possible,’ says Andrew, ‘especially if you have children and others sharing the house. Also, this common advice also tells you nothing about an individual’s ability to change.’

A hypnotherapist’s approach is to create a suggestion so strong that, even if someone is seeing a chocolate bar every day, their treatment (and practice at home) has given them the skills where they simply choose not to take it. The skills they have learnt gives the individual the power, rather than the chocolate bar.

Another aspect where Andrew has helped people with prediabetes and others is for those with a needle phobia. He explains how he had a client whose doctor had told them that, if they didn’t change their eating habits and get it under control within the next three months, then they would have to be put on insulin.

Motivation can be seen as a positive or a negative. Some want to work towards something, while others seek to escape from something. Andrew’s client clearly wanted to get away from the possibility of having to inject insulin as they had a needle phobia. He explains, ‘So, instead of preparing them for the inevitability of having insulin, we built on that and said, let’s use this and build impetus, and this led to behaviour change. The fear of needles was one aspect, but they really wanted to be able to change the habits that they’d got stuck with over time.’ Fear was the negative push that had caused the client to reach out for help.

Using the power of suggestion, the client and Andrew hit one food habit after another then got started on overhauling their existing exercise habits. After (time frame?) months/ appointments – and, importantly, time invested in practicing their newly learned techniques at home – their blood tests showed they were getting better control. ‘After about three months, their doctor told them their blood sugar was so under control that they’d gone back to a prediabetes state.’