Session #198: Garry Coles on Hypnosis for Cancer Patients

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This is the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast, session number 198, Gary Coles on Hypnosis for Cancer patients. Welcome to the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast with Jason Lynette, your professional resource for hypnosis training and outstanding business success. Here’s your host, Jason Lynette. Once again, Happy New Year.

As we said last week here on the program, it’s Jason Lynette. With an amazing conversation this time with Gary Coles directly over from the uk. I first met Gary by way of the hypno thoughts live convention. Got to briefly hang out recently at the UK Hypnosis Convention, and it’s about time getting him on the program.

And you’re gonna hear an incredible story in terms of initially doing some training, finding some, uh, skeptical. Profound results from the hypnotic process and kind of stumbling into a specific niche market of working with cancer patients. The whole story of that really was a market that found him and then finding here are the ways to go about doing it, and an amazing conversation in terms of.

Looking at how the educational process was, at least at one point over in the uk actually being able to go through a master’s level education through a university as a hypnotist, a program, which unfortunately doesn’t exist anymore, but there are some pioneers helping to restart such as. Thing. So inside of this conversation, there’s gonna be some takeaways around looking at how do you define what specific markets you work with?

How do we communicate differently in different styles from one market to another? Uh, how do we really work to properly build a business inside of the medical model as a completely complimentary integrative service as opposed to being something so far off to the side. Uh, the whole mindset is we’re gonna talk about.

Of really being the peer within that environment rather than just the vendor who’s coming in trying to offer something entirely else. Just some really cool takeaways inside of this conversation. The links to Gary’s website are, of course gonna be over on the show [email protected] will also link to his upcoming, uh, uh, pre-conference, I believe class that’s gonna be happening at Hypno.

Thoughts Live 2019. Getting into some of the. A release hypnotherapy, Streamline techniques as he’s gonna talk about here in this conversation. And if you’re really looking at the aspects of how do we work with people going through medical situations, this is a conversation you really need to hear. Also, while you’re online, of course it’s coming very soon.

Head over to Work Smart Business. Dot com, which if you’re listening before the book launches, heading over to that site, is gonna give you access to a digital copy of the book before it launches. If you’re listening after the book launches in late January, uh, that’s gonna redirect likely over to the Amazon website.

We can get a copy of the book over from there. It’s basically taking my entire journey as a self-employed business person, an entrepreneur, and from the whole premise that if I can do these things that I’ve done in this hypnosis community, Uh, in a field where oftentimes we have to convince people that we’re not gonna make them cluck like a chicken and all these other things, to take the same knowledge, to take the same journey and bring that out to a much larger business community, other folks can replicate that success even greater.

And while not necessarily a hypnosis book, uh, it is entirely a chronicling of what I’ve done to build the hypnotic business empire that I’m now operating. So check that out. Work. business.com. And with that, let’s jump directly into this conversation. This is session number 198, Gary Coles on Hypnosis for Cancer patients.

Uh, mine is quite an unusual one, I think compared to a lot of other people. Uh, I mean, most hip therapists I meet, they, they always have this idea of, I want. People, and I wanna do this. And I always had a great handing to do it. Um, I, I’m almost the, the complete accidental hypnotherapist I think that I, that I suddenly found it was something that I was very good at.

Um, that the whole story behind it is in about, up until about 18, 18, 19 years ago, um, I had a completely different career. Um, I was an IT consultant in the oil industry. Uh, you know, probably about as far removed from Hippotherapy as you can get. Um, I ended up, due to circumstances company being sold, ended up being made redundant, but uh, not in a situation where I had to find other work to do, uh, particularly quickly.

Um, so I had no idea what I wanted to do, apart from the fact that I quite fancied working for myself. Um, it was around this time of year, interestingly enough, and I thought, Okay, Christmas time’s coming. I’ll set up a web store to sell books for Christmas. I needed some sort of income, so I thought I’ll set up a web store, sell books.

I did that for Christmas. January came and I thought, What do people buy in January? And I had no idea. And suddenly somebody offered me a job, lot of weight loss and quit smoking hippotherapy CDs and they sold incredibly. Uh, and that sort of pricked my ears up a little bit to thinking, well, actually, I didn’t realize it was quite as popular.

Um, so, but I was still quite skeptical at that stage about hypnotherapy generally anyway. Um, but um, I thought I had books on it as you do as a teenager, that sort of thing. So I thought I’d go back and investigate my books. Um, and then I saw, um, a local, um, doctor, uh, psychology, doctor of psychology who was also hypnotherapist, offering an introductory course in, in it.

And I thought, Okay, I’ve got plenty of time, plenty of money. Why don’t I go along, have a look at that. Perhaps it’s something I can do on the side, which is something I now get very irritated about when people do that. Um, but so I went along still being quite skeptical and one of the things that the doctor said was that if anybody’s got any issues as part of the course, we’re gonna resolve them
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And I didn’t, as far as I’m concerned, I had no real issues. But the only thing that. That has been a problem, if you could call it, that was ever since a kid, I used to have nightmares, uh, several times a week. Uh, to the extent that I’d be, I’d wake up sort of punching, shouting, you know, that type of thing.

But it never bothered me because it was normal. I, I’ve been like that all my life. Um, but the doctor said, Okay, we we’re gonna work on that. Um, so we did a lot of hemotherapy work and, and I thought it was rubbish, to be honest. , Um, I, I, I was very unresponsive. I don’t visualize very well. Uh, IMRs didn’t work.

Um, just about everything he told me would happen. And, and at the end of our sessions I said, Look, out of respect. I said, I, I was sitting there with my eyes closed, just following along, but I said, You know, nothing happened. Uh, and he said, Okay, let’s just see how it goes. And I think it was about six weeks later and I realized that I hadn’t had a, a nightmare since.

And I thought, Okay, there’s gotta be something in this so that the warrant’s investigating a little. Um, so then I decided to do a, a diploma course, uh, with him. Uh, and, um, we took off from there. Uh, we took off with the course, uh, again with the idea of, um, perhaps do doing a little bit on the side. Um, uh, and again, so I, I did that.

Uh, and everybody was saying to me, Well, the, the, the big thing now is, um, you need experience. Uh, and that’s the difficult part to get because you’ve got no clients. So if you’ve got no clients, you’re not gonna get experience. Um, and then I was, uh, contacted. I, I, I’ve had lots of things that have sort of fallen into place, rather strangely, uh, in my journey because I was contacted then by our local hospital, or in particular the cancer.

And they said, um, we just understand you’ve just qualified as a hypnotherapist. Um, we use them as volunteers in, in the cancer unit. It can be very effective, but our ones have just left. Would you like to volunteer some time to us? Uh, and I was at the time sort of thinking quite along, quite a mery line, if you like.

I was thinking, okay, yeah, I could go in there, see eight patients a day in my experience will go through the roof really quickly. Uh, and then I can just disappear. You know, it’d be a nice experience. I can go off, make lots of money and so on. Um, so I, I went into the oncology unit, started working with, with the cancer patients there, uh, and 14 years later I’m still there,

So this idea of disappearing and, and, uh, doing stuff never, well, didn’t materialize in that way. I obviously, I see a lot of clients do a lot of other. But, uh, giving up that, um, has never happened. Um, and that sort of come full circle in in lots of other ways that will come sort of onto later. Yeah, and I’d love to kind of rewind back inside of that cuz there’s so many things to elaborate upon there that I love the idea that, you know, from that initial start, and I, I share a similar through line of.

You know, think being extremely skeptical, thinking it was, uh, thinking it was BS and not visualizing well, So kind of a through line there. And I’d say that, Tell me if this has been a finding for you that, you know, working. Um, I’ve, I’ve clearly not done as much work with cancer patients as you have. I’ve only worked with a handful and they’re coming in, you know, so often for, in, in my world, the way that I’d see clients, you know, here’s the one that needs to increase appetite, here’s the one who’s not sleeping too well.

Um, yeah, you know, it’s more and even more so. I see the. I, I need this to not become part of my identity, so I still wanna maintain everything I’m doing yet this is just something I’m gonna have to deal with over the next couple of months. I, I’d say that’s, it’s a through line that’s popped up many times that that medical client, that the pain relief client, uh, as someone who would argue that belief is no longer a factor.

Uh, in the hypnosis conversation, we can look at all these amazing research studies involving the brain and neuroscience. You can find 280,000 plus, uh, pieces of, uh, you know, research on Google Scholar. We’ve got enough data that were beyond the belief game, yet still. Here’s that pain relief. Here’s that cancer patient that’s coming in.

And they may be a little skeptical yet. I’d say that’s a category that generally we don’t need, uh, the belief to be effective. Yeah. How, But here’s the question though. How, how did coming into that with the skepticism, let’s say, inform you with working with these people going through cancer? Well, it, it’s sort of moving on sort of slightly and, and sort of jumping around.

Um, because I, although I had the skepticism, um, my, my background was an IT background, so I’d studied math and science and computer sciences on, so I had a very inquiring brain and very, uh, empirically based. So I, I’m an evidence. Based person, you know, I’m not interested in, in the BS side of it, you know, show me the research papers.

Uh, and, and I went on from that point of view, one of the, the later things I did was, um, I was in amongst the first cohort and I still think there was only about a dozen in the UK to, to actually study for master’s degree in clinical hypnosis. Uh, and I actually had to do my. Uh, researcher and decided I wanted to do medical research.

And so I’ve done a lot of studies in, into those, uh, sort of research papers, particularly as far as cancer’s concerned. Um, but I found that, that once I got into to working with cancer patients, Although you did get a few people that, that were skeptical. Um, the thing that I noticed that wa was very different on, on the belief was first of all, people that are in that situation are generally quite desperate.

Um, so they, they were clutch at anything that, that may sort of help them in any way at all. Um, but the other side of it that I found very, very useful, uh, was the fact that, um, I see them in, in that particular role. I see them in the hospital. I see them in the oncology. Um, so therefore, because you are considered to be part of the hospital setup, um, I think you are already given a, a huge, more, uh, a huge amount of credibility.

Um, because it might be the surgeons or the doctors have suggested all, Why don’t you go and see our hypnotherapist? So therefore you are part of the medical team, the oncology team. So therefore the idea of being sort of slightly skeptical go, goes out the. Uh, to some extent because you are another medical professional, if you want to call it that.
I mean that, that’s probably the wrong way of calling it. But in their eyes, you are another one of the team. You’re another one of the oncology team. You wouldn’t be here unless it was gonna be of some use. Yes. That’s beautiful. So, yeah. So what is, what are some of the aspects that you’re often working with in that environment?

Uh, I, I work with, basically with the whole journey. I, I call it the cancer journey. Um, so I would see people from the IG initial diagnosis. Um, so that would generally be anxiety, fear, um, could be fear of death, fear of the treatment, fear of hair falling out with chemotherapy, all those types of things. So it’s a very much, um, sort.

Fear and anxiety and nerves, um, quite often, um, you will have to do, um, very quick solutions, very fast interventions, um, because you’ll quite often see people that come in and have a panic attack for something, uh, whether it’s the fact they’ve gotta give blood, um, have a line put in, go into a scanner, that type of thing.

Um, so you, you’ll have a lot of fast interventions for that. Um, then we work alongside, um, really working on the side effects of whatever treatment they’re having at the time. Um, because as, as you mentioned, things like insomnia, for example, weight gain, they’re all things that we, we deal with as hypnotherapist in everyday lives.

Uh, and all those are quite often relevant as being side effects, um, for chemotherapy and radiotherapy and, and various other. So we would deal with that type of thing. Uh, pain control, as you mentioned, is quite a common thing. Uh, there is, uh, interesting research, including my own research showing that that pre and post surgical hypnosis can help with the recovery quality.

Certainly the psych psychological aspects of it. Uh, and then we would work on, uh, sort of post, uh, uh, cancer, if you like. So we would work with people that perhaps, um, it’s been a bit of an eye opener to them, so they might want to change other areas of their life, uh, in certain ways. Um, we may go on and help people sort of improve their life.

Um, I mean, a, a very good example I had recently, uh, was a lady that I found absolutely inspiring. Um, I saw her just over a year. Uh, I think it was about 15, 16 months ago. Um, she was, she’s 31 and she had colon cancer. And initially, uh, they told her it wasn’t, they didn’t think it was too advanced. Um, they were gonna do keyhole surgery and remove part the colon.

Uh, they got in there and found that it had spread like wildfire. Uh, they ended up breaking all her ribs, um, removing the, the, the entire colon, uh, putting in alost me bag, uh, all sorts of things. Um, she was in a huge amount of pain when she came round. Um, and they decided because it had spread, she needed chemotherapy, uh, instantly as well.

Uh, she reacted to that, um, died four times and was resuscitated. Um, I was called in still in her hospital bed to to work on pain. And she was in quite a mess. Um, but I’m now still working with her. Um, uh, sort of 15, 60 months later I’m working with her for, um, improving her triathlon performances. Wow. . So, so it was, so go on that, that side of thing.

And then the other side, unfortunately, uh, you know, with some people that the journey has quite a sad end. So, um, we do work. To an extent with end of life care that that’s not an area I do a huge amount with because we then have specialist counselors, uh, and also they, they tend to move into a hospice environment, which is outside, if you like, of the oncology unit.

Uh, so quite often that is where. My Remi ends, although we do do a little bit of, of, of that type of thing. Uh, and and the other thing that a lot of people forget that we do a huge amount of work with is that the partners or the family or the carers. Yes. Cause it has a huge psychological impact on those.

Sometimes more so. Yeah. So I, I love the aspect of just getting the phone call. Is this something you can help up with? And 14 years later, that’s still a lot of what you do. Um, let me ask you this, cause I know you do work beyond working in that environment. Uh, Yes. I’m a general hypnotherapist. Right. So how, how has that, Yeah.

How has that specialty, how has that experience helped to inform, let’s say, quote, the standard issues that we’d also see as, as a hyp. Uh, well, I think, um, there’s a big crossover, um, because, uh, to, to an extent, um, anxiety is anxiety. Whether it’s anxiety about having a cancer operation or whether it’s anxiety about losing a job or relationship issues, it’s still anxiety.

So you, you’re still, it’s still gonna work with it probably in very similar ways. Um, again, things like insomnia, nausea, those types of things are all very, very common. Um, so therefore you can transfer the skills from one to the other, vice versa, so you can transfer the skills from the cancer patients to, to general patients and vice versa.

So, so it’s a really, there’s a lot of similarities. Um, I, I found, It didn’t impact so much on my hippotherapy as, as techniques as such. Although over the years, I have perfected a lot of techniques and a lot of of approaches that I think are very suitable for cancer patients. Um, in particular, a lot of them, um, Will have to be fast interventions.

And a lot of them, quite often you will only see a patient perhaps once, um, they might just perhaps feeling a bit panicky or a bit anxious, or it might be the day they’re having their chemotherapy. So they’ve got a couple of hours to kill and if you are available, they’ll come in and see you and work on something.

Um, so it’s not something you are necessarily gonna do a lot of sessions to, to work on an issue. So, So you have to. If you like, very, very short, very fast interventions, uh, which I wouldn’t necessarily do in my normal practice. Um, I tend to work to a three or four session protocol. Um, I like to do things like parts work.

I do do regression to cause if necessary and so on, which is something that is. There’s very little used in, in the oncology arena. Um, for example, generally if they’re anxious, we know why they’re anxious. It’s because of the the cancer journey they’re going through. So going back to finding cause or issues and so on are, are generally pretty irrelevant in, in that sort of environment.

And I’m smiling over here because I chair that. I’ve heard some speak in the, you know, in the medical arena concerning hypnosis that no, no, no, this model of work doesn’t fit. This model of work isn’t good there. You can’t go to the doctors and, uh, start talking about the elman regress to cause 40 and model of things because that’s not their language.

And to, to hear this dialogue that you just shared is to think of message. A lot of this community needs to hear that just. So much of the, Let’s put it in a different context. You know, the, the NLP training that would say that this person’s a visual, this person’s in time, everything is state and strategy dependent.

So when they’re in this mode, that might be that they’re visual, but when they’re over in this mode, they may be entirely auditory and completely, you know, swapped the other way in terms of time. The same way that look at these techniques and to recognize that, well, this environment calls for that, this environment calls for that, and here’s this situation where, Because I’d imagine as much as you can make the statement that you know in the one to one session when I’m working with someone over a series of appointments, that quick, rapid style isn’t necessary.

But I’m sure there’s moments where you’ve pulled that out because you just saw that this is the right way to go right now. Oh yeah. Yeah. And certainly if you get somebody coming into you having a panic attack or extreme anxiety, yeah. Quite often you, you’ll hit straight off with a very fast intervention because that, that gives you a basis to work on.

I mean, one of, one of the things that, that I teach, um, cause I do a lot of mentoring for, for people to work with cancer patients and as you know, I do workshops and so on. Uh, and one of the big key things, which I would say with. Patient or client, Uh, not just cancer patients, but the first thing you need to do, um, I is stabilize that.

That to me is, is always the, the key word. Stabilize, stabilize, stabilize. You. You cannot work with a client or a patient unless they’ve been stabilized first. There’s no use piling in doing regression or all these fancy techniques. If they’re, if they’re sort of anxious, non knowledge and you elaborated that, what do you, what do you mean by s.

Um, get, get them in, into a place where you can do the work. You don’t want them in a heightened, anxious, panicking state. You know, I see people or hip therapists that advocate, Oh yes, they come through my door, they’ve got this problem. First thing I do is do regression with them. No, I don’t want, you know, if you, if you like a nice, safe.

Place, get the, getting comfortable, get it, get, get the negativity and the stress. Cl cleanse, get rid of that so that we’ve got a, a stable, comfortable person to work with. Um, I get give an example out, uh, like that if you like. Um, I had somebody approached me for doing some work with an IVF patient. Um, she was having a fourth and last round of IVF resigned for the fact that she would never become.

Um, but she’d also had a lot of work issues, uh, which were causing her stress and anxiety. Uh, and uh, the first thing I said to her is I said, Look, I know you’ve come for, for the IVF here. That’s what you’ve been recommending to see me for, but you’ve got these other issues which are stressing you and causing you anxiety that that’s gonna be having some sort of impact.

Let’s work on that. Let’s get you sound happy, calm, stress free. Then we’ll work on the other. Um, so we did a couple of sessions on that and she was remarking out how much better she felt about life and about everything in general, how everybody was commenting on how calm and happy she was looking. Uh, and then we said, Okay, now we’ll work on the IVF stuff.

And, uh, anyway, that, um, she’s now got a year old daughter, so, uh, you know, that I think that’s, that’s got a good testament to it. Yeah, I love that. So getting things in motion, you know, recognizing that things are in motion, but at least finding that grounding place that this is where we can launch the work off.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Precisely. Just, just not piling in there sort of willy nearly without, Without them being in a place where you have a good basis to start with. Right. Well, I think that even just in terms of just human nature, that communication cycle that yes, there’s one school of thought would say that, Oh, they’re in the emotional state.

You can ride that. It’s the, The problem with that though is that you don’t necessarily know of that exact emotional state is the emotional state that they’re there to help you with. I mean, I’d give. Uh, the quick example, an extremely generalized version of this. Uh, here’s a client who came in for weight loss one time and suddenly there’s the spontaneous a reaction and it was triggered by the sound of an ambulance driving by outside and, and she’s the one calling it out afterwards.

And I don’t have the entire details to the story, but it triggered this memory of family member in the ambulance, uh, paramedics telling her, You can’t ride in the truck with him. You have to follow behind and. Passed away, uh, on, on the drive travel to the ho to the hospital and yeah, to which she was the first one to, you know, she goes, That was so odd.

I heard that sound. It brought back this memory, and the tears were there right away. And then she perfectly paused. And remember, she’s in the office for a weight loss to go, Oh, but wait, But I was fatter then than I am. Ah, that’s weird. , which yeah, her, her language. Um, it’s to say that again, we can have that mindset of let’s go for this thing, let’s get in there.

Yet the client is coming in for that specific issue. So yeah, there is value to stabilizing. Yes, we can use some sort of hypnotic intervention and change to make that happen, uh, to allow this experience that, you know, we can now branch off of this more stabilized place. I love that term now and do the work.

Yeah. Yeah. And, and the other thing that sort of change subjects slightly is interesting. You mentioned about sort of the medical fraternity, the medical model, you know, not liking hippotherapy or it doesn’t fit with our view of the world. Um, that, that I find quite fascinating, uh, and, and, and have sort of seen it firsthand and, and been able to change it.

I mean, one of, one of the things. That, um, I teach people to do in, in my workshops is, uh, is, is learn not the lingo, to try and sound false, but certainly in the cancer unit, I make sure that you have a full understanding of the terminology used in, in, in. Treating cancer patients and you would understand the staging, the grading, and all sorts of other things not.

And that has sort of two factors as far as I’m concerned. One, if you are then talking to the surgeons, the oncologists, it, it, then you appear to know or sound as though you know what you’re talking about. So you, you are gaining a little bit more credibility. Um, and I always say to people you use.

Academic language, you know, don’t talk about regressions or, and things like past lives and, you know, anything that’s air fairy, you know, don’t even talk about hippotherapy, talk about guided relaxation or some, something like that. Uh, you know, or, or give it academic sounding technique names. Um, because they’re gonna respond much more to that.

Um, but I also find that the patients themselves, um, because you are in the, the hospital, because you are in the oncology unit, um, they will come into me and again, I’m just another co in their journey. Um, so I’ll say, Well, what can I do for you? And they say, Oh, I’ve got, um, you know, grade three, stage four breast cancer.

Uh, I’ve got a pick line for my chemotherapy doing on this. And if you look at them blankly, um, you’ll lose all credibility. You, you’ll lose, uh, you know, everything going on. So, Expected to understand all the terminology. You’re expected to know what they’re going through in their journey. Otherwise you’re gonna lose all that credibility.

Um, but I also found that that’s worked, uh, to benefit as well. Um, one, I now find that I can talk to the doctors more and advise them on the use of language. I mean, good example, the, the old thing that you say, if, if a nurse text you, um, Oh, I’m gonna give you an injection. You might wanna turn around where I turn away because this might hurt a little bit.

Mm-hmm. , um, you are then giving. Be powerful suggestion that this will hurt. You know? Whereas if you say, Well, you might want to look away and you’ll feel a slight sensation, that’s far less emo. and it’s gonna go cause far less distress, uh, to the patient. Uh, so I make a great deal of, of doing that type of thing.

Um, but it was also interesting to, to note that the big thing that I found was useful, uh, was when I studied my master’s, um, because I. One of the areas that I found, first of all, having gained a masters, um, it’s something that the doctors will recognize. You know, it’s a legitimate university qualification at a high level.

So therefore, suddenly, rather than sort of, Oh, I’ve got a certificate in hypnosis, the fact that you’ve got a master’s degree in the subject, that that gives you a lot more credibility. Uh, and mine was useful because, um, I decided I wanted to make it really difficult for myself when it came to doing my thesis and research.

um, Sided that, and I was told that I was absolutely mad. And, and looking back on it, I probably was, but I achieved it. Um, I decided I wanted to do medical research for, for my thesis, uh, and I ended up, um, doing, um, research into looking at presurgical hypnosis and the effects that it had on recovery quality and breast cancer operations.

That that’s what I ended up doing. Uh, but what was useful on that? That to, to actually do the research. I become embedded in the multiday in the breast cancer multi multidisciplinary team at the hospital. Um, so therefore, I was invited every week, um, to the, the team meetings. So I was there not, not interacting hugely, um, but I was there with, with the oncologists, with the surgeons, uh, with, with the x-ray people and.

Discuss going through all the paperwork, look at looking at the scans and so on, and discussing treatment regimes for, for the particular patients. Um, because I was there and then I was sort of the face that they started recognizing, um, it started being taken a little more seriously. Uh, and then because I was doing my research and, um, they were actually seeing the results coming back from their patients and they were seeing how much they were improving after the operation compared to ones in the control group.

Suddenly I started getting taken a lot more seriously. Uh, and we had one surgeon who was very much on side because as a student he’d actually, um, whi witnessed an operation that had been done under hypnosis without anesthetic. So he was already a believer. Um, but I found it was, it was very useful in that way to be part of that team with those qualifications, because then you are, Tr you are treated much more of an equal.

Um, so rather than being some sort of quack from outside, suddenly you, you are becoming part of the medical model. Uh, and even going on from that, um, since then, um, one of my practices is at is at a GP doctor’s surgery. Uh, um, it’s, there’s, um, about six doctors there and I get most of my patients there are referrals from the GPS themselves.

Uh, again, because a, they’ve got confidence in me because of the qualifications. I can talk their language academically rather than airy fairy new age. Uh, and also they see the results because the, I’m seeing their patients in their. So of course the patients are then feeding back. Um, so they’re seeing the results and that gives them confidence to send more people to me.

And I think that’s the way that we need to break down the medical fraternity and the medical model I is to be more academic to, to meet them on their own terms, uh, you know, to be well qualified and, and, and try and move away from the new age Quacker, if you like. Well, what’s beautiful about that is that, you know, the, the catch phrase that I use for business in terms of breaking into a market is, uh, be the.

You know, be the peer, not the vendor, uh, that you’re, you are fully a part of that community. The same as there was, there was a conversa, there was a conversation, one of the Facebook groups where someone was saying, someone was asking, How do I get more business clients in terms of working with sales motivation, in terms of working with, uh, you know, the mindset towards scaling up a business.

And the answer is, become a part of that community that if you’re from the outside saying, I can do this without that resume, without that proof that you. Part of what they do and you understand what they do. Um, it reeks of being false and the fact that you’re there in the work, um, again, it breaks past any bit of skepticism that might be there that clearly, you know, you’re the guy who does that.

Uh, tell me more about, cuz we don’t have this over here in the US having a master’s program. Tell me, tell me more about that. Uh, well, unfortunately it’s pretty much stopped now due to monetary reasons. But, uh, um, the, the idea again, uhno therapy in the UK is pretty much unregulated as I I know it is out there.

Yes. Uh, the only difference we have is that we’re not broken into states that have different rules, so, yeah. Countrywide. So that makes it slightly easier. Uh, I mean, hypnotherapy in, in the UK is not regulated at all. Um, anybody can call themselves hypnotherapist, uh, and charge money for treating clients, patients, whatever.

Um, with no qualifications at all, I, I know so-called people that have learned off of YouTube and, you know, set up as hip therapists. Um, you know, I, I. People that have got about five or six jobs and Hippotherapy purports to be one of them, you know, after a three day course. Um, so we do have a lot of problems with that.

We do have, um, a lot of self-regulating bodies. Um, but again, unfortunately they have their own self-interests and generally their, their owned by the, the, the training companies themselves. Um, we’ve tried to legitimize it slightly in the uk, uh, where we have something called the Complimentary Natural Healthcare Council, uh, which was set up by the Department of Health.

Um, Unfortunately, the funding then disappeared from it. So they’re now a private company. Um, but they still, the, the idea behind it is they still have, um, a core curriculum, uh, for hypnotherapy. They, they look after all sorts of complimentary therapists. Um, but they have a core curriculum, uh, of minimum training, minimum standards, minimum of hours, uh, and subjects that should be taught.

Um, and again, it, it, they’re only a voluntary organization, but, uh, now what’s known holds an an accredited register, which if you. Requirements and you are on their register. Um, the General Medical Council now advise doctors and other healthcare professionals, um, if they want to refer outside the industry.

Um, then the government are satisfied that people on an accredited register are suitable to be referred to. Mm-hmm. . Um, so that gives us a little bit more. Credibility. Um, now from my point of view, um, I’m actually on the profession specific board for Hippotherapy. On the Cnhc. I was actually voted by hip therapists in the uk, uh, and I was actually one of, one of the team of three responsible for putting the core curriculum together.

So at least I’ve got some input on what I think the minimum sort of training should be. Um, from my background on, on the Masters, the way that went was, um, we had a training company that wanted to train to a high level, and they decided they wanted to make it slightly more academic. And they also wanted to, to try and make it accredited by university.

So it was a genuine university qualification. Uh, eventually they got in with, uh, the University of West London, uh, which essentially put a, a four, four and a half year course together, uh, part-time masters. Um, half of that was, um, psych psychology. Um, the other half was. Practical hippotherapy. Uh, there was a lot of, um, essays involved, a lot of practical work involved.

Um, but the final 18 months of it, and, and again, it was done, it was overseen and accredited by the university, so it was done at master’s level. Uh, all the lecturing, some, a lot of it was done at the university. Um, and that there were lots of essays and, and, uh, so on that we had to do. Um, but the final part of.

Was that you had to do, um, a piece of primary research and, and a thesis, um, to, to, to actually back that up. Uh, which was where my breast cancer presurgical stuff came into, into play. Uh, because a, again, it was because I’d come from the, the science background, if you like. Uh, and I’m a big believer in empirical evidence to me, rather than just doing a.

A two or two or three week diploma and that type of thing. I thought this is the way to go, you know, if I’ve got a master’s degree, um, all these arguments about, well, I’ve got a certificate, I’ve got a diploma, et cetera, et cetera, or you are just a quack or whatever. That all goes out the window. Cause I’ve got a genuine university piece of paper, , and, and the whole course was very empirically evidence based.

So again, I found that u useful, uh, and I found find that it gives me an awful lot of credibility compared to, uh, most other hythe. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah, that’s what I was gonna get at. Yeah, unfortunately, due to monetary reasons, the company that, uh, that that was accredited by the university sort of fell out with them.

Um, the owner since passed away anyway, and it’s fragmented a little bit. Um, so, um, unfortunately the master’s degree has now been pulled. It’s no longer available, um, to do so. We’re stuck with only a handful of us at the moment. Um, but hopefully somebody else will revive it. I believe there’s another university that are looking at doing a research based, um, master’s degree in hypnosis, which again, can only be a good.

Well, I mean, that’s that unfortunate thing that it comes down at times to the funding for such a program. And we are still a very small community that there’s a, a former gas op generalized disorder here, the former guest who was doing an amazing amount of neuroscience research involving hypnosis and just suddenly the university goes, Yep, we don’t have the funds for that anymore.

Uh, but, but to have the basis of this, I, of all things, I flash back to, uh, somehow two random people that I met separately of each other. Local university at one point had a whole design your master’s thesis program. Uh, and of course they did theirs in circus history like you do, uh, . But such a program does exist at times that really it’s taking pioneers.

And I need to get Adam Eon on here at some point cause I know he’s got something of that style possibly in the works. Adam don’t mind know very well. He, he is actually, um, Got a tie up with the, um, Royal, uh, Royal Society of Medicine and also Bourmouth University, and it’s actually him that’s involved, uh, in setting up the masters in hypnosis, uh, research as far as I’m aware.

Beautiful. Beautiful. So looking at the, the nature of bouncing back and forth between these two different, um, styles of work, one of the, in the cancer hospital environment and then the other working with primary clients, uh, working with the sort of general issues we would face, what would you say are those things you see the most?

Um, nowadays, I wouldn’t say I said, I mean, it used to be the same as everybody else. Now, number, number one, I guess, is still anxiety and depression based things, and that’s mostly because that’s, that’s what the GP send me. Mm-hmm. , Uh, I, I think I’m, I think particularly in the GP practice that, that I, that I’m resident in, uh, I think I’m the sort of person that the, the doctors or two or three of them.

It’s a case of, okay, yeah, they’re depressed, they’re anxious, or we’ve given them all these drugs. They’re still coming and complaining to us. Nothing’s making a difference. Or why don’t you go and try hemotherapy? Um, so, so I probably get the most, is that type of thing. Um, I’d get less weight loss in smoking now than I, than I used to, I think, um, probably because I, I’m probably a little bit more expensive.

Well, certainly more expensive than, than a lot of other H therapists in the area. So I, I, I tend to find, um, I get a lot of referrals from other hip therapists and even psychologists and, and psychiatrists, um, that I tend to find now that I get. The more unusual cases or ones that other people are not willing to, to take on.

Um, even quite surprisingly, it’s one area that, um, that I’ve always been taught is contraindicated with hemotherapy. But I mean, I’ve done some work with psychotic, um, for example, uh, and that they’ve actually been referred to me by their psychiatrists, uh, which is quite interesting. So, You know, despite the fact that we might think it’s contraindicated, um, there are certain psychiatrists that are quite happy for us to, to get involved.

Um, now obviously it’s an area you need to tread very carefully with. Yes, yes. Uh, uh, with techniques, um, because otherwise you’re gonna cause a, a lot more problems. Um, but it is an area I’ve done, done work with. And another area I tend to do quite a lot of work with, uh, and then again, is all GP referrals because they’re seeing results.

So I seem to get a lot of borderline personality disorder work, um, for sort of patients. Um, so, so a. Everything, but, um, but I, I relish the more challenging things anyway. , . So what, what would you say that difference is though, aside from price while you’re not doing so many? Uh, let’s say smoking and weight loss.

Mindful, you know, mindful of the fact that we as the practitioner, we get to choose the things we work with, we get to choose those specialties. Um, what is it that draws you to those quote, more challenging issues? Would you. Uh, I, I think it is again, cuz I, I like to push myself. I still wanna learn more, um, push myself, uh, and, and to be honest, I mean, okay, yes, you make money, you get decent money outta to quit smoking, things like that.

But frankly, I find a lot of that quite boring. You know, I, I, I want things that are gonna challenge me as a therapist as well, that I can learn from that, expand and grow from not, not only as well as helping the. . Yeah. Beautiful. So in working with people, I know that we were chatting yesterday about the, the mindset of streamlining the process, becoming much more, uh, direct building some systems.

What, what’s some of that thinking that you’ve put into the work over the years and doing that? Uh, well, again, um, it’s doing the masters for example, you’re training for four and a half years. So you’re looking at, at many, many different styles of, of hypnotherapy and allied techniques. So, uh, for, for example, you’re not just looking at Arizona Hypnosis, you’re looking at.

Uh, sort of, you know, traditional hypnosis. You’re looking at Aon, you’re looking at solution focused. You’re looking at psychoanalytic. So, uh, and you’re looking at nlp, em, emdr, you’re looking at cbt. So you are taught all these backgrounds anyway, so, so rather than just being very limited to one sort of approach of this is how you do it.

Um, you’ve got a whole armory of approaches, sometimes completely different and completely polar opposites for you to choose from. There isn’t necessarily a right or a wrong one. It’s which one are you gonna use or which one is your preference or which one do you think has the best fit for the client.

Um, from then I, I’ve gone on to, to train with a lot of other people. Um, uh, conferences are always a good eyeopener because even if you just go and see somebody for an hour or two, you might get the odd little nugget here and there that you think actually. Never thought of that or mm-hmm. , Yeah. I could incorporate that particular phrase in what I do.

I can see how valuable that is. Um, so again, I, I, I’ve done that trained with a lot of different people. Uh, a lot of people that I’ve trained with, again, are, are quite very effective, but also quite blinkered that, you know, my way is the way that you should do things. And, and I’ve always been a little bit anti that to the extent of, um, because, uh, for example, um, and I’m not gonna name names, but there’s a couple of people that I’ve trained with, and one in particular I said, Right, you do it exactly like this.

You don’t change any word, any. This is how it works. And I’ve gone back and said, Ah, but I now do this and do this, and No, no, no, no. You can’t. You can’t, you can’t. Yeah. But I do and it works for me. Right? . So, so, so what I, what I’ve done over the years is basically, and, and particularly a lot of it’s come from my oncology work.

Um, you do what works. You, you know, you get more experience. So therefore you’ve become more experienced. You tend to. More of a feel for what’s gonna work with a particular client in front of you. Um, you find that the techniques that you’ve learned, perhaps you then combine them with other techniques because they’ve then become more powerful or they become quicker to use or more effective.

Um, and, and I’ve found over the years that I’ve put a particular protocol, a particular way of working together, um, that to me works with the majority of, of issues that I’m likely to come across, uh, with the majority. Type of clients that I will come across. Um, and I know of no other hypnotherapist that does it how I do.

Um, and, um, so that, that’s why I’ve decided to perhaps, uh, you know, one of my other workshops is now, uh, we, which sort of is both good and bad. Cause as I mentioned, I hate the idea of, you know, people saying You must do it exactly this way. Um, because I think that’s limiting. Um, but I’ve had so many people over the years when I’m mentoring them, sort of, Well, teach me how you do it.

Um, so now I’ve decided, okay, I’ll teach everybody who wants to know how I do it. But with the proviso that this isn’t the only way of doing it. Yes. This is how it works for me. And, and, and this is why I believe it works for me, because I do this, because I do this because, um, and I’m a great one of, of sort of having a plan.

B, C, and D. Um, I mean, some of the things I always tell sort of, uh, newer hip therapists, um, uh, uh, about, um, you know, they, they say, Well, give us some tips. And I always say, Well always have a plan B, C, and D, um, so that if something doesn’t work, you’ve got something you can seamlessly go onto, uh, whatever happens.

Uh, you must ensure that the client thinks that what was, what was meant to happen. Because otherwise you’re gonna lose rapport. You’re gonna lose confidence and credibility. So you’ve gotta have both of those things in place. Uh, uh, and then basically just go with the flow from there. And, and also I, particularly in my pre-talk and even the way that I style things such as ratifiers and the way that I work, um, I try and get to a situation where the client has no rigal room at all.

They have nowhere to go apart from where I want them to go. Mm-hmm. So, so to the extent that a ratifier cannot. Um, because yes, you might think, Oh, that has failed, but in the client’s eyes it hasn’t. That’s what was meant to happen. So they’ve got no way of getting out of it. Um, I’ve got ways of doing parts work, which is quite authoritarian, so there’s none of this.

Oh, let’s take forever negotiating parts. This is what’s gonna happen. Nice. And, and it, and it does happen. Um, again, if you get the pre-talk exactly right, um, they’ve got nowhere to go apart from where you want them to. . Uh, and that’s a big part of sort of the, the, the approaches and the protocols that, that I’ve put together.

It’s, it’s basically, it’s so defined that the client has no choice but to go this way. You’re, you are guiding them exactly where you want to guide them, but yet they think that that is natural, normal, and that’s naturally happening. . And what’s great about that is, I mean, I can give you the example of yesterday was a day where every client I was seeing was I got a new promotion at work and I have a fear of public speaking and not for the sake of novelty.

Every session was different. I mean, even from the different style. I mean, I’d even ask you if you explain hypnosis differently, uh, in the two different environments, you tend to work. Not hugely. Um, I must admit, in the hospital environment, the, they get a lot less explanation. Yes. Um, not, not because, um, well, not, not for, well, the main reasons is time.

Um, if I’m seeing a, a, a client privately, uh, generally, uh, my first session would be 90 minutes or up to 90 minutes. Um, sessions after that are generally an. . Um, and obviously I then have time for, for writing up, analyzing, reviewing and so on. Uh, whereas hospital appointments are 45 to 50 minutes tops, uh, including everything.

Mm-hmm. , so, so, and that, that’s dictated by the hospital. Um, so obviously you are much, much more limited, uh, in, in that sort of environment. So you do explain it differently, but mainly in a more sparse way, if you like. Yeah. Beautiful. So where could people find out more about your work? Uh, well, there’s two things.

Um, I’ve got a website which, um, currently isn’t working cause it, it got hacked. It got hacked. And then the, um, the, Well, this is where we reveal to the audience that we are recording on December 4th and through the wonders of batch production. This is coming out January 10th. So you’ve got a month and six days of.

Figure that crap out. . Yeah. Yeah. Except I’m gonna be in the Caribbean for, Oh, even better. . Uh, but, uh, yeah, so there will be a website, uh, which is release hypnotherapy.com. Um, but I put a lot of research articles actually on, on my Facebook. Page, which is also release hypnotherapy. So if they look for release hypnotherapy as a Facebook page, um, I put a lot of research articles on that, newspaper articles.

Anything I can find that is relevant will go up onto there. So, uh, it’s a useful resource for people to actually use as, as a hypnotherapist. Outstanding. Uh, it been wonderful having you on here, Gary. Uh, yeah. Thanks for very much for, for having. And, uh, again, I hope to see you, uh, well, I guess next, I next time will be stay aside,

Uh, cuz cuz as you know, more and more, I tend to be spending more and more time at conferences and teaching over there as well as over here.

Jason, Lynette here once again, and as always, thank you for sharing this online, leaving your reviews. Head over to the show [email protected] to get the links to Gary’s website as well as his hypno. Live 2019 training and also check out work smart business.com before the book launch. That’s how you can get a free copy of it digitally after the launch.

That’ll likely redirect over to the page on Amazon, helping you to work smart on your business and your hypnosis, and many other work smart projects coming down the pipeline rather soon. I’m Jason Lynette. See you soon. Thanks for listening to the Work Smart Hypnosis podcast and work smart hypnosis.com.