Session #422: David Ruby on Evidence-Based Artistry

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This is the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast Session number 422. David Ruby on evidence based artistry.

Welcome to the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast with Jason Linett, your professional resource for hypnosis training and outstanding business success. Here’s your host, Jason Linett.

You know, it’s not every day that you get to meet a medical librarian. And it’s really not every day that you get to meet one that then becomes a phenomenal hypnotist. Hey, it’s Jason.

And welcome back here to the Work Smart Hypnosis podcast. And you’re about to dive into a conversation that I recently had with David Ruby. Now, I’ve known David for a number of years now, and it was great to connect and dive deeper into this conversation. Specifically on not only his introduction to Hypnosis, but also to the journey of the other side of his world and the work that he’s previously done and how that’s really informed an interesting take on how we begin to approach learning and our skill set and even how do we customize to the client in front of us. Based upon this mindset of evidence based hypnosis. We’re going to dive into the conversation in terms of how, unfortunately, a bit of a chance injury became one of the ways that he first really became fascinated within this industry, as well as looking at how as a profession, we can begin to elevate each other and really bring in themes of all things such as ancestral memory into the work of Hypnosis.

From research to ancestral memory to then medical librarian, this is definitely one you have got to listen to. You can head over to the show notes for this week’s episode. It’s number 422. So head over to worksmarthypnosis.com/422 that’ll bring you directly over to see exactly how to interact with David as well as his group, as well as his business website as well. And while you’re there, let’s help you to grow a much stronger hypnotic business. Check out hypnoticbusinessystems.com. There is no need to try to reinvent the wheel. There’s no reason to try to invent everything from scratch. The backstory to the program that’s now hypnotic business systems is that I ran the office that I operated in Virginia for right at a dozen years, seeing thousands of clients. Now I still see clients, but I’m no longer in Virginia. And because of that, it kind of allowed me to take this training community and program that I do and switch it up from originally being tell you what to do.

Over the years, it also became a show you how to do it. But now one of the greatest strengths is the instant win you can achieve inside of Hypnotic Business Systems, as there are several done for you marketing campaigns that you can put into use right away. Check that out and watch the details. And also notice how at the hypnoticbusinessystems.com page, it’s like 95% other people telling you of their stories, their results, as well as their feedback on this program. So check that out. Join today over at hypnoticbusinessystems.com. And with that, let’s dive directly in. Here we go. This is session number 422. David Ruby on evidence based artistry.

My introduction to Hypnosis was actually probably hearing about it in like a and this is actually going somewhere, hearing about it in these very Hollywood tones. And that actually pertains to my job at the time, was a medical librarian. I really was a skeptic of this, and I say this actually quite a bit, so I didn’t really buy into this, no offense to Hypnosis folks out there, but I really didn’t. But I was a researcher. So what do you do if you’re a researcher is you go on PubMed, and to this day I go there a lot and you research it. So from a skeptical mindset, I was able to see a lot of evidence for it. And for me, the big one was, I think, surgical anesthesia. So I found out that you can use it for that. I’m like, well, wow, I should learn this.

I love that reference. Just to hop in real quick. That’s one of those things that people often bring up in this type of chat, and it’s where there’s someone who not involved in our shared backgrounds here, yet she was talking about it, she goes, then I saw this research around surgical stuff, and I thought to myself, okay, that can’t be faked. Yeah, that’s got to be real. Okay, I need to look at better research.

Yeah, but that was my origin story, more or less, and from then I researched the hell out of it, and I started taking Hypnosis classes and really haven’t stopped with that. And then after probably a couple of years, after a year or two, I went to Hypnots, and I thought, Well, I’ll get certified. And I was told I should do this for money, and then did it as a side career, and that’s kind of started growing from there. That’s where I’m at now.

Yeah. And that background as the medical librarian, what does that typically consist of?

To be a medical librarian, you actually have to go to get a grad degree for it. I went TW Madison and got a Sliss degree, school of Library and Information Studies, I believe is the acronym. And I was a teacher before that, so I went for a school librarian. Then I worked at UW Ashkosh for a while. I did like, a second placement after student teaching, and then I worked there while one of the librarians was on maternity leave. Then I got a job at Aurora and Oshkosh at their medical library at the hospital and that’s kind of but yeah, I got a master’s degree for research and also was a certified school librarian. Had that certification too.

Got it. So, like, the day to day work of, like, what does that mostly consist of doing?

Boy, a lot of crossword puzzles to be, no.

This one actually might be a question for me because everyone’s expectation of librarian would be, I’m going to the library and to find out the end of the story is the time she goes, everybody shut up. I finally get to say this. I can neither confirm nor deny, I know what that is, but I need to make a phone call. She was a librarian for the CIA and it was a group of families on a vacation together and a parachute washed up on shore and she never got to actually use that phrase until that moment. It’s like, so what does this job consist of? She goes, I really can’t answer that. I’m assuming you’re allowed to.

Yeah, mine’s not so cloak and daggerish. Most of what I did was researching stuff for doctors and nurses and checking out CPR manuals. But I did a lot of research for doctors and nurses and I did actually rehab department. The physical therapy rather was great because they had all kinds of weird stuff. You looked up things like cupping and acupressure and different sorts of modalities. And so when I wasn’t doing that stuff, I was looking up the diagnosis studies and in my off time too, it wasn’t just doing work time hours for that and I would tell people about it. So to answer your question, most of it was researching things for staff or for patients. And I do have like a caregiver mindset at heart. That’s how I got into teaching and then enjoyed being in hospital. And I remember one time I had this one I researched stuff for about Grieving because her husband had passed away and it was fascinating the process of it and how you could give people information about things that would help them.

And I remember being in the cafeteria and her bawling in gratitude, mind you, but from the outside they’re seeing me hand to swollen this packet of paper and kind of losing it and like, oh, this is going to be great. My boss is going to be like, we heard you made some patient cry in the cafeteria, Dave. But that’s what I did. I would research things for staff and patients largely teach classes as well on how to find evidence based practices, which is how I got the idea for evidence based hypnosis as a Facebook group to research this stuff and share with people who might be interested in it.

Yeah, and I definitely want to dive into that because it’s where the background you have lends itself to a very, I’m sure, interesting and different take in terms of what others would assume to be evidence based, though. Let’s dive into it from the angle, first of all, of the actual work that you do, what are the types of clients that you’re currently working with?

Most of what I focused on lately has been athletes in my niche to get reach. Is that how it goes?

Yes, it’s the specialty to find your specialty. That one didn’t catch on, but we’re workshopping.

It doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as well.

But what’s great is three people are getting the joke right now, and that’s just making you and I happy.

It’s the small things, the little things. Yeah, it really is. But I find that I enjoy working with athletes, high performance mindset, folks like for business or for squeezing the most out of life you can. And for these spiritual hippie types, which are a rare find for me, but I find they’re enjoyable. I also do a lot of work with Core Transformation and wholeness work from Connie Range Reyes, which lends itself to a more spiritual approach. But mostly athletes and performance mindset because I find they’re fun to work with. I don’t mind working with trauma and things that are terrible. My mindset’s always been always. But terrible stuff happens in the world. It’s going to happen whether I do anything about it or not. If I can help someone who’s been traumatized or who’s struggling, I can make a difference. And that’s amazing to me.

But I resonate more with athletes because their mindset’s so positive. And I started doing CrossFit about a year ago, which is like a friendly cult. Yes, it really is.

Yeah.

But having that mindset for myself, I find that I resonate more with people who aren’t helpless and who aren’t victimized. I can associate with both. I can relate to both, but I relate more to people who are like, let’s do it. Let’s make a change. Let’s do as much good, get as much out of this existence as we can. And I find that’s where I resonate with a bit more these days.

Well, there’s the aspect of that, of it’s the person who has accomplished something already. And I’d always say that the stereotype of what the general public would perhaps assume to be our clients are really not the ones who are calling. The person who’s assuming everything is falling apart, nothing is going to help them, is just not necessarily that person who’s also going to go, so I’m going to call someone about this and get some help. And that benefit of how we can isolate those strengths and what’s in it, in their story, what’s the parts of them that are every reason why they don’t have to be responding this specific way in this specific part of life. I’ve got to see if there’s a through line, though, from that athletes and professional space to then you mentioned hippies. Is there a through line?

Yes. I think it’s the searching for something, looking for something they haven’t found yet, or looking for things, how to get better, how to improve. And again, as much as I focus on athletes because I tend to enjoy them and these spiritual hippie types and business folks, I’ve seen that people who have been victimized or have had trauma and they’re survivors and they have that same drive. So I focus on athletes probably because of being more involved in weightlifting and CrossFit lately, because they tend to have that mentality from the start. But I’ve had people who’ve had horrible relationship problems or trauma or want to quit smoking for weight loss or any of the common ones, and they have that same mentality. So it’s that type of person that I do tend to. I really enjoy that type and I enjoy getting people to that place where they’re not things are going terrible and I want to get better.

I enjoy getting them to that space like, well, what can you do? What can we do to make this better? How is it going to be when you are over that? I guess it adds a positivity for me that I find kind of not addicting, but I find it’s fun. And I like bringing that energy into clients, whatever they’re doing. So it’s not just about the niche as much as it’s about the type of personality either they have or that I can get them to that to laugh, to have fun, to well, how’s it going to feel whenever? You’re doing amazing. Whenever you’ve got this result, when you have that you’ve lost 20 pounds or quit smoking or when you can just relax and breathe. What’s that going to be like? I like getting people to that positive space. That’s what makes this job really fun for me is getting people into more positive states.

I’m over here kind of laughing because as soon as you started that description, I flashed to one specific person who I worked with years ago and was basically I’ll generalize the story, though, the element of this that could make them, if they even heard it, go, oh, he’s talking about me. No, I’ve had like four different people as clients who were men in their 70s with beards down to their navel, who did downhill skateboarding like you do. And that was the image that popped in my head of one of them specifically, that it was just he had left the corporate America space. He had gone into his own career in retirement. And it was know, I hear there could be the expectation of the word hippie. He used it himself, yet I go to the fact that he just had his belief systems dialed in and that wasn’t a bad thing.

It was just he knew himself and he goes, just, here’s this one thing, though, that I can’t seem to crack. And you find that person who’s more connected to their understanding of who they are. Anybody who ever, let’s say, might hire a website designer or a writer to help kind of clean something up. It’s that clarity to go, I would never say that sentence. Instead, it’s said this way. And kind of that same tone appears with the athlete, oh, when this happens, here’s what I do. It’s not that injury or that mild ache means no can’t do it’s. Like, no, I make these modifications and they’re aware of their own strategies, more so than many others.

Yeah, I have a funny real quick gym story. When I first started going to the CrossFit gym, and I went because one of the guys, the guy that owns it, was at a networking group I was in, and I liked him. And actually, another hypnotist said, you should join CrossFit, actually, Kathleen Shannon, who was on your yeah, she’s like, you should do this. I’m like, what, are you trying to kill me? Well, not necessarily, but I went and we’re doing front squats, and this is not a brag, this will be apparent later, but I did a front squat of 215 and like, why not a bail? If I can’t lift it, I’ll just bail. So I went for 225, hurt my knee, and the guy down, like, two racks down, did like, 325. This is going somewhere, by the way. But he had his first record and I’m like, oh, I messed up my knee.

So I told the coach and like, oh, that’s fine. Well, so you can’t do this instead. So they gave me some other exercise. So instead of just going, oh, I’m injured, I can’t do it was like, well, what can you do? They could have said, oh, that’s too bad, you can go home and rest. It was like, well, what can you do? And I like that mentality of finding out what you can accomplish. It doesn’t matter if you can deadlift 1000 pounds or if you can barely get the bar up. That mentality of what can you do? And how can you do this to get better and improve things? I find that mentality is very inspiring to me, and I like that I’ve started to adopt that mentality personally.

So let’s look at this from that evidence based hypnosis side of things, which, not to kick off a scandal, but you catch that one, I would ask the question that evidence based is one of those terms that is thrown around and, oh, there we go. Did anyone hear that? That kind of sound just makes my day to go, OOH, we found expertise. I am in. However, to be fair with the alternative, it is considered to be evidence based. Not just evidence, though, kind of give us your working definition of what that truly encompasses.

That science, because evidence based gets thrown around. It’s such a buz phrase or a catch word. For me, evidence based implies when I did that as a librarian, evidence based tended to be there was, like, a large body of evidence supporting whatever supporting a certain chemotherapy protocol or supporting a certain medication for hypnosis. Specifically. I would look at it at things like cochrane database articles, where they look at, like, they have a systematic review or a meta analysis, and they look at the whole body of evidence. And it doesn’t have to be that. But generally speaking, you want randomized control trials, review articles, good ones, mind you, there are some bad ones done by a peer reviewed study, something that’s been looked at by people in that field. So for hypnosis, I would look at things like systematic reviews or randomized control trials or look at enough articles where it’s not just, I found one that supports what I want to believe.

And this is not meant to throw you under a bus, but I have seen people get excited about I’ll look at one example. There’s one smoking study that gets cited a lot by us, I think, because people see it and they get excited because it says basically, hypnosis outperformed everything by a wide margin. Which is great, right? That’s what you want to hear. The catch to that is, it’s one study. That wasn’t a very good study. Even if it was, it’s one study. And the other studies out there don’t necessarily support hypnosis on its own, and there are probably reasons why that is. But hypnosis doesn’t dramatically outperform everything. If it does, there are reasons why. If it doesn’t, there’s reasons why too. And that’s where I think the coaching relationship has a big role that you can’t really test for as much in a study looking at why they smoke, what their triggers are, what their history is, why they start, what’s keeping them smoking when that original purpose doesn’t exist anymore.

So there’s still evidence that it works. But look at what everything says. Don’t just pick the one that says what you want to believe. Right.

So then, from that angle, then, I mean, what would you say if we had to isolate it and just simply say so? Here are some of the red flags. If you were referencing the one specific smoking study that I’ve seen, it’s the one that, when you read it carefully, you see that high percentage of success was actually like twelve people out of 15. And I think it’s fair to say 15 is a better study than some, but clearly not the absolute best thing that could be out there.

Yeah. So I think if it’s got like hundreds or thousands of people over several studies, and it’s been replicated, that’s good. And it’s good to get excited about a study, but keep it in context. So if it’s the only study showing that, or if it’s the study of, like, 20 people, or if it’s like, 100 people and 30% dropped out and it only had for a month or something, looking at enough number of people to be able to draw an actual trend over enough time where it actually sustains itself and over enough studies where it’s replicable, not just one person doing it.

I would go back to and I’m going to have to cheat and elongate my sentences, as you can now probably can hear me typing as we’re chatting here, which means that I’m basically revving up to then give a specific reference to, of course, episode number 19 of this podcast. Okay, this is like 420 something. So I’m allowed to have to cheat to find these numbers. Yet he was a research coordinator at the University of Chicago, and a big part of that conversation, it’s session number 19, Greg Poljacik and the Brain. Not Pinky and the brain, but Greg Poljacik and the brain. And he was referencing at one point the popular what the bleep do we know? Documentary. And what he said, though, in that conversation was worthwhile that this has stuck ever since, which is that we can’t say the research has necessarily proven. He goes, the danger of that is you might put yourself on the wrong side of history.

So the preferred phrasing, at least in their research, was always current. Research now suggests. Yeah, because then again, if you drive a car over 45 miles an hour, your head will fall off.

Yeah. If you try and run a mile, in less than four minutes, your heart will blow up.

Well, that’s been proven, but glad we got past that one there.

Right?

So what are some of those red flags that would pop? We’re joking, people. What are some of those red flags that you would say we should be aware of? Aside from it may just be the one study? How can we become better at looking and going, this one is valid.

I think having enough information to see is there more than one study saying it? If it’s just one study and no one else is talking about it, there’s probably a reason, big ones, and this is a big pet peeve of mine, when people say things like hypnosis can cure cancer or cure COVID, okay, prove it. I mean, that’s one where if you know someone who’s died of cancer and someone’s offering this solution and they don’t back it up, I’m going to get a little pissed off about that because it’s not fair. If there’s no evidence, no actual proof that it does that, then don’t say it. I think you can look at like, hypnosis can help people to heal more. It can help them to tap in their body’s ability to heal. And there are cases spontaneous cancer remission, that’s fine, but those are like exceptions.

So don’t say that it can cure cancer if you can’t back it up.

Well, I would go back to he’s out of the Chicago area, Scott Giles, and we’ll leave out what specific body of work he was referencing, as it’s his story that he tells. And it’s just the point of going, it’s really fascinating that this book proposes a really strong argument that hypnosis could cure cancer. It’s also interesting that the statistical number the author presents is pretty darn close to spontaneous remission. And I’m not saying he goes, I’m not saying that it’s this or not this. I’m just saying, isn’t that interesting?

Well, to answer your question, I think number studies, longevity and being from a reputable source, if it’s from a medical journal that’s not indexed in PubMed, that’s a bit of a red flag. And there are predatory journals that will publish pretty much anything I could pay to have. The Dave Ruby protocol will cure everything, and someone will take my money and they’ll publish it.

Everybody, you heard it here first. Go to foxvalleyhypnosis.com. And that’s going to be now. Never mind.

Anyway, I think looking at what does the general consensus say? And if there are exceptions, that’s fine. But who’s saying it? How many studies have they done? How many people have done it? How long has this study been going on? I think it’s Ellen Langer. She’s the one who did the study on having elderly people listening to music from their teens and being like environments. Does this ring any bells?

It does. Yeah. Right.

There’s some study. I believe it’s Ellen Langer. If not, then someone can correct me in post edit or something. But she took people who were elderly and put them in this old environment where it looked like the rooms would have looked like when they were teenagers and played music from the 60s or 50s, whenever they were teens. And they actually started to get better. They started to act and move like they were young. And again, the details are a bit foggy because I wasn’t preparing that. But she didn’t publish that for a long time because she thought no one would believe it. They’ll be like, yeah, whatever. That’s quackery. And she was probably right. And when it was published, it was revolutionary, and they actually had acquired enough studies to basically prove it. And it’s been validated. My point is that there are some amazing things that can happen, and there are things that we don’t know yet.

But until it’s been proven, or unless you have enough evidence to start to take that seriously, be a little skeptical or at least consider that is the exception that doesn’t disprove everything that came before it. On the other hand, a really well done study is one study. That doesn’t mean that’s wrong. It means it’s one study. So I would weigh the greater evidence body more than one study 100% of the time.

Well, I’d also just throw in this is my take on it at times, which is to point out that the question, what else was going on that you and I are both familiar with there’s many sources that suggest this one. That the power of just simply asking the question, what do you notice now drives the mind for something to be different compared to what it was before. At the same time, let’s point out the person who is also responding to a study is also coming in with the expectation that this is what it’s possibly going to do, and it’s where I’ll say it here. I had some people who maybe dropped down in the fan club of Jason Linett when it was the can you record something for people to boost their immune systems around the pandemic? I’m like, well, here’s the catch, though. Point to your immune system.

It’s a construct of many different things, and I’m always the one to know. We had to address this in a recent class on a different topic, of course, but it was the I want you to suggest my metabolism is going faster. It’s like, well, we could suggest that there is and careful, I’m sure some anecdotal evidence and people who have some interesting stories. There’s some data that can be found that backs up this premise based upon these specific figures, though. At the same time, let’s approach it from a thoughts, feelings, actions perspective and go, what’s that low hanging fruit of behaviors that can now be motivated that then will then speed up the metabolism and or create the result that we want by then speeding up the metabolism? That was a lot of words, but you were agreeing with me, so let’s keep going.

Sounds good to me.

Yeah, no, what are your thoughts on that in terms of pointing the suggestion where we can actually affect a change? And I’ll be the one to say it here, so I’ll take the hate mail on this one, not saying the things that make us as practitioners really excited, but instead point to a body of proof or current research, suggest proof that this is what we can actually do.

Yeah, I haven’t really seen much evidence that you can just suggest metabolism gets faster and people start dropping body fat like it’s nothing. I guess I would point to art versus science. So maybe I’m not known as this. I kind of think myself as like a science y guy. I grew up watching Mr. Wizard and then Bill Nye and stuff and watching documentaries.

I’m pretty sure you and I were watching Bill Nye, though, on Almost Live before we even watched him on Bill Nye the Science Guy.

A little bit of both, actually. Speedwalker.

Yeah. High five and white. The I’m not going to say for those who don’t know what we’re talking about, for everyone who’s not either me or you or, I think Duff, it’s a sketch comedy show that was out of the Seattle area and it was on Friday nights and it was pre taped, so thus it was Almost Live. The people who write the show notes are going to have fun with this one.

Yes. Anyway, I think of in terms of art and science, so science, do we have evidence that you can just give suggestions and this will be the result? And is it good evidence, yes or no? Also, what does the science say does work? Well, you can say that any well established diet works if you. Follow it. So do things that will lead to that, lead to better eating habits, lead to exercise, better sleep, drinking water, all the stuff that you probably heard from every diet guru in the planet. Don’t just say that your metabolism will speed up. If that works, great. But there’s no evidence that’s like a strong candidate for weight loss in my experience, my opinion, what I’ve read, and I read a lot of the stuff because I’m a geek, what can you say but what works? And we know what works and help people to make those good choices.

Science. Follow what actually works, follow what’s been shown and demonstrated to be effective, incorporate that, then the art is the art. What’s the person in front of you? What do they need? How do we do things that are maybe more tailored to the person, not just what’s in a study?

Well, let’s go into that then, which is where there is a blend of that art as well as the science. And this is not a criticism in any form of making a correlation here. Yes, there’s a lot of people who have made use of the process, core transformation, yet it also goes into some more spiritual based applications which are going to be more anecdotal. And that’s, again, neither a positive nor a negative statement. It’s just from the angle of here’s where, yes, let’s lean on the research versus here. Let’s now access the ancestral memory.

Yeah. With core transformation, what I’ll give Connie Ray and Tamara and Mark a lot of credit for is they’ve actually done randomized control trials and they’re doing ongoing research with core transformation. So I bring that up quite a bit and I think they didn’t have to do that. The other one I’ll mention is the RTM protocol with Richard Gray and Dr. Frank Bork. If you haven’t talked to Richard Gray is a wonderful human being, very smart guy, and they do a lot of research ongoing and they really support it with evidence base. I’ll get back to core transformation in a minute. But there are people that are actually testing this stuff and basing what they’re doing on what the scientific body of evidence says and incorporating that. There are a lot of people incorporating neurology and biology and what we know about how the brain and mind and body works and basing suggestions around things we know that the body and mind will do.

Core transformation can touch on spiritual stuff, so can wholeness work, but it’s based on principles of how the mind seems to be working. Like any feeling, behavior or thought ultimately has some positive intention. And it may not be your positive intention as much as what that part wants, but it is a part of you that may be kind of strange to say, but it wants something. And theory is it wants some core state. And if that’s like spiritual growth or smoking or eating cheesecake at three in the morning. Whatever it is, it ultimately wants some kind of quote unquote core state. And they’ve actually tested that. It works. I don’t know if they can test it like that’s what your psyche actually wants. As much as this protocol appears to have this result over X amount of people, over X amount of studies, did that go too far off the rails?

No, I love that. And that balance really becomes let’s use the evidence as a grounding point, as a launching point perhaps. Yet then here’s what the client brings to the table, both consciously and unconsciously. And that’s where the artistry of it does need to come in and not necessarily to go, okay, well, you just talked about this memory. I don’t have any research that talks about being on the front porch with the grandparents in the rocking chair. But we have to then customize to then what the person brings to the process.

I tend to think of the science and the research as sort of like a base. It sort of proves what we can prove. So I can look at the evidence that says randomized controlled trial showed that core transformation was effective with these conditions over this amount of time. And that’s our base. And if you look at core transformation, it’s one of the few things I use that has an actual script. It’s a script in that like it’s a process. Not necessarily word for word, but I only edit that to say could we trade that word out for outline rather than script?

I would say process is probably more accurate, but it’s a very procedural thing and a lot of the language matters. But there is an art to it’s. Not just if you just read the script, because there is an actual script in the book. If you just read the process and fill in the blank with their words for whatever their condition is or whatever they’re there to work on. Duff actually said that he found it works a lot of the time. You don’t have to change anything and that’s great. What’s better is if you actually are customizing to the person and that’s where the artistry comes in. If you notice their body symmetry changes or if you notice that they say things in certain ways that imply stress or excitement or joy or relaxation, you can kind of pounce on that and use it. So the art is like the interaction.

It’s working with the client. Not just a script, not just a process. It’s a human being that we get to interact with. The artistry is kind know, it can be intuition going through your gut. It could be looking at and noticing things. Erickson was great with that. He would notice what people did. He would utilize everything. You can’t fit that into a study or a protocol. You can’t say and look for if their head tilts two degrees and their tone drops or they start speaking like a child. Those are things you kind of notice and you pick up on and you intuit and you utilize. So the artistry is for me, it’s having the scientific background of how the mind tends to work, how hypnosis seems to be working over time and over studies, and then how the person in front of you is responding, what they’re doing, what they’re not doing, how they’re holding themselves.

Their tonality trance indicators, for instance. And how do we use that? And a lot of it’s based on intuition and practicing and seeing what works, seeing how the person in front of you reacts or doesn’t react and let that kind of guide you.

So talk a bit. You run a group specifically around evidence based hypnosis. Share some insights on that.

What I tend to do is I use that more as like an article review site and to kind of start discussions with people. There’s some interaction that other people have added stuff to. What I’ll do is I’ll find studies or articles that are I think relevant to the field or that I find interesting and I’ll put it out there, I’ll read it, review it, ask for thoughts. And my goal with that is to start more of a conversation with people. Not to say this is the answer because frankly it’s not. But here’s what I found interesting things looking at like placebo, there’s a lot on placebo. Nicholas Spanos has a lot on, he’s since passed. He was a researcher that did a lot on trance and is depth of trance important? And the literature says generally no, it’s very subjective and it doesn’t seem to affect the outcome of treatment.

But there are times that it might be useful and it’s a lot of fun. So that could be experientially rich. But I’ll look at that stuff to kind of see what does the evidence actually say. And that keeps me on my toes, keeps me sharp and keeps me informed so I can see what does the evidence generally say. But I also couple that with what I find from my experience and other people’s anecdotal stuff. And I don’t think anecdotal is a bad word. It’s just anecdotal. It’s not going to have the same academic weight as 100 RCTs or a meta analysis that covers all the literature, but I do that to see what the evidence actually suggests is true. Can I tell a real quick story? Do you ever hear of how NASA developed a pen that would write in space?

Oh, it’s been years, I’ve heard the story, but I forget the details of it.

So the story goes that NASA realized you can’t use like a Vic or something in space, there’s no gravity. So you can’t use a ball point pen and obviously a jar of ink and a quill. That’s not going to be great, know zero gravity. So the story is that NASA spent years and millions of dollars developing a pen that would write in space. And the ancillary story is that you know what the Soviet Union did?

Used a pencil.

Used a pencil.

Yeah.

Do you know why I tell this story?

Why is that?

Because it’s bullshit. It’s a fake story.

Yeah.

The real story is that we all use pencils until Apollo One caught fire and three crew members during a launch rehearsal died. And they wanted to avoid having things like shards of pencil, shavings and graphite floating around. They wanted to avoid fire, essentially. But that’s important to me because I thought that was a great story. And it was on like, Westwing, I believe, and another hypnotist used it as an example on finding solutions and easy solutions. But I was willing to believe that until I thought, well, that’s strange. Why would they do that if a pencil worked? And I researched it. Right. Because my belief was one thing, that I researched it and very quickly found out that was wrong. So what did that teach me? What did I learn from actually checking out this source? And was it legit or not?

I feel we’re safe to reference again the obscurity that you and I can go into here. Robert Wool, who used to do the TV show Arliss, had a comedy special that was on HBO, I think, about maybe 15 to 20 years ago, called Assume the Position. And it was basically, let me do stand up comedy inside of a university classroom. And it’s exploring all of the stories that are part know our culture. That okay. So here’s the whole rest of the story of know one of by land, two if by sea. Or here’s the way that this story is told. Or being that I’m originally from Virginia, let me also just throw in the nugget that just because the area is named after the person doesn’t mean that they were the hero of the story. It sometimes just means they were the first one to get there.

So it’s where the belmar line? I don’t know if this is a fact, but it sure sounds like it’s true. And the elements get embedded into it the same as well. This is where we end up with tradition. This is why you count down. No, this is why you count up when at the same time to look at it from more of the user perspective. And it’s not that I say that’s right after this suggestion because it solidifies the change. I said that’s right to give your reference, because they made an adjustment and that then created the assumption and that, yes, activated the change. But the real reason that I said that’s right is because of what actually happened during the process. And it’s similar to well, the same way into the problem is often the same way out of it. We use anchoring often to help our clients, and by definition, many of the clients issues relates to some form of anchoring.

Agreed. Actually, when I took a Michael Watson class, this should be like a drinking game for how many people? I named Robinson. But he had a point that if you just took anchoring and got really good at it, you could solve just about any problem. I think a lot of that was basically so we didn’t focus on learning every technique as opposed to getting good at what it was and reading the client. But I thought that was a nice little nugget and it really stuck with me.

Yeah. So then what’s the next step of this? I know we’re recording this before hypnots occur. As you’re speaking there on some of these themes, where do you see this evidence based movement continuing to grow inside of the industry?

I expect it’ll be like a truck hitting a brick wall.

Pretty?

No, I kid. What I hope is that we can continue to learn more. I think we’ve already started. James Marlowe Harrison. You know James, right? Yeah. He actually is writing a book on incorporating some of the science about kind of we’ve talked shop a bit and there are a few people that are interested, I think dr. Bork and Dr. Richard Gray and Lisa I forget her last name they’ve actually written a book on evidence. Basically, it’s like evidence based behind NLP and how it’s been used in certain trials and how the principles are actually sound. Where I think it’s going to go, where I hope it goes, is that I’m able to keep referencing this stuff and they’re doing science research on it. Like Irving Kirsch has done a bunch and there’s a bunch of names. Hopefully we get better at figuring out how this works and what it’s useful for.

And ultimately I would love it to be incorporated into modern medicine because there’s a lot of evidence out there, but there’s also a lot of studies that are kind of biased and some it’s really good, some it’s so NLP research is not great. Overall, there are some exceptions. I hope that we continue to do quality research and show this is a viable modality. Also, I’m seeing a lot of it in the last few years where it’s become more of a combined modality, where they’ll pair it with other modalities and they work hand in hand. So that integrative sort of thing where we realize that doctors are not our enemies and they realize we’re not quacks or kooks and we can start to specialize. This make this something where there’s some established protocols and there are things that are accepted in mainstream medicine because it’s a powerful modality and not enough people are using it.

Well, I’d throw a statement out here which it’s entirely up to you to agree or go, maybe not yet. I would say that here’s that and I know it wasn’t you saying that, oh, the doctors don’t believe the physicians don’t believe I think it’s more either it’s a balance of, just to use the word politely, ignorance. And I think, well, there’s three parts. One part ignorance and said in a clinical, non judgmental way of just they don’t yet know what they don’t yet know and they very clearly know their specific skill set. I forget which podcast. It was a few weeks ago that I told the story of going into the hospital with my wife. She’s about to have our son and the doctor looking at her and saying, I haven’t been trained or get in natural childbirth. Let me get someone who does that more than I do because I just specialize in the medically assisted which wasn’t someone trying to force a belief system or force a decision on us.

It was just to go, that’s why we have so many people on staff here. Let’s get this one. So one part of it would be just the ignorance. The other would be, we are coming out of an era. Careful here. I’ll take the fall on this one. We are coming out of an era buckle up. Of some organizations that were trying to use more fear based tactics to retain their members. And the lights have been turned on in recent years and people just went, oh, I couldn’t verify any of that. I’ll let you all decide exactly what that means, as well as I’m going to go business on this for a moment. It’s easier to external blame and say that’s why they’re not referring, when instead it’s the practitioner who hasn’t yet facilitated a proper introduction, really bridged a connection, created a true business relationship, rather than just Will you send me referrals?

So it’s one part just I think all of it comes around to just outdated thinking. But I’m of the firm opinion and my knowledge now suggests that we are further along as a profession than many in our industry give it the credit for being we all agree it works. And I feel that the general public is further along than what many of us give it credit for.

Yeah, my experience in talking to actually, I talked to the president of the hospital I used to work at and he said, basically, if you can provide me good evidence that it works, I’ll refer people to you. And I took up on that. So they’re open to it. They want good information. And again, who wouldn’t if I said, this pill will cure baldness? Great. What’s backing that up? What keeps us from being seen as a snake oil salesman, which we’re not. But what’s the evidence? What’s backing that up? Why should I believe you over any other cure that’s alleging things that doesn’t work? So I think they want quality information.

Specifically.

They want like, randomized control trials and systematic reviews. So if we can provide them good quality evidence, I think they will listen. Some people just don’t know. Some people are under outdated modality thinking, or outdated thinking rather. And they don’t know, but some do, and some people are on board. And if you can show it to them and get results, I think they’d definitely be on board.

So I kind of tie this all together with two things. Statement number one, only because you just recently brought it up, I think it’s about time we all gave snake oil a second chance, because it’s been labeled as the thing to not trust. But what if that’s actually the cure all and we’re all just repeating outdated information? Come on, evidence based boy, back it up. Second of all, this has been phenomenal. Where can people find you? How can they get in contact?

Under the bridge by the hobble? No, actually, as the time of this recording, I’m changing my name. It’s currently in production. My old business is foxfelly Hypnosis. So Foxfellyhypnosis.com, if you’re in Wisconsin, that might mean something to you. If not, it doesn’t. But I’m also transitioning to Davidrubiehypnosis.com, so that’s where to probably find me now. And yeah, that’s my business going forward.

Excellent. Which this is episode number oh, I just had it in front of me. I told you I was organized. Let me open the wrong Google sheet for a moment here. To quote my friend who teaches automations, demon in the sheets. Here we go.

Yeah.

So this is episode number 422, but who’s counting? You can find references to the various studies and other podcast episodes and David’s websites. And send me a link too for the group. Or just walk us through it. What can they search in Facebook to then find that group?

Yeah, for evidence based hypnosis, all you do is you type in evidence based hypnosis.

Three words hypnosis. How the hell am I not in this one yet? And join boom. Now we’re even further best friends online. This is session number 422. I referenced that because if you go to any of the show’s episodes, worksmarthypnosis.com/422. Type in the numbers and one person calling me, yelling that they tried to spell it out. I go there’s their numbers, but type in four two. At the end of that’ll redirect you over to here. David, this has been really great in terms of diving into. I think the real takeaway is yes, let’s lean on the body of evidence, yet also find those places to then customize to the person in front of us. Let it become that more artistic journey. And it’s got to be a balance of the two. It’s not the absolutist this versus that. Before we wrap it up here, any final thoughts for the listeners out there?

Thanks for listening. If you made it this far, I appreciate it. And thanks for having me, Jason. It was fun.

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