IMPROVING YOUR LIFE
Private sessions for individuals and couples
In addition to traditional talk therapy, Rebecca uses a combination of techniques which are personally tailored to help you achieve your goals, make changes, and realize your full potential for a happier and more peace-filled life. As a spiritual counselor and clinical hypnotherapist, Rebecca utilizes a unique method of working with her clients.
As a communication expert, Rebecca works with couples to improve understanding and communication. Generally speaking, men and women communicate in different ways. When each person can understand how the other communicates, many problems can be resolved, lines of communication are opened up, and the result is a happier and healthier relationship.
In addition to traditional talk therapy, Rebecca uses the following methods:
Expanding Awareness: Realizing the Power of Choice
If we are not aware that we have a choice regarding how we think, behave, act, and feel, than we don't really have that choice! Coming from a more expansive perspective allows more freedom and choice in your life. Approaching life in this way - with the techniques Rebecca teaches her clients - allows you to realize patterns, reactions, and traps which have kept you in unhappy situations. By observing and understanding the workings of the mind (the emotions, feelings, thoughts, associations, past experiences, future worries, "what if's"), you are able to experience more choice in every situation. This changes your entire experience of life.
NLP
Neuro-linguistic programming
NLP is the study of how your brain and your mind make you behave, feel, and think the way you do - it's the study of our own personal subjective "reality." In a way, we have all been "programmed" based on past conditioning, past experiences, and the way we have learned to "see" and experience the world. Most of our behavior is learned. We learn from the people, the culture, and the society around us as we grow up, and this conditions us (we learn) how to perceive things and react to the world in certain ways, according to this past conditioning. Just as we were able to learn this past behavior, we are also able to unlearn it.
You can change the way you think and feel, and therefore the way you behave. You have choice in what you think and feel, and how you act and behave. Sometimes it doesn't feel that way, though, and the techniques Rebecca employs helps you experience this choice, and make changes you want to make - whatever they may be.
Hypnotherapy
Hypnotherapy is the applied, therapeutic use of hypnosis and the power of one's inner wisdom to achieve goals, answer questions, gain insights, understand and let go of patterns, change limiting beliefs, improve health, and more. As a clinical hypnotherapist, Rebecca sometimes uses hypnosis to help her clients. What is hypnosis? Hypnosis is a normal, natural state of mind. It is the purposeful and deliberate use of your imagination, combined with a strong focus. Many times there is deep relaxation which accompanies being in hypnosis (but that doesn't always have to be the case). Most of us go in and out of hypnosis many times a day. When you are involved with an "inner reality" - daydreaming, watching a riveting movie, reading an excellent book...these are all forms of hypnosis. Hollywood has made hypnosis seem mysterious, but it is a very natural and normal experience.
During hypnosis the analytical and logical part of the mind (called the conscious mind) is relaxed. This allows you to bypass this part of the mind, and access the subconscious, or unconscious mind. The is the dominant part of your mind, where emotions, imagination and intuition originate. Accessing the subconscious mind allows you to tap into a higher and more natural intelligence than what the analytical and logical part of the mind can show you.
Because hypnosis is such a natural state, you are aware of sounds and of everything happening around you. It is not sleep, or general anesthesia, where the conscious mind is asleep, so you are always in control, and always aware.
For more information, questions, or to make an appointment,
please call Rebecca at (772) 913-4323 or email rebecca@rebeccacarswell.com
From The Wall Street Journal (online), October 7, 2003:
Altered States: Hypnosis In Mainstream Medicine,
by Michael Waldholz
Researchers say that most people unwittingly enter into hypnosis-like trances on their own in everyday life. When reading a riveting novel or watching a film or TV, many people are experiencing a trance-like state when they are so focused they become only vaguely aware of nearby noise, conversation or activity. In a dream, when someone imagines falling off a cliff and is startled awake by the sensation of falling, they are triggering the same mental machinery that in hypnosis allows the mind to influence the body, says Dabney Ewin, a psychiatrist at Tulane University Medical School.
Carol Ginandes, a Harvard psychologist at McLean Hospital in Boston co-wrote a study showing that ankle fractures among patients receiving a hypnotic protocol healed weeks faster than usual. Dr. Ginandes believes that hypnosis enabled her subjects to stimulate the body's own healing mechanism to work more efficiently. She's trying to prove that "through hypnosis, the mind can have a potent effect not only on mental well-being but also on the acceleration of bodily healing itself."
Alternative Medicine: The Definitive Guide published a study comparing the effectiveness of psychoanalysis, behavior therapy and hypnotherapy. Here are the remarkable results:
-After 600 sessions of psychoanalysis, 38% of patients reported recovery from their conditions.
-72% of those receiving behavior therapy improved after 22 sessions.
-Hypnotherapy produced a 93% success rate after only 6 sessions.
Myths About Hypnosis
Myth #1: Hypnosis is a truth serum. False! You do not have to divulge secrets or insights you are gaining unless you choose to do so. You can edit what you say, and you can even lie while in hypnosis. Hypnosis is marked by the conscious and subconscious mind being able to communicate, so your conscious mind is always present. You are always in control. You may elect to share everything with your hypnotherapist, or you may elect to keep portions of the insights you're gaining to yourself.
Myth #2: Hypnosis will make you "do something." False! You never surrender your will to the hypnotherapist or to anyone. Remember, your conscious mind is present during hypnosis, so you are always in control. You will not accept any suggestions that you do not agree with, nor will you do anything outside your moral code.
Myth #3: The strong minded are not easily hypnotized. False! Just the opposite is actually the truth. The more creative and intelligent a person is, the more easily that person can usually be hypnotized. In fact, everyone can be hypnotized. (Remember, it's a very natural state of mind.) If a person is well enough educated on what hypnosis is and isn't, and really wants to have the experience, he or she can do it! Not trying too hard, just following the hypnotherapist's instructions, having faith and the expectation that it will work, and remembering that hypnosis is a subjective experience (it is different for everyone) are a few of the things which will help with the process.
Myth #4: You can lose consciousness or get stuck in hypnosis. Again, false! You do not lose consciousness or go to sleep in hypnosis. You cannot get stuck in hypnosis because your conscious mind is always present. It is a natural state of mind. Most people feel relaxed during hypnosis, but relaxation is not necessary to be hypnotized.
Myth #5: Hypnosis is brainwashing. False! Brainwashing usually includes some type of deprivation. For example, depriving a person of sleep, food, social interaction - and many times it includes the use of drugs. It's not a nice thing! Hypnosis on the other hand, is a positive, insightful experience. Sometimes the senses are even heightened during hypnosis; sometimes even more so than in the fully awakened state. You are aware of everything going on around you.
Hypnotherapy was approved by the American Medical Association back in 1958. It was certified as a legitimate treatment tool. In 1996, a National Institute of Health panel ruled hypnosis as an effective intervention for alleviating pain from cancer and other chronic conditions. THE USE AND CURATIVE POWER OF HYPNOSIS IS BECOMING MORE AND MORE ACCEPTABLE.
For more information, questions, or to make an appointment,
please call Rebecca at (772) 913-4323 or email rebecca@rebeccacarswell.com
