Where to find Hypnosis or Hypnotherapy in Malaysia?

Basic & General, Hypnosis & Hypnotherapy, Issues & Debates, , , , , , , , ,

I’ve come across this question three days in a row, of people asking for hynotherapist in Klang Valley or Kuala Lumpur or Malaysia.

All the while I never really mentioned to people that I’ve a diploma in Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy (accredited by the UK College of Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy), especially ever since I came back from the UK. I thought the Malaysians would hold so many misconceptions about hypnosis that if I were to tell people about this qualification of mine, people were going to be worried what I was going to do to them! (Make them give me all their savings?!)

But these people that I spoke to kind of change what I thought, although some of their beliefs of what hypnosis can do are still not quite true or slightly exaggerated (based on my training background of evidence-based cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy & clinical psychology).

Here I’d like to introduce a few basic introductory (text) books to self-hypnosis, mainly cognitive behavioural based and empirically supported, you can learn more about them and perhaps try to practise them at home, do let me know if you have come up with any problems or obstacles. Not that I’ll definitely be able to answer all your questions BUT I do know a number of therapists in the UK who use hypnosis to help people in their own private clinics.

Books: 

Alladin, A. (2008). Cognitive Hypnotherapy: An Integrated Approach to the Treatment of Emotional Disorders.

Heap, M. & Aravind, K. (2002). Hartland’s Medical & Dental Hypnosis (4th ed.)

Lynn, S. J. & Kirsch, I. (2005). Essentials of Clinical Hypnosis: An Evidence-based Approach (Dissociation, Trauma, Memory, and Hypnosis Book Series)

Robertson, D. (2012). The Practice of Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy: A Manual of Evidence based Clinical Hypnosis. (my review here)

Straus, R. A. (1982). Strategic Self-Hypnosis.

(The Alladin’s and Lynn & Kirsch’s text books are easy to understand, especially when you have some backgrounds in psychology or practicing self-help; The Robertson’s book is the most extensive resources on CBH you can ever find!)

Websites:

A wide range of resources about what hypnotherapy can do, a private clinic in South Manchester: Manchester Hypnotherapy & Counselling

N.B. If you do come across any hypnotherapist in Malaysia please do share it here!

Mindfulness and Acceptance tasks

Basic & General, Treatment Approaches, , , , ,

Following my previous post Thought Challenging or Thought Accepting, here is a few tasks that may help to explore on how to “accept” your thought without causing too much emotional distress.

Task 1

Pick a word that may cause slight distress in you (e.g. “cockroach”, “snake”, “work”, “boss”, “kids”, “boyfriend”, “presentation” etc). Now repeat this particular word as quick as you can (while still making sure that the word is pronounced clearly) for 30 seconds.

This tasks doesn’t make you feel better about “presentation” itself, but after repeating the word for so many times, you probably can no longer take the word so literally – it loses its meaning. Same goes to negative thought (e.g. “I’m a failure”, “everyone hates me”). If those thoughts pop up in your mind, try to see them only as some words, accept them as they are, but not to relate yourself to them, as if it’s just some unrelated persons saying it to you.

Task 2

Sit down in an undisturbed place, close your eyes and imagine a tiger (or a dog if you find it difficult to picture a tiger in your mind). Let the tiger does whatever it wants to do there in your mind, not to control what it does or doesn’t. If the tiger stays quietly, let it be; if it moves around, let it be, too. Do this for about 5 minutes.

Next, for 5 minutes, try NOT to think about tiger at all. Do not think about tiger. Whenever it pops up in your mind, suppress it, avoid it.

What do you realize? Which part of task 2 is harder? To accept the tiger being there and does whatever it likes, or to suppress the tiger, avoid the tiger?

Task 3

Take a few minutes to practise to complete the following sentence, “Right now I’m aware of …”, and putting different descriptions at the ending each time. For example, “Right now, I’m aware of the brightness of the screen”; “Right now, I’m aware of the sound of the air-conditioner”; “Right now, I’m aware of some numbness on my left foot”; “Right now I’m aware of my thoughts on completing the homework”. Name and describe, avoid making judgement. By using language to describe things, you get to control your attention and get to connect to your field of consciousness, rather than its content, so you’re becoming like an observer to your experience. This task requires more practice!

________________________________________________________________________

Now imagine this: A and B fell over badly in public.

A thinks, “this is so embarrassing, ah, but it’s so funny at the same time”, so he laughs at his own carelessness and let go of it.

B thinks, “this is so embarrassing! Everyone is going to laugh at me and watch me like a clown”, he gets so angry and ashamed.

Most of the time, it’s how we relate ourselves to those incidents, thoughts, feelings etc, it’s really not what that happens. If we choose to calm ourselves down and accept whatever that happens, that come to our minds, and allow ourselves to feel the waves of our emotions, the discomfort will soon no longer be “discomforting”.

Thought Challenging or Thought Accepting?

Basic & General, Issues & Debates, , , , , ,

Which do you think is better or more workable? To challenge your thought or to accept it?

Traditionally, the psychologists of Cognitive Behavioural approaches emphasize that our thinking style is what causes us to respond emotionally to events, so it’s our thinking style that determines our feelings, our ability to overcome and steer through when adversity strikes (Reivich, Shatte, 2002).

However, the Mindfulness and Acceptance-based approaches suggest that it’s not so much of the content of our thoughts and attitudes that matters, it’s our relationship with them, i.e. how we respond to them.

So the former approach traditionally teaches people to gather evidence and dispute the logic of unhelpful thoughts, whereas the latter approach says we can simply acknowledge the thoughts and distance ourselves from them, without getting into an internal struggle.

Have you ever tried to control or avoid unpleasant experiences and later coming to realize that it’s affecting you even more and causing more discomfort? (e.g. some noise while you’re trying to sleep; your worries; some palpitation and fears)

Psychological suffering (feeling sad, anxious, guilty etc) is very common and so realistically cannot be avoided. Our attempts to avoid or control painful internal experiences can compound and prolong our emotional suffering, at the same time damaging the quality of our lives.

I’ll subsequently write more posts on how to practise and achieve that. But from now on, start to notice those unpleasant experience, acknowledge them and accept them, instead of trying to control or avoid them.

10/9/14: Check here for some tasks  to explore Mindfulness and Acceptance.

Online Dating Addiction

Clinical Case Studies, Issues & Debates, Unclassified Disorders

He said at first he was just going on online dating sites as he was feeling a bit lonely (though he didn’t use the word “lonely”, that’s just how I interpreted it). He is in his 30s, works in bank, bought a house last year and living on his own. He has rather limited social life as his work occupies almost all his time (13-14 hours a day, sometimes more, weekend too!) 

He went on multiple dating sites to increase the chance of meeting “the one”, some popular sites and some not so, but he’d make sure there’re at least some [female] users in the country (well, it’s still not so common a thing in Malaysia). He said some dating sites had literally no female users in his area.

Over the months he chatted with so many girls. At any one time he could be chatting with 3-4 girls on 2-3 different dating sites. “As long as they responded. But I do filter – religions, ethnicity mainly. The rest, it doesn’t matter, but I do check their pictures. I don’t talk to those without pictures. Who knows you may be talking to an old man or…”

But to my surprise, when I asked how many he had met in person. “None. We’d always mention about meeting in the future, or doing something together. But I never do it. Initially I thought it was due to my work. Well, at least that was the excuse I gave myself and them girls. But slowly I realized I had no intention to meet any of them.” ??!!

“I only enjoy talking to them, flirting with them, perhaps imagining how things would go with this particular girl in the future (then with another girl in “another future”). They fill my time, which isn’t much, anyway, due to my commitment to work and house loan”

“I feel good. I laughed genuinely, and I’m sure I made them happy, and they’re also laughing, giggling in front of the phone. It uses up my leisure time and I constantly feel accompanied, day or night. This one stops writing back? Fine, there’ll always be next and next, next one. So my problems of being alone and not having much social life are solved. Why still bothered to meet up? Especially it probably would often lead to disappointments anyway.”

“I know I’m not the only one being this way. Some people met up and found someone that they’d regularly see, but they continued to surf the dating sites and flirt with others. Why stayed committed when you have so many more constantly waiting for you [in your phone]? They said this more often happen in guys, but I think the girls are doing it, too, but perhaps in a more discrete way.”

I didn’t bring up the word “addiction”. I’m not even sure whether this is ordinary or unhealthy or… At the time of writing he’s still on dating sites, happily. Hopefully I get to come back to update this post as of what happens to him in the future…

Here are some of the interesting experiments done on online dating sites:

Pretty woman with ‘worst dating profile ever’ still got dates

Cruel Intentions: How I Hacked Tinder And Got 2015 Matches In Under 17 hours

OKCupid: We Experiment on Human Beings!  (The site did various experiments on its users!)

What a patient learnt from Robin Williams’ death

Depression, Issues & Debates

Got a phone call from a long-standing depressed patient who is now maintaining well with medication, the first thing she asked me,

“Do you know the American actor who committed suicide?” (I personally dislike the phrase “committed suicide”, it sounds like they deliberately chose to do it, like “committed a crime” which I don’t quite agree – they didn’t willfully choose to do it, although it may appear so)

“He’s also suffering from depression [like me], right? Why would he commit suicide?” Back in year of 2004, this patient had had ECT done due to her depressive mood with suicidal ideation. I think she understands how that feels, very well.

“Perhaps nobody has paid enough attention or has realized someone like him, a comedian who brought so much laughter to the world, can be so severely depressed.” I also told her that I didn’t know much about his biography (his personal life, history with addictions etc), that was just my guess, but I kind of think that his death must have triggered a lot of thoughts in the field of mental health.

“Imagine a celebrity like him, with that much of fame, popularity, wealth, well-liked by the world. He, too, suffered from depression [or bipolar?] just like you, and many on the streets. Just that they may not show it, but they may cry alone in the corner in their room, or their symptoms are at residual at this point”

“For mental illness, it’s so much harder [for people to understand and sympathize], unlike high blood pressure, gastric, cancer etc. You get a report, a figure telling you and everyone else that something is not right. It’s like boarding a bus with a plaster bandage after a fractured ankle, people would offer you a seat. If you take away the plaster but still suffer the fracture and pain internally, would people still offer their seat? And if you ask they may even think that you fake it! Being depressed is sort of like this, only you know it best.”

“So I should really not care about what my relatives said [of me taking those medicines] and be so grateful. My depression is all under control now. Occasionally when it hits me I’ll just meditate or do some exercise. My son bought the family this house. All 3 of my children are finishing their studies and doing good…

People may think you own the world and should be so delighted, but deep inside you want to just end your life! So let’s just be grateful, show more love, understanding and respects!”

15/8: A comic of what somebody else learnt from Robin: I want to live.

Young Pedophile

Issues & Debates

They’re right. People often say how concerned they are with sex-offending, especially with young children. We feel heartached knowing some adults get raped or children get sexually abused.

But what do we do to young teenagers who come to realize that they’re pedophiles but have never acted on it? Do they necessarily develop into a child molesters? Were we the ones who allowed that to happen?

Read this:

You’re 16. You’re a Pedophile. You Don’t Want to Hurt Anyone. What Do You Do Now?

It kind of reminded me of the patient who visited the clinic last year, the guy who spied on others compulsively (case study: Compulsive Voyeurism). It was such a courageous act for him to come for help. But how many of those with an “unconventional” addiction or compulsive behaviour actually seek help?

And how much help have we provided them with? On top of our judgement, stereotypes, prejudice…