Tips Guides

Relationship problems can cause untold suffering and depression. They can lead to anxiety and even alcohol and substance abuse.

These problems are unbelievably complex. That is why timeliness in getting help is crucial-the sooner, the better-before your relationship becomes unsolvable.

Difficult relationships like these often cause feelings of futility and hopelessness in one or both partners. However, surprisingly, these very same partners usually do not systematically search for the methods that are proven to bring people back together; instead they just argue and make their own futile attempts, which just cause more frustration and heart-ache.

Do not make any more mistakes than you have already. Use the solution that has been proven to have the best chance of bringing you and your partner back together: Relationship Counseling. Build on your motivation now, call a professional counselor and start to mend your relationship before it is too late!

Couples can have conflicts resulting from the presence of physical or psychological problems in either person. Parenting issues can also create arguments and turmoil that seem relentless.

For these reasons, it is best to get the help of a counseling or clinical psychologist; unlike ordinary counselors, psychologists can administer well researched scientific tests which can quickly zero-in on the core psychological issues which might be lurking in the background and fueling your relationship conflicts.

The length of the counseling process is important. You and your partner must stay in treatment long enough to get a significantly positive result.

Counseling is affordable. You might even be able to get some free services from an Employee Assistance Program offered through your work. These services are typically offered through the Human Resources Dept.

Your relationship counseling will probably involve the presence of some mental health symptoms, as well i.e. anxiety, depression etc. If so, your health benefits plan will pay for all, or some of the therapy required.

Be sure you find a therapist who only requires that you pay the co-payment at each visit. However, some some of the people you contact may require that you pay the entire fee at each visit, which requires you to be reimbursed later by your insurance company.

This is not standard practice today; find someone who requires you to only provide the co-pay at each session. Your therapist will then receive the balance of the payment himself, directly from the insurance company.

Psychological testing can be an essential, but often overlooked, part of your relationship assessment- the first stage of counseling. Through these testing instruments your relationship counselor can evaluate the condition of your communication patterns, the presence of built-in biases and stereotypes, the effectiveness of your problem-solving skills and the levels of empathy that you and your partner display.

Problems with communicating and disciplining children are very common and can feed the raging frenzy of your relationship conflicts, as well. Divorce and the continual transitioning from one relationship to the next also create toxic forms of instability and insecurity that leads to relentless relationship dysfunction.

Most likely, however, you and your partner are causing the core problems in your relationship yourselves because of your poor communication patterns, continuing conflicts, intermittent estrangements or even sexual problems. Since your relationship with your partner is fundamental, it will be necessary for both of you to change your underlying communication patterns.

A relationship counselor provides couples therapy to address these issues as well as to help you improve your crucial problem-solving skills. Sometimes multiple issues complicate things such as, possessiveness, plus poorly managed anger etc.

Goal-setting is the second stage of treatment. At this stage, you and your counselor specify the behavioral changes which you believe are necessary to repair the relationship. These can include increases in empathy, the use of skilled problem-solving methods, the demonstration of appreciation and the more frequent use of forgiveness.

The last stage of this important process is implementation-putting what you have learned into action. This stage includes the creation of a fast and easy-to-use program which will get you and your partner from where you are to where you WANT to be.

Various counseling approaches may be required, including communication and empathy training, the therapeutic re-structuring of thinking processes and the role-playing of important skills. The therapist may even ask you to use diaries, logs, charts etc to practice the new communication skills in your everyday lives.

Will your counselor ever see one of you separately from the other? Only infrequently, will the therapist provide individual counseling to one partner and simultaneously treat both of you as a couple.

However, one exception is the treatment of anger management problems which can often include the use of individual visits with one partner or the other. However, these individual visits would be planned to help with the anger management problems only.

It is possible to provide individual counseling to two partners separately; however, psychologists evaluate the appropriateness of this format on a per case basis.

Psychologists who provide couples or family counseling often have received specialized training in relationship and marital therapy. When you contact a psychologist for relationship counseling, be sure to ask about his/her training in marriage and couple therapy techniques.

The author is a counselor with over 30 years experience. If you are not ready for relationship counseling or, if you would like to try a less expensive solution first, this tested program is simple and guaranteed.

People wanting to learn self hypnosis is fastly expanding, as it is a relatively new field within various communities, particularly western society. What has been used for hundreds of years within the east is now starting to gather acceptance and use within the west.

So just what is self hypnosis, and how can it be used to our benefit? Hypnosis itself is a psychological deepening technique. Critics will say that hypnosis is just purely placebo based, that it only works because we believe it does. Such critics are actually forgetting one important thing, that that’s all hypnosis has ever claimed to do anyway! It’s simply a way that tricks our mind into believing in certain thoughts and beliefs, or changing the fundamental way that we view things or behave. Perhaps trick is the wrong word, for lack of a matter term, but that is precisely what hypnosis does to the subconscious mind, it amends the way it thinks.

What we can hope to achieve when our subconscious is amended is to plant positive thoughts that our consciousness would normally reject. You see if we tried to tell our consciousness to ‘not be nervous’ when we normally found a situation to make us nervous, our critical mind would step in and say ‘hang on a minute, the subconscious can’t accept that situation, because it isn’t posisble!’. What hypnosis does is it bypasses the critical mind, which is of course important and has its place in rejecting bad decisions, and goes directly to our subconscious mind which is vulnerable to suggestions and is much more likely to act upon them.

So self hypnosis is the ability to use this form of hypnosis on ourselves, as opposed to other people. You’d be pleased to know that self hypnosis is perhaps the easiest form of hypnosis to master. Hetero hypnosis is the ability to hypnotize another person, and whilst we can get hypnotized on a daily basis, being able to effectively hypnotize another person takes time and practice. With self hypnosis however we alrady know our thought processes and the way we respond to certain things. Therefore we’re going to be less critical of the procedures.

To get started you should find yourself in a comfortable spot, be it a chair or a bed, and lay down and imagine yourself walking down a set of stairs. Once you reach the bottom of these stairs say to yourself that you’ll be in a state of pure, sheer and utter relaxed depth. When you’re in this state and have taken your last step, you can then start planting suggestions in your subconscious, suggestions such as ‘I’m always going to feel calm and confident with all situations I face’. After you’ve planted the necessary suggestions, just imagine yourself walking back up that flight of stairs, and eventually you’ll reach the top. Once you do, tell yourself before hand that you’ll wake up out of the state of self hypnosis, and be fully alert and wide awake once more. Once you do this, your conscious mind will be in complete control of your body again and the suggestions that you gave yourself whilst in the subconscious state should have been taken on board and affect the way you behave.

The thing with trying to learn self hynosis is that some people expect results immediately. What they’re forgetting is the tricky part of hypnosis, which is that it won’t directly effect your conscious mind, it will rather affect your subconscious. Since we’re not aware of our subconscious thoughts, we’ll have no real way of verifying whether or not the self hypnosis is in fact working! For this reason it’s easy to stop using hypnosis because you don’t immediately notice any results. In actual fact however, results often do happen quite quickly, you’re just not aware of them. If you hypnotize yourself to stop doing a bad habit for example, see whether or not in a weeks time your suggestions actually worked, if they did, then it could well have been the hypnosis as opposed to your willpower!

I hope that you’ll use these steps in order to learn self hypnosis so that you immediately apply the principles to your every day life. Know that with practice, this art will help you live most happily.

John Hubert is a hypnotist and researcher of self hypnosis, and has written a number of articles that you can use in order to learn self hypnosis techniques. You may view his website at the Hypnosis Void.

A recent visitor to my site inquiring about speed reading asked, “How can I move away from actually saying the words, and learn how to identify the symbols?” The question demonstrates a knowledge of one of the difficult habits to overcome in learning to speed read - sub-vocalization. Sub-vocalization is seeing the words, then saying the words in your mind, then hearing the words, and finally understanding them. It is a four step process. Reading is defined as getting meaning from printed materials - seeing them, and creating understanding. Theoretically, reading should be only two steps. This article will give 7 tips to overcome and transform this process.

Sub-vocalization is heralded by most uninformed pundits as the primary block to slow reading. It is a difficult habit to overcome. Too often speed reading learners get too hung up in the beginning because they become so focused on this habit. It is a problem for speed reading depending on how you define speed reading. If someone currently reads at 250 wpm (words per minute), and then learns to read at 500 wpm, is that speed reading? If so, that is still a speed in which the spoken word can still be understood, but it is below the visual reading threshold which occurs at about 600 wpm. From my experience of using and training tens of thousands of learners, speed
reading occurs much faster than that.

Tip One - Get physical - learn to move the eyes more rapidly and fluidly over the print. All speed reading programs cover some sort of physical eye training. Unfortunately, most programs stop with the physical training, and that is one reason why speed reading programs often get negative reviews. Keep in mind the eyes are the mechanics in reading. Learning to move the eyes more fluidly and getting them unstuck from focusing on single words and phrases is very important to getting the mind to respond faster. You do need to see the words faster. But in the early stages, this can be unsettling. Know that you are making dramatic changes to your perceptual processing of
the material and stay focused and disciplined.

Tip Two: Since sub-vocalization occurs below 600 wpm, increase your rates far beyond that. In fact, you should consistently move at least twice that speed. Breaking sub-vocalization by fast practice is useful in stimulating the brain’s nervous system in a way that is similar to driving a car. You might feel comfortable driving at 30 miles per hour.
Then you drive on the freeway. As you accelerate, you focus on controlling the car as you ramp up to 70 mph. After a couple hours you exit the freeway and slow back down 30 mph. It feels very, very slow. Training your eyes and brain to focus and understand at accelerated rates follows a similar principle.

Tip Three: Think about what you are seeing. After all, reading is a thinking skill. As your eyes are passing over all the words, think about what the material is about. Do not focus on saying to yourself, “Stop Sub-vocalizing!” Paying attention to your sub-vocalization and telling yourself to stop only interferes with any comprehension. Your mind will be thinking about the sub-vocalization, not the material.

Tip Four: Use multiple rapid exposures to the material. The brain has an incredible capacity to recognize patterns and relationships of visual symbols at extremely high rates. Seeing something very fast more than once leads to recognition and then comprehension.

Tip Five: Ask questions of the material as you pass over it. Questions have a powerful impact on the mind. Questions seek answers. Allow your mind to start stringing things together. Use any clues you get to start forming a mental picture of the material.

Tip Six: Monitor your thinking. If your mind is not responding to the material below, or in front of your eyes, notice what you are thinking about, and then bring it back to the material. Constantly ask yourself, “What is this about?” When you speed up the eyes moving over the material, the mind will naturally become more engaged until you get to an overload point. When that happens, combine the above tips. The experienced speed reader can read in almost any environment with precision concentration. He/she has full control of the mind’s focus.

Tip Seven: Practice, practice, and practice some more. Overcoming sub-vocalization is a tough habit to beat. Your old ways will easily slip back until you remind yourself to behave in new ways. Don’t “practice” in materials that are important for you fully understand and retain. Comprehension and retention are a separate part of the process. Use materials that are interesting to you, but you don’t need to master. You can work on comprehension and recall after you’ve reached a level of some comfort with the basic mechanics.

Overcoming sub-vocalization is only part of the process. There are other strategies and tactics in learning speed reading, such as the comprehension process and building memory and recall. All the above tips should be done together. However, the goal of overcoming sub-vocalization is not to quiet the mind. You do not want your mind to go to sleep. You want to replace sub-vocalization with your mind’s response to the print. A skilled speed reader’s mind is very active. It’s not sounding out the words verbatim in the order of the printed sentence, but rather, you are summarizing as you go.

Ed Caldwell, formerly National Director of Instruction for Evelyn Wood has
taught these skills for 30 years, created the “Masters Online Program:
Dynamic Speed Reading, Memory, and Recall at ProductivElearn.com You can
learn more at “Free Tips.”

Alcoholism is one of the most serious problems that has plagued society. Virtually everyone has heard about trouble being caused in a family or elsewhere by someone being drunk.

Unfortunately, many of these same problem people try to avoid their responsibility for doing so by using their alcohol intoxication as an excuse. Silly them! They think it will exonerate them.

How does one define alcoholism?

Alcoholism is a condition that results when any significant area of your life is damaged because of it: Family, parenting, job, physical health, school etc. Someone does not have to consume a lot more alcohol than the norm, or use it more frequently than the norm to be considered alcoholic.

The mere act of drinking, no matter how much or how frequently is not an indication of alcoholism by itself. A person can be considered an alcoholic if, because of his consumption of alcohol, he gets abusive with his family, performs inadequately at work or school, spends compulsively, engages in sexual behavior indiscriminately or because of alcohol, has any other problem in the work, educational, physical, emotional or relationship spheres of his life.

If without it, an alcoholic does not have to have withdrawal symptoms and does not have to be homeless or destitute. Many serious alcoholics, on the surface, look like they are functioning well. They include executives, celebrities, professionals, clergymen etc.

What Causes A Person To Become Alcoholic

Alcoholism in a person can be caused by several factors. One hypothesis is that some people have genetic predispositions which cause them to get intoxicated easier or more intensely or have fewer side effects or hangover symptoms than others.

This causes them to drink more indiscriminately or carelessly than others. Also, many people become alcoholic due to emotional reasons; they do not like how they feel when not intoxicated, so they drink excessively, just to feel OK.

Some people, when experiencing loneliness, anxiety or depression turn to alcohol in order to feel more comfortable. This is because alcohol can have anxiety-inhibiting effects, if taken in sufficient amounts.

Alcoholically prone people are likely to imbibe alcohol in self-defeating ways just to try to forget situations or circumstances which cause them emotional discomfort.

Peer pressures can also a factor. Many people start drinking at an early age because of peer pressure to do so. In some of these cases, the body itself becomes so accustomed to alcohol that the drinker ends up craving it everyday.

Effects of Alcoholism to Society and the Person

Alcoholism is damaging to both the alcoholic and those around him. Significantly, alcoholism can cause very powerful and sometimes catastrophic social and physical damage.

For example, excessive ingestion of alcohol can cause several serious digestive problems. These include cirrhosis of the liver and inflammation of the pancreas, among others.

Other physical dysfunctions can also arise, including impairment of sexual performance, heart disease and increased cancer risk. Significantly, alcoholism can also be socially damaging.

For example, a husband or father hung over from too much drinking may find it difficult to generate income for his family because of being absent too frequently from work. If this occurs too much, it can result in him losing his job, causing devastating effects and hardships for himself and his family.

Alcohol can cause a person to lose sound judgment, causing him to act in harmful and embarrassing ways.
When triggered, alcoholics can become emotionally and even physically violent and be at high risk for committing abuses on family members.

Such behavior can lead to serious, even catastrophic consequences, including serious emotional damage to ones spouse and young children.

Dr Shery is in Cary, IL, near Algonquin, Crystal Lake, Marengo and Lake-in-the-Hills. He’s an expert psychologist. Call 1 847 516 0899 and make an appt orlearn more about counseling at: http://www.carypsychology.com

Derren Brown uses mind control to perform various tricks on his subjects. One particular trick that he does involves a voodoo doll. On his website you can see this trick performed on a lady and she is completely amazed at the end result of the trick.

Derren tells the lady that he needs to give the voodoo doll a ’soul’ and removes a ring from her finger. He then inserts the ring into the voodoo doll, which serves to psychologically connect her and the doll. Turning his back to her Brown begins winding a string around the victim’s legs and when asked how she is feeling she says her legs feel heavy. Brown turns around and shows her the bound legs of the voodoo doll. He then proceeds to ask her to move her arms and while she is flapping them he begins to wrap the string around the arms of the doll and the lady slowly becomes unable to move them.

Next Derren has the lady begin counting. As she counts he begins to wrap the string around her mouth and eventually the lady is unable to speak. At this point Brown says the only reason why you can’t speak right now is because you believe it in your head. He offered the psychological suggestion that she could not speak and without hesitation she believed it. Brown encouraged her to question the suggestion he had presented to her and that she could in fact talk and there was nothing preventing her from doing so. Immediately she was able to talk.

Brown then revealed that he never put her ring in the voodoo doll at all and that it was still on her finger. The lady was of course shocked because the psychological suggestion was so strong that she never thought to question the removal of the ring. By presenting the lady with psychological suggestion, he was able to control her mind and her actions.
Brown also practiced mind control at a race track where he was able to take a losing ticket to the cashier who paid him as if the ticket was the winner. Derren Brown will make eye contact with the cashier and tell her it is actually the winning ticket. Initially the cashier might return the ticket and say that it was unfortunately a loser. Brown will hand the ticket back and tell he or she that the ticket was indeed for the winning dog. Upon examining the ticket for the second time, the cashier says you are right, it is a winning ticket and pays him accordingly. After he collected his ‘winnings’ Brown asks the cashier who the winning dog was. When he responds that his ticket was not for that particular dog and questions why he was paid the cashier is completely confused.

In the end, a confident suggestion was all Derren used to trick the cashier into believing the ticket was a winner.

Donna Mathews
www.watchderrebrown.com

NLP was created for the first time in the year 1970. John Grinder and Richard Bandler were its creators. They had claimed that NLP had theories, principles, practices, methods and techniques of three varied fields, namely, linguistics, computer science and neurology.

NLP has often been defined as a ‘modeling excellence’. Some also define it as the art and science of useful and productive communication. Others call it ‘the study of the structure of subjective experience.’

NLP however has never enjoyed much support from the faculty of psychology. Skeptical psychologists have long ago written NLP off as a pseudo-scientific approach to psychotherapy. A recent survey shows that professionals dealing with mental wellness rate NLP as a psychotherapeutic method of disputable merit and authenticity.

Neuro-Linguistic Psychotherapy is an application that has emerged as an offshoot of NLP. UKCP or United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy recognizes this application.

History of NLP

Richard Bandler, a student of Santa Cruz University, California, had been appointed by psychiatrist Robert Spitzer to teach drums to Spitzer’s son. Soon he was engaged in a different project for Spitzer and transcribed the recorded therapeutic sessions of therapist Fritz Perls. During this process, it appeared to Bandler that he could identify certain sentence and word structures that helped in the acceptance of the positive advices and suggestions offered by Perls. With this revelation, Bandler went to the linguist and teacher John Grinder. Then the Bandler-Grinder duo created a model named the ‘Meta Model’. They claimed this to be a model of (a) powerful and persuasive word structures and (b) the way in which those work. They then modeled the sessions of the therapist Virginia Satir.

Bandler and Grinder published a book named ‘The Structure of Magic’ in the year 1975. This book contained a detailed description of their work and also declared that it was actually possible to break down and encode the therapeutic procedures of therapists Fritz Perls and Virginia Satir. They told that even if a therapy appeared magical and extraordinary, it always followed a definite identifiable structure, which could be learned by anybody.

Soon they got introduced to Milton Erickson, a psychiatrist from America. Erickson was a founding member of the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis. He had one of the most unconventional and controversial approaches to psychological therapy. He could make the favorite phrases, the past, the convictions, the ideals, the family and cultural background and even the neurotic habits of a patient, his tools for helping the patient change. He treated the unconscious mind as a productive, contributive, creative and positive medium (in much the same way Derren Brown uses the unconscious of his subjects to make it appear that he is controlling their minds). Soon Bandler and Grinder had Erickson as the third model for NLP.

The founder-duo claimed that NLP was a faculty of communication in addition to a therapeutic technique and soon began its marketing as a business instrument.

NLP Today

The present day finds NLP as a profitable industry. Numerous forms of the concept are applied in books, workshops, audio programs and seminars as theories and exercises aimed at influencing emotional and behavioral transformations. Derren Brown uses NLP as part of his act, videos are available online that show Derren using NLP to influence the behaviour of his subjects. These are amazing to watch, and really show how people can be easily suggestible.

Donna Mathews
http://www.watchderrenbrown.com