We have all been hurt and betrayed in one way or another sometime in our lives. When we are hurt and betrayed there's a natural response or reaction that is quite involuntary: we close and cringe. This would be analogous to what happens when a person touches a very hot surface: there is an involuntary response that causes you to quickly move your hand away.

The nervous signal that causes us to snap our hands off the hot surface does not go up to the brain initially. We feel the pain later because the signal travels through a different nerve fiber to the brain, only then we become aware of what happened. The initial reaction is to move the hand, with no thought involved, and no awareness of the heat; the body does that to protect itself from tissue damage. It is this lack of initial awareness of potential damage to the hand that reflects the unconscious nature of reactions.

Just as in the hot surface example, emotionally we also quickly snap away from situations that are hurtful to...

SOME THOUGHTS ON HYPNO-ANESTHESIA

Perhaps one of the most impressive demonstrations of the power of the mind is that of anesthesia. Hypnotists have traditionally pierced the cheeks, pinched to the point of bleeding, and immersed the hands of hypnotized people into freezing water for extended periods of time. These “experiments” have been carried out in laboratories, under controlled conditions, and by stage hypnotists alike, all apparently without eliciting much reaction from their subjects. Clearly, the view of actual blood dripping from a hypnotized person who is not screaming with pain must be impressive to those watching hypnosis shows.

The term “hypno-anesthesia” refers to the induction of anesthesia using hypnosis. Hypnosis is a mental state of connection between the conscious and unconscious portions of the mind. Finally, “anesthesia” comes from the Greek and can be translated as “absence of sensation”.

Medical anesthesia...

A few years ago Jack Nicholson and Adam Sandler made history with another great movie: Anger Management. In that movie Mr. Nicholson plays the part of an odd therapist who helps people with anger problems. He explains to his protagonist client played by Adam Sandler that anger is not just something you experience episodically, but an illness that one may or may not have. In fact the movie compares anger to diabetes.

There is no doubt that anger serves an evolutionary purpose by boosting strength through what has come to be known as the fight or flight response. In extreme situations of danger or injustice, anger can get one to act in adaptive ways that lead to survival.

The utility, or perhaps the unavoidability of this type of episodic anger is well recognized both in therapy and in the legal system. In the therapeutic context you may hear terms such as justified anger or situational anger. In the legal context there are instances where temporary insanity by virtue of...

Hi, my name is Flavio; I am a de-hypnotist.

The name of my occupation is not simply a new spin on an old idea; it more accurately represents what we actually do. It may be easier to understand this if we start at the beginning.

If nothing had ever happened to you, you would be totally innocent like a happy baby, but you would lack the wisdom of the serious adult you are.

Ideally then, all life experiences should make us wiser, but in practice that is not what happens. It seems that pain hurts more than pleasure pleases, about five times as much in fact, according to scientists. Consequently, we seem to be willing to invest much more energy into avoiding pain than in obtaining any sort of benefit.

The emotional impact of a negative life lesson can be so devastating and painful that we forget, or rather, archive those memories, emotions and lessons learned in a part of the mind where they serve the intended limiting purpose, while freeing everyday thoughts for more immediate concerns....