Okay, so let's get on with the show indeed. And this week we have a special guest all the way from Iran and Denise is going to introduce him.
Yes, Danial Nejadmasoom. You'll have to say your last name for us because we can't possibly do it justice. How do you say your last name?
Nejadmasoon
Okay. And where are you from? Exactly. within Iran? Where are you from?
I'm from Iran, the north of Iran, Mazandaran, and my university there is in the Chalus, its one of the Northern Iran Cities.
Yeah. Okay. How long have you been studying psychology?
I'm in the last semester of psychology bachelor's degree.
Okay. Are you going to do more studies at the university?
I have some studies with reading books and reading article about hypnosis and neuroscience. One of the My research interests is combination of neuroscience and hypnosis. And that's it.
Wonderful. How long have you been a hypnotist yourself?
From the beginning of the my career as a psychology student, I start studying about the process, even before my career as a student.
Okay, what did you learn? Did you have relatives who are hypnotists? Or did you did you know about it before when you were in high school? Did you know about hypnosis?
In high school -no. But after high school between end of high school and before beginning of university, I had a great chance to know about hypnosis and read about it. Because I saw a TV show about hypnosis, a magician in hypnosis views in TV use hypnosis. But now I know that it was not hypnosis but it resulted in my interest in the following hypnosis in the scientific way? mot magically..
Yes, not deception. So what what do you think your career path is going to be? Do you expect to practice psychology with hypnosis? Or do you want to remain in research?
At first? I deal with mesmerism and I, I was thought [he had] very special power in hypnosis. And when and when I understand that, I realized that hypnosis is not a specific energy in hypnotis
Yeah, disappointed. You were disappointed/
Disappointed. Yeah,
Okay, but the power is in the power is in the clients, right?
Yes. And I searched in the internet in about hypnosis. And I saw video from Mashhad, University of Medical Sciences. It's one of the, universities in the northeast of Iran, by Dr. Fathi, anesthesiologist, and he used hypnosis as the sole anesthesia for his patients.
What do you happen to know since he's an anesthesiologist he's not doing the surgery. Do you know what kinds of surgery can be done in Iran under hypnosis?
Different surgery, knee, labor, and there are many case reports published by Dr. Fathi,
Are there English translations, she says hopefully.
Yes, some of the surgeries have English explanations by him.
Good, excellent, that will be wonderful. If you could send us those, we would love to include those in the show notes. That's great. So Martin, do you have you had any questions? I've been hogging the limelight.
I'm just interested in how hypnotherapy services are promoted within Iran. Are they promoted within newspapers or is it widely accepted, you know, to be publicized?
I think in overall view, the situation of hypnosis in Iran is same in the around the world. There are a big community of medical sciences practitioners that [do] not accept hypnosis, hypnosis as a scientific method. But there are an official Association, Iranian Association of Clinical Hypnosis I think is its name. And this association is related to International Scientific Society of Clinical Hypnosis, ISSCH. And in Iran, we had several international congresses in hypnosis, and even dental hypnosis.
In some schools of dentistry here, they teach hypnosis, not very many, but a few. It, I think, is it's a very specialized area, right? And so it's only the mouth teeth that are being attacked. So it is probably an easier thing to explain to people why this would be useful, whereas medicine, there's so many things, yes. Okay. So let's talk about the ethics of it legally in Iran. What are the requirements for a hypnotist to say, Hi, I am hypnotist, I can help you. What what does the government require you too have to do that?
The only the Certification Center in Iran that I know the Iranian Association of Clinical Hypnosis that Dr. Mehdi Fathi, Dr. Shahidi, and many other doctors
Who are doctors...
members of it. And it's have legal permission from Ministry of Health of Iran. Yes. And it's basically more medical, but psychologists and other related field can train there
When you finish your degree which is soon apparently Congratulations. Will you be qualified to do hypnosis with patients will you work independently or with another doctor?
When I get my Masters I can be a psychologist that can that can use hypnosis as one of the methods that I can like CBT or ACT or other.
Excellent, excellent. Yeah, so most of my studies, so the
So they are viewing hypnotherapy as a therapy like CBT
But I can't use it in surgery, I should be a surgeon or anesthesiologist. Then I [could] use it as anesthesia. Being a hypnotherapist or being certified in hypnosis, don't have permission for me to use in use it in clinical practice.
If you think of a hypnotist as a technician, right. When you have an operation you have a lot of different people, not everybody's a doctor, there's nurses. there are technicians who run the machine that helps the patient breathe. There is somebody else dealing with the lights. There's somebody else dealing with many things. Would you be allowed to be the person helping with the hypnosis under the management of the surgeon or the anesthesiologist, is that allowed?
I don't know really, but I know in the past one psychologist, do hypnosis as an anesthesia for labor,
yes. For childbirth?
I don't yet. But I don't know if generally accepted or not. But okay, I know it's right. In the
Yeah, the concern always is in you need to have anesthesia available as well, in case the patient is unable or something disturbs it. It takes effort on everybody's part. It is very effective for anesthesia. But sometimes you need medicines, too. So you would need to have somebody who had that technical ability with you. So is in the in the country, where when you're far from the large medical centers, is hypnosis used? Are you aware of its use outside of the large centers? by scientists, not charlatans, not magicians?
I think there is not many. Psychologists are out other appropriate that use the closest that I don't have official statistics about if just my imagination about the outside of my room,
what you would expect what you would expect. Yeah, the case? Yes. So will you remain at the university you're studying at now? Or will you go to another university to do your master's degree?
I think I like to go to Tehran capital of Iran. I think there are many more capacities there. Chalus is a very small, small city. But it is near my home!
Sure. Tehran is a long way away.
Yeah. But there are many services and many potential opportunities for me there. I think I like to be there, but I don't know what happened in the future.
Do you have to wait, do you have to apply for a master's? Once you finish your degree there? Is there a is there a gap between finishing your bachelor's and starting the master's program? You will wait some time.
Oh, for Master's degree in psychology, or many other fields. We should do a big exam for entrance exam for entrance into this field. And I did this exam. And
oh, you are waiting and waiting
for the results
Yes. So now you can do a little self hypnosis to relax. Is there a specific area within that specialty the juxtaposition between neuroscience and hypnosis? Is there a particular area within that that you are particularly interested in? You said you are interested in neuroscience and hypnosis. But the brain although a small organ, there's a lot of different things in that. Is there a particular thing you're interested like? Are you interested in pain? Are you interested in depression? Is there a particular area?
In general, every subject in neuroscience and hypnosis is fascinating for me, but because of my close communication with Professor Mark Jensen I think I go to pain field. If I think it's nearest way for me.
Do you have much opportunity to travel? Can you travel to conferences , for hypnosis? Yes, outside of Iran, are you able to go to the larger ones? Aside from the cost aside from the cost is it difficult to get visas
Traveling Iran to abroad is very challenging for many,
many reasons
many revealed economic and political. Many other that I don't know.
But we are now able to go to conferences on Zoom. So it is very good that you're able to meet more people
I should mention that several months ago the internet situation in Iran was very bad, and experience there are many scientific site even science not political or other site, not open in Iran. , I don't know why.
Yeah, we have problems with internet here too.
Sometimes, sometimes restriction from here Iran restrict their people, sometimes restriction from their from outside this data.
Yes, it is frustrating. But there are many that are you will occasionally be able to or see the replays or read other things from other scientists, which is is very good. So what else would you like to tell us because although this is a mostly a show about being a hypnotist, most people don't know much about Iran. What else would you like to tell us about Iran? Aside from the wonderful food and the beautiful countryside, what else would you like to tell us?
Iran have more than it's a four season country. In North you can see rain and the jungles and mountains, In the south of Iran, you can see very hot, very hot weather. And in both sides of Iran, north and south, there are seas. But, in the north of Iran, Caspain Sea or darya ye khazar(in farsi) it's a lake, but it's very large and we call it a sea! But in the south of Iran it's real sea -the Persian Gulf. There are many historical, and ancient,, buildings, in Shiraz or Keman or Yazd.
Yeah, we there was a series on television over here recently Daniel, called the Silk Road. And that goes through Iran. It was the old trade routes through ancient Iran. Well, Persia,
You mean from China through to Europe ?
Yeah, the Silk Road, the the trading routes, and that was fascinating because they took us to various places within Iran. So that gave a really good insight.
So we do have to get off, unfortunately, because Martin has to go see a client and we were all represented three different time zones, which makes life complicated. It must be nearly time for you to go to bed. It's what 10-11 o'clock there. But you must keep in touch with us and let us know. And congratulations on nearly graduating. And good luck with your studies. We'll see you soon. Yeah.
Thank you very much for coming on here. Daniel. It's been a pleasure having you on.
Thank you. Bye bye.
Thank you so much.
