Denise Billen-Mejia 0:07
Welcome to Two hypnotherapists talking with me, Denise Billen-Mejia in Delaware, USA.
Martin Furber 0:13
And me Martin Furber in Preston UK.
Denise Billen-Mejia 0:16
This weekly podcast is for anyone and everyone who'd like to know more about fascinating subject of hypnosis, and the benefits that it offers.
Martin Furber 0:24
I'm a clinical hypnotherapist and psychotherapist,
Denise Billen-Mejia 0:27
I'm a retired medical doctor turned consulting hypnotist.
Martin Furber 0:31
We are two hypnotherapists talking.
Denise Billen-Mejia 0:34
So, let's get on with the episode.
Martin Furber 0:35
So let's get on with the show. Episode nine Denise!
Denise Billen-Mejia 0:39
I thought you were going to teach me something I as everybody listening, if you've listened before, you know that Martin and I learned at different schools of hypnosis, not just different schools of thought different ways of explaining it. And one of the ways he's going to explain to me how he would explain to a client.
Martin Furber 1:01
It's, well, we talk quite often don't we about what we call the pre-talk. Before we take our clients into that nice therapeutic trance, we talk quite often on the programme about the pre-talk and what that involves, you know, positive hopes for the future and all that kind of thing. But we've never really talked too much about trance, other than to say it's, well we give our own comparisons don't ee like? It's like a daydream or
Denise Billen-Mejia 1:31
Therapeutic daydreaming.
Martin Furber 1:33
Yeah, therapeutic daydreaming. And something that I learned about when I was studying hypnosis was something called the default mode network.
Denise Billen-Mejia 1:45
And it sounds, I like I like the sound of it. I wish I'd heard of it before. Okay, come on, teach me what it is.
Martin Furber 1:54
For a kick-off, as soon as you say mode and network and things like that you think computers don't you?
Denise Billen-Mejia 1:59
Yeah.
Martin Furber 2:00
Basically, in a nutshell, it's talking about, Marcus Raichle identified various parts of the brain, which are sort of white hot in terms of being active when we're actually relaxing. People think our brains are resting. If we're laying back on the sofa, and relaxing and sort of planning our future or thinking away, our brains are really, really active.
Denise Billen-Mejia 2:29
Now, this is the sort of Daydreamy thoughts?
Martin Furber 2:32
Yeah, daydreaming thoughts.
Denise Billen-Mejia 2:34
So if you're sitting, if you're sitting down on the couch, and you're trying to remember everything that you've got to put in your suitcase, it's not that part of the brain. That's your conscious mind.
Martin Furber 2:42
Yeah, that's your conscious mind. Yeah, this is the daydreaming part. It said that they found a set of brain regions, including the medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, and the pre cuneus, which I've never heard of before.
Denise Billen-Mejia 2:55
I am going to make you put a model of the brain in the shownotes.
Martin Furber 3:04
We'll do that - Yeah.
Denise Billen-Mejia 3:08
So this, he found these, he hypnotised people under a functional MRI. This was how he identified it or for me, EEG,
Martin Furber 3:20
Functional MRI scans. They were looking at brain activity, while people were performing a variety of tasks. As I say, they found that these brain regions were consistently active when people were not engaged in any specific task. Presumably, they mean any specific physical task, or the point you made was it's...
Denise Billen-Mejia 3:39
No, because if you were, if you had somebody to do multiplication tables that requires your conscious brain, maybe not for two by two, but most so that wasn't necessarily physical.
Martin Furber 3:53
No, no, I obviously, I'm reading notes here as well. But it says that the work he did on the default mode network was groundbreaking. And it's led to better understanding of how the brain works when we're not engaged in any specific task. So it's when we are sort of planning for the future or daydreaming. That's the part that's active about things that are not related to the present moment. So in other words, you're not doing your multiplication tables or, you know, doing anything to do with the present moment. It's when we're daydreaming when we're mentally rehearsing. And of course, that's similar to when we're in hypnosis, isn't it?
Denise Billen-Mejia 4:33
That's why I call it therapeutic daydreaming. Yeah. But with the odd suggestion from some voice that's coming at you, but it's interesting, because actually, when you've been daydreaming, similar to nighttime dreaming, when you rouse very quickly, you don't remember what you were thinking about.
Martin Furber 4:53
Hmm, yeah, I mean, when we're in a proper daydream, when we are really are completely zoned out of what's happening around us, even though our eyes can be wide open. You know, I'm trying to think back to when you sort of sit there with your head on your elbow when you're looking out of the window. And you're not actually looking at what that view is, your mind just completely drifts off to something else.
Denise Billen-Mejia 5:18
Or worse, it can be when you're looking at somebody and you're thinking more of like lecture halls when you're past the 50 minutes when you can stay conscious.
Martin Furber 5:31
Yeah, yeah, I mean, that happens a lot though, doesn't it with people. You know, in lecture halls especially, they just drift off to another place completely. I can remember it at school. I remember having the board duster thrown at me.
Denise Billen-Mejia 5:45
That's what I mean, people know you're not there.
Martin Furber 5:50
Yeah. But as I say, you could appear conscious, your eyes are still open. We're not talking about drifting off to sleep are we? We're talking about when, we're daydreaming.
Denise Billen-Mejia 5:59
But it's that little, what your brains doing on your way there? Yeah, yeah.
Martin Furber 6:05
I mean, that that's something a question that's been put to me before now is, can you ever remember when you actually fall asleep? We don't do we don't remember that moment. We can remember feeling sleepy and drifting off to sleep. But we don't remember falling asleep.
Denise Billen-Mejia 6:29
Yeah, it's also of course, you get this really weird time tunnel thing where you feel like you've been tossing and turning for an hour and you look at the clock and it's 10 minutes. Yeah. Or you feel like you've been in bed for 10 minutes. How could it possibly, the alarm be possibly ringing now? But it is? Because it's been ages. Okay,
Martin Furber 6:47
Have you ever had that happen with hypnosis with your clients? When they? Have they ever said to you that was only five minutes? And it wasn't, you know, it was half an hour or something?
Denise Billen-Mejia 6:56
Yeah. Yeah. The guy over the bridge guy. He remembers talking to a friend reporting back to me. He talked to his friend and he said, You were a long time, he said, no i wasn't, and he looked at the clock, and said Oh it's an hour!
Martin Furber 7:13
Yeah, I've had it before, when somebody said to me, that was quick. What was that? Do you know how long that was?
Denise Billen-Mejia 7:21
It must be another reason they used to use pocket watches.
Martin Furber 7:25
Maybe Maybe! But I mean that's the thing as well though, when you bring somebody up out of hypnosis, if they've been in a really pleasant dreamy trance, and you bring them up slowly? Do you count up?
Denise Billen-Mejia 7:39
No, I , if it's safe to do so, I just let them come back when they feel that long. Yeah, yeah. And I can just sit there write my notes, or cjeck my calendar, see what's coming next. Most of my clients I see online, I have one particular client I see physically at a doctor's office. And she very often falls asleep. Because she's one of those people that's working three jobs. And it's very easy to get her in, but it's hard to keep her there.
Martin Furber 8:13
Well, yeah, I mean, it's probably the only time she gets to switch off.
Denise Billen-Mejia 8:16
Well, sleep is just as therapeutic. I'm not going to diss sleep, it's very important.
Martin Furber 8:22
It's funny, actually. I'm writing about that in my next week's newspaper article about sleeping. Yeah, because it's, you know, we can survive longer without food than we can without sleep, can't we? So that tells you the importance of sleep. So yeah, right. I'm writing about that next week. Anyway, let me get back on topic. Now, I'm just thinking when we bring somebody around from a nice hypnotic trance. That's very different from when we wake up naturally, normally in the morning, not talking about when we've been woken up by a loud noise or when we get woke up in the middle of the night, but when we wake up from, hopefully, a night of blissful and restful sleep, something wakes us up doesn't it? I mean we get a little surge of something .
Denise Billen-Mejia 9:05
Yeah, I don't have that voice in my head saying no, I want to stay asleep, which I do have when I'm being hypnotised, that's a lovely feeling,
Martin Furber 9:14
Hmmm. No, I'm just sort of emphasising there's a big difference between coming round from hypnosis. Again, it's not the same as when you suddenly snap out of a daydream is it?
Denise Billen-Mejia 9:14
Yeah, that's usually very disorienting if you've been, if you realise that you've forgotten that the teacher was talking to you yeah. So, but what intrigued me about this was the explanation of what the parts were in terms of business.
Martin Furber 9:45
Oh, you're talking about the John Ratey metaphor
Denise Billen-Mejia 9:48
Yes. Exactly. That I mean, I didn't I forgotten of course that it was somebody else but both of those were very useful.
Martin Furber 9:56
Well, yeah. because, you know when people come to see us Denise. Okay, it's nice to give an explanation of how the mind works. Because I always say the more we understand about how our minds work, the better able we are to help ourselves.
Denise Billen-Mejia 10:11
Yeah.
Martin Furber 10:11
However, nobody comes for a biology lesson.
Denise Billen-Mejia 10:13
Not really. Yeah.
Martin Furber 10:19
Yeah, well, that's I mean, you can sit there spouting off all the big words about the parts of the brain all day long. And you know, it's not going to impress anybody is it? You know, people don't want to come for a science lesson. They don't want to be bamboozled with information, but then they need a clearer understanding. So we use what's called the John Ratey metaphor. And John Ratey. Again, American,
Denise Billen-Mejia 10:43
There are more of them, and there are English.
Martin Furber 10:47
No, he wrote the book 'Spark'. And it's something to do. Okay, this is straight off the top of my head now, something to do with Phys. Ed, in schools in the Chicago area. He's the one that devised different programmes where pupils aren't in effect, or students aren't in effect competing against each other. Okay? Different atmosphere. So you're competing against yourself, you're trying to improve your own personal best on things. And the difference that made to people's mental attitude towards things, because let's face it, if you're not the physically fittest in the class, you may always be the last or in the last group.
Denise Billen-Mejia 11:27
You could be twice as good as you were last week, and still come in last.
Martin Furber 11:31
And it was going from that angle. And he, like I say, I'm just paraphrasing what I can remember now. But he devised these phys ed things in schools in Chicago, and I think it went nationwide in what you call public schools over there, are what we call state schools aren't they?
Denise Billen-Mejia 11:47
Yeah,
Martin Furber 11:47
That's the big difference. Because in England, a public school is a private school.
Denise Billen-Mejia 11:52
Yes. Why are you so impressed with Eton? It's a public school!
Martin Furber 11:58
No, so the Ratey metaphor, we explain to people about the prefrontal cortex, we use the metaphor of a company we say that's the CEO of the brain, the Chief Executive Officer, for wants of a better description. And then we talk about the anterior cingulate cortex, which, of course, nobody wants to know those big words do they? So we just say, the Secretary of the brain who is responsible for monitoring the environment and alerting the CEO. And then we talk about the amygdala, which of course, you know, the primitive fight flight side of the brain, we talk about that as being head of security. So you use a little metaphor about the head of security a secretary and a CEO.
Denise Billen-Mejia 12:37
I like that, yeah, very handy. And like the other bits, those are the bits that are doing this automatically.
Martin Furber 12:47
Yeah. Well, that's it plus, I mean, there's far more bits to the brain than that. But that's sort of that's all, it's a need to know basis, isn't it? You know, like I say, people don't come to us for science lessons, biology lessons.
Denise Billen-Mejia 13:00
No but it's reassuring to know there is science behind it. It's not well, you know, if you've read any of the preambles to this podcast. No woo-woono. You know what?
Martin Furber 13:11
No BS! Nope. Sorry, go on.
Denise Billen-Mejia 13:16
No, go ahead.
Martin Furber 13:16
Oh, no, no, what I always say to clients is. I say, I can't read minds, I don't know what you're thinking. I don't know how you're feeling. But I can tell you why you think the way you do and why you feel the way you do. And once people have that understanding of how the mind works, in simple terms, they immediately start to feel better, because they understand it.
Denise Billen-Mejia 13:42
Yeah. And yeah, it feels controllable.
Martin Furber 13:47
Yeah. I knew you would articulate it better than I do.
Denise Billen-Mejia 13:54
Hardly! All right. So is did this come to you? When we talk when we were interviewing the last week? We pre-record some of our guests.
Martin Furber 14:05
When we were recording next week's show. Yeah. suddenly came back to me because Karen was my tutor. And she used that metaphor all the time. I use different ones these days, but that's the basic one. You know, we all, I like to explain things in metaphors to people like there's another one, the subconscious, okay, doesn't exist, you can't point to it on a picture of the brain can you? We can point to all the other fancy words the anterior cingulate cortex and all the rest of it, but we can't point to the subconscious.
Denise Billen-Mejia 14:40
I'll bring a picture of the brain and say point to the bit it is.
Martin Furber 14:46
So again, I use metaphors for that, for the subconscious and my favourite two are the crossword. If we're looking for a crossword clue and we get stuck on an answer, we put the crossword down and we get on with our day, and three hours later out of nowhere, because we weren't consciously thinking about it or thinking about...
Denise Billen-Mejia 15:10
That's exactly what happens, somebody, I had it a minute ago, and then three hours later it comes to you, when you're driving down the road.
Martin Furber 15:18
Yep. Mind on something else completely, and it'll just come out of nowhere. Yeah. And that's one example I use of the subconscious, ie anything the brain is doing that we're not consciously thinking about. Then the other one is more particularly to do with hypnosis and the subconscious. What I like to describe to people is if they go and see a movie, okay, or watch one on television, something that you really enjoy, and you're thinking about it afterwards, and then you put it to the back of your mind. And then later on in the week, out of nowhere, while you're getting on with your work or doing something else out of nowhere, you start to replay little bits of the movie, or perhaps change the ending a little bit or, or start to think about the, you know, gorgeous pink outfit somebody was wearing and would that suit me or whatever. But you start to play little bits of it back. And that's how I explain the type of hypnosis I do to people. I say, you know, we were putting things there in your subconscious. And it will keep replaying back to you later in the week. And reminding you of all the, you know, the things that you wanted to achieve from hypnosis, basically.
Denise Billen-Mejia 16:31
Which actually,although it's kind of bizarre segwaying, I was talking to a frequent flyer guy, a gentleman I'm working with, I've been working with for several months, successfully, but he he's come back to me with...
Martin Furber 16:45
Different issues. Yeah, yeah.
Denise Billen-Mejia 16:47
And he, has an issue about waking up, and not being able to get back to sleep. And one of the things that I suggest very strongly to people who have issues with sleep, is to do what I call a brain dump before. A note pad, pen and paper, a pen and paper next to your bed. And you write everything down before you go to sleep. Because that way, that piece of paper is going to remember it you don't have to be thinking about it. And it works quite well for most people. Hmm. So yeah, so you can tell it you can direct your subconscious to do some things. Change the things it wants to do. Yeah, because after all, that's why it exists. It is your comfort area, it is how to keep you safe. You know, you won't forget to get up in the morning.
Martin Furber 17:33
it's your comfort area, I like that. That in itself is a metaphor, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Your subconscious is your comfort area, I like that.
Denise Billen-Mejia 17:44
Unfortunately, that's also why people won't you know, I'm miserable at this job, oh I might just be miserable in the next job. Why would I want to go through all the aggravation of finding a job and being just as miserable? Those, so you have to tweak those things a bit. But you're right, you don't want to leave just for the sake of leaving. You want to make sure you're making an improvement to things.
Martin Furber 18:08
Yeah, absolutely. So when you say the comfort bit, is that the bit that you would wallow in then if you were on a downer or?
Denise Billen-Mejia 18:16
It might be, no but the comfort zone really is the most egregious I think the use of it is when people won't leave abusive relationships. Hmm. Because the devil you know, is safer than the devil you don't.
Martin Furber 18:31
Right? Yeah. Because of course, we always perceive any kind of change as a threat don't we?
Denise Billen-Mejia 18:36
Exactly. That's why it's comfortable. I'm miserable, but I know exactly why, and I'm just fine now and I don't want to change it.
Martin Furber 18:43
Yeah, I mean, you talk about an abusive relationship. There's two angles there, though isn't there's one that somebody's just been that ground down have totally lost all faith in themselves or self esteem. Well, then there's there also Yeah, the fear of the unknown. Better this than what I don't know.
Denise Billen-Mejia 19:00
People who have been ground down just don't have the energy to imagine anymore.
Martin Furber 19:05
No, no. So yeah, I mean, again, it's something that we acquire by habit, we learn by repetition don't we? Good things and bad things. We learn by repetition. They don't do the times-tables in schools these days do they?
Denise Billen-Mejia 19:25
They don't do longhand either. It's a very strange world we're living in now.
Martin Furber 19:31
No, I can remember on a Monday morning, all of a sudden, you know, as soon as the teacher came in on a Monday morning, it was right we're doing the eight timetables today.
Denise Billen-Mejia 19:39
Everybody who's watching knows that we just flew all over the place. Here's another thought. Do you ever hypnotise anybody who's from a different culture than you?
Martin Furber 19:48
Yeah,
Denise Billen-Mejia 19:48
Assuming that their English is fine. Yeah.
Martin Furber 19:53
Yeah, aboslutely I have, and from cultures where hypnosis may traditionally be very frowned upon.
Denise Billen-Mejia 20:00
You're talking about the Southeast Asian community?
Martin Furber 20:03
Yes. Yeah. I have a number of South Asian clients. Yeah.
Denise Billen-Mejia 20:10
So what, what not the issue, but how are they able to leave that prejudice against hypnosis to get to you? Have they been recommended by a doctor or some other professional.
Martin Furber 20:24
I think it's just with a broad, broader base of knowledge whereby they are learning more things than the traditional methods, ie these people have been to college, university, etc. over here, and they are perhaps more open minded.
Denise Billen-Mejia 20:40
So, they also could be more English. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Martin Furber 20:44
Yeah. I mean, especially in the part of Lancashire, where I live, there's a large South Asian population, but you're on to third and even fourth generation now. Right. You know, these are people who are as local as I am, basically.
Denise Billen-Mejia 20:59
So so they're aware of the...
Martin Furber 21:02
Yes, they're aware of all the different things that are available.
Denise Billen-Mejia 21:05
But don't necessarily choose to follow it. Yeah. Hmm. Interesting. What percentage of your client base is non traditional English? I mean, there might be some certain cultural differences between the south of England or north.
Martin Furber 21:21
I'd say 10% that's all, only about 10%. You know, most of the clients I see are English.
Denise Billen-Mejia 21:30
Interesting.
Martin Furber 21:30
Now well, that's an interesting one, because I didn't think hypnotherapy would work particularly well with people to whom English is a second language. Because of course, we're working with that subconscious, aren't we? And the language, even though somebody may be able to speak English perfectly well, if the language they ordinarily think in is a different language,
Denise Billen-Mejia 21:58
But, there's a difference, I think, being bilingual and just having a spare language is different. My husband was here for about two years, and he'd spoken English since he was a teenager, but not necessarily correctly, but you could usually understand what he was talking about. But there was a there was a sort of C change at about two years when he started dreaming. in English.
Martin Furber 22:20
Yeah, same with mine. Yeah. So so same with mine.
Denise Billen-Mejia 22:25
So do you think that people need to be at that point of English that they...
Martin Furber 22:29
Well, I thought, I thought they would have to be okay. But I had a couple of clients from another European country speaking a completely different language, who could speak English quite well, but they certainly weren't at the level where they're thinking in that language or dreaming in that language. And I said to them, what, you know, well, let's give it a go. Now, of course, you know, as well as I do, there's two parts to every hypnotherapy session. There's the pre-talk. And then there's trance. So pre-talk, no problem, but I thought with the trance, are we going to be able to hit those notes that we hit with our use of hypnotic language? You know, the double-binds and all that kind of thing? Will it have the same effect? And yes, absolutely, it did. And I was surprised. Because I thought you need more than just an understanding of the language for this to work. You know, you need to think in this language, but no it worked. It worked really well. And I was very surprised.
Denise Billen-Mejia 23:21
And you use pretty much the same techniques that you would normally use?
Martin Furber 23:24
I used exactly the same technique. Yeah. Yeah, exactly the same techniques. Because I was worried, you know, what we do say, Don't worry, in hypnotherapy, we need to sort of bypass that critical factor. We don't want people to be sort of critically analysing everything, as we're saying it to them to be able to just float off nicely, and absorb.
Denise Billen-Mejia 23:44
that's my thought, when I'm speaking in Spanish, I'm sort of translating to myself. Yeah, It's true, once I've gone back into the zone, go on vacation and with family, and I've been speaking Spanish all day, I tend to turn that part off. But generally speaking, is a conscious thing to translate it.
Martin Furber 24:05
Yeah. Well, that was my point. Yeah. Well, I was thinking with these particular people, if they've got to translate in their heads what I say as I'm saying it, how can they be hypnotised? Because, yeah, you know, hypnotism is about bypassing that critical factor and allowing the mind to switch off and drift off. But it worked. It absolutely worked. So that was something that surprised me, and I can't explain it. Because it sort of seems to go against what we say about bypassing that critical factor, and not paying too much attention. You know, you need to drift off, don't you when you've been hypnotised.
Denise Billen-Mejia 24:40
I found somebody recently who asked me if, it was someone who was very interested in hypnosis, and I said to her, I can't because I'm not from your country, and it's a very different language. And so I went and found her somebody who could advise in her language. Oh, yeah. And now I did myself out of a client!
Martin Furber 25:00
Yeah, well, it's worth a try, isn't it? Next time you get an inquiry off somebody who's, to whom English is a second language?
Denise Billen-Mejia 25:10
Yeah, well, when I was practising some of my friends are Persian, Farsi speaking Arabic. And they, but they'd been living here for a really long time. So, that's, that's interesting. I'll go quick if you haven't spoken to the other person come back.
Martin Furber 25:31
Yeah, I completely...
Denise Billen-Mejia 25:32
She's also a friend. And I do try not to hypnotise my friends because I think there's a sort of mystique that, that you want to have a certain amount of, you certainly don't want to have. I want them to feel they can tell me anything. I know, we know that we don't need to relive the stuff. But if they need to relive the stuff in order to get to that.
Martin Furber 25:56
Especially that first meeting, to tell you, if something's been bothering them for 20 years, they need to talk about it don't they?
Denise Billen-Mejia 26:02
Right. Yeah. But then you don't want to Oh, I told Denise that thing. You know, sometimes you need that separation. So
Martin Furber 26:09
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, with my memberships over here, I'm not allowed to treat family and friends or close family and friends. It's unethical, it's considered unethical. Yeah. Because, you know, somebody isn't going to be able to open up to you like they could to a stranger.
Denise Billen-Mejia 26:28
Right, with some exceptions, I mean, to give people like, Oh, listen to this audio, you fall asleep, you know, that sort of thing.
Martin Furber 26:35
Oh, yeah, with friends, if when they're doing a presentation next week, and they're a bit nervous or something. Yeah, absolutely. Of course I will, no problem at all. I'm talking now when people come to us with personal issues that they want help with. You know, if you know, if a family member said to me I'm, I'm feeling depressed and I want to talk and this and that and the other I'd want treatment I would refer them on
Denise Billen-Mejia 26:57
Here's my, here's my friend's card here.
Martin Furber 26:59
Yeah. It's here's Denise's number.
Denise Billen-Mejia 27:04
Okay, we've come full circle again.
Martin Furber 27:07
Well, we usually do and that brings us to the end of another one.
Denise Billen-Mejia 27:12
Martin and Denise blathering on again. Remember, if you have a specific question, you can always write to us.
Martin Furber 27:19
Yeah, that's true. Yeah, or put something in the, in the comments below. I was gonna say in the show notes. That's my job. In the comments below. But next week, episode 10. We've got my ex tutor on Denise.
Denise Billen-Mejia 27:31
I know, which was actually how we got to this first topic of conversation. It was lovely to meet her and I'm really looking forward to people's reactions.
Martin Furber 27:39
Yes. So tune in on the next one that's Karen Dunnet, Or I wonder if it's Dunnette like Mr Bucket? No, it's Karen Dunnet, she's on next week with us, so I'll see you next week, Denise.
Denise Billen-Mejia 27:55
Okay, bye bye bye.
Denise Billen-Mejia 28:05
We hope you've enjoyed listening. Please remember, this podcast is designed to give you an insight into therapeutic hypnosis, and is for educational purposes only. So remember, consult with your own healthcare professional if you think something you've heard may apply to you or a loved one.
Martin Furber 28:21
If you found this episode useful, you can apply for free continuing professional development or CME credits. Using the link provided in the show notes. Feel free to contact either of us through the links in the show notes. Join us again next week.
