SE06 E11
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[00:00:00] Denise Billen-Mejia: Welcome to Two Hypnotherapists Talking with me, Denise Billen Mejia in Delaware, USA.
[00:00:13] Martin Furber: And me, Martin Furber in Preston, UK.
[00:00:16] Denise Billen-Mejia: This weekly podcast is for anyone and everyone who would like to know more about the fascinating subject of hypnosis and the benefits it offers.
[00:00:24] Martin Furber: I'm a clinical hypnotherapist and psychotherapist.
[00:00:26] Denise Billen-Mejia: I'm
a retired medical doctor turned consulting hypnotist.
[00:00:31] Martin Furber: We are Two Hypnotherapists Talking.
[00:00:34] Denise Billen-Mejia: So let's get on with the episode.
[00:00:39] Martin Furber: Okay, Denise, we're back.
[00:00:40] Denise Billen-Mejia: Yes, finally. So many conflicting things and then a five hour time difference, which makes it even more fun. We're still having, we're having a last blast of summer and it's still August, so I don't feel too bad about it. But I'm, I'm done with the 90s now. We've had them for like a month and a half, we've had temperatures in the 90s.
[00:00:59] Martin Furber: Yeah, I, I should cocoa. We've not had the 90s here this year at all.
[00:01:03] Denise Billen-Mejia: Well, if it's, if it threatens to do this next year, you'll have to come over and
enjoy it.
blisteringly hot weather. So Martin, what did you decide we would talk about today?
[00:01:14] Martin Furber: Well, I thought it might be good actually to sort of, um, have a chat about the frequently asked questions we both get.
Um, cause I always say that, you know, there's such an air of mystery, mystery even around hypnosis and hypnotherapy. Uh, I think we both get asked very similar questions. common question, don't we?
[00:01:34] Denise Billen-Mejia: And if it's not mysterious, there's a lot of interesting takes on it.
[00:01:39] Martin Furber: Yeah.
[00:01:39] Denise Billen-Mejia: That's wicked
it's of the devil.
[00:01:42] Martin Furber: Oh yeah, yeah.
The dark arts and that kind of thing. Um, I mean, yeah, I mean, I think we both get asked that usual one of, Oh, are you going to make me cluck like a chicken or something? Um, yeah, the answer is no.
Um, I, I suppose here that this is where there's a difference between the two of us because over there you can't be called a hypnotherapist in your particular state. So you use the term, um,
[00:02:11] Denise Billen-Mejia: Actually, it is okay in Delaware, but It's 50 States and I work online. So I'm not going to pay to have a license in the state of Washington, unless I get a sudden influx of people contacting me from there.
Likewise, Connecticut, which also is a licensed area, but all the others, there are some things you have to avoid, but you can call yourself a psych. I can't call myself a psychotherapist cause I am not one. Um, but I can call myself a hypnotherapist. It's just easier just to say, hypnotist because that works for all 50 states and all the other countries of the world.
[00:02:44] Martin Furber: Yeah.
[00:02:46] Denise Billen-Mejia: The only place I, the only place I know we have to have a license, Israel, it's a licensed profession. I don't think it is in too many other places.
[00:02:52] Martin Furber: Right. Okay. I've never had a client in Israel.
[00:02:55] Denise Billen-Mejia: I don't know if anybody has. That's a
question, but there's your answer.
[00:02:59] Martin Furber: No, because it's, you know, people ask then what is hypnotherapy?
Uh, you know, the very, very simple explanation to that is it's a psychotherapy, which involves the use of hypnosis.
[00:03:11] Denise Billen-Mejia: Oh, see, I wouldn't say that because I'm not a psychotherapist.
Yeah. I would
say it's hypnotist for serious reasons. Haha. It's not for fun and games. You can have fun in your session, but you know, it's, it's directed hypnosis that we do, right?
Do you have a list of questions? That you've, been asked over the years or the obvious one, of course, is what is hypnotherapy and why would I want to do it?
[00:03:38] Martin Furber: Yeah, exactly. Well, yeah, I mean, why would you want to do it? It's whatever you come to see somebody for in the first place, isn't it?
Whether it's, it's generally some kind of personal betterment, self improvement. Um, or the other thing, of course, is people wanting to get rid of bad habits, unwanted habits. Um,
[00:03:57] Denise Billen-Mejia: for me, a lot of things, not a lot, but my main interest in it is that it's useful medically. People who have tremendous amount of pain who want to use hypnosis so they can depend less on their medications.
Um, Or sometimes works better than medications. Depends on what kind of pain you're having and where it is and a lot of other things. But if your doctor is okay with that, I'm absolutely fine seeing people and trying to help them. Trying to say, I've never had anybody not get relief from it, but you know, I haven't seen all, how many billion people are there in the world now?
There's a lot of billions. That's
[00:04:33] Martin Furber: seven, isn't it? Something like that.
[00:04:34] Denise Billen-Mejia: I
thought I'd been stuck at seven for a while. It's going to be up in a minute.
Yeah. But, um,
yeah, I, it's, I, I call myself a medical hypnotist. I think that's the easiest. Um, way to do it. But of course, I think everything's medical because everything affects your mind or your body if you're on this planet.
So if being really shy at parties is a big problem for you, then hypnosis can help. You wouldn't usually go to the doctor for that, but you do go to the doctor for social anxiety.
[00:05:04] Martin Furber: Yeah. Yeah, you do. And yeah, and yeah, actually, I would never use the word medical to describe anything I do.
[00:05:11] Denise Billen-Mejia: But you're
allowed to call yourself a psychotherapist.
[00:05:13] Martin Furber: I know.
[00:05:14] Denise Billen-Mejia: Because there you are.
[00:05:15] Martin Furber: Yeah, because for us, it's drummed into us, you are not medically trained. Um, you know, because by definition, doesn't medically trained mean you've been trained in medicine?
[00:05:26] Denise Billen-Mejia: No, here it wouldn't. It probably does there. But, um, a medically trained person is certainly a nurse. Um,, the lovely thing, I love the, excuse me, Royal Society of Medicine, which I belong to, has a section on hypnosis, which is why I belong to it, they're parts of fun too.
Um, but they, they also accept us full fellows, veterinary scientists and dentists. Because they were formed way back when we were all sort of a blob of people that took care of your teeth and your body and your horse.
[00:05:58] Martin Furber: Well, yeah, I mean, of course, dentists are medically trained, aren't they?
[00:06:01] Denise Billen-Mejia: Yeah, exactly.
You
[00:06:02] Martin Furber: know, they administer injections and things and prescribe drugs and perform surgeries.
[00:06:08] Denise Billen-Mejia: We were
also animals. But, um, mammals, anyway. Do you have a sort of more organized, because I, you know, I don't do organized, but we should, for the viewer, we should have an organized kind of path to go through.
What are the most common questions?
[00:06:23] Martin Furber: Okay, well,
people usually want to know what the actual experience is like, as in, does hypnotherapy involve losing consciousness?
[00:06:31] Denise Billen-Mejia: No, unconscious bodies don't do well in hypnosis, but um, you, it really depends when I'm hypnotized. I get hypnotized all the time because people practice on me, you know, a lot of people in training and when They do that.
I just take the time to close off completely. I'm not asleep. They say, remember I told you that, the, when I was learning, uh, another fellow student, hypnotized me and we decided I was gonna go sit at the beach. So I was sitting at the beach and of course I'm at sandbanks and he said, and the fire is on.
What the hell's a fire doing on the beach? I was like wide awake. And that's the thing. You're, it, doesn't take your conscience, conscious mind is sort of napping, but it's always aware. So long as you can hear. It's aware. And, and if something dangerous or weird.
[00:07:25] Martin Furber: Well, yeah, it is aware. Cause if the fire alarm went off during hypnosis, you'd instantly spring back.
Yeah. You'd jump right out of it, wouldn't you? But it's explaining to somebody that no, it's not a loss of consciousness. No, it's not a complete loss of awareness, but you can get lost in the process in the same way that we can be daydreaming, looking through the window and get lost in that process. Can't we all?
But youcan get lost in a good
book.
[00:07:48] Denise Billen-Mejia: Yeah. But and you put your not unconscious and not asleep. And it's that brainwave pattern from being awake and sleep. It's that bridge between the two. And that's, that's where you spend about five or 10 minutes as you're falling asleep every day. And you spend about five or 10 minutes.
If you're wakening naturally, your alarm isn't going off disgustingly. Can't think of a right word. Horribly early. Yeah, when you start awake, you know, most of the time you wake up nicely. Hmm. So long as they're the sounds you expect to hear in the morning, then you wake up and you're calm about it. If a fire alarm goes off, you're bolted right away.
Yeah, yeah. Ready to run.
[00:08:31] Martin Furber: Yeah, I hate being woken up like that. So, of course, then the big question is people ask, is hypnotherapy effective?
[00:08:40] Denise Billen-Mejia: Yes. Would you like to read some comments from people I have hypnotized? Um, yeah, I, I, well, I think it's deeper than that. I think it's, is it effective for X, Y, Z? And for the most part, yes, it is.
And different hypnotists will have greater or lesser experience with a particular problem. So, um, obvious example is hypnosis for people who want to lose weight is a common, I mean, really, you could almost have, and I know people who do, that's your practice, you just do weight loss. Most people want to lose 20, 30 pounds, and that is relatively common.
easy once you're in the swing of it. It's hard to get into the swing of it.
[00:09:24] Martin Furber: That's it. It's getting in that swing, isn't it?
[00:09:27] Denise Billen-Mejia: Yeah. But for all of my weight loss people, I see them every week, just for, I use a half session every week rather than a full session. Because obviously you use a full session the first time, they haven't been, most of them haven't been hypnotized, certainly haven't been hypnotized by me.
So there's a longer time. And then it's easier. half an hour. And it's more like, hi, how are you doing? Are you bored with the sound of the tape I'm sending you yet? Do you need a new one?
[00:09:51] Martin Furber: When people ask me, is it effective? I ask, you know, obviously I've ascertained by that point what it is they're coming to see me for.
And then I will say to them, are the symptoms worse when you're under stress? And if they say yes, then I say, yes, it will be effective. I mean, and you've said it before, as a medical doctor, any medical condition can be exacerbated by stress. Yeah. Yeah. So, so then, you know, again, sort of linked to the last question people ask, can anyone benefit from hypnotherapy?
Um, cause
[00:10:24] Denise Billen-Mejia: That's almost the same answer. Yes. Yeah.
[00:10:26] Martin Furber: It is because, um, you know, you will have people saying, oh, I can't be hypnotized.
[00:10:32] Denise Billen-Mejia: Okay?
[00:10:32] Martin Furber: I say, well, if you say you can't be, then you won't be,
you won't
be ,
right?
[00:10:36] Denise Billen-Mejia: No, you won't be. If you're being told that somebody is trying to hypnotize it, you, you quite well.
You don't have to be, have agreed, but you have to be your, your conscious mind has to know it's safer.
[00:10:48] Martin Furber: Yeah.
[00:10:48] Denise Billen-Mejia: Take
off. Yeah. For a
bit.
[00:10:49] Martin Furber: Okay. Another common one I get asked, and I think you do too, isn't it, um, how many sessions will I need?
[00:10:55] Denise Billen-Mejia: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, now that's different. I, I require people to book for two sessions, two weeks apart.
Usually I even do that the way, if it's, if it's a large amount of weight, if it's moving towards the a hundred pounds or 200 pounds or whatever, then, , they take, they take two full sessions of hypnosis. They need to be sure of where we're going. , and then they can go to once a week. And the once a week ones are very brief, but if somebody's coming for fear of spiders or something, that doesn't usually take a long time, but who knows everybody's different.
So they have two sessions that can take up to an hour and a half. And then we moved to, a la carte as it were, but I asked them to try and keep it to two weeks apart. Um, I don't want to crowd it by having a week apart. Now, this is where we difference in our difference in practice. Yeah. Because I don't want to step on continuing process from the past one.
You can and people have a tendency to think that you're hypnotized and then you wake up and the whole thing's done. Well, obviously, it's not going to happen with weight. You're not going to wake up 100 pounds less. But you're not necessarily going to notice. something completely different about you, but you will gradually see things changing.
[00:12:16] Martin Furber: Yeah. Especially with weight is those changes in attitude towards everything. And that change from that mindset of what can I eat to what can I do?
[00:12:24] Denise Billen-Mejia: But you'll get, it's kind of cute. I don't challenge them when they say this to me, but it's like, I'm not, I'm not eating as much. Oh, so you feel that this has helped.
Well, I don't know. It's just I wasn't hungry.
[00:12:35] Martin Furber: Okay. Has anybody ever asked you if hypnotherapy is painful or not?
[00:12:42] Denise Billen-Mejia: No. Has somebody asked you?
[00:12:45] Martin Furber: No, but it's on my list of FAQs.
[00:12:46] Denise Billen-Mejia: Oh, really? No, it's not painful. There is, there is. I think we should address ab reactions at some point. There's, you know, those times.
And, and these are not dangerous or anything else. You don't know your life history and something will just happen. and you'll have a little bit more of a reaction and you may be, people can burst into tears. They can suddenly wake out of it, but it's not dangerous, but it can be unpleasant. It doesn't usually happen, I've only had one person have an ab reaction talking to me whilst we're in hypnosis, and he just woke up with a start and then, you know, when you're ready we'll go back down,
and we did.
[00:13:28] Martin Furber: Never had an ab reaction, no, never, um, occasionally tears before the therapy, before the hypnosis part of the session, um, but never, never during hypnosis.
Again, I can't remember
[00:13:44] Denise Billen-Mejia: when I say things. I know I said it before, but, , do you remember the person who had contacted me because she wanted to be able to be more social?
And so we went through a basic, you know, feel comfortable about it thing. And, then she was due to come back two weeks later. Saw her two weeks later, it doesn't work. Okay. What have you been doing? Oh, well, I've been doing, She joined.
[00:14:06] Martin Furber: Oh, yeah. I remember this one.
[00:14:07] Denise Billen-Mejia: She was going walking. Yeah. Right. And she was going on two international travel things, which I thought was pretty active for somebody in her well into her 70s and 80s.
So it doesn't, I mean, she was lovely about it. I said, well, it's okay. If you, obviously we, we'd achieved what she needed to achieve. So I just said, well, just let me know if I can do anything else.
But that's it. It isn't necessarily a dramatic thing, which is of course why people think. We don't do hypnosis because we don't make people cluck like chickens. No, that's an obvious one can assume the average person doesn't want to cluck like a chicken. So if somebody suggests to them when they're being hypnotized that they can and they do, that's a thing they do, but it's not useful.
[00:14:50] Martin Furber: Here's an interesting one. People ask, can they do hypnotherapy themselves at home? And we both do similar. with this, don't we?
[00:14:58] Denise Billen-Mejia: The thing is that you're hypnotized constantly. Your TV does it, all sorts of things have that little momentary thing. I think it's very useful for people to have a formal hypnosis session.
And then if you want to carry on with Joe Blogg's audio selection or whatever, that's fine. Um, but, but I think it's really useful to have had an actual bona fide hypnotist.
[00:15:21] Martin Furber: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
[00:15:23] Denise Billen-Mejia: At least once, so, uh, so that you, you know what you're expecting.
[00:15:28] Martin Furber: Yeah, I mean, in terms of teaching people to hypnotize themselves, I'd say no, it's more like teaching people how to, enter proper deep relaxation themselves.
Right. Which many people have
never experienced other than when they've fallen asleep.
[00:15:41] Denise Billen-Mejia: Right, but there's that sort of grey area between hypnosis and guided meditation.
Mmm.
Which people buy audios for that sort of thing all the time. But I think it is, I think probably one of the most useful things is to make sure that your doctor is okay with you doing it and there isn't some issue that it has a deeper or more medical issue that needs to be addressed.
[00:16:04] Martin Furber: Oh
yeah, well, anything to do with pain, I'd straight refer back to the doctor. I want to know that the doctor is okay with it. Uh, anything to do with any kind of pain. Um, Pains I've dealt with have usually been migraines brought on by stress.
[00:16:23] Denise Billen-Mejia: Yeah, very often.
[00:16:24] Martin Furber: And
so if you, if you keep the stress at bay, the migraines just don't happen.
[00:16:28] Denise Billen-Mejia: Right. But there are people that you can get into such a, I've had them, I had used to have them years ago. Um, but it, it'll tail off and then it immediately swings back. It's sort of a cycle of migraine, you just get in and you don't have a migraine for six months straight. Right. Okay. And then hypnosis can definitely help.
Whereas, you know, just going into a dark room, get rid of that one maybe, but it isn't a real problem.
[00:16:55] Martin Furber: Yeah. Yeah,
[00:16:57] Denise Billen-Mejia: But when when you're dealing with any kind of pain now, of course, I make everybody get the okay from their doctor. Yeah, I want to make this. I'm not sure they're telling me everything about them.
They may not realize everything about them. People tend to think oh, I don't need to tell you that But yeah, I'd much rather have too much information.
[00:17:14] Martin Furber: Yeah. Yeah. This is the doctor in you coming out though, isn't it?
[00:17:17] Denise Billen-Mejia: I
know. very legalistic situation you're in.
[00:17:22] Martin Furber: I think the big question though, that I do get asked virtually every time, and I don't know if you do, is, will I be under the hypnotherapist's control?
[00:17:32] Denise Billen-Mejia: I haven't actually been directly asked it, but I can dimble around the edges. I think people think it's sort of insulting to ask me a question about my practice.
[00:17:40] Martin Furber: Yeah, and I think this just stems from TV and movies where, you know, people see somebody swinging a watch and then all of a sudden they're doing everything they tell them.
It's that important thing to get across. You cannot be made to do anything.
[00:17:55] Denise Billen-Mejia: If something is against your moral code or just your Conscious mind doesn't like the idea of something. You will either snap out of it or ignore it.
That's
the, you know, and I told you when, when, when I was being hypnotized initially, just for his practice, um, it just, it startled me out of it.
Now if people say something funny. I just, I think I just carry on sleepy. I'm not sleeping. Vaguely aware of there being a murmur somewhere. Very pleasant.
[00:18:27] Martin Furber: This
is the thing, I mean, again, when people ask about what is hypnosis like, for me, when I get hypnotized and I actually like it, I call myself a trance junkie.
I actually enjoy it. It is very, very pleasurable and it is difficult to describe. It's just that nice, as you say, soft, floaty, not quite awake, not quite asleep.
[00:18:48] Denise Billen-Mejia: Just
waking up on Sunday morning, realising , you don't have to rush
[00:18:51] Martin Furber: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like that one. Yeah. Good note to finish on Denise for this one. Waking up on a Sunday morning and knowing you don't have to rush.
Yeah. That's what hypnosis is like everybody.
[00:19:05] Denise Billen-Mejia: I think the other thing is that both of us require people to have a bit of time between being hypnotized and going about their regular day.
[00:19:12] Martin Furber: Oh, absolutely.
[00:19:13] Denise Billen-Mejia: Yeah. When I, when I send people there, I send them the hypnosis tape that they can use at bedtime preferably. But if they can't do it at bedtime, then they need to set the alarm for about half hour more than the tape time so that they.
can take advantage of the full effect It's not going to do you any harm to wake up right at the end.
Why? If you
can enjoy, get, get your money's worth.
[00:19:37] Martin Furber: Yeah. I mean, this is the thing, isn't it? It's very pleasant. Yeah. What a nice note to finish on. We'll catch you on the next one. Okay. Okay. Bye.
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.
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.
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