Wendy Doucette, PsyD, LCSW

This is your brain on puppies. Happy National Puppy Day!

Therapy Thursday When I educate new clients about clinical hypnotherapy, I always teach them that all hypnosis is self-hypnosis. In a way the term self-hypnosis is redundant because the fact is that all hypnosis is self induced. It is important to address the misconceptions that most people have about what exactly hypnosis is. I start by explaining what hypnosis is not. It’s not about swinging pendulums and making you quack like a duck. In fact, you will never do anything t...hat you are not intending to do. Have you ever been completely absorbed in a good book? Or jumped at a scary part in a movie? Have you ever had drinks with a good friend where the time just flew by? Did you ever find yourself arriving at your destination wondering how in the hell you got there? Thankfully our subconscious mind is a pretty good driver. In all of these examples you were in a trance state where you felt relaxed and your attention was laser focused. Meditation and hypnosis promote similar effects on the nervous system, as relaxation and mental focus increase, our parasympathetic nervous system gets activated. But hypnotherapy takes you one step beyond meditation using this highly suggestible state to reprogram your mind using techniques like guided imagery, positive affirmations, and neuro-linguistic programming (NLP). The way that I like to think about it is that by assisting my clients to achieve a trance state, I can help them to update their minds and gain better control of their lives. Hypnotherapy gives my clients a better emotional understanding of why they think, feel, and behave in certain ways. The truth is that most of our behavior occurs underneath our conscious awareness and we react based on subconscious programming. And just like we need to upgrade our computers and phones, our minds need to be updated, too. With hypnotherapy you can train your mind to work more efficiently for you, and discover at the highest level what is already intended for you. See more

The connection between stress and social interactions is quite fascinating, and some interesting potential differences between males and females. Read on ...

Epigenetics never ceases to amaze me and inspire my work

Therapy Thursday We all have a voice inside that sometimes whispers and sometimes yells all sorts of messages. This inner voice is all too often critical, negative, self-defeating and brutal. And it’s not ours. When we are little, we internalize this voice from a parent, religious figure, teacher, or another family member. These early caregivers can (however unintentionally) install within us negative ideas about ourselves. If we are in an environment where we are being jud...ged, criticized, or loved conditionally, our internal dialogue takes on an extremely negative and destructive tone. The things we say to ourselves can have a powerful effect on the way we feel, think and behave. Negative self-talk often leads to feelings of fear, anxiety and depression. Harmful self-talk can be triggered by a myriad of situations and can be running in the background, even in positive situations. The good news is we can train our minds to work at the highest level what is intended for us. The first mindful step is to notice your thoughts. Unconscious mind will bring up all kinds of crazy shit automatically. Step Two is to simply train your mind to notice the thoughts, without judging them. Then you can acknowledge them for what they are: automatic thoughts. Step Three is to identify whose voice that is. Is it mine? Is it Mom’s? Dad’s? Even if you’re not sure, you can go on to Step Four: ask yourself Byron Katie’s Four questions: 1. Is it true? (Yes or No. If No, skip to 3) 2. Can you absolutely know it’s true? (Yes or No) 3. How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought? 4. Who would you be without the thought? Let the mind ask the questions, then contemplate. Take your time, go inside, and wait for the deeper answers to surface. By practicing this simple protocol we can re-write the story we have been torturing ourselves with, and begin to be free of the negative self-talk that is not true and never was. Lastly, think about how you would speak to your best friend. Be intentional about speaking to yourself with the same kindness, love, and compassion. And just watch what happens! See more