This week we welcome Terence Watts
Adam interviews Terence Watts – Hypnosis in the news includes a controversial application of hypnosis causing a storm in hypnosis forums – The professional discussion explores Terence’s latest BWRT approach to therapy – The fact of the week examines whether hypnotic behaviour is purposeful or non-volitional.
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References from this week’s episode:
The official website of Terence Watts: www.terencewatts.com
The website for BWRT: http://www.brainworking-
Interesting – sounds like a re-hash of a CBT model with some magic thrown in for todays pop-psychology therapy market; where clients are looking for a quick fix and fairy sprinkles. Never underestimate the power of placebo.
Very quickly, when treating emotional disorders the evidenced based methods of CBT has the therapist work with clients collaboratively to look at negative images and thoughts that ‘pop’ or ‘flash’ into their mind. Clients are often unaware of these automatic thoughts-(as they arise from the old brain/limbic system?) and their existence afterwards, when no longer anxious. But clients focus instead on reporting their subsequent responses. So clients report ‘just feeling nervous’, for example,without being able to identify the thoughts/images that accompany their feelings. No aware of them and in order to stop these thinking errors clients engage in a choice of interventions and thought stopping protocols including cognitive disputation, mindfulness distancing, rehearsal exposure and self-instruction training (self hypnosis). This is why the careful self monitoring of thoughts was so/is important to Aaron Beck and Albert Ellis (the father’s of modern cognitive behavioral therapy. Beck and Ellis never used hypnosis but there is massive complementary overlap in methods of CBT with CBH; and happily because CBT is the only properly evidenced based psychotherapy ensuring that practitioners of cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy are standing on firm ground & not just playing in the field with untested concepts & fanciful whimsies.
Beck,A.T. & Clark, D.A (1997) An information processing model of anxiety, automatic and strategic processes. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 35.
Thanks Colin, I really enjoyed reading that 🙂
Best wishes to you, Adam.