Poll Indicates More Trust In Dentists Than In Doctors

New poll suggests people trust their dentist more than their DR, however 26% of people still to not attend dentists appointments through fear- more therapies are now available such as hypnosis- could this be the answer to our dentist phobia issue?

source: http://www.cosmeticdentistryguide.co.uk/news/poll-indicates-more-trust-in-dentists-than-in-doctors-8381

Perfectionism: a Self-Defeating Mechanism

Perfectionism

• Do you feel like what you accomplish is never quite good enough?
• Do you often put off turning in papers or projects, waiting to get them just right?
• Do you feel you must give more than 100 percent on everything you do or else you will be mediocre or even a failure?

If so, rather than simply working toward success, you may in fact be trying to be perfect. Perfectionism refers to a set of self-defeating thoughts and behaviors aimed at reaching excessively high unrealistic goals. Perfectionism is often mistakenly seen in our society as desirable or even necessary for success. However, recent studies have shown that perfectionistic attitudes actually interfere with success. The desire to be perfect can both rob you of a sense of personal satisfaction and cause you to fail to achieve as much as people who have more realistic strivings.

Causes of Perfectionism

If you are a perfectionist, it is likely that you learned early in life that other people valued you because of how much you accomplished or achieved. As a result you may have learned to value yourself only on the basis of other people’s approval. Thus your self-esteem may have come to be based primarily on external standards. This can leave you vulnerable and excessively sensitive to the opinions and criticism of others. In attempting to protect yourself from such criticism, you may decide that being perfect is your only defense.

A number of the following negative feelings, thoughts, and beliefs may be associated with perfectionism:

• Fear of failure. Perfectionists often equate failure to achieve their goals with a lack of personal worth or value.
• Fear of making mistakes. Perfectionists often equate mistakes with failure. In orienting their lives around avoiding mistakes, perfectionists miss opportunities to learn and grow.
• Fear of disapproval. If they let others see their flaws, perfectionists often fear that they will no longer be accepted. Trying to be perfect is a way of trying to protect themselves from criticism, rejection, and disapproval.
• All-or-none thinking. Perfectionists frequently believe that they are worthless if their accomplishments are not perfect. Perfectionists have difficulty seeing situations in perspective. For example, a straight “A” student who receives a “B” might believe, “I am a total failure.”
• Overemphasis on “shoulds.” Perfectionists’ lives are often structured by an endless list of “shoulds” that serve as rigid rules for how their lives must be led. With such an overemphasis on shoulds, perfectionists rarely take into account their own wants and desires.
• Believing that others are easily successful. Perfectionists tend to perceive others as achieving success with a minimum of effort, few errors, emotional stress, and maximum self-confidence. At the same time, perfectionists view their own efforts as unending and forever inadequate.

The Vicious Cycle of Perfectionism

Perfectionistic attitudes set in motion a vicious cycle. First, perfectionists set unreachable goals. Second, they fail to meet these goals because the goals were impossible to begin with. Failure to reach them was thus inevitable. Third, the constant pressure to achieve perfection and the inevitable chronic failure reduce productivity and effectiveness. Fourth, this cycle leads perfectionists to be self-critical and self-blaming which results in lower self-esteem. It may also lead to anxiety and depression.

At this point perfectionists may give up completely on their goals and set different goals thinking, “This time if only I try harder I will succeed.” Such thinking sets the entire cycle in motion again. This vicious cycle can be illustrated by looking at a way in which perfectionists often deal with interpersonal relationships. Perfectionists tend to anticipate or fear disapproval and rejection from those around them. Given such fear, perfectionists may react defensively to criticism and in doing so frustrate and alienate others.

 Without realizing it, perfectionists may also apply their unrealistically high standards to others, becoming critical and demanding of them. Furthermore, perfectionists may avoid letting others see their mistakes, not realizing that self-disclosure allows others to perceive them as more human and thus more likeable. Because of this vicious cycle perfectionists often have difficulty being close to people and therefore have less than satisfactory interpersonal relationships.

Healthy Striving

Healthy goal setting and striving are quite different from the self-defeating process of perfectionism. Healthy strivers tend to set goals based on their own wants and desires rather than primarily in response to external expectations. Their goals are usually just one step beyond what they have already accomplished. In other words, their goals are realistic, internal, and potentially attainable. Healthy strivers take pleasure in the process of pursuing the task at hand rather than focusing only on the end result. When they experience disapproval or failure, their reactions are generally limited to specific situations rather than generalized to their entire self-worth.

What to do About Perfectionism

The first step in changing from perfectionistic attitudes to healthy striving is to realize that perfectionism is undesirable. Perfection is an illusion that is unattainable. The next step is to challenge the self-defeating thoughts and behaviors that fuel perfectionism. Some of the following strategies may help:

• Set realistic and reachable goals based on your own wants and needs and what you have accomplished in the past. This will enable you to achieve and also will lead to a greater sense of self-esteem.
• Set subsequent goals in a sequential manner. As you reach a goal, set your next goal one level beyond your present level of accomplishment.
• Experiment with your standards for success. Choose any activity and instead of aiming for 100 percent, try for 90 percent, 80 percent, or even 60 percent success. This will help you to realize that the world does not end when you are not perfect.
• Focus on the process of doing an activity not just on the end result. Evaluate your success not only in terms of what you accomplished but also in terms of how much you enjoyed the task. Recognize that there can be value in the process of pursuing a goal.
• Use feelings of anxiety and depression as opportunities to ask yourself, “Have I set up impossible expectations for myself in this situation?”
• Confront the fears that may be behind your perfectionism by asking yourself, “What am I afraid of? What is the worst thing that could happen?”
• Recognize that many positive things can only be learned by making mistakes. When you make a mistake ask,
• “What can I learn from this experience?” More specifically, think of a recent mistake you have made and list all the things you can learn from it.
• Avoid all-or-none thinking in relation to your goals. Learn to discriminate the tasks you want to give high priority to from those tasks that are less important to you. On less important tasks, choose to put forth less effort. Once you have tried these suggestions, you are likely to realize that perfectionism is not a helpful or necessary influence in your life. There are alternative ways to think that are more beneficial. Not only are you likely to achieve more without your perfectionism, but you will feel better about yourself in the process.

Are becoming more and more stressed? Daily Mail article addresses the subject, with a reported 7% rise in admissions to hospital with stress related conditions.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2201469/Hospital-admissions-stress-jump-7-just-year--men-treated-women.html

The power of your subconscious mind speaks "dreams"

In order to understand the psychological and physical aspects of hypnosis the relationship between the conscious and subconscious minds and their roles in the process will be explained.  The conscious and subconscious minds could be compared to an iceberg. What you see above the water, which is the conscious, is only a small chunk of what actually exists. The portion you cannot see which is the subconscious (underneath the water), is the larger of the two. So, whenever we meet someone, we only see the "tip of the iceberg", however, what lies below the water” is another part of the individual.

Hypnosis becomes the vehicle that allows you to bypass or submerge below the conscious mind and explore the subconscious existence (8). It is suggested that hypnosis helps you gain more control over undesired emotions or behaviours or to help you cope better with a wide range of medical conditions.

Once the subconscious mind accepts an idea, it begins to execute it. Evidence suggests that the subconscious mind contains all your memories, emotions, imaginations, intelligence and controls the autonomic nervous system, which regulates breathing, blood circulation, heartbeat etc. A good example of this is riding a bike or driving a car.  When we are learning to ride or drive, we hit many obstacles.  Loosing balance, crunching gears and lack of confidence. However, as we practice and become familiar with the skills, they automatically become habit and are stored away in the subconscious mind to use at any time in the future.  When we become an expert driver or rider, we don’t have to think about how to do it, we just do it automatically. Hence, anything that has ever happened to you and everything you have imagined is stored away in the subconscious mind which acts just like a computer.  All the information is stored away and is available to be pulled back at any time.

The conscious mind helps us with daily decision-making and thinks out new situations where we have to decide what to do and how to do it.  It can hold only a limited number of thoughts and ideas at any one time, which is why we often memorise numbers in small chunks. This is because the conscious mind can hold only between five and nine units of information at any one time. (19)

It is believed that the conscious mind has an automatic resistance to situations.  It reasons and rejects and filters certain situations and acts as our defence mechanism and a safety device, as if it were a “Watchman at the gate”. (The Power of your subconscious mind, page 20)

There are four main types of brain wave. The fastest of the four being beta waves and the slowest being delta waves:

• Beta Waves (15 to 40 cycles per second): These are characteristic of an engaged and focused mind, for instance, a person engaged in a conversation
• Alpha Waves (9 to 14 cycles per second): Present at lighter hypnosis and guided meditation.
• Theta Waves (4 to 8 cycles per second): Present during dreaming and some meditative states
• Delta Waves (1 to 4 cycles per second): These are produced in our subconscious mind and when we are in our slowest deepest state of rest and there are no other waves active

In order to access the subconscious mind, the conscious mind needs to be bypassed through an induction process- known as PMR Progressive Muscle Relaxation - in order to establish the right brain-wave pattern so suggestions can be acted upon. Evidence shows that the role of relaxation (which is caused by induction) is very important, which combined with the element of suggestion, will result in the relaxation of body and mind, narrowed focus of attention, reduced awareness of external environment and everyday concerns, greater internal awareness of sensation and finally the trance state.

So, let's consider the film Inception, a cinematic blockbuster from writer/director Christopher Nolan about the power of dream states. Essentially, the movie is a psychological thriller about the intricacies of the psyche, especially the brain waves of the subconscious mind.

The only language our subconscious understands is: iamgination. So the way our subconscious manifest to us, is via our dreams which are represented via symbols. All products of the unconscious that come to awareness do so as symbolic messages. Archetypes are the birthing agents for symbols. The most common symbols occur as dreams. Dreams are the avenue of egress for the unconscious to gain awareness and, as such, are the axis on which therapy revolves.

The movie's star, Leonardo DiCaprio, said he prepared for the role by reading Sigmund Freud's "Interpretation of Dreams". Jungian dream interpretation differs from Freudian dream analysis. Freudian dream analysis is based on repression; that is, dreams are viewed as the emergence of repressed material from the unconscious. Jungians take the phenomenological view that the drama of the dream represents the unconscious message to the dreamer expressed in symbolic terms (Jung, 1964b).

Right, in treatment, how can we use dreams as a tool to interpret our subconscious mind? I will leave this one for the next post...

References

1   Alder, H Dr. (1994). NLP, The Art and Science of getting what you want, Piatkus

2   Allen, R P. (2009) Scripts Strategies in Hypnotherapy – The Complete Works, Athenaeum   

     Press  

3   Cherry K, What is Hypnosis? Hypnosis Applications, Effects and Myths

     Found online at  http://psychology.about.com/od/statesofconsciousness/a/hypnosis.htm

4   Goodman K. Hypnosis explained

     Found online at http://www.kengoodmantherapy.com/Hypnosis_Explained.html

5   Hadley, J & Staudacher, C (1996) Hypnosis for Change, New Harbinger Publications

6   Heap M & Dryden W.  (1991) Hypnotherapy, A Handbook. Open University Press,

     page 25  

7   Hilgard ER. Hypnotic Susceptibility. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1965.

8   Hilgard, E. R. (1986). Divided consciousness: Multiple controls in human thought and action.   

     New York: Wiley.

9  JNCI J Natl Cancer Inst (2007) Hypnosis intervention effects on institutional costs*

     Found online at http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/99/17/1304.full

10 Kilhstrom, J. F. (2001). Hypnosis and the psychological unconscious. In Howard S. Friedman (Ed.), Assessment and therapy: Specialty articles from the Encyclopedia of Mental Health. San Diego, CA: Academic Press 

11 Kirsch, I. (1996). Hypnotic enhancement of cognitive-behavioral weight loss treatments: 

     Another meta-reanalysis. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 64, 517-519

13 Mayo Clinic. Hypnosis: Another way to manage pain, kick bad habits.

     Found online at http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/hypnosis/SA00084

14 Murphy, J Dr (2006) The Power of your subconscious mind, Pocket Books

15 Waterfield, R (2004) Hidden Depths: The Story of Hypnosis, MacMillan

16 What is the difference between the conscious and subconscious mind?

     Found online at http://www.manifestyourheartsdesire.com/hypnosis

17 The transparency template

     Found online at http://transparencytemplate.wordpress.com/

18 Voit R Dr. Will I Cluck Like a Chicken?: Myths and Misconceptions About Clinical 

      Hypnosis -  Found online at http://www.ofspirit.com/rickvoit1.htm