Virtual Hypnotherapy
My name is Michael Conrad. I'm a psychologist since '78 and a medical hypnotist since 2000, who specializes in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Neuroscience and Nutrition and can therefore talk with you on a variety of issues.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, CBT, helps you perceive the things that bother you in a different light so that you won't feel so physically or emotionally unbalanced. Whatever you need help with, Google Search a cure for it and you will find CBT at the top of the list. I use CBT before each hypnosis session as well as with those who cannot or prefer not to be hypnotized.
The mind controls the body. If it is your mind that is making you feel physically sick or mentally unbalanced, then it is your mind that can make you healthy again. And when your willpower isn't working effectively, then hypnosis will help. However, don't expect years of what you're going through to disappear in one session. On average, 3 sessions per week for 2 weeks makes hypnosis the most effective for long-lasting change. There is no such thing as a one visit cure just as there is no such thing as one pill from a bottle of pills is all you need.
Hypnosis can help you with depression, stress, anxiety attacks, sleeplessness, nervous habits such as nail biting, biting the inside of your cheek and cracking your knuckles, as well as phobias and fears such as fear of being operated on in a hospital to fear of a painful childbirth to much smaller fears such as spiders, heights, dentist, flying, and any other fear you can think of.
Physical pain is very real and although nothing beats medication, it is also how we perceive the pain that determines how much or how little pain we feel. That said, hypnosis has been effective in lessening and possibly eliminating physical pains such as childbirth, fibromyalgia, restless leg syndrome, lower back pain that requires injections and eliminating a dependency for alcohol, illegal drugs and pain medications such as opioids without experiencing withdrawal pains.
Virtual sessions are now the most effective way to get help when you need it and I can almost always be there for you when you contact me and we will meet on a Google video app called MEET which is already on your Android phone and uses your phone number to contact me instead of a shared platform. This keeps it personal, one-on-one. We will discuss the issues you'd like help with once you contact me from my contact page.
Virtual sessions are conducted once you have headphones or earbuds like in the picture above, a place to prop up your phone or laptop so that you don't have to hold it, a comfortable chair or sofa to lean back in and a very quiet room with no distractions, children screaming, phones ringing, or a loved one telling you dinner's ready.
In person sessions are available in Bakersfield CA since I moved near there from Los Angeles during the Covid crisis to care for my aging parents, now gone, and I can meet you at 11 am on the day of your choice, except Sundays, for a quick 15 minute meeting just to see if you can experience hypnosis. Then we will set up a traditional 1 hour appointment.
What exactly is hypnosis? The word hypnosis was originally created to describe the process you put yourself through in order to fall asleep, named after the Greek god Hypnos, the god of sleep. It's lying in bed and letting go of all the thoughts and stresses of the day, eventually limiting your thoughts to how warm the blanket feels around you or how soft the pillow feels beneath your head, and without even realizing it, you drift off to sleep.
Hypnotized is actually called mesmerized. You are mesmerized when you can focus your attention on something to the point where you are oblivious to everything else going on around you. It's also called tunnel vision. Named after Franz Mesmer, the creator of the mesmerizing techniques everyone has mislabeled as hypnosis.
Franz Mesmer's theory is this. By focusing your eyes on an object (visual tunnel vision) while focusing your hearing on the sound of someone's voice (audible tunnel vision), the more mesmerized you become, at which point a part of your mind becomes willing to accept suggestions, but only if they're coming from someone you trust and if you were leaning in the direction of those particular suggestions in the first place. Think of a hypnotist/mesmerist as a motivator who helps you stay on a path that you've already taken.
The confusion all began in 1843 when James Braid noticed that when clients had created tunnel vision and were mesmerized, that they exhibited the same sleepy "look" that one had when going to sleep. So he changed the word from mesmerized, which is the "focused" look, to hypnotized, which is the "sleepy" look. But he eventually saw his mistake, that they weren't sleepy at all, so he tried to change the word back to mesmerized, but by then the word hypnotized became so popular, thanks to movies, that he gave up trying.
Knowing this, here is what to expect. Your hypnotist, or mesmerist, will ask you to focus your eyes on a particular object (visual tunnel vision) while focusing your hearing on only the sound of his voice (audible tunnel vision). If you have followed instructions, then your eyes will appear blurry, out of focus, distant. This is a hypnotic state of mind, or more precisely, a mesmerized state of mind. The hypnotist, or mesmerist, will then give you suggestions that you are willing to accept in order to experience change for the better.
Can everyone be hypnotized? NO. About 15% of the world's population's brains are wired differently. Another 10% either don't trust the hypnotist, are afraid of the unknown, simply cannot relax, try too hard or are easily distracted by everything going on around them and therefore cannot follow instructions.
Who, then, can be hypnotized? Daydreamers, artists, musicians, actors, athletes, deep thinkers, introverts, puzzle solvers, gamers, visionaries and the like. In other words, anyone who has a very creative and vivid imagination.
Why do hypnotists/mesmerists say the word sleep? They don't have to say sleep. In fact, you can stay wide awake which is explained in the next paragraph. Some hypnotists say the word sleep because we do it effortlessly every night and therefore it's the easiest word for our brains to accept and comply with. However, it isn't really sleep, but the moment before sleep when your body stops fidgeting and completely relaxes. You will still be able to hear everything going on around you and you will always be able to accept or reject any suggestion given to you.
Wide awake hypnosis, which is what I quite often do in my psychotherapy sessions, is when the hypnotist, or mesmerist, gets the client to create visual tunnel vision as well as audible tunnel vision, as explained above, and instead of having them close their eyes with the word sleep, they stay wide awake and follow the therapist's suggestions which will change you for the better.
A brief history here. In the beginning, mesmerizing techniques, now mislabeled as hypnosis, were only used by medical doctors, especially during war times before the invention of morphine, which primarily calmed injured soldiers, put them into deeper REM sleep during unfortunate amputations, and also limited infections and quickened recovery. Many years later was when non-medical people used their very limited knowledge of mesmerism/hypnosis to create stage shows for entertainment purposes only, while leaving the true medical effectiveness of hypnosis to us real professionals.