Wendie Webber, with over three decades of experience as a distinguished healing practitioner, brings a diverse array of skills to her practice in regression to cause hypnosis. Her approach combines a gentle, yet authoritative presentation style with a comprehensive, lucid, and methodical method of assisting fellow healing practitioners in navigating the complexities of regression hypnotherapy.
Discover how someone who had no interest in hypnosis became a regression to cause hypnotherapist! It all began with a book called The Healing Power of Illness by Thorwald Dethlefsen.
9:49 - Nizam chooses to play all the roles of those who are scared with regression therapy to learn the truth about regression to cause therapeutic hypnosis.
9:54 - Nizam: I'm trained Solution-focus-based therapy. I don't touch my clients. There's no point in listening to their problems, there's no point in going back to their past. My focus is to help my clients to be in the present and make their future better.
What is the point in touching the memory and making them go through all the trauma? Regression work is a very dangerous work. Solution-focus is what I resonate with. I do not want to harm my clients. What do you say, Wendie?
Wendie: I get that a lot. Many hypnosis practitioner are taught that regression is harmful. They're taught that you're going to retraumatize your client. They're taught that you don't need that, all you need to do is is give them a good progressive relaxation and then future pace them, and that's going to solve the problem.
The question I would ask you is, 'Are you happy with the results you're getting? Are you getting a lasting result? When a client comes to you with an issue, are you resolving it for good? Or are you just helping them to improve? Because regression to cause is about resolving the underlying cause of the problem so the client doesn't have the problem any more. We don't treat symptoms. I was never interested in symptom-management. I never did pain management. I never did sport improvement. I focused specifically on regression to cause because I didn't have time for that. I needed to focus on one thing and get really good at it.
What you're talking about is what I consider a "surface technique." It's effective for a lot of things. And not every client is going to want to do the dig out the roots of the dandelion crop that they've got in there. They're happy to just mow the lawn every week. That's fine. You give what the client wants. But what I found in my practice is that, 99% of the time, the clients who wanted surface techniques I referred out. I never took them on. I said, "No, I don't do that." Because I'm not really good at it. I don't focus on that stuff. So, I would refer them out to someone who just did the surface techniques. And the clients that I got had already tried everything else. They'd already tried the brain-imaging stuff. They'd already tried the Neuro-linguistic Programming. And they'd already been to the doctors and the naturopaths. They'd tried the various supplements and, you-name-it, they'd already tried it. And they were really at the end of their rope.
The first thing you ask when somebody comes to you is, "Well, what have you tried?" They'll say, "I've tried this, and this, and this, and this," and you say, "Well, we're not going to do that." Because they already know it's not going to work. This is really only for those people who want, and are willing, to dig down and find out "where is this coming from" and "let's take care of it, for good."
13:16 - Nizam: I hear from "you people" who practice regression to cause that there is "one cause". But there can be multiple causes. On what basis can you say that this is the root cause, and this is what needs to be addressed, and the whole problem is solved? There could be any number of causes. Do you keep on digging the client's past, and past, and past? What benefit are they going to get?
Wendie: This is where we get into the Thought-Cause Alignment Pattern that's in the Devil's Therapy book . . .
When you're tracking something back to the cause, you're following the emotion because the subconscious mind is the emotional mind. We want to follow the emotion because that's the signal that is coming out of the event that caused it. So, you could be following fear back but there's a hundred-thousand different kinds of fear, aren't there?
You might be dealing with a client who, let's say they have a fear of spiders. You can track that back to the first time they were ever frightened by a spider. But that's seldom the cause. We want to go back to the first time they felt "that fear".
The time they experienced the fear of the spider is what we call the Symptom Producing Event (SPE). That's when "that fear" got anchored to spiders. That's the anchoring event. It's not the causal event. That's where they learned to attach "that fear" to that particular experience. So, we want to go back and find (the event that caused "that fear."
That's what we would call a simple phobia. Usually, it's got only one Initial Sensitizing Event (ISE), one causal event. But when you have clients coming in who have multiple symptoms then, often, you're going to find that there's more than one causal event.
Now, a whole bunch of those symptoms can be tied to a single event, its true, but you might find that . . . a client comes to you and you've got to make a list of all those symptoms. And then follow the feeling back, clear everything that's attached to that particular feeling, and then you find out, when you test the results between sessions, what disappeared. What did it take care of? Then, you deal with what's left.
That's the answer to the question - how do we know? We test. I'm big on testing. I test everything. I test the client before we begin the healing process. I test them while we're doing the regression. I test for the ISE. I test the results afterwards. I test to make sure that everything's been cleaned up while we're doing the process. Basically, it's a process of testing the results before you move onto the next step.
Highlights:
16:42 - Dealing with sexual trauma in childhood, molestation or bullying. A case of gang rape. How to honor emotions like fear, anger, sadness. When repression is a healthy or unhealthy pattern. When emotions find expression through physical symptoms.
22:55 - How to deal with a client who doesn't want to face the pain of the past. How validating and releasing allows the pattern to finish. Hypnotic Phobia model.
25:07 - What does "feel it to heal it" mean? The 90-second rule. Tools that can make it easier for a person to allow emotional expression. The Void created by releasing.
27:24 - Why is regression not being taught in more schools? Regression is an advanced level of learning. The foundation is developing your observation skill as a suggestion artist. Then, you can move to Gestalt or Parts Therapy which is working with dual-consciousness. This is the core work of regression therapy. The more advanced level is the hypno-analysis which develops through experience and is the ability to notice patterns.
31:37 - The simple answer - the money is in basic certification. Many trainers are not trained in regression. Many have been taught that regression is dangerous. If you're not skilled in regression, you may find yourself in over your head. I recommend getting some training in regression because clients are going to regress whether you want them to or not. (When that happens, you have a short-cut to resolving the presenting issue.)
35:20 It's all about the Story. What is the pattern that is developing over time. If there are multiple symptoms, there may be multiple events, but it's one story. How many sessions?
36:29 - Advice for newly certified practitioners who don't feel confident. The art of suggestion. Evaluating Stephen Parkhill's elegant regression patter. A suggestion is code. What to watch for. What to focus on.
The key to exceptional hypnotherapy is to develop your skills at the basic level - the art of suggestion. Study the masters. What are they saying? What is that "code" supposed to do?
How a script breaks down. Validate the problem. Establish a yes-frame. Build rapport. Increase motivation. Use the client's words.
43:31 - Is it possible to locate the root cause and the client requires some time to heal? Is it possible for healing to happen in phases? Why insight is not enough. What to do when the client thinks they know what the cause of the problem is. If you don't release the emotions trapped in the event, it's not resolved. Why the ISE is usually the easiest event to work with.
The root is the emotion. It's not the story. The story is important when it comes to doing the forgiveness work. In the regression work, the only thing that matters is releasing the emotions trapped in the event.
Hypno-analysis. Example of irrational fear developed in childhood. Parkhill's Rewind and Replay Technique. The only thing we change is the feeling.
50:22 - Why did you call your book The Devil's Therapy? What inspired you to write it?
Second book - Ditch the Script. The key to ease in your sessions is set up. If you set up, in advance, it will all happen like dominoes. How to qualify your clients. How to set up for the first session while you're booking the first session. How to conduct the intake process. The importance of listening to the conscious mind's story. Covert approach to gaining rapport with subconscious mind. Uncovering the client's objections so that you can address them during the educational pre-talk. Purposeful work. The pebble in the pond and the ripple effect of transforming lives.
Third book - Radical Healing. Gerry Kein said the three keys to successful hypnotherapy are pre-talk, pre-talk, pre-talk. You need to prepare the client before you ask them to do anything. Everything is pre-talk. For example, "In a moment . . ." is pre-talk. The Educational Pre-talk should prepare the client to allow hypnosis to happen, and to allow feelings and memories to be a part of the process. How to beat objections and teach your client "how to behave" before you begin the hypnosis. Make the client responsible for the results. The problem with pre-recorded pre-talks. The power of an interactive educational pre-talk.
1:08 - What inspired you to create online training courses?
You need wins. You need clients you can be successful with. You need steps to follow so you can feel confident in your sessions. When something doesn't work - WHY? You learn how to evaluate. I wanted to teach people how to think in their sessions.
The question is WHY? So, you follow your protocol but you need to know WHY. Why do I move to this step? Why do I use this technique and not that technique? Something as simple as evaluating the client's issue. Do I use a surface technique or do I use regression? Why conduct the intake first? What does the Therapeutic Contract say? A client-centered approach is very step-by-step.
Fourth book - Dream Healing. A great book for hypnosis practitioners. Projective Dreamwork is aligned with regression hypnotherapy. How stress inhibits awareness during an event. The conscious mind has the problem - not the subconscious mind. Dream Healing is working with the contents of the subconscious mind. What you learn from working with your own dreams will make you a better hypnotherapist. Example, Inner Child Work.
The free course: how to structure your healing practice
