Welcome to the Site

Thanks for landing here! Where to begin? Maybe look at some cool hypnosis spirals or see the neat trick on the power of suggestion page.

Learn how the subconscious works, or hypnosis or hypnotherapy.

Or, if you want to dive into some articles, read my cynical rants on social networking, relationships, or maybe subconscious self sabotage.

Whatever you find – I hope you find something useful and interesting!

An Interesting Finding About Scams

So, in 2009 Exeter University released findings from the first study into mass marketed email scams (and scams generally).

I find the psychology of scams and cons very interesting, because like cults (and to some extent, religions) they are jam-packed with human influence, suggestion, exploits, appeals to the emotional intuition above conscious rationality etc. You’ll probably learn more about human behaviour through studying scams than you will in a psychology degree.

Anyway, here’s an interesting finding from the study: “Our research suggests that there is a minority of people who are particularly vulnerable to scams. In particular, people who reported having previously responded to a scam were consistently more likely to show interest in responding again. Though a minority, it is not a small minority; depending on how it is assessed, it could be between 10 per cent and 20 per cent of the population. Furthermore, the research suggests that the vulnerability is not specific to the persuasive techniques most characteristic of current common mass marketed scams, though it does include them.”

This percentage – 10-20% – is also the same figure reported by studies into what proportion of people are highly hypnotisable. I wonder, then, whether its related. Perhaps people who are most responsive to hypnosis (and suggestion) are the same people who are vulnerable to the emotional influence of a well-designed scam.

Any thoughts or ideas? Share them here!

Does Social Networking Change People?

Sometimes I think Facebook is ok – it lets people keep in touch, and its nice knowing what people are up to.

Other times I think its a load of bullshit.

One of the main things I’ve noticed is that it catalyses people’s search for attention. The little dopamine flourishes that one receives on getting a comment or some feedback becomes addictive, leading to more outlandish or attention seeking statuses (e.g. “OMG can’t believe what just happened!”). I know people who actually think in terms of Facebook now, so if they see something out and about, the first thought is to report to Facebook about it, or upload a photo there and then.

Another downside is that statuses and what people say they’re up to doesn’t really reflect who they are or whats really happening in their lives. Its the most superficial surface-skim of a persons life. Yet, we get fooled into thinking “oh, they’re ok” and then maybe not feel as encouraged to actually talk to them or find out how they really are, as we would have been pre-Facebook.

When I meet someone who is interesting but not on Facebook, they normally have a refreshing streak of independence and individuality.

More and more I hear of people threatening to delete their Facebook accounts, but the problem is bigger than that. The annoyance isn’t your own relationship to Facebook – its the fact that everyone else is becoming superficial and self-centred because of it too!

Subconscious Self-Sabotage

The Hidden Handbrake – often, we’re our own worst enemies. We manage to somehow keep the things we really want just the right distance away so we never actually grab hold of them – whether a career position, goal, creative project or anything else. Why do people do this? I call it the hidden handbrake because its literally like driving a car with the handbrake on – you sense your inner potential, you know you can do (and achieve) better, but for some reason an endless chain of setbacks and stupid decisions ensures that you never make the most of yourself.

The problem with subconsicous self-sabotage is that it can take years if not decades to realise its full effects. The mind rationalises that its something or someone elses fault, for as long as it can to protect your ego. But sooner or later, the patterns become so obvious, and the feedback from others so compelling unarguable, that you can’t help but look inward rather than outward for excuses. Examples may be a string of relationships, a string of jobs, giving up a project just before it could become successful, or endless procrastination.

I think a couple of the most common reasons are that people feel they either don’t deserve to be successful, or don’t deserve to be happy. When happiness happens, some people find it so uncomfortable that they do their best to ruin it. Same with success. Its the common cliche of the guy who gets a well paid job in the city, turns to gambling and cocaine, gets fired, wonder how the hell it all went wrong.

In my experience, its very difficult to pinpoint the causes of your own self-sabotage because its so hidden. An intricate network of self-beliefs and expectations that make up the self-image (your blueprint of what you expect for yourself) can rest on a myriad of beliefs – which are powerful because they are emotionally charged. Somewhere, an association exists between ideas of success, attention or happiness and guilt, shame or fear.

Some possible scenarios:

• As a kid, when you did something you felt good about, you were made to feel shame by peers, parents or teachers.
• You were taught (incorrectly) that only assholes are successful.
• You were taught (incorrectly) that people who are self-confident are arrogant.
• A parent figure wasn’t happy – and the idea of you being happy seems wrong.
• You absorbed a huge sense of guilt (either through your own actions, or it was implied by someone else e.g. a parental break-up).
• You absorbed a feeling of shame (e.g. caught masturbating as a kid, or ridiculed for something at school).

Goal-setting is an ever popular theme of self-help and get-rich-quick books.

“Visualise what you want – feel it – make it bigger, brighter – want it and you can attract it into your life!”

Hmm, maybe. But what I suspect the excited, hope-addicted readers of such books achieve instead, is the art of firmly grasping that stick with a dangling carrot and walking around in circles with it.

Actions speak louder (and condition the subconscious more successfully) than words. Figure out the steps that you need to take to achieve what you think you want to achieve. Carry them out and be aware of how if feels. Fantastic? Good – keep going until something else kicks in. The moment you start to want to give up, change direction or make a stupid decision – think about what outcome you would prefer and why. Who do you imagine you are pleasing in this scenario? Who do you imagine is watching over you? What is the child in you saying about it?

Everyone’s situation is different, so this is really just to stimulate some thought.

If you feel you self-sabotage, whether you know the causes or not, please do share and tell us about it. I would love to see some real-world examples. If you managed to do anything about it, that would be great to read about too.

The Importance Of A Willingness To Perceive Reality

There is always one key factor that pops up again and again, throughout my experiences as a therapist, during conversations with people about psychology, and in my head when quietly observing a person’s “patterns”.

But first, just to introduce a few concepts.

Everyone looks at the world differently, and appreciating that is a massive step towards being a balanced, rational person. It allows you to accept peoples individual differences, rather than think “you don’t agree with me, therefore you’re wrong”, which describes a disturbingly high amount of peoples attitudes.

It leads to the attitude of having to control nature rather than flow with it, to bend the world to fit with an imagined set of expectations. People want to see the world as they want it to be, not as it is. Anything to the contrary is distorted, deleted or denied, anything that reinforces it is welcomed with open arms. Of course, nature doesn’t give a shit, and will gladly break down those walls when they became brittle enough, and this is usually the point of a “breakdown”.

This is the whole “the map is not the territory” thing, the failure to grasp of which lies at the heart of most mental illness.

But anyway, the main thing I was alluding to at the start is not the perception of reality, but just the willingness to perceive it. Are you going to irrationally defend what you want to believe, ignoring evidence to the contrary, or are you going to pay more attention to that evidence to learn something new? Are you going to stick to your negative belief systems that keep you hemmed inside of your life, or are you going to test them by wondering what it would be like if those beliefs weren’t true?

Basically, are you going to be willing to give up your bullshit to take further steps closer to reality, or choose to live with your bullshit forever more?

Because really, most of what people believe to be true (whether it be about their potential, how lovable they are, whether other people are threatening, whats scary etc) is bullshit. If it wasn’t, it would be a fact, and not a belief.

When talking to people about things, I can sometimes sense a “zone” where their irrational defensiveness kicks in. It wouldn’t be a problem for me to just avoid it. The problem arises where I’m invited to help them reinforce the belief. So if a typical conversation goes along the lines of people being horrible, or society being rubbish, or there being no options left anymore, I’m caught in a pressure point where if I don’t agree, they may become anxious and I know they’ll start putting me in that same bracket of hostility (“oh, you’re just like everyone else!” etc). Instead I’ll start challenging and eroding the edges, by asking incisive questions so that they are forced to corner themselves into facing their own irrationality head on (e.g. reminding them of a time that directly goes against what they are asking me to agree with). Whilst the effects of this can be powerful in the short term (“yeah, I suppose you’re right”), the overwhelming power of the mind to do what it can to protect what it wants to believe will ensure that its quickly forgotten about. A few days later, it will be the case of same bullshit, different day.