I was asked how I would deal with a client who had  a  Fear of Dogs.

The usual treatment in hypnotherapy is to use the NLP Magic Cinema technique. This works by getting the person to imagine a scene where they are about to meet or be threatened by a dog and then changing the scene in their mind.  The technique gets the client to change the sound, or the colour or the size of the image. This works quite well in most cases.

A refinement of this is to imagine the scene differently. This involves getting the person to imagine the dog changing into a cartoon character or turning into giant tongue licking the client all wet and sloppy, or some other ridiculous outcome. This works even better.

The theory behind this is that the client was frightened by a dog in the past and  has a fixed response to the trigger of seeing or hearing a dog. Interfering with this fixed response disrupts the response and encourages the client to imagine some different outcome.

The other common treatment is regression to cause. If the client was frightened by a dog at some time in the past then the therapist can take the client back in time and change the outcome so that the client is no longer afraid of dogs.

A more modern approach, based on Peter Levine's work, is to allow the client to experience the state of fear but to focus their attention on where in their body they are experiencing the feeling. The essence is to listen to the body, not the mind. The client is encouraged to finish the muscular activity that was not completed at the time of the dog experience. In most cases the client wanted to run away but was prevented from doing so, and the need to run away has been left in muscle memory as a type of PTSD. Allowing the client to clear the muscle memory will clear the fear completely and permanently.

I would use the muscle memory technique first. If the client was unable to access the feelings in their body I would then try an affect bridge technique as a lead in to regression. If there was no actually memory of the dog problem then I would use the affect bridge on any memory and regress on that, and if that didn't work I would teach the client to use the NLP technique and let them develop that in their own time.

There is no script that will work in all cases for all people.

Sometimes the simplest tests are the best. When dealing with smokers another little test that I use with them is to ask one key question to assess their attachment and dependency on smoking.

Right at the beginning I say to the smoker "I am going to make a statement and I want you tell me what you feel when I say it. Not what you think, but what you feel. Let your body answer the question." Then I say  'are you ready?', and then I say "You will never smoke another cigarette for the rest of your life".

Then I ask them, 'what came to mind when I said that?'

The answers are often an insight into how that person relates to smoking. Most people say  'relief' but some say 'doubt' or even 'fear'. Many say they got not reaction at all. But when there is a reaction it is a valuable guide to what to look for in their behaviour, and how to continue with the session.

Many clients have vivid imaginations and are in contact with the metaphors that are used by their own minds. I take advantage of this in therapy sessions to get into their unconscious mind quickly and easily.

I use this where a client uses lots of visual images when they are talking to me, or when they use strong metaphors as we talk about their problem. I also use it when the client expresses some anxiety about being hypnotized.

For example, in a stop smoking session I will say to the client 'Close your eyes for a moment. This is not hypnosis yet, I just want you to think about what smoking means to you. So close your eyes now. I want you to think about smoking, cigarettes, tobacco... everything to do with smoking.... what you don't like about it, how you feel about it... what it represents to you. Just allow your mind to think about everything about smoking... and let whatever comes to mind to come to mind'.[pause]

'Now what comes to mind when you think about smoking?'.

In most cases the person will say 'nothing. I don't get anything'. But quite often the person will say something like 'it is like saying goodbye to an old friend' or 'it is like a dirty brown haze around me', or 'I feel like I have a ball and chain that I am dragging around'.

If nothing comes to mind, then I accept that and move on. It is very useful for the nervous clients because it lets them close their eyes in a non-threatening environment, they know this is not hypnosis, and it sets them up for the actual hypnosis later.

Many times I do get a strong image or feeling. When that is the case I use that and develop the image or metaphor to break the association with smoking. Usually the client gets so absorbed in the metaphor process that they go into trance and no formal induction is needed.

There is a further benefit to this technique. Even when the client doesn't have any kind of image, there is a benefit. Some clients, when they close their eyes, will show flickering of their eyelids. This shows that they have rolled their eyes right up into their head, and are ready to go into trance. (Try it. Close your eyes, roll your eyes right up as far as they can go, and most people will find that their eyelids are flickering. It is the precursor to going to sleep.)

This is a type of hypnosis susceptibility test. You can use this to predict who will go into trance easily, and save time by doing a very short induction when you start hypnotizing them.

Every smoker is different and every smoker needs a therapy matched to their unique particular needs but knowing which therapy to use can be a problem. I start by using two simple scale questions.    I  ask them to rate themselves on a scale of one to ten on how much they want to give up smoking, and separately on a scale of one to ten on how much they think that they can give up smoking.

I find this simple test very effective sometimes. Most people give an eight or a nine to both. It is the ones who are at the extreme ends of the scales who are most interesting. People who are a ten on motivation to give up only need to be given hypnotic suggestions that they have the ability and they are pretty much done. However, you need to probe as to why they have not already given up. Usually you find they have a history of good intentions, but deep psychological problems about self esteem and self regard. People on the low end of the motivation need to be questioned about why they are in my office at all if they really don't want to give up. Their answers are always revealing. It may be that they have had a health scare, or they want to please somebody else, but it does let you know where to start probing and how to design your therapy.

The same applies to the can-you-give-up scale. People who score a ten are ready to give up on their own and only need a little bit of hypnotic convincing. People who score low are telling you something very important. If they don't believe they can give up, but haven't really tried very hard, then you need to work on their belief system. Other people have given up many times but always start again. I find this type of smoker needs the most attention, so this gives me an opening to talk about why they start again, what their motivation is, what is underlying their smoking behaviour.

These two simple tests are an excellent way to get your stop smoking sessions going.

I keep meeting people who are in awe of Sigmund Freud. I am not one of them. I have studied Freud at university and the more I learn of his ideas, the more I  dislike them and everything about them.

Freud actually worked with very few clients. Most of his fame rests on a handful of cases. It is not that these few cases were the peak of his output, the fact is that these were practically the only cases he had.

He died in 1939 and started analytical therapy just before 1900, so he had about forty years of practice. He typically saw each client every day for an hour. That means that he could not have had more than eight clients a week. But each client was treated for about five years. So he could only have had about eight clients every five years. Over forty years he would have treated at most sixty four individuals. Many of those were in fact students who had to undergo years of analysis before they could practice as psychoanalysts themselves. Plus he spent much of his life writing, travelling and lecturing. His whole theory is actually based on a very small sample.

A modern hypnotherapist will  see more clients in a month than Freud did in his entire lifetime.

How many Ericksonian hypnotherapists does it take to change a light bulb?

Answer: Seventeen.

One to change the bulb, and sixteen to argue about how Milton would have done it.

I have done a lot of past life regression recently. It is a lot of fun. I have now developed a colourful patter to go round the hypnosis and am quite confident about the whole process. I am also now convinced that the whole past life business is a load of hokum.

The people (all women) are fantasizing from their own subconscious. Which doesn't mean to say that it is not valuable.  What they are giving out as past lives are actually broad metaphors for their current life.

One woman I worked with last Sunday went into trance nicely, brought out two early real memories for me and then in 'past lives' was a solo mum with a young boy living in a cottage in France with no income. Then she was an unhappy girl living in Crete who could not get the man she loved because he was with someone else and there was war all around and she wanted to commit suicide.

I probed to find out if she did commit suicide (she didn't) and what her wedding was like (there wasn't one). She couldn't tell me how she died.

I then sent her further back in time to a third life, and she found she was a man, on his knees, about to be beheaded. All she could see were the executioner's legs and a broad belt and buckle. Asked why he was being beheaded - because of a crime. What crime - rape. Did he do it - Yes, and then floods of tears and I rapidly brought her back to her safe place.

What was fascinating was the insights the scenarios gave to what I knew about her real life. She is a teenager, unmarried with a four month old boy, was thrown out by her dysfunctional family and had nowhere to live. She had studied about Crete at school. She had an on-off relationship with the father of her child who was much older and already married. You don't need to be Freud to draw your own conclusions from the last 'life'.

These clients were merely curious about past lives, but it is obvious that the past lives can be used therapeutically, using metaphor therapy to fix things in their real lives.