Speaker Presentations
Steven Lynn
Hypnosis and Memory
The topic of memory has been intimately associated with hypnosis for centuries, and, most recently, the focal point of debate in the therapeutic and research community. The talk will summarize thirty years of findings on the effects of hypnotic suggestions on memory in the presenter’s Laboratory of Consciousness and Cognition, and will discuss the need for caution in using hypnosis for purposes of memory recovery in clinical and forensic contexts.
Hypnosis, Mindfulness, and Acceptance: Exercises and Metaphors
This workshop will introduce participants to the many ways hypnosis can be used to catalyze acceptance and mindfulness approaches to psychotherapy. Dr. Steven Lynn will discuss the three waves of cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy, focusing on the recent emphasis on acceptance-based approaches; the evidence that supports evidence-based approaches; the components of mindfulness based on research in his laboratory; and present hypnotic inductions designed to enhance mindfulness and attention control, along with a variety of exercises and metaphors that can be presented to patients in hypnotic and nonhypnotic contexts.
Hypnosis and Smoking Cessation
The workshop will demonstrate a treatment to control smoking developed in the Center For Evidence-Based Psychotherapy (Directed by Dr. Lynn) over the past few decades, originally in conjunction with the American Lung Association. Dr. Lynn will provide, either in-person, or via email, the materials needed to administer the group-based intervention, and, time permitting, demonstrate how the program can be extrapolated to achieve control over weight. The program provides an excellent illustration of how hypnosis can be integrated into cognitive-behavioral and acceptance-based treatments.
Frontiers of Hypnosis
This keynote address will summarize research conducted over the past 30 years in the Laboratory of Consciousness and Cognition, directed by Dr. Steven Lynn. The address will cover research and developments in the field with clear-cut clinical implications provide a “status report” of what scientists know and don’t know about hypnosis. Topics addressed will include myths and misconceptions about hypnosis, the role of expectancies in hypnosis, explanations of hypnotic phenomena, individual differences in hypnotic responsiveness, and how to increase hypnotic responsiveness.
Lynn Lyons, LICSW
Kids, Creativity, Imagination and Trance: Integrating Hypnosis into Our Treatment of Children
By all accounts, children are easier to hypnotize than adults, mainly because of their openness, imaginations, and ability to become absorbed in an experience. Combining what we know about hypnotic phenomena with the creativity of children offers health care providers a wonderful opportunity to teach children the skills they need to move successfully forward in life. In this keynote, Lynn Lyons will address what our society is doing to increase rates of depression and anxiety in children; the skills we should be teaching that provide a dose of powerful prevention; and why hypnosis with children is a compelling and effective method of delivering those skills.
Using Hypnosis with Children and Their Parents
Hypnosis harnesses the powerful imaginations of children to interrupt problematic cognitive and physical patterns. Participants will learn how to use hypnotic techniques to manage common childhood problems, such as phobias, sleep issues, school/test anxiety, and fear of medical treatment. How to include parents as subjects and hypnosis “assistants” will be addressed
Pregnancy, Childbirth & Postpartum Issues
This workshop will describe in detail the practical (and peaceful) uses of hypnosis during pregnancy, childbirth, and after the baby is born. Techniques for pain management, addressing anxiety about labor and birth, breastfeeding, and optimizing postpartum recovery will be addressed. We will also discuss how the use of hypnosis during pregnancy, childbirth, and after the baby is born promotes positive adjustments to parenting and emotional management during the postpartum period.
Integrating Hypnosis in the Treatment of Anxiety
Anxious people are desperately seeking two things: certainty and comfort. A well-constructed hypnosis session gives us the opportunity to teach, experientially, the skills an anxious client needs most: the ability to tolerate uncertainty, manage physical discomfort and symptoms (for example insomnia and somatic complaints), and move into difficult situations with cognitive flexibility. Participants will learn how to use hypnosis to target the common patterns and symptoms of anxiety, and how to combine hypnosis with cognitive treatment and homework assignments for successful brief therapy.
Michael D. Yapko, Ph.D.
Keynote Address: "Mindfulness and Hypnosis: The Power of Suggestion to Transform Experience
Description: In recent years, popular forms of meditation that have their origins in eastern Buddhist traditions, collectively called “mindfulness,” have been successfully applied to a variety of clinical problems. They have convincingly demonstrated the therapeutic value of teaching people ways to direct and intensify their quality of focus. The field of hypnosis had already well established these same findings and has explored more diverse ways in which such methods could be applied in treatment. The literature of hypnosis is broad, deep and fascinating. Neither hypnosis or mindfulness are therapies in their own right, of course, but their capacity for improving the quality of people’s lives has received substantial empirical support as a class of meaningful interventions.
The focus in this address is entirely on clinical applications of key aspects of both hypnosis and mindfulness by deconstructing such processes, identifying their therapeutically relevant components, and how meaningful interventions can be formed by incorporating them in novel ways. Mindfulness and hypnosis as focusing strategies share some key characteristics yet each has a different aim in its application. Dr. Yapko’s presentation will be based on his new book of the same title.
Workshop 1:
"Welcome to Hypnosis: Now Go Away (Sort of)"
The field of hypnosis has moved to the forefront of objective research in striving to understand subjective experience. High quality neuroscientific evidence for changes in the way the brain and mind interact, offer compelling evidence that there is much more to hypnosis than meets the eye. As you will happily discover, the old “hocus-pocus” days are long, long gone! What is it about hypnosis that encourages people to discover resources in themselves they didn't know they had? How do the words of one person so powerfully encourage a shift in perception such that having a surgery without an anesthetic becomes possible? What allows people to get so deeply absorbed that they can detach - or "go away" - from usual self-limiting perceptions and redefine key aspects of themselves in beneficial ways? The field of hypnosis is broad, deep and fascinating, and most impressive of all is the capacity of hypnosis to empower people. In this "welcome to the field," Dr. Yapko will share some insights about hypnosis and the merits of integrating it into clinical practice.
Workshop 2:
“Treating Depression With Hypnosis: Building Skills Experientially”
The therapies enjoying the greatest amount of empirical support for efficacious treatment of depression each emphasize the importance of building specific skills. Hypnosis as a clinical treatment tool has been shown to enhance treatment effects, particularly of cognitive and behavioral approaches. In this workshop, Dr. Yapko will explore some of the possibilities hypnosis offers for enhancing the treatment of depressed clients.