Sunshine Coast of Queensland Australia, Hypnotherapy Clinic, Hypnosis Michael Grassel Successfully guiding weight-loss clients since 1981. Bachelor of Science, Business U.W.P., Post-graduate studies in Psychology, Social Psychology U.T.S.A., N.I.I.P. Certified Hypnotherapy Practitioner; HH.Dip(P.H.)
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
What is hypnosis?
Hypnosis is a safe and healthy therapeutic modality for creating change in your life.
In simple terms, the hypnotherapist guides you into a meditative state which allows your subconscious mind to process your goals and the steps needed to accomplish them. Then on a daily basis your subconscious mind, works for you, behind the scenes, making it happen.
You easily focus on the attainment of what really matters to you.
There are no side effects and you always remain in complete control. You create your goals and your future
click for more information--> Grasselhypnotherapy
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
more about Hypnosis and more importantly: Hypnotherapy
Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy - Learn the Truth
The Health Education Authority has said: “Research shows that there is more scientific evidence for Hypnotherapy than any other Complementary Therapy...by using hypnosis people can perform prodigious feats of will-power and self-healing.”So what exactly is hypnosis?
Hypnosis is the application of a number of natural methods to induce trance – an altered state of consciousness – in the patient. (‘Trance’, ‘hypnosis’ and ‘hypnotic state’ all mean the same thing here and can be used interchangeably in this context.) In the hypnotic state you become more relaxed than usual and more able to concentrate. You become more susceptible to suggestions made by the therapist (or yourself), and more able to access memories and emotions from the past. One or more of these characteristics of hypnosis is utilised by the therapist, depending on the type of treatment employed.
Trance itself is entirely normal and natural. We all go in and out of various levels of trance spontaneously on a daily basis. We enter trance when we become so absorbed by one thing that, for a while, we are completely unaware of anything else. This could be while watching television, reading a book, listening to a lecture, driving, or when startled. We also enter trance when we are relaxing, day-dreaming or half asleep. The only difference between this and hypnosis undertaken with a therapist is that, with a therapist, you are guided into the state by somebody else for the purpose of achieving an agreed goal.
There are a number of methods available to the therapist to induce trance, but the most common is simply talking. The therapist asks you to close your eyes and talks to you for a while about relaxation, sleep, hypnosis or trance. You may be asked to do some relaxation exercises, and/or to imagine certain things – often being in very beautiful and tranquil surroundings. Sometimes you may be asked to focus your eyes on one particular spot for a short period of time, known as eye fixation, while the therapist continues talking. There are also a number of quick methods of inducing trance that can be used when appropriate.
Most people experience hypnosis as pleasant and relaxing, or not very much different from normal (see Hypnosis Myths below.)
What is hypnotherapy and what is the benefit of it?
Hypnotherapy, in short, is the combination of hypnosis with psychotherapy and counselling methods to bring about therapeutic change. As a hypnotherapist AND psychotherapist/counsellor I believe that hypnotherapy can be successful where other therapies are not, and that it can speed up the process dramatically.
Many of our difficulties are deep rooted or the result of subconscious programming. It is the subconscious mind that stores past experiences, emotions, and habits or responses that may be hurting us. Counselling and psychotherapy alone do affect the subconscious, but rather indirectly via the conscious mind or behaviour change. Hypnotherapy attempts to treat the subconscious more directly, bypassing the conscious altogether.
But the conscious mind must not be left out of the equation. As we work with the subconscious we also need to integrate our experiences into our conscious life, to rationalise them and give them meaning. Therefore, hypnotherapists should work with a variety of hypnotic and psychotherapeutic techniques, so that hypnosis is used for some, but not all, of the time.
Click here for information on different types of therapy available
Hypnosis Myths
Myth 1. When you are hypnotised you are asleep or unconscious.
You do not go to sleep and you are not unconscious. You will remain aware throughout the session, no matter how deep the trance. Some people find that their senses seem to be heightened and that they are even more aware.
Myth 2. The hypnotist takes control of you – like on the television or stage show. (See also caveat 1 below)
There is no question of losing control or being made to do anything against your will by using hypnosis. You are in control throughout the session. This has been tested experimentally and no evidence exists to indicate that hypnosis increases the control of the hypnotist, or exerts any unique form of control, over and beyond that already present prior to the hypnotic induction. (Ref 1) The unwanted or noxious suggestion usually causes the person to wake up from the hypnotic state and is always rejected.
Television and stage shows are easily explained. The hypnotist is skilled at knowing which people want to take part and are highly suggestible subjects. He can tell this by observing the behaviour of people in the crowd and/or doing certain tests. Many people enjoy the excuse to have fun and show off. Although subject-volunteers feel compelled to act upon the suggestions given, the hypnotist does not suggest they do anything that they might really object to. Together with rapid induction techniques (which require moderate skill and a lot of confidence), this creates the illusion of control. People who don’t want to play the part do not get called, and people who are especially unwilling don’t attend. If a difficult participant does make it onto the stage he will be given a more ordinary role to perform, like fetching a chair or being the recipient of someone else's behaviour.
You should also bear in mind that stage hypnotists are skilled illusionists. They employ a number of tricks to fool both audience and volunteers that have nothing to do with hypnosis.
Myth 3. "But I didn't feel hypnotized/I didn't go under."
There is no such thing as a ‘hypnotised feeling’ as such, and a lighter trance might not feel very different from normal. Individuals vary in how deeply they go into trance, yet a light trance is all that is needed for many types of therapeutic work. The therapist has a number of ways to tell when a suitable level of hypnosis has been achieved to begin treatment.
Myth 4. After the session everything that took place in the session will be forgotten.
This is generally untrue. Most of the time you will remember generally what the therapist said. It is very rare that the therapist will attempt to make you forget what happened, because ordinarily there is no benefit to this and the suggestion usually wears off anyway in time.
However, if you enter a deep trance you might find that you’ve forgotten most of the details of what the therapist said. You may realise when you wake up that you missed certain parts altogether, and wonder whether you fell asleep. If you responded to suggestions to wake up at the end of the session, it is unlikely that you fell asleep. In a deep trance the conscious mind more or less switches off and stops creating conscious memory. This gives the sense that you were ‘out’ for that time, or asleep, when really you were still aware.
Myth 5. You can just be hypnotised and your problem will go away.
This is usually not true. Hypnosis is only a tool to go along with the real work of psychotherapy. It is not an instant fix for most problems, and you may find that you have to participate in joint effort with your therapist over a number of weeks or months to get better. This is in common with other psychotherapies. Hypnosis is a powerful therapeutic aid and it can usually speed things up, but it is not magic.
Myth 6. "I can’t be hypnotised."
This is almost the opposite of the last myth, in that it unduly predicts failure.
Although the level of trance achieved varies from person to person, almost everyone can be hypnotised to a level deep enough to begin some kind of therapeutic work. This is good news: it means that by far the majority can benefit from hypnotherapy. The few exceptions include people who are intoxicated with alcohol or drugs, people who have a learning disability or dementia, and one or two uncommon mental and neurological conditions. All told these probably amount to no more than 1% of the population. If you are capable of reading and understanding this text and forming an opinion about it, then you almost certainly can be hypnotised to some degree!
Myth 7. Hypnosis is un-Christian or spiritually dangerous – by giving up control you become more susceptible to immoral or demonic influence.
This is a common belief within certain church and religious circles. Potentially this has some merit but not within the context of what we do here.
We have carefully researched this issue and found it to be untrue within the context of what I do in terms of psychological/clinical work. In Christian circles the fear stems from Old and New Testament verses that speak against sorcery, witchcraft, spirit channelling, and other pagan religious practices. In the Christian bible, all references that can be translated to relate to any kind of trance/hypnotic behaviour are in that context. Therefore, it is not the trance state itself that is the problem, but what the trance helps to achieve. Prayer, for example, is a trance state for many people. In my work trance is used only to bring about psychological and health benefits. I do not practice past-life regression, psychic or intuitive counselling. There is no connection to Spiritism or any kind of non-Christian religious practice. (see caveat 1 below).
As stated earlier, we all enter trance spontaneously on a daily basis. Concerns about hypnosis on spiritual grounds must assume that trance facilitated by a therapist is inherently different from trance that we enter spontaneously, or that deep relaxation is somehow different when facilitated by a therapist. But neither are; trance is trance, and relaxation is relaxation, whether or not they occur with a therapist. You can see that if spirits could enter or attack us in the hypnotic state without invitation everyone would be being spirit possessed everyday!
You will recall also that you are not giving up control; you cannot be made to do anything against your will or that you would morally object to. (see caveat 2)
Caveats:
1. Not everyone is the same as me on this issue, and some complementary therapists do include practices that are strictly forbidden in the Christian bible. Always check first if you are concerned about this.
2. Be aware that stage (entertainment) hypnotism may not involve any kind of vulnerability/risk assessment and has caused a minority of subjects to become markedly distressed. Avoid it if you have any reason to think you might be vulnerable to any kind of mental illness.
Ref 1. Orne MT (1972): Can a hypnotized subject be compelled to carry out otherwise unacceptable behaviour? a discussion. Int J Clin Exp Hypn Apr 20(2):101-117
[Cut & Pasted from David Kay]
Monday, June 4, 2012
Weight loss with hypnotherapy
Hypno Weightloss
Reporter: Rodney Lohse
Emma Everleigh-Anderton has lived a full life --
well at least she thinks she has. The thirty six year old has done what many
find impossible -- lost weight and kept it off by literally thinking herself
thin. Using hypnotism to make herself think she had a gastric lap band --
surgery that shrinks the size of your stomach -- she lost 25 kilograms in 6
months "The gastro band surgery is part of a bigger process -- four
sessions -- but you go into some quite clinical environment and I don't know
how it works - there are sounds, smells and you're led to believe you're in a
hospital environment-- so you're mind can be completely relaxed and open into
believe you're having the gastric band", Emma said.
The mother of two dropped from a size 18 to a size
8 and is among the first patients to undergo a treatment called Hypnoband
Therapy. "When we see food if we see the same amount of food on a big
plate as a small plate, if we see it on a small plate and consume the food, we
will feel full. If we see it on a big plate we'll still feel hungry and feel as
if we have missed out", said Antoine Matarasso, a practicing
hypnotherapist and President of the Australian
Hypnotherapists Association.
"All of our actions emanate from our thoughts
and using hypnotherapy we can begin to think differently so we act
differently", Antoine added.
While he cautions hypnotherapy doesn't work for
everyone, he says for some it can be an extremely effective way to lose weight
"No pain, no anaesthetic, no long recuperation time. You get up out of the
chair feeling absolutely great afterwards and that's the start of a really good
weightloss process", Emma said.
Emma underwent four sessions costing $1,700
Australian dollars and the way Emma looks at food changed -- she now eats
healthier and smaller portions. "I jog and that's all part of the process
-- to get motivated, to get out there, get fit. But it's effortless -- I eat
less and I'm less hungry, its fantastic", Emma said.Using hypnotherapy to
reprogram the brain isn't new. Hypnotherapists have successfully weened smokers
off cigarettes; gamblers off the punt and even been used to enhance fertility.
What is new is the use of hypnosis to replicate the outcomes of actual
medical surgery.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Exercise ideas
Exercise
Being more active is essential to help you
look and feel good. It’s important to incorporate at least 30 minutes of
moderate* activity everyday. Activities needn’t be strenuous or challenging,
they just need to be regular. Try some of our ideas below and see if you notice
the difference ^. Remember, becoming more active in your everyday life is a
vital step towards a healthier you. So don’t stop after the challenge – keep it
going to help keep you looking and feeling good.
Proper
Preparation
It’s important to warm up before you
exercise, to ensure your muscles and joints are more flexible. Try to spend 5
minutes doing some light stretching before you start and
after you finish your exercise routine.
Go to Kellogs Special K website
Make an Exercise Plan
Commit yourself
Try to stick to a regular time each day
Put exercise appointments on your calendar
Keep a diary of your activities so you can track your
progress
Sign a contract committing yourself to exercise and stick
it to the fridge
Walk the Line
For many of us, walking is the easiest , cheapest and
safest way to exercise. Make sure you have a goot pair of walking shoes, dress
comfortably, fill your mp3 player with tunes and hit the road, street, park,
beach
It’s advisable to start with short walks
(maybe during your lunch hour) then build up to longer walks of 30 minutes or
more. If you need more of a challenge try taking a route with lots of hills or
steps, or if you live near a beach try walking on sand to really tone up those
thighs.
Sticking
With it.
We know it’s hard enough starting and
exercise routine, let alone sticking to it! Here are some tips to make your exercise
plan more manageable
Choose something you like doing – if you don’t like
running, don’t run! Choose something that suits your lifestyle and that you
really enjoy.
Mix it up – you’re likely to get bored doing the same
exercise everyday, so try to vary it. Swim one day, walk to work the next, take
a dance lesson or a yoga class to keep it interesting.
Find a friend – exercising with someone is more
motivating and means you can have a good chat whilst you’re getting fit.
Forget ‘no pain – no gain’ – while you might feel a
little achy when you first start exercise, pain isn’t normal. If it hurts,
stop.
Don’t forget the fun – try to make exercise fun. Watch TV
while riding your exercise bike, do house work at a fast pace with the music
turned up loud or take your walk round your favourite shops.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
We can doweightloss surgery without scalpels, without blood, without anaesthesia.
Weight-loss surgery could beat diabetes
- by: From correspondents in Chicago
- From: AP
- March 27, 2012 3:00PM
NEW research gives clear proof that weight-loss surgery can reverse and possibly cure diabetes.
Two studies, released today, are the first to compare the benefits of stomach-reducing operations to medicines alone for "diabesity" - Type 2 diabetes brought on by obesity.
Both studies found that surgery helped far more patients achieve normal blood-sugar levels than medicines alone did.
The results were dramatic: Some people were able to stop taking insulin as soon as three days after their operations. Cholesterol and other heart risk factors also greatly improved.
Doctors don't like to say "cure" because they can't promise a disease will never come back. But in one study, most surgery patients were able to stop all diabetes drugs and have their disease stay in remission for at least two years. None of those treated with medicines alone could do that.
"It is a major advance," said Dr John Buse of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a leading diabetes expert who had no role in the studies.
There were signs that the surgery itself - not just weight loss - helps reverse diabetes. Food makes the gut produce hormones to spur insulin, so trimming away part of it surgically may affect those hormones, doctors believe.
Weight-loss surgery "has proven to be a very appropriate and excellent treatment for diabetes", said one study co-leader, Dr Francesco Rubino, chief of diabetes surgery at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.
"The most proper name for the surgery would be diabetes surgery."
The studies were published online by the New England Journal of Medicine, and the larger one was presented today at an American College of Cardiology conference in Chicago.
More than a third of American adults are obese, and more than eight per cent have diabetes, a major cause of heart disease, strokes and kidney failure. Between five million and 10 million are like the people in these studies, with both problems.
For a century, doctors have been treating diabetes with pills and insulin, and encouraging weight loss and exercise with limited success. Few very obese people can drop enough weight without surgery, and many of the medicines used to treat diabetes can cause weight gain, making things worse.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Gastric Lap Band Surgery--with scalpels--- fraught with danger
Friday, August 07, 2009
Weight Loss surgery death rates down? No evidence of this!

An article on aol news with the headline of "Obesity Surgery death rates low" reads:
-Obese, but worried that surgery for it might kill you? The risk of that has dropped dramatically, and now is no greater than for having a gall bladder out, a hip replaced or most other major operations, new research shows.
Sounds good, doesn't it? Now you can have a gastric bypass and have it only be as risky as gall bladder surgery i.e. 1 death in 7000 surgeries.
But wait! First of all the study didn't exactly say that at all.
The finding of the study, another Dr David Flum study to be published in the NEJ on August 13th, which looked at the medical records of 3,412 gastric bypass patients and 1,198 given stomach bands i.e. adjustable lap band, was that there were 3 deaths in 1000 patients so that's still _a lot_ more risky than gall bladder surgery.
[to be fair with statistics: there are multiple articles stating that in Australia the risk is only 1 death in 1000 patients. However one death is one too many.~~Michael]
Flum's own studies of 62,000 gastric bypass patients 6 years ago, found that 1 in 50 died within 30 days.
The "less deaths now" are attributed to "newer methods" and lap surgery. However, if you average the very LOW death rate of the adjustable lap band surgery in with gastric bypass, that's far more likely where the lower death rate figures come from.
That is the death rate on adjustable lap band surgery is 1 in 7000 or the same as a gall bladder surgery. And I sincerely doubt the death rate on gastric bypass has been reduced that much in the 6 years since Flum's other study (report delivered to the College of surgeons in Oct 21, 2003.[Study title: The Impact of Bariatric Surgery on Patient Survival: A Population-Based Study]) which was never formally published and which concluded by comparing desperately ill fat people hospitalized for other reasons than WLS, that even with such a high death rate it was slightly more risky to be fat than to have a gastric bypass.
It's called "cooking the books" and it's easy to see how they arrived at those figures. In 1198 lap bands, there were likely no deaths! And in 3412 gastric bypasses, there were likely 68 deaths within 30 days of surgery, however they probably took the table death figure which is 1 percent so that's 34 deaths.
Now lump them all together and that's 34 deaths in 4610 WLS surgeries or 8 deaths in 1000 surgeries. That's still more than the 3 per 1000 surgeries they are claiming so more cooking must have occurred. Simply, I have read nothing about the study being randomized and greatly suspect it was not randomized which means they could pick and choose the members of the cohort. That is, at the 10 hospitals they studied, there were likely far more patients than 4610 who had WLS but many were not included in the study for this or that reason.
Anyway, you get the gist. The gastric bypass isn't likely, any safer than it was in Dr Flum's study, 6 years ago. They just uh..re-computed because the results from the 2003 study which studied 62,000 cases of gastric bypass done in one hospital, didn't look so good (2 percent death rate within 30 days).
Fortunately for those providing gastric bypass, few will "do the math" or notice that the study was not 'randomized'. Unfortunately for those patients who have gastric bypass which Dr Terry Simpson emphasizes is over 100 years old (is essentially a modified Billroth II surgery originally done for duodenal ulcer), many may go in thinking that by some magic, the gastric bypass is now "safer".
I would suggest those who question, go to Dr Simpson's website and listen to the part of his online seminar about why he prefers the lap band to the gastric bypass and duodenal switch.
For informatino relating to VIRTUAL GASTRIC LAP BAND SURGERY, with no scalpels, no pain, no anaesthesia, no blood, no side effects go to Grassel Hypnotherapy
What exactly is Hypnosis?
The state of hypnosis is a condition that involves increased responsiveness and suggestibility, and in which the inner world of the imagination and feelings is granted a degree of importance usually given only to outward ‘ordinary’ reality.
It’s easier to describe than define. Under hypnosis, no stress hormones are released, the breathing and heart rate slow down and blood pressure drops. The stomach produces less acid and the bronchi dilate within the lungs. It also seems that hypnosis may boost the immune system, because within the blood vessels of a hypnotised subject the production of lymphocytes (white blood cells) is increased, and these defensive cells cling more firmly to the insides of the veins qnd arteries. These discoveries would seem to support the belief that hypnotharpy can help alleviate all manner of physical complaints, from asthma to cancer.
Scientists at Stanford University in California, have also discovered that during hypnosis the brain emits alpha waves—tiny rhythmic electrical impulses generated by brain cells. Alpha waves denote a condition of mental alertness coupled with physical relaxation; they are also produced instates of meditation and when practising yoga.
Freud taught that the unconscious is the repository of memories and impulses that are repressed by personal consciousness. [I think Freud had some serious mother issues]
Imagination if perhaps the most powerful function humans possess. Imagination and creativity have been the sole domain of humans for centuries. New studies, using non-human criteria, which is very hard to do, being humans and all, have shown creative problem solving abilities in dolphins and a few species of monkeys/apes. Human imagination, creativity, fantasies, inspiration and intuition all bubble forth from the unconscious mind. The ability to put two unrelated things together to make something totally new is what makes us who we are. Adding friction to a hunk of wood made fire for the caveman. Compressing highly flammable fuel and adding fire makes an explosion.
Putting an explosion in a sturdy cylinder makes a cannon. Shrinking the cylinder, adding a little projectile makes a rifle. Putting cylinders around an axle makes an engine. Putting an engine on a kite makes an aeroplane. Putting the combustion chamber inside the projectile makes a rocket. We do this all the time. We do this with everything. There are a zillion cookbooks in print. Each recipe has come from someone who said, “I’ll just add a bit of this and a bit of that, and see if it tastes good.” Sure cave men ate bird eggs, but somewhere down the line we found that whipped eggwhites, sans yolks, can be baked into Pavlova.
Humour is, for the most part, a story with a funny ending. The whole purpose of having an intellect that enables us to recognise the vignette, is so that we can learn from past experiences and predict future outcomes with the same recipe of experiences. Our minds race ahead to the anticipated ending, and the joke-teller makes a right turn and the last minute, a surprise ending.
When in a relaxed state, we can imagine feelings and experiences. We actually feel the emotions that are attached to the experiences. And we can change the emotions attached to an experience. “What if I change my frustration towards my mother-in-law to pity? Then I’ll feel much better about her upcoming visit.”
original author unknown
For more information, go to: Grassel Hypnotherapy
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Where most diets fail
Where most diets fail: 1) They’re not specific; everybody’s body is different. What works for one celebrity movie star of model, won’t work on everybody, or maybe not even any average person.
Learn your metabolism type to guide you in selecting foods for an ideal fat burning environment in your body.
Find the right sized portions for your body. Tiny, bird-sized portions are just as bad as gorging yourself.
Where most diets fail: 2) They make you eat foods you don’t like: mung beans or cooked spinach or wheatgrass goat’s milk shakes. You must eat food you enjoy or it won’t work. Willpower isn’t a muscle we like to use.
MKG: Chinese definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result .”
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