Hypnotherapy Can Help Wiith Change

Helping individuals to change their behavior patterns through a conscious and unconscious emotional investment is the specialty of Dr. Jaime Feldman, Director of Accredited Hypnosis Counseling and co-director of The Institute of Hypnotherapy. Dr. Feldman is acutely aware that changing behavior patterns can happen more quickly when an individual’s conscious and sub-conscious personalities are aligned and working together.

"In hypnotherapy, I communicate with the subconscious, the source of behavior patterns," says Dr. Feldman, a 20-year veteran of hypnotherapy who is the creator of a cutting-edge technique called "Advanced Parts Therapy." The technique is based upon the premise that we are each multi-faceted individuals, with sub-personalities that play out, positively or negatively, when we are called upon to perform different roles and tasks.

Our subconscious is protective, and through this mechanism it sets up specific "parts" to deal with trauma or special needs the individual may require. It is the nature of the mind to be subdivided into an indeterminate number of sub-personalities or "parts." The intention of each "part" is positive or protective for the individual. There are no "bad parts" and the goal of "Advanced Parts Therapy" is not to eliminate any "parts," but instead to help find "New Positive Roles or behaviors.""I speak to the subconscious mind, the home of ‘wounded from childhood’ personality facets, which are the source of the behavioral challenge," advises Dr. Feldman. This approach to hypnotherapy is based on Gestalt therapy, an experiential form of psychotherapy developed in the 1950s. "Although my background in psychology is helpful in understanding the subconscious mind, I decided that I didn’t want to go in that direction professionally because it takes too long to help people with talk therapy," explains Dr. Feldman, who adds that with hypnotherapy, his clients realize major/significant improvement in two to five sessions. "While the client is in a safe, hypnotic state, we get the emotional buy-in from the subconscious by going back to the root cause of any trauma that caused the inner conflict," notes Dr. Feldman, who has found that no matter what the inappropriate behavior, it is always caused by some kind of trauma.

Dr. Feldman explains that an individual can live with the after affects of trauma for a long time and one day, without warning, they are emotionally overloaded beyond capacity. Thereafter, any inconsequential event can result in the mind refusing to tolerate any more. The result can be inappropriately directed anger, eating disorders, insomnia, obsessive/compulsive disorders, anxiety, depression, or other health problems.

In communication with the subconscious, Dr. Feldman asks the client to envision and emotionally experience an event in their life that made them feel great, and to pick out a word that can later trigger these positive emotions by attaching them to that "Great" event.

"Thereafter, when Dr. Feldman uses the word during the session, they are reinforcing the positive emotion tied to the new behavior," states Dr. Feldman, who points out that individuals are more apt to develop new behaviors if the root cause or trauma has been neutralized. "They now have new positive behaviors, instead of the old negative one" he explains.

According to Dr. Feldman, while problems like depression and anxiety can be corrected with this technique, more physically challenging problems also respond well. "I treated a 26-year old woman, who on a good day had 8 to 15 seizures even after invasive medical procedures and a lot of medication," says Dr. Feldman. "After using hypnotherapy for a month, she had no more seizures." He also advises that individuals who want to quit smoking or lose weight find hypnotherapy to be very effective.

Dr. Feldman also travels to teach and certify medical hypnotherapists. He works as the Director of Hypnotherapy at an Oncology Center in Atlantic City.