I am a General Practitioner in a semi-rural Group Practice in a town called Mossley on the edge of the Pennines, and am married with three children and one grandchild!
I first started to train in the use of hypnosis twelve years ago and have, for some years, been involved with running training courses on hypnosis both for the Lancashire and Cheshire branch of the British Society of Medical and Dental Hypnosis. I have also run courses on hypnosis and workshops on stress management for the Postgraduate Dental Departments of Cardiff and Liverpool.
I have been involved with running Stress Management Workshops in Ontario, Canada and also for various organisations in the UK. I had a self-help guide to stress management published in 1999, recently reprinted, which is proving popular with my patients! I am presently Chairman of the British Society of Medical and Dental Hypnosis (BSMDH) and Honorary National Secretary for the British Society of Experimental and Clinical Hypnosis (BSECH).
I use
hypnosis in my practice, not only to help people manage their anxiety and stress,
but also for a wide variety of psychosomatic problems, which include Psoriasis,
Eczema, Headaches and Irritable Bowel Syndrome. At present I run occasional
Stress Management Groups for my patients and also do about 3-4 hours of Psychotherapy
facilitated by hypnosis each week. The latter involves helping patients with
unresolved grief, past traumatic experiences, panic disorder. post traumatic
stress syndrome, and phobias, for example needle phobia and flying phobia. I
have also used hypnosis with some obstetric patients and for pain relief.
I am very much of the opinion that hypnosis can facilitate many types of therapy
and is extremely valuable in General Practice in the treatment of many conditions.
Learning about hypnosis, even if it is not used formally, leads to improvement
in communication skills and an increased ability to build rapport.
I would like to see hypnosis taught to all final year medical students, not just because it would be a valuable therapeutic tool, but because they would then also learn personal skills that would help them to reduce their own stress levels.