Open Mind Therapy aims to encourage psychotherapists and hypnotherapists to work alongside conventional medical practice, teaching GP's how to identify ME more quickly from a brief mental and emotional assessment complementing their knowledge of the physical markers for this condition.

 

Hypnotherapy works well due to the way it works beneath the conscious reality of sufferers of ME.  I have noticed in my work that ME paradoxically effects those who are by nature extremely conscientious and socially conscious people.  The disease we call ME then produces the very fear that people of this broad profile can least tolerate: that is, allegations or assumptions such as "it's all in the mind", "it's just a bit of tiredness", "it's not a real disease", "if we can't explain it physically, it must be a psychiatric disease process".  This fear often means the wall to the subconscious remains firmly in place and cannot be bypassed easily by usual talking therapies.  Once bypassed, however, with hypnosis, the ME sufferer learns to see what they need to do to help themselves heal.

 

The sufferers I have treated tend to be generally very suspiscious of people misunderstanding their condition, making wrong assumptions, and failing to understand the true extent of their disease.  Conventional treatment, because of it's one-size-fits-all nature is often also regarded suspiscously.  Conventional approaches using CBT, graded exercise and pacing, have very limited success. According to the The Chief Medical Officer's Working Group Report on CFS/ME working groups, of those severely affected only 7% said that CBT helped, 67% said it made no difference and 26% said it made their symptoms worse.  The only figures currently available, they are staggeringly unimpressive.

 

Clinical treatment is only one part of the equation.  The balancing of all elements of the mind, body and spirit, completes the rest of the equation.  Treatment needs to be deeply personal and relevant to the sufferer.  It needs to take account of each person's unique presentation.  It needs to recognise the individual behind the syndrome.

 

However, our cartesian either/or culture that exists through conventional medical practice is failing to address the true nature of disease, and in particular, the disease of CFS/ME.  Sufferers are neither suffering from a physical nor an emotional disorder, but rather, a disorder spanning mental, emotional, physical and spiritual elements.  And there is no NHS department for this approach.

 

Nevertheless, conventional medicine is now developing a strand known as PNI or PsychoNeuroImmunology which looks at the effect of our thoughts and feelings on our immunity though it is still largely unaccepted and unacceptable to the mainstream medical culture which still strives to see things through an either/or telescope.  And moreover, in its research stage, has currently little practical application.

 

The conditions for health need to be created by readjusting our beliefs about our place in our world, supporting our body with the best possible foods and supplements and removing the stigma associated with illness that has no one provable cause as is the case with ME.

 

There is always a subconscious motivation to our conscious life whoever we happen to be.  Becoming aware of our deepest beliefs and how poorly they serve us can cause us to reevaluate our lives and "to wake up". Many whom I have treated only become aware of their subconscious motivations, and therefore empowered, through the process of hypnosis.

 

Many who recover from ME report a spiritual awakening and practices such as meditation and yoga as pivotal parts of their recovery.  Hypnosis is like active meditation - that is with the experienced hypnotherapist, you are guided through your own personal and private meditations which help you get in touch with what you need to know to heal.