Glossary

Coping Graph.​​
The Coping Graph is a wonderful tool to share with you on the first visit, and it illustrates how a person copes or doesn't cope during a normal day. It also isolates for the you and me methods to raise your own coping mechanisms to make your day run more smoothly. Discussing how your day goes will help us to center on ways to help you cope better. If you have anxiety, we replace it with relaxation. We encourage venting dreams to allow the mind to vent negatives it doesn't need to carry any longer. Coping mechanisms can be improved in the first session. 

Pre-Cognitive Dreams.  ​
​Our middle stage of dreams is our 'pre-cognitive' or 'planning for the future' dreams. We can influence these dreams and actually put plans into them by doing certain things those  30 minutes before bedtime. We can write our short and long-term goals, as well as affirmations of how we are moving closer toward our goals, and give our mind a direction to take during the night. It is also an excellent time to create a positive self image.  Another inspiring mental magic to move our mind closer to our goals. See 'Magic 30 Minutes Before Bedtime, in Articles under Resources.


Shielding from Negatives.​​
Some people are sensitive to other people's negativity, and in reality, other people's negatives are just that -- other people's negatives.  We don't know where they come from, and we surely don't know how to or want to solve their problem.  So we have the ability to shield ourselves from those negatives.  We use an imagery of a raincoat, and see those negatives merely as raindrops or water that we can hear hitting our raincoat, but they runoff of us and onto the ground in a way that doesn't affect us physically or emotionally (by not focusing on the negativity).  This imagery is a helpful tool to shield from other people's negatives and a good way to raise your coping mechanisms.


​​Theory of Mind.
​Theory of mind is diagrammed for the client in the first visit and illustrates how hypnosis can change behavior. The mind is divided into two parts: Consciousness, which is about 12%, and subconsciousness, which is 88%. Included in the mind are two basic fears from birth, that of loud noises and that of falling. We are also born with two basic instincts: fight and flight, which we resort to when we are on overload.

As we begin to take in experiences, starting as a young child through adulthood, these experiences are added to our subconscious and become ‘knowns’ to us, thousands of them.  Experiences unknown to our mind are considered to be ‘unknowns’.

Since our body exists on a pain/pleasure principle, knowns are pleasure, without any distinction as to good knowns or bad knowns and they actually dictate how we process information. Our subconscious will draw a link between an outside event and a direct pathway --a neuropathway into our mind -- for a certain reaction to that outside event.  ‘Unknowns,’ on the other hand, would be pain and therefore avoided.

In our consciousness, we have our intelligence, we have our willpower, we have our desire. On the subconscious level, we have our motivation. There may be a desire to change behavior, but if we are in conflict with our subconscious motivation, change is very difficult. After discussing with the client the new benefits they would derive from their new behavior, we would add those benefits of the new behavior into the subconscious mind. While in a relaxed state of hypnosis, adding new knowns to the subconscious mind becomes as simple as a positive suggestion. The subconscious cannot really tell fantasy from reality and, therefore, takes in these knowns as experiences. So what we are doing is aligning our conscious desire with our subconscious motivation allowing 100% of our mind to work with us.

Venting Dreams.​​
Venting dreams are our early morning dreams and the third stage of dreaming. They follow our first stage (see also ‘first stage’), filling the day's events, and our middle stage (see ‘pre-cognitive’ or ‘planning for the future’ dreams). They are the dreams that allow our body to rid itself of negativity or anything that it doesn't need to carry any longer. It can be equated with the mind allowing itself to take out the garbage. If you do recall any of those dreams in the morning, it is not necessary to go through them but to understand that this is how your mind purges negative thoughts and lets them go. Venting dreams is the process of eliminating negative thinking as well as negative self talk.the negativity).  This imagery is a helpful tool to shield from other people's negatives and a good way to raise your coping mechanisms.