GPSCH HypNewsNewsletter of The Greater Philadelphia Society of Clinical Hypnosis Volume 6 | Number 1 | Winter 2010 FROM THE PRESIDENT –Adrienne Mendell, M.A. |
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| It’s a New Year! A wonderful time to take stock of the past and make plans for the future. On a personal level, I’ve decided to make one of this year’s goals improving my self-care. Like many therapists, I spend time caring for others, but often neglect to take time for myself. And we all know the better we take care of ourselves, the better we take care of others. My goal for this year will be to make more time to eat well, sleep well, exercise, find more quiet space, and make sure that every day includes activities that feel meaningful to me. Just a glance at the journals of ASCH, SCEH and ISH makes it clear that clinical hypnosis is a solid, much researched and very effective treatment. On a professional level, I’ve decided to focus on improving my patient’s self-care skills by teaching self-hypnosis to more of them. It’s a skill I teach to some patients, so why not make an effort to teach it to many more? It will be an experiment because I don’t know how it will be received by some, whether it will be utilized by others, and how it will feel to me to carve out the time in my sessions to teach it. I’ll find out. On an institutional level, GPSCH is looking for ways to take better care of the heart of this organization, its membership, and to encourage more membership participation. To do that best, we need to know what our members want and need. Watch your email for the link to a brief survey that will help us plan future years. Please, when you receive the email, take a few minutes to complete the survey. It’s a quick way to improve self-care by helping GPSCH become more responsive to your needs. We’ve had some wonderful programming this year with more to come, but we can serve you, our members, best, if we have your feedback. Please make it part of your New Year’s plan to share some of your insights and creativity with GPSCH. The more involved you become, the more you will get back. Adrienne Mendell, M.A., President |
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MEMBER NEWS |
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Welcome New Members GPSCH Members served as Faculty Presenters at the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis 60th Annual Workshops and Scientific Program in October, 2009: Richard P. Kluft, MD; Ronald J. Pekala, PhD; V. Krishna Kumar, PhD; Ronald Maurer, MA. This section is for you. Let us know what you are doing or have written, presented, taught, or if you have been honored in some way. Share the good news! Please submit Member News and items of interest for You’ve Got Mail to Stephen.Glass@crozer.org | |
"You've Got Mail" |
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| March 12-16, 2010: American Society of Clinical Hypnosis – 52nd Annual Scientific Meeting and Workshops at Sheraton Music City Hotel, Nashville, Tennessee. Conference details: www.asch.net. | |
GPSCH ACADEMIC CALENDAR
FROM THE EDITOR - Stephen G. Glass, ED.M. FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION Recently I was having dinner at a restaurant with a small group of colleagues and enjoying the conviviality. The conversation ranged from day-to-day topics by individuals known well to each other and strayed to more unusual and interesting experiences. An out of town dinner guest new to the group added verve to the mix offering personal anecdotes. Her inquiring how each of us decided to become psychotherapists initiated some thoughtful and lively discussion. For some, the career choice appeared to be an evolving, emerging process. Others identified a defining moment of decision. How was it for you? How was it for you? How was it that you decided to become the health care professional healer that you are? Was there a special person who you admired and wanted to emulate? Were you the family storyteller, good listener or de facto family therapist? Were you a renegade, maverick, pioneer, most agreeable or merely compliant with perpetuating the family career tradition and expectations for you? Were you exceptionally inquisitive and inquiring? Were you a truth seeker or problem solving magician? Did you have a secular conversion from a religious experience? Did you have a rescue fantasy reflecting “the impulse to rescue the beloved” a la Freud? Or did you experience an adolescent rescue fantasy “concerned with the wish, or rather, the expectation, of being rescued by a person, by circumstance, by privilege, by good fortune or luck” ( Boss )? I have suggested to interns and patients that it is necessary to “replace the search for external sources of self-esteem ( rescue fantasy ) by the discovery of one’s own resourcefulness” ( Boss ). Did you experience significant life challenges or trauma and subsequently learned to sustain yourself independently or with professional consultation? Did you have a role model or mentor? How was it that you proceeded with creative mastery? SGG |