GPSCH HypNewsNewsletter of The Greater Philadelphia Society of Clinical Hypnosis Volume 3 Number 2 Spring-Summer 2007 FROM THE PRESIDENT – Judith S. Berman, M.A. |
| At a Memorial Service for a beloved friend, the patriarch of a family I
am blessed to have been welcomed into, a young boy I’d not seen in a while
informed me that he was not 7, but 7 and ¾, to which I responded, "Well,
I’m 65
and ½." I’ve been musing about it since. It says so much about how
we perceive ourselves and look at the world; that changes throughout the
life span. The man who died, Dr. Frank McNutt, was one of the first medical people into China when the border again opened to the outside world. I remember his account of watching open heart surgery with acupuncture instead of anesthesia. He studied hypnosis and used it naturalistally in his practice. With hard work from many members of the Board of Governors, another GPSCH year has flown by; a very good year I think, from our Fall kick-off, featuring Scott M. Fried, D.O. speaking on A Surgeon’s Perspective and Experience with Hypnosis for Nerve Injury and Surgery, to the Annual Dinner Meeting with Dr. Julie Linden’s tribute to Ms-Merism – Women Leaders in Hypnosis, starting with our own Dr. Clorinda G. Margolis, recently retired. Dr. Margolis ( "Coco" ) has hypnotized me many times over the years, sometimes for demonstration during training and a few times when I was in acute medical distress. The first "emergency" session was after bunion surgery when severe pain continued despite medication. I had alerted during surgery, I could hear people talking and the sound of bones being cut, and I felt horrible pain; the same pain I continued to feel the next day and had felt all night despite medication. The day I was discharged from the hospital Coco was teaching an Advanced Hypnosis for Pain Workshop, so she asked that I be a demonstration subject; within minutes my traumatic pain had dissipated. The second session took place in my hospital room at TJUH many years later; I had been hospitalized for close to seven weeks and had three abdominal surgeries. I had been catheterized for more than a week and my kidneys had stopped functioning. The doctors were discussing dialysis to give them a rest. Again, I was in severe pain, but was more worried about the kidney shut-down than the discomfort. I called Coco (and Brenda Byrne) at our office across the street, and said I needed help immediately. They came sequentially, hypnotized me, and by the time the kidney specialist returned to my room the problem had resolved. The doctor was irritated that his time had been wasted. Coco is a master clinician in the field of hypnosis, and I am forever grateful for all I have learned from her. It was nice to hear Julie’s tribute to her. GPSCH is now fully up to speed with offering ASCH-Approved Beginning and Intermediate Training. Every year we plan to offer the Beginning 20-Hour Course each Fall, followed in the Spring with the Intermediate 20-Hour Training. This has been a major undertaking and is in addition to our seven monthly meetings and two all-day workshops. We continue to offer APA CEs through Margolis Berman Byrne Health Psychology, P.C., and have learned that Licensed Social Workers can also use these hours for their required certification. We hope to be able to continue offering AMA CMEs for at least one of our-all day programs each year. We would like to be able to offer CEs for nurses and would appreciate input from any member who would help to achieve this objective. I wish you all a wonderful summer and look forward to seeing you in the Fall. Judith S. Berman, President |
MEMBER NEWS |
|
This section is reserved for you.
Please submit items of interest to Stephen.Glass@crozer.org. "YOU'VE GOT MAIL" GPSCH ACADEMIC CALENDAR 2007
Meetings are held at Roxborough Memorial Hospital GPSCH Training and Workshops are at Thomas Jefferson University FROM THE EDITOR - Stephen G. Glass, ED.M. FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION Judith’s message inspires thoughts about time: our experiences during our passage across the life span; the transient temporality of being; our fragility, strength, courage, resilience, joy and delight as we encounter life’s challenges and beauty. Oh, to be 65 and ½ and to embrace life as being 7 and ¾. And to acknowledge that we all "get by with a little help from our friends." As a teenager, I recall watching an early Sunday morning two-minute television broadcast entitled, "Thought For Today." Each week a clergy person from a different religion would offer a brief spiritual message. One morning a rabbi presented the difference between Time and Money. Money: you can earn; borrow; lend; give away; steal; lose; regain; find; spend; invest; and waste. But, Time: you can not do any of the above. You have only a finite amount of it, and you do not know how much time you have or when it and you will cease. As an adult, whenever I hear someone say, "I got there early, so I had some time to kill," it hurts my ears. And so, as you contemplate the coming seasons of your years, as per Boynton, "Eat, Drink and Be Merry, for tomorrow we may diet." - SGG "We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once, and we should call every truth false, which was not accompanied by at least one laugh." - Friedrich Nietzsche "Spring is nature’s way of saying let’s party." - Robin Williams |