Across the world, hypnosis is often treated like a gimmick: used for entertainment at shows, overly dramatized in television and movies, etc. But our guest today, Wendy Lemke, has been using hypnosis as a powerful tool for healing victims of trauma for decades. Wendy is a licensed psychologist with over 30 years of clinical experience. She now runs her own practice, Lemke Counseling & Consulting. Wendy is an American Society of Clinical Hypnosis (ASCH) certified approved consultant, an active member and former Vice President of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis (ASCH), and an active member of the Minnesota Society of Clinical Hypnosis (MSCH). Wendy is a sought-after presenter for her engaging style and expertise in the fields of clinical hypnosis, ego state therapy, and trauma-related disorders. With her skills, Wendy has clients all around the globe. Listen as she shares her passion and clinical hypnosis knowledge with us in this episode of How We Can Heal.
About Wendy
Wendy is a licensed psychologist with over thirty years of clinical experience. She worked for Lutheran Social Service for seven years, joined a group private practice, and then started her own practice which is now Lemke Counseling & Consulting. She also serves as adjunct faculty for St. Cloud Technical Community College. She is a sought after presenter for her engaging style and expertise in the fields of clinical hypnosis, ego state therapy, and trauma related disorders. She has consultees all around the globe and enjoys sharing her passion for clinical hypnosis and helping others become certified.
The following should help give you a feel for her competence, her passion, and her dedication for sharing her gifts with others whether doing so clinically, consulting, or through teaching.
Wendy Lemke is an American Society of Clinical Hypnosis (ASCH) certified approved consultant, an active member and former Vice President of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis (ASCH). She is also an active member of the Minnesota Society of Clinical Hypnosis (MSCH) and has served on the Board and various committees for both organizations as well as teaching basic, intermediate, and advanced workshops at regional and annual conferences.
She's a certified therapist and trainer through Ego-State Therapy International and often incorporates it into her clinical work.
She has received numerous awards. She's been honored with three from the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis: a journal award for publishing, a Merit award, and most recently a Presidential award for her continued efforts to expand clinical hypnosis education to the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation. She was also awarded the Daniel P. Kohen M.D. Outstanding Clinician Award in recognition of outstanding leadership in the clinical practice, teaching, and utilization of therapeutic hypnosis by the Minnesota Society of Clinical Hypnosis in June, 2014.
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This episode was produced by Bright Sighted Podcasting.
FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW
- This transcript was auto-generated
Lisa Danylchuk 0:02
Welcome to the How we can heal podcast. My name is Lisa Danylchuk and I'm a psychotherapist specializing in complex trauma treatment. I'm a graduate of UCLA and Harvard University, and I'm thrilled to share these reflections on how we can heal with you today.
Today our guest is Wendy Lemke. Wendy is a licensed clinical psychologist with over 30 years of experience. She specializes in and presents internationally on clinical hypnosis, ego state therapy, and trauma informed treatment, all of which we'll talk about today. Wendy is a fellow certified approved consultant and former vice president of the American Society of Clinical hypnosis, or ash. She has served on the board for a number of hypnosis organizations, and teaches basic, intermediate and advanced workshops all around the world. She's also a fellow hypnosis instructor, an active member of the International Society for the Study of trauma and dissociation or istd. Wendy has published peer reviewed articles and has received more awards and I can recount here, go ahead and check out how we can heal.com backslash podcast for all the shownotes in the full scoop on her accolades. She wrote and produced the documentary, you're not crazy, and you're not alone. Inside the inner world of dissociative identity disorder, and offers self hypnosis recordings you can practice on your own for sleep and deep relaxation. Wendy and I connected many years ago through the istd. And she's become a fast friend of the family. She taught my own basic and intermediate Hypnosis Training. So I've had the opportunity to also be her student. I'm so excited for you to learn from her today. So let's dive in. Welcome Wendy Lemke to the how we can heal Podcast. I'm very, very happy to be chatting with you today. And I just feel like we should be after a conference sitting together at dinner and chatting about all the things. We're gonna focus on dissociation and clinical hypnosis today. But I really want to talk to you about everything. So we might have to, you know, schedule another time to chat.
Speaker 2 2:04
We'll have to schedule a happy hour time today. Perfect.
Lisa Danylchuk 2:08
So you have you are actually one of my trainers for clinical hypnosis, through ash and istd. I mean, 10 years ago, I don't know that was like, 2012 13, I can't remember. And I learned so much through that process. And of course, me in the back of the room, like stretching and doing yoga was also like, Oh, this is so much like yoga and putting it all together. But I'm curious about your journey, because I haven't heard this. How did you find clinical hypnosis?
Speaker 2 2:36
You know, I feel really blessed and fortunate to have discovered clinical hypnosis early in my career because I was a graduate student. And I had a professor who offered a course on clinical hypnosis, it was an interesting course. And I could see that I'm highly hypnotic, as, as you know, but our listeners might not know there's a couple of components to clinical hypnosis and one is susceptibility. And meaning how easily you go into trance and suggestibility, you know, and I'm probably fairly high on both that. I could see that we had experiential exercises, and I could see the clinical potential in graduate school. And then I'm also blessed to be well to live in, in in Minnesota, except in the winter time, because we have a wonderful Minnesota Society of Clinical hypnosis. And a couple of my mentors are very well known in the field and actually created the curriculum that Ash used way back when Ash is the American Society of Clinical hypnosis. And so minutes, I started going to Minnesota trainings right out of graduate school, and I was booked. And you know, as you know, when we do those trainings, we are a subject. And I remember like yet it was yesterday, even though it was like, I quit counting it 30 years ago, but I was I was the subject for demonstration. And we could think of a mild problem. And I thought of a mild problem, and I didn't have to share it with the group. And I went up and I'm highly hypnotic. It doesn't always work quite this efficiently. But I went into trance and they did this application. And I didn't have that symptom. The thing I was thinking about I didn't have it for eight years. After that, one time And, you know, I, there were a lot of things that went into went into that. So I just kept going back and getting more and more training every year. And then, at about five, six years into my training through mesh, I wanted to meet the relatives, and the relatives, or the American society. So I attended a session there, and I was I was, you know, hooked with them. And that became my second professional family, you know, until I came to ISS, TD, where that became my third professional family. So it just, you know, it's been something that I keep learning about, and I'm so passionate about it. So I've taught for those organizations for years, you know, that's kind of how it started.
Lisa Danylchuk 5:52
And I'm curious, too. So there's that momentum, and that getting pulled into one group and another group? And then I'm curious, when did you learn about dissociation? When did that become a part of the work you were doing?
Speaker 2 6:05
Yeah, so nothing like trial by fire, you know, we didn't learn much back in the day. Back in the day, you know, in graduate school, I learned very, very little about dissociation. And what I did learn was not accurate. You know, I learned that just so back then it was multiple personality disorder. Right now we know it as dissociative identity disorder. And there's a number of other dissociative disorders that we treat. I learned very little in graduate school, I did a lot of volunteer work with the Central Minnesota sexual assault center. And even in graduate school, I did a research project with them. And so when I started my career, I was getting referrals from the Central Minnesota sexual assault center. And I think I was I was facilitating a group of women. And we were on the week, all of these women had been sexually abused or sexually assaulted. And it was a very cohesive group of women. And we were on about the sixth week of honoring what, what we did to survive. And that was the theme of that group. And I had one woman who started to share that she had developed different parts, the names for the parts, and I think I had an intern at the time, too. I was thinking, oh my gosh, this sounds like that rare thing that we were supposed to never see dissociated, you know, multiple personality disorder. And it turned out, it wasn't that it was it was what now what we would call otherwise specified dissociative disorder, back then it was dissociative disorder nos. But because of her, she wanted to work individually with me. And I said, I was a rookie, I didn't, I was doing I thought she needed to see somebody else. And she said, now, I'm really comfortable with you. And I said, Well, I'm willing to get consultation and learn. And I was already trained in hypnosis. And she taught me so much. I'm so grateful to her. Because we we would work with parts of self, she knew very well her parts and she'd be like, You need to work with this part. And we do some hypnosis to access this part. And, you know, she really did her own therapy, but she she taught me about what was working and then I started realizing that this parts work, I was so fascinated, intrigued with how we could help physical pain and how working with their parts and hypnotically and and with the dissociative disorder, how effective it was in resolving internal conflicts. And I was in hammered and started utilizing this kind of work with other people that talked parts. You know, part of me wants to do this part of me wants to do that and was utilizing with other folks also discovered I had more dissociative disorders on my caseload, once I knew what I was looking for, and had some consultation. And then I went to the Minnesota Society of Clinical hypnosis annual conference, and the Watkins John and Helen Watkins. Were there and they presented ego state theory and therapy and I, I was like, This is what I'm experiencing in my practice. This is and they have a whole theoretical model and a clinical approach that I'm very passionate about today and teach a lot on ego state therapy and, and we're getting a renewed excitement about ego state therapy because part At work, it's becoming more known. And the effective work with parts is becoming more known. And I, we started teaching ego state therapy outside of the clinical hypnosis field. So it's, most people when they take the foundations of ego state therapy course, realize they want Hypnosis Training to because they they do weave together nicely. But so that's kind of how I got started with it all. You know, it's just kind of found me.
Lisa Danylchuk 10:33
Yeah, yeah. And you just kept going with it and you kept rolling with it. And you found these professional families, which is yeah, how it works. And I'm really grateful to have learned from you. Because I think sometimes it's hard to find trainings in specific modalities or approaches that are also really well trauma informed and dissociation informed. And so it was just great to be able to lean into that as training with you knowing okay, this, I don't have to go figure it out later. I can ask those hard questions here. And now. Yeah, that's so helpful. Well, I think that's,
Speaker 2 11:11
I think that's the value Lisa, of, of taking clinical Hypnosis Training from someone that is trauma informed, because I like to present the training we offer through ISS TD as trauma informed clinical hypnosis, I think all clinical hypnosis shouldn't be taught that way. But I think you when you come from a lens of working from dissociative disorders, you exercise the utmost caution. Yeah. And, and we don't know who those folks are now, and what are the prevalence rates, one out of 100? So we're gonna see a lot of dissociative disorders even when you're not looking for it.
Lisa Danylchuk 11:54
Yeah. And I think we had Mary on, Kate, you know, Dr. Marian, Kate, we had her on the show. And I think the studies that she did, across the world were even higher than one and 100 I can't remember we're gonna have to go back to the show. Well,
Speaker 2 12:07
and that in a clinical population, for sure. And in, you know, a therapist population, for sure, because therapists have the most history of, of trauma. In I think, John Breyer, I remember him saying that he had done some research on all the professions and therapists have the most history of trauma, which, which it makes sense, though, in terms of post traumatic growth, people like to give meaning to their trauma and help others when they've been helped. So,
Lisa Danylchuk 12:38
back at UCLA, when I was doing research, we used to say research is research to like, I'm really curious about it. Let me go to school and learn. Oh, thankfully, that's really helpful.
Speaker 2 12:52
Yeah, that's, that's interesting. So, yeah, I do think the prevalence rates are much higher than 1%. But people think, I think, what is that I think that's the same for balance. 1%, I think is the same as schizophrenia,
Lisa Danylchuk 13:08
you know, which, right? And then we talked to Dr. Heather Hall about discerning, you know, schizophrenia versus di D or dissociation, which is another whole conversation. Right, right. So if someone's just learning about dissociation and curious, like, how would that and hypnosis work together? I mean, some folks might have heard that. Folks who are dissociated, have a higher incidence of hypnotize ability. And so how have you seen hypnosis be helpful? In working with dissociation?
Speaker 2 13:40
There's so much I could say here. Let me try to think of how I can simplify it for our listeners. First, I probably need to kind of talk about what what is hypnosis, right. Yeah. So hypnosis can be a state, because we all go in and out of states of trance. So I like to think of clinical hypnosis. And when we say clinical, it means hypnosis utilized in a clinical way, right? We're using it clinically to help treat psychological disorders or if physicians are using it for medical reasons, or dentists, you know, use it. So the American Society of Clinical hypnosis teaches only health care professionals. And that's the difference because there are a lot of hypnosis organizations, and we want to really, there's so much to be concerned with. I think sometimes hypnosis gets a bad rap. And it's not because of the hypnosis or the trance. It's because of the suggestions.
Lisa Danylchuk 14:49
Yes, that are
Speaker 2 14:51
in hypnosis, and I, I always tell people, well, you know, what were the suggestions. Were they useful to you? Were they in your best interest, yeah, at the time you were given those suggestions. Did you have trust in the person that was giving those suggestions? You know, think about entertainment, hypnosis, they don't know their clients, I would hope you don't just give all your trust away to someone who's doing an entertaining act. That's why we want to we want to specify what clinical hypnosis is. And I like to call clinical hypnosis is just the capacity to utilize trance in a healthful healing way know, with intention, yes, with intention, because we all go in and out of trance states, if you drive down the highway in Minnesota, it's 94. Right? So if you're driving down 94 And you go through a town and somebody calls you and they're like, where are you? I don't know, somewhere in 94. Well, did you go by Monticello? I don't know. Yeah, you know, some part of you is is driving another part of you is very absorbed in your thoughts. Yes. And you know, we call that highway hypnosis, you know. So, clinically, we we utilize trance in an intentional way, because in trance, you are more suggestible and so, and you can also have an experience, you know, that can be useful clinically, that you can carry with you. So, we tell people that and, you know, I say people are utilizing trance and I do I have on my, on my agenda for either sometime later this year in 2024. To do a course for the lay public, for the public on just educating them about suggestion in the center. Give yourself you know, are you in trance, when you are, be kind to what you say to yourself because you're listening in a parts you're listening. So, with dissociation and trance we want in trauma, you know, we want to provide positive trance experiences that France can be neutral like highway hypnosis. It can be positive, like a mental vacation or meditation, right? It can be a positive experience, where you get in touch with positive things, or it can be really unpleasant, you know, a flashback, right? Or someone is in an altered state of consciousness, and they're so absorbed in their trauma, that it feels like it's happening again. Yeah. That's a an unpleasant trance state. So much of what we when we utilize clinical hypnosis in the field of trauma, a lot of times it's undoing or re orientating and ending unpleasant trance states or teaching our clients on how to get out of unpleasant trance states. Yes, you know, there's so many things we can do with hypnosis and trauma, but we want to help facilitate alternative states of trance so that somebody can feel a comfortable state or restore state. I always say if there's triggers to trauma, there are keys to comfort. I like that. And we can help facilitate keys to comfort hypnotically. Yes, reinforce that strengthen it. That's what we do. First, right before we ever want to get into trauma, we want to make sure a client has the ability to find keys for comfort. Yes,
Lisa Danylchuk 18:51
I love that. It's really funny to have when I did the Hypnosis Training, and I know I think it did the two of them. So I'm trying to remember which one this was doesn't matter. I have still a visceral memory of one of the, you know, comfort ones. And I remember, I remember we were exercising, you know, okay, we learned this skill and then we're gonna facilitate for our partner we just met in the training and I remember being so blown away by how little they actually said, and were my, you know, psyche target. And I still have this visceral memory. I mean, I was meditating in a cliff in kawaii on the Nepali Coast Trail, like, I can still feel it, I can still have that. And I've remembered it ever since you know, a decade plus it's so amazing and it was just this little Okay, let's try this. You know, this is like, like you said about the client who really was like, No, I want to work with you. I mean, you had that connection and rapport already, but this is someone who's just learning who doesn't, who's also fumbling around Um, like I was, facilitated this experience that was very rich for me with, with very little suggestion, you know, there was enough trust there of like, here's another student. We're sitting next to each other, we've asked questions, we know each other to some degree. But it was really just, you know, I think it was kind of a peaceful place or, you know, accessing some internal feeling, but just these general suggestions, and I'm always astounded by that, when I offer this to people, whether it's in the form of a meditation visualization at the end of a yoga class, or it's in a clinical setting, like the things that come when we're saying something really general, like, notice the air notice the ground, and you know, they've got flowers sprouting everywhere, and sea salt in the air, and they go,
Speaker 2 20:51
roll well. And I utilize that experience, you're providing such rich detail, right? And it was very, it was a very pleasant experience for you. And then if we think about our clients with trauma, they unfortunately have as much absorption and detail that their unconscious brings up for an unpleasant trance, you know, or when something gets triggered, it opens the unconscious to all those sensory experiences without much suggestion. So if we can utilize suggestion because that's, that's the two part components of hypnosis is the trance, right? And our clients know, they know a flashback trance, they know, an unpleasant trance state when they're stuck. So if we can teach them how to use trance intentionally, and to create or access, pleasant experiences, and you know, part of trance is facilitated absorption. Yeah, right. You, we guide you or your unconscious mind, we guide you to allow your own unconscious mind to take you to somewhere rich, and help facilitate that with guiding suggestions, we have to be careful with the suggestions we utilize with trauma, when in trance, because we can prime those suggestions for safety. So that the unconscious mind reveals and we guide the unconscious mind to a path that is safe for the client.
Lisa Danylchuk 22:34
I love this keys for comfort, guiding a path of safety, like all of these things fit in so well with, you know, trauma informed best practice. And I'm thinking about, you know, me sitting in this training a decade ago and going oh, you know, focused attention and absorption and how that fits. So like a mirror image with yoga philosophy. Right? Yeah, philosophy as Darren Dianna Samadhi, which is focused attention absorption or meditation. And then integration is really or enlightenment some people call it but it's to focus attention, absorption and integration and just go so hand in hand with, you know, even what you're describing here of, you know, becoming aware of some of the more PTSD triggers that might be alive and meeting them with that comfort and bringing that comfort up to experience and fruition.
Speaker 2 23:32
Yeah. And just as you were saying, you know, thinking about your you're still surprised at what, what your unconscious mind provided you? Yeah. When you had that experience when it was a general probably group demonstration, right. I think when we educate clients, we have to talk about the power of our unconscious mind. Yeah, I can't imagine doing therapy without hypnosis and an understanding of the unconscious mind. Because most of our behavior, our thoughts, our feelings, everything is associated. Our unconscious mind feels so much, and we don't know. Or we're not always in touch with what our unconscious mind knows. Right? And so, a lot of times people don't know where a feeling or where something is coming from. And we have to teach our clients how to safely listen to their unconscious mind because their unconscious mind has wisdom. Yes. It's sometimes might be wisdom we don't want to hear. But it might be wisdom that guides our pace of therapy. It might be wisdom that has not only ideas about where a problem came from, but also ideas about solutions. You know, part of that theory comes ego state therapy and, and the principles, you know, I look at ego state therapy as something that kind of guides my overall treatment, you know, I look at it as much more of a guiding principles for not just ego state therapy, but for all therapy, whether you're using EMDR, or brainspotting, or whatever somatic experiencing, there are principles that I learned through the Watkins that I've adapted along the way that help facilitate like, you know, is it safe and manageable to utilize this protocol? And, and asking the unconscious because some part, some part of you might be saying, I want to process my trauma, and I want to get in there and tell you all about it. And I'm going to be like, you know, I really care about what happened to you. But I also care that you can manage what surfaces when you start talking about
Lisa Danylchuk 26:00
the way you're just phrased, that is so perfection.
Speaker 2 26:05
Yeah, and hypnotically we can kind of like, let's explore what your unconscious mind has to say about the pace of sharing, you know, because there might be one part that when we talk about dissociation, it's parts that are disconnected. So there might be a part that's like, I'm ready to go through this. And, and the unconscious mind is saying, No, I'm not gonna let this work. No, this isn't okay. No, this isn't safe and manageable, and, and then an application doesn't work or it goes awry. And part of it is because we haven't checked out the pace is the unconscious board with whatever application you're going to do, whether it be EMDR, whether it's something else, we need to see that the whole self is going to be the Okay. When we do something, because it's, you know, we are, according to, you know, the Watkins and I think there's been other research along the way. I mean, I know there has that, that that shows the evidence that we have multiple aspects of ourselves, not just those with just so sort of disorders. So.
Lisa Danylchuk 27:17
So can you describe a time maybe it's a specific client, or even someone you supervised where something just went really well with hypnosis and where you feel like, you know, those keys to comfort really came together or something just felt profound, and there was a shift.
Speaker 2 27:34
You know, there's so many I, it's hard to pick just one, but I think, one that stands out because it was so efficient and so evident, and it was an individual who he was new in recovery for addiction and he was maybe three months. sober, very anxious, very vigilant, I mean, just fidgety and, and coming in. And, you know, he had lost his vise, you know, he, he was given up his vise. And so he was very nervous about coming in, and so nervous that I couldn't even gather information. It was it was just evident that if we weren't gonna get anywhere, we just had to get him more comfortable. Yeah, and I. So early on, I said, I really want to just help you feel a little bit more comfortable. We're not going to talk about anything traumatic, I just want you to more be more comfortable in this setting. And I'm wondering if you'd be willing to try a hypnotic application for comfort and to see if we can't help you allow your body to to shift in a little more comfortable position if he was open. And we did a hypnotic elicitation where I'm guiding him into a trance experience. That's, you know, what formal hypnosis is that I'm doing it with you. It's not something you spontaneously go. And he shifted, and he became he was highly hypnotic. He became very still. And I gave suggestions for comfort and, and asked him to bring back with him some of the comfort he'd had allowed himself to obtain, as we reoriented. And when when he came out, he said, That's the calmest I've ever felt in my entire life. Wow. And I'm like, you know, and then we we strengthen, you know, you get a moment like that is like, wow, you know, because it's not something I did. Right. It's something he did. So then we reinforce the self efficacy like, wow, look what you you were able to do in just a few moments of time. Able to get your body more comfortable than it has ever been. Just think what else your unconscious mind can help you with? Yes. And it sets up a platform of hope and expectancy. And an it's nothing like that powerful experience in the first session of therapy. It was totally unrelated to trauma or anything, and you shouldn't go there right off the bat, you want clients to get in touch with the strengths, something they can do. That's positive, helpful. All right. So that they're actually excited about coming back to therapy than dreading it. Yeah. You know, and remembering
Lisa Danylchuk 30:43
just the the words of encouragement or affirmation, I think you have another term for it to have just the gentle ways you encourage people along and that's it. There you go, you're gonna see their shoulder softening. And, oh, yeah, I noticed that and, you know, you chose that and that just these gentle words of affirmation over time that I feel like, you know, so many people either didn't get enough of in their development and are still don't get enough of in daily life. You mentioned that internal dialogue earlier, and how, like, we tend to not be that way with ourselves either like, Oh, there you go. That's it. Hey, nice job. I see that you're softening. Like, we just don't get that encouragement and validation. And I feel like that is such a beautiful part of of my experience, learning clinical hypnosis, too, is just experiencing as you know, a subject and then also, sharing with others, just those gentle words of affirmation to let you settle in and connect with that, my unconscious or inner wisdom or what, however, we want to understand it.
Speaker 2 31:49
Yeah. Well, it's, it's very, it's a very powerful experience to have somebody present with you in that way. You know, and it's, I think we we teach attunement, you know, and what I love about hypnosis, and ego state therapy is you don't have to be a therapeutic genius, because the resources, and they come from your client. Now, what you have to do is the tune and know how to attune and utilize what they give, you know, and if you're worried about, you know, finding that right piece of knowledge or, or looking for the next training, sometimes I'm telling my consultees because I do a lot of consultation. The book you need is in front of you. Yeah, it's your clients. Right. So how do you attune and listen in a way that feels safe and manageable to them? Because, you know, when we work with trauma folks, and I have to throw this in here, sometimes that level of attunement is experienced as a threat. Right? And so then we have to adjust that, right. And we can still facilitate absorption. But we do it, you know, maybe we're both gonna look at an an object, and we'll talk about that object. So the tournament isn't, you know, right here with you and I, right now, I just became aware of our attunement with each other because we care and love each other. We've known each other for a long time, but, but that's one of the things I love about clinical hypnosis is it's taught me to be very present and attune. And in that therapeutics trance state that we enter into, when we do our therapy with our clients, or even when I do consultation with folks. It, it enhances our intuition. Yes. Right. Yeah. And, and sometimes you'll be like, Well, I don't know how I know that. But it's because I'm very present with that person.
Lisa Danylchuk 34:01
Yeah. Or I don't know why I'm thinking about this. And then they're like, yes. Yeah. images coming to mind. I'm grateful. I learned early to trust those things, and to just speak them with. I don't know why, but this is coming to mind. Does this mean something to you? And you know, nine times out of 10 It's like, right on, right? Right. I was just thinking that or Oh, that does mean something. Or even sometimes you don't get the full verbal feedback, but you see a shift. Right, right. And acknowledge something that's happening. So I'm really glad you bring up the attunement piece and you bring up the fact that the attunement can be threatening, right? Because what I'm warm and I'm I'm supportive and this is exactly what I like and what I love to receive and yet you know, the person well is coming with something different.
Speaker 2 34:59
You You know, I sometimes think I sound like a broken record when I teach hypnosis courses or even ego state therapy because I'm always utilizing that language, find just the right amount of space, I guess, between you and I that feels comfortable. You can remain as far away as you need in order to feel safe and comfortable, but close enough to have a connection. Yes, it's another strap, strategy or technique I have called playing with the space, you know, and how we utilize playing with the space within ourselves and with each other. Yeah, right. Yeah.
Lisa Danylchuk 35:40
Well, I'm aware as we're talking that I just want you to guide us on on a clinical hypnosis vacation, your voice and your whole presence, you do have so much of that hypnotic, you know, soothing energy. I mean, I don't know if we can actually do that on the podcast. But that's my, that's my one that and then my other one is just how, you know, I read some books on Hypno birthing, and things like that, while I was pregnant, and just how helpful I think this is for parents for, you know, people who are birthing for pregnancy for all these are even for, for pain and for things that we're dealing with physically, I feel like there's so many applications of hypnosis in everyday life where we might be thinking more right now about PTSD, trauma and dissociation. But there's, there's so many ways, especially when we talk about these keys for comfort. Yeah, you can tap into this. And I know you've had, you know, recordings over the years and things where you do have, oh, this one's a, this is a vacation and this one's maybe reducing anxiety or things like that. And what are some of the applications of, of hypnosis that you see kind of anyone could pick up and run with?
Speaker 2 36:57
I have hypnosis recordings that I've done, that are very popular, either mental vacation, where you just want to, you just want a mental vacation, you know? And quite often, that's how I introduce hypnosis is how about just what if you have an experience of just taking a mental vacation, and, you know, on on my mental vacation track, because we liked different vacations? If I'm working with somebody, I wanted to say, Where would you like to go? You know, but when it's the general public, if you had a traumatic experience at a beach, don't go to a beach. Right? Right. If you had a traumatic experience in the mountains don't go to the mountains. So you have to know yourself and you know, listen to the, the cautions in the instructions with any kind of self hypnosis recording your you're using. Because there are many out there but my mental vacations, I think I have a track for a mountain vacation, a beach vacation. And in Minnesota, everyone has cabin. So there's a cabin, you know, having track that's a helpful one. I also do a peaceful mind peaceful sleep boarding that has been very useful. I have those recordings available on my website that people can access. But I want to read through the peaceful sleep peaceful mind when a little bit and update it, but but they're still there for for downloads. I've used it Hypno birthing. Yeah, you know, cuz there's all kinds of I use self hypnosis. When I go to the dentist, I was just there last week, and he's like, I can't believe you. And I'm like, Yeah, I don't want the Novocaine just, you know, says, Let me go to the beach. Just give me a few moments. And, you know, when you've had years of practicing, because even if you're not that susceptible to trance, it is a skill that you can develop. Yeah. And, you know, so don't, you know, be discouraged. If you have a hard time getting there. It may be is a hard time just for that moment. Yeah, or a hard time with the person you're with, maybe there's sufficient trust isn't there or something else? So, you know, don't be discouraged by one bad experience. You know, there might be some other things that were were going on at the time, or with the person that utilized it or the way the suggestion was presented. Yes. You know, so I always I'm telling my, my clients, you know, be careful what you do. And I think this goes for general communication. Be careful. You take in, is this suggestion useful to you and in your best interest? Yes. This regard and anything that isn't? Yeah, right. I love that. Justin. When you're on such a you know, and I think this is something I want to, I think is so important, because people go get into social media. There's the Tick Tock trans. Yeah, yeah. Be careful when you are listening to tick tock or when you are listening, scrolling. That is facilitating absorption, narrowing your focus. That is what hypnosis is, you are going into trance. There's a thing called Trans logic. And when we go into trance, our critical thinking goes down. So you want to make sure you trust the information that is coming to you. When you're in a state of trance, it can be really helpful and healing, to hear things that are helpful for you and in your best interest. But it can be very destructive, to hear things that are not in your best interest. You know, and if you're so focused and absorbed in the content, you're not thinking critically, like this is not okay, I don't want this. And so we have to be careful what what suggestions people are taking in?
Lisa Danylchuk 41:08
Yeah, that makes me think of, you know, we're talking about trauma informed dissociation and foreign clinical hypnosis, but also attachment informed or just relational relationally informed like we and while we have that discernment online, really discerning? Do I feel safe and comfortable and supported in this relationship? Do I trust the suggestions or maybe even talking over with a provider? What are some of the suggestions that that we'll get into today? Or what are some of the things that'll be most helpful for me? And deciding that even beforehand might help people feel, you know, safer, more supported, more comfortable and to actually get what they need?
Speaker 2 41:47
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. A
Lisa Danylchuk 41:50
lot of misconception, I think about hypnosis, I mean, people think about clucking, like a chicken on stage, or, you know, being stuck walking a funny way, or if he's, you know, more of that performative side of hypnosis. And I don't think, you know, in EMDR, you get trained in resourcing in so many different therapies. Thankfully, these days, we focus on, you know, building up resources, and, you know, finding ways to connect with positive internal experiences. And so that's a huge part of hypnosis is just that connection. And as you mentioned, the absorption but also the connection to our own unconscious or our psyche, or our, you know, sometimes people boil it down to like, right brain, right, when we know that's oversimplified. But still, it's like, getting into that more creative space. And I remember after I did training, I had a client who was very eager to try hypnosis, and he was very logical and practical, and he would have these powerful experiences and then come out and question them. I don't know what was that? I don't see. Gration, it was like, This is so creative. And so in depth, you know, I would say five things, and your whole experience and come out be like, Yeah, I don't know where that came from. I was like, it comes from me, it definitely came from you.
Speaker 2 43:14
And that's, you know, sometimes we have, I like to incorporate trance ratifying experiences that when the client comes out, well, I don't know if I was really in trance, or I don't know, if I, and I'll be like, Well, what do you think about when your hands like, you know, couldn't come apart? Or they'll be like, oh, yeah, that's right. Like, you know, because when they come out of trance, what you're talking about is, then they're back. That critical thinker is back on line 100% They were able to suspend that for a moment in a helpful healing way. Right? Yeah. So it just made them less resistant and let they let their body and unconscious work for them and have these these cool experiences. So I think some psycho education sometimes in this normalizing hypnosis, right, are the myths and misconceptions. And sometimes I'll I'll take entertainment. Well, you know, if you felt like you were driving a race car, and you were like, Yeah, you can if the power of suggestion, create experiences. Now I guarantee it, there was a part of you. And he'll guard term, this the hidden observer, there's a part of the that knew you weren't driving a race car or weren't in squelching heat. But you are so absorbed and facilitated your imagination could take you there and your we know research, they've done research with imaging for like, say sports performance, right? I saw this research with gymnastics where, you know, they were imaging just using their imagination to think about their form. Right. And you When they do that imaging their brain lights up as if they were actually doing the form. Someone just told me this and I wrote it down. I'm gonna, I'm probably gonna get it wrong here. But I like Well, that's, that's a cell for hypnosis, I think it was the Olympic hockey team, like every one of them had to utilize some sort of imagery or perform clinical hypnosis, or performance enhancement, because we know it's used a lot with athletes. Yeah, I like to use Albert Einstein's quote, Imagination is more important than knowledge. Yes, or another one. Logic will get you from A to B. But your imagination can take you anywhere.
Lisa Danylchuk 45:44
Nice. That reminds me of when I took mathematical logic and Italian and it was all these, like Beth tables to have a lady Beth and it was like a B, B, B A C? Oh, no. I'm gonna Gnosis just for the trauma of this class.
Speaker 2 46:02
Right. So, you know, it's experiences like that. Now we were talking about that, right? And so it opened, you weren't conscious of thinking about that class, like, probably 30 minutes ago. And that's why suggestions can lead us to many different things from our unconscious mind. And that's why we want to be careful with how we tailor our suggestions, especially with trauma, you know, the hypnotic language and the art of being hypnotic. Is, is the language we use? Yes. For instance, when I'm at the dentist, you know, I had to educate a dentist one time and say, oh, you know, please don't say you're going to feel this. It's alright. If you say, now I'm going to apply pressure, right? Good. But I'm in a trance, I'm somewhere else. And now you're going to say, now you're going to feel I'm going to, I'm going to take that suggestion in. Yes. So it's not helpful, you know. So,
Lisa Danylchuk 47:09
though, that's so important. And I'm thinking about, you know, across medical professions, how important it is to understand that I'm going to apply pressure, versus you're going to feel this, you're going to feel that you're that and if we're in any type of trance, and even if not, we're then we're ready for that feeling. For that feeling, rather than just being primed for oh, you're, you're doing something and you need me to know, or you want to sense or whatever it is,
Speaker 2 47:40
that the American Society of Clinical hypnosis actually has a workshop, I believe Linda Thompson, created who's a pediatric nurse practitioner, and it's called The Power of Words. Yes, right. Even if you don't have hypnosis, training, Hypnosis Training, just teaches you how to elicit trance and use it with intention, therapeutically, for many applications. And that's the value of training. The art of being hypnotic, is language that can be useful for anybody, relationships, how medical profession, the language we provide ourselves, we we hear our thoughts all the time, you know, and, and we want to learn to talk to ourselves as positively as we would talk to others, ya know, and careful what suggestions you're giving yourself with trauma. Much of the hypnosis we're doing is undoing. Yeah, fix suggestions, because many people have given themselves suggestions that have become dysfunctional, self hypnotic suggestions. Yeah. And we have to undo those. What would it be? What would you like to think instead? Yeah, what would be in your best interest in 2023? Going forward?
Lisa Danylchuk 49:03
Yeah. Right. I love that. Yeah. So what would you say to someone who's interested in hypnosis, who's wanting to learn more? And maybe this is, you know, their first time hearing about it or they're early in the exploration? Where would you send them?
Speaker 2 49:22
Well, depends if it's a client, you know, the American Society of Clinical hypnosis website, which I believe is a S C h.net. Ne t has like effects and questions. They have a directory for therapist, they have training. On my website, I have the trainings I provide. I do some trainings for Ash some for isst D and I do I have some of my own if you're a clinician, and I really recommend ego state therapy regardless, and I'm not just saying that the because I teach it, I really am very passionate about the principles, that it's an overall approach, regardless of what modalities you're going to use. If it's ifs, if it's EMDR, if it's hypnosis, it will guide your overall therapy, as well as inform you about dissociation and dissociative disorders and the people that fall to the far right of that differentiation, dissociation continuum, and those with dissociative identity disorder, we use ego state therapy for everybody, not just those with dissociation. I learned it with the folks that are on the far end of that continuum, those that dissociate for trauma and develop that disorder as a defense. But it is useful for all of us. No,
Lisa Danylchuk 50:48
no plugin for your trainings, having been in them personally, I'm just going to put a plug in for you in general, because, yeah, that trust and there's also, you know, I know so many therapists, and there's just some that just have the, there's just the vibe that you just need to stand near them. And you're like, I feel better, and you're one of them. And so everyone's open to their own experience. But I'll just want to tell people that that's, that's my experience with you is that you just need to stand nearby and everything feels better.
Speaker 2 51:19
Oh, that's, that's a very excellent compliment. And I do believe sometimes least, it's not what we know. It's who we are, you know, with, with our clients, you know, and hypnosis and ego state therapy. I say that, but my intentions are fueled with that knowledge that I have, as well as my experience. And I have the most, I've had the greatest mentors that you can have. But I've learned the most from my clients. Yeah.
Lisa Danylchuk 51:52
They have an important question for you. Okay, what brings you hope these
Unknown Speaker 51:57
days? Well, people like you, Lisa.
Lisa Danylchuk 52:03
Topic, keep going.
Speaker 2 52:06
Mother, your mother is an angel on this earth as well. Marinette is for those many people know Lynette as well. I'm very hopeful about there's so many things that we could be discouraged by. But you know, clinical hypnosis teaches us. It's where we put our focus. Right, if you put your focus on the ugliness, you're going to feel ugly. Yeah. If you want to put your focus on hope and the beauty and and facilitate your absorption, in experiences that are wonderful and peaceful and hopeful. And that doesn't mean I don't get bogged down, you know, I've had lots of tragedies in my life. Right? You know, that's what I see. Hope I see hope I'm, I'm really excited at this point in my career, to be shifting. I love working with clients, but I, you know, I want to make a difference. And, and it's very rewarding to see these clients sell. And now it's rewarding as a consultant, to have my consults, say, Oh, I tried this. And this was so cool, and they're getting, you know, I love that I'm igniting the passion for ego state therapy and hypnosis, because those have been what have guided my work. And clients have been so grateful. And if we can help more people, and now we're getting more people to help more people all around the globe. Yeah, you know, that's exciting. And it's, it's, it's, it's helpful. Long before Lisa knows my, my youngest daughter is now blind and long before this occurred in her life. This was my one of my favorite quotes was the this is a Helen Keller quote, and it's the world is full of suffering. But it's also full of the overcoming of it. Yes. And I liked that quote, too. I think if we focus on what in and I look at with my daughter, Kelly, she focuses on what she can do not what she can't, you know, this mean, it's not hard and you have those days where, you know, you get stuck in grief for you know, but you don't stay there. Yeah, one of my metaphor utilize utilize a lot of metaphors with hypnosis. And one of my metaphors that are utilized with clients is, you know, what train are you on? Yeah, no. And is that train bringing you to a helpful destination? Yeah, if not, you can't if you can't help the train you get on sometimes sometimes we wander on there. Sometimes our unconscious mind triggers us on to a train of thought. Yeah, but you can decide how long you're going to stay on that train. Yeah, you can get off the train. mean are you can find resources within to help guide you off the train, walk across the platform and get on a train that will take you to more hopeful experiences. Yes.
Lisa Danylchuk 55:11
All right. Yes, you can pull that little I'm thinking these are maybe more buses and trams. But you know, you pull that little thing. That's like, next stop, please let me
Speaker 2 55:22
excellent. Right. Yeah. Yeah, same thing with incorporation. You know? Yeah, Milton Erickson had a concept of utilization. When you're present with clients, you get those things? Oh, you take the bus, we're going to use the bus. Yes, as they noticed, rather than a train.
Lisa Danylchuk 55:39
Yeah, you can press that little button. Anything that like, I feel like when there's a somatic indicator, like I'm even just reaching up, like, I'm gonna grab something. button, right? It gives us a sense of agency in the moment and involves our bodies and early. And I think and fun way. Now.
Speaker 2 55:54
The hypnosis has changed. I just recently wrote a chapter for a book that will be published in German
Lisa Danylchuk 56:05
folks in Germany, folks in Switzerland,
Speaker 2 56:09
right. But, you know, it was really looking at where hypnosis has has come from. And I had the section on ego state therapy, and I was really looking at it. And I remember a quote, I think, from a video I did with John Watkins, back in the day, I interviewed him. And he said, I think ego state therapy will evolve to be not ego state therapy, but a therapeutic approach that incorporates many different modalities. Somebody that he said it much more eloquently than I can, but it really has, you know, that's where I'm like, John, in that interview, I found from a video clip I have was, you know, back in, like, early 2000s. May be or, but several years ago, and that's really where it's common. I think hypnosis is evolved to incorporate more bodies, suggestions to, you know, it's not just up here, it's incorporating and involving different things, you know, so we can anchor as a key to comfort with putting your thumb and forefinger together, so that we basically it's conditioning. Right. Yeah. triggers for trauma have been conditioned. Yes, hypnotically we can condition keys for comfort. Yes. So if you're, you're on that wrong train, you can get off cross the platform, and you can do some things, you know, you have some skills that are reinforced.
Lisa Danylchuk 57:42
Yeah, so much agency in what you're describing right now, recognizing that these triggers are things that have been trained through experience. And recognizing that there are other experiences, we can consciously choose by going to therapy or doing clinical hypnosis, or whatever that is practicing yoga, however, right, you can go in that direction. And then you can have, you can consciously choose things that shift the internal narrative, right, or the or internal experience. And that can be through our body that can be through visualization that can be through hypnosis, that can be so many avenues. But what I love about that is there's there's hope in that, right, there's hope and reliving the awful, which is what PTSD often is, it's just that, right? So you were being or avoiding and being sort of stuck in this traumatic or negative experience. But we can consciously, you know, get on a different train as many times as we need to until we go, oh, this train is going somewhere I want to go
Speaker 2 58:46
write this, we have to create that disruption, interruption of a negative trance. You know, that's why I say much of trauma work is undoing. It is its undoing the gesture means that you learn to believe from people that didn't have your interest, best interest at heart. Why are you still following those suggestions? Right? They become fixed and conditioned in your mind. So we have to undo that and create new, more useful, helpful connections.
Lisa Danylchuk 59:18
And there's just so much agency in that, right. It's recognizing this came from somewhere else, it's putting it back where it belongs. It's replacing it. It's consciously choosing people that we trust that do have our best interests in mind to be random. That's like, much easier said than done. Right? That that can be quite a process. But yeah, we're able to make those choices. Yeah, I think a lot about power and control and trust and agency and all these things. And I just love that, you know, we're talking about clinical hypnosis, but in the end, we're also talking we're talking about trauma and dissociation and attachment and human relationship and all these things that I think are foundation for, for good, any kind of healing work, right.
Speaker 2 59:58
And you know, we've talked about a lot Out of ego strengthening and applications for hypnosis that are really useful in like keys for comfort. But there are therapeutic applications all across the phases of treatment of trauma, right. So most people know traumas best in a phase oriented approach where you focused on Africa regulation and skills and safety and stability first. But they're there hypnotic applications to help guide trauma processing in a safe and manageable way, you know, distancing techniques involved utilizing the imagination, and folks who who were really traumatized. Use dissociation as a defense. They figured it out as a kid. Yeah, they, they were utilizing dissociation to help them. And so we just need to make sure that now that defense isn't causing problems or distress. There are ways to dissociate in a healing helpful way. We don't want that ability away. But we want to make sure it's not causing problems in 2023. And going forward.
Lisa Danylchuk 1:01:10
Yeah. So how can people connect with you, Wendy,
Speaker 2 1:01:14
I do a lot of teaching and consulting work now. And you can find me on my website, which is Wendy Lemke, LM ke hyphen, psy.com. And there's a lot of information, I have a professional Facebook page, there's a link on my website to the professional Facebook page as well. And my trainings and things are there. My website needs help.
Lisa Danylchuk 1:01:42
To have a website is to have a website that needs help. Like unless you're a developer yourself, right?
Speaker 2 1:01:48
Right. When you're a therapist, and you think you can do all things, you know, like website design. It's not the most efficient, please email me if you you know, can't find something and my my email is Wendy Lemke. lp@gmail.com. So
Lisa Danylchuk 1:02:07
thank you so much, Wendy, just for being here and sharing your zone of genius with us. i Yeah, we need to set up a happy hour or something sometime soon, because I just miss you. And I just love spending this time with you. I hope everyone else internalize some of this wonderfulness. And yeah, maybe we'll have you back on at some point.
Speaker 2 1:02:24
Yes, love and hugs to you and your new baby, your family.
Lisa Danylchuk 1:02:30
Lots of love. We'll talk soon. Okay, bye. Thanks so much for listening. My hope is that you walk away from these episodes feeling supported, and like you have a place to come to find the hope and inspiration you need to take your next small step forward. For more information and resources, please visit my website how we can heal.com There you'll find tons of helpful resources and the full transcript of each show. You can also click the podcast menu to submit requests for upcoming topics and guests. I look forward to hearing your ideas
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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