Hypnosis is like seeing ghosts, you don’t believe it until you experience it on your own. Who would’ve thought that it could also be applied to stress management? Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist and a Certified Hypnotherapist, Steven Ortgiesen joins us this episode to talk about his practice. He shares the fundamentals of hypnosis to make everyone aware of its effects and dives deep into can help change undesired habits and improve performance in all areas of life.
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Hypnosis For Stress Management With Steven Ortgiesen
My guest is Steve Ortgiesen a certified registered nurse anesthetist and a certified hypnotherapist. Steve, welcome.
Thank you, I’m glad to be here with you.
Maybe explain a little bit a registered nurse anesthetist. Clarify what you do there and then let’s talk about hypnotherapy.
I’m a retired nurse anesthetist. What a nurse anesthetist does is provide anesthesia care. It’s the same care that a physician anesthesiologist gives. When you go to the hospital and need an operation and need anesthesia, a nurse anesthetist provides that for you. They provide more than half of the anesthesia care in the United States. People don’t realize it. In fact, people say, “Doctor.” I say, “No, I’m a nurse anesthetist.” We’ll have a conversation and then when the conversation is finished, they’ll say, “Thank you, doctor.” I’m like, “Whatever.” People couldn’t understand.
In that job, you learned quite a bit about helping people dealing with pain and that is somewhat related to your role as a hypnotherapist too. Do you want to start by explaining that?
I’ll tell you a couple of things. One, whenever someone comes to me as a hypnotherapist, they’re coming to me because of pain. It may not be physical pain. It may be something that’s bothering them, so it’s a type of mental pain. I have to emphasize that I’m not a mental healthcare provider or a therapist of any kind. Through hypnotherapy, I can still help people with everyday problems. At the hospital, I also am helping people with both types of pain again. They’ll come to the hospital to have surgery. Often, people are worried, concerned, and thinking about the worst possibility. I use my skills as a hypnotherapist in my profession as a nurse anesthetist to help them to realize that things are going to be okay that they’re going to be cared for. They need to think about the desired outcome from their procedure. The outcome that they’ll be able to maybe walk better again or be able to be rid of the pain that they were having.
I help them deal with their concerns and to see things in a more positive light rather than worrying about what might happen. Instead of worrying about those things, think about what they would like to have happened and how what’s likely to happen. As you know we tend to worry about things, we tend to worry about, “What if this? What if that?” When in reality, those what-ifs probably are not going to happen. In reality, things work out and if things don’t work out, what do most people do? We deal with it. I help people to see things in that light. I help them to maybe visualize things. Help them to relax, teach them some relaxation techniques right there before we go back to the operating room. Even as we go off to sleep in the operating room, I will talk to them in quiet tones. Help them to visualize something pleasant and maybe imagine a future where it’s weeks and months past this operation. They’re back to their normal life and things are good and help them to see that.
As they go off to sleep, they’re feeling pleasant instead of worried and how do you wake up? What’s the first thing that you feel when you wake up in the morning? When you’ve been feeling good about something, you remember that wonderful feeling. As opposed to, if you go to bed concerned, angry or scared, you wake up that same way. It’s important and it makes a huge difference for my patients in the hospital. They often will thank me and say, “I’m still dreaming that I’m up at the reservoir fishing or I’m on a beach somewhere, I’m still there, it’s wonderful.” They’re thankful for those things. Looking at things from a more positive angle can make such a difference in a person’s life. That transfers to all aspects of our life. I’ve seen this as an anesthetist in the hospital using these other skills.
That is exactly what I was thinking. I can well believe how it would benefit your patients, but I’m also thinking of parents, especially parents who have a child with special needs. Everything you said, focusing on what you want, learning to relax, can you talk a little bit more about how hypnosis and relaxation work together?
As parents, we sometimes lose our patience. We sometimes feel guilty that we’re not doing something we think we should be doing. Sometimes we get caught up in things. We might be upset with ourselves because we didn’t handle something a certain way. We might get angry, even angry at our kids or angry at the situation that we’re in. Sometimes it’s good to pause for a moment, think about that time when you were angry or upset over something and stop and think about that for a moment.
Think about that situation, and maybe visualize yourself in that particular situation. Think about an alternative way, see yourself in that situation and then remove yourself and your mind from that situation. Looking down at yourself from a distance in your mind in that same situation and noticing how you looked and how you felt. Maybe the expression on your face, an expression on the face of the person or the child you were talking with. See how that looked and then do it again but this time from that observer position, see how you might have handled that and see how you might have dealt with it in a more thoughtful way. There’re always alternatives to how we deal with stuff.
It's a marvelous thing to see the change in people when they suddenly realize that they are worth it and are capable of things. Click To TweetNotice the difference handling in a different way and notice how that feels. You can think of other times when you’ve reacted perhaps in a way that you didn’t feel good about. You can rehearse those ideas in your mind. As you do that, you start to learn, “I can deal with things in a different way and I’m a human being, sometimes I make mistakes.” Rather than dwell on the fact, “I blew it, I’m terrible.” Instead think, “What have I learned from the way I’ve behaved in the past, the way I’ve reacted to things?” Look at the alternatives, “I can do this.” As you rehearse those better ideas in your mind, it starts to become part of you. When you do something like this while in hypnosis, it reprograms the mind and the brain to act in a different way. That’s something that a person can do themselves too. As many people probably do not realize is that all hypnosis is self-hypnosis.
Most people have their experience of hypnosis is when they see a stage performance. The hypnotist comes to a school or some event and does a performance and has volunteers come up. I would like you to distinguish between that and hypnotherapy.
We use the word hypnosis. Some people do hypnosis to help people in a therapeutic way. I refer to themselves as a hypnotist or as a consultant hypnotist. I prefer to use the term hypnotherapists because the way I use hypnosis is in a way to help people with their everyday issues and problems. I prefer to use the word therapist, even though I’m not a mental healthcare provider or a counselor, I still feel that the word therapist clarifies what it is I do. As opposed to using hypnosis for entertainment. Hypnosis for entertainment can be fun. It’s a good thing but that’s not using it to help someone. It’s using it more for entertainment to get people to do funny things.
People that are volunteers on these stage shows are doing the things that they’re doing because they want to do those things. They’re not going to do anything that’s against their will and that’s true in all types of hypnosis. A hypnotist can never get a person to do something that they wouldn’t do in their normal life. It’s important to realize that you’re never going to do anything in hypnosis that would compromise your beliefs or your morals. I couldn’t make you do something in hypnosis that you wouldn’t do in normal life. I can’t say, “Go down and rob the bank and bring me the money.” That’s not going to happen because that’s against your morals.
One thing I wanted to mention is that we’re hypnotized all the time. You asked, “Can we be hypnotized involuntarily?” In fact, we are all the time. You may watch a commercial on television and maybe they’re targeting men, they are selling a beautiful truck. Next to the truck stands a beautiful woman who isn’t wearing a lot of clothing. It’s a nice commercial. You see this lovely lady standing there and then later the man might see that truck somewhere. He gets those same feelings that he had when he saw that commercial. Not realizing that it was the beautiful lady standing next to the truck that hypnotized him. It created feelings in his mind that once he saw that truck again, he had those same feelings. That’s a sales technique. That’s a form of hypnosis that we are involved in all the time.
What about daydreaming?
One example of hypnosis is what’s called highway hypnosis. Have you ever driven from one point to the next, maybe from Ogden to Salt Lake City? All of a sudden, you’re in Salt Lake and wonder, “Where did Clearfield and Layton go to? Where are they?” That’s a case of highway hypnosis. I was taught about that when I was in high school. That is an actual phenomenon and what happens there is your subconscious mind takes over the driving because you’ve done it so much. You’ve taken that route many times. You don’t have to think about it. Your conscious mind may be off thinking about whatever. Thinking about your plans or the meeting you’re about to go to where your subconscious mind is in control. If something were to happen on the freeway, if someone was to pull in front of you suddenly, you’d be alert. Your subconscious mind would say, “Hey.” You’d take care of the issue. It’s an interesting phenomenon that we experience all the time.
Another example of hypnosis that we experience all the time is, maybe you’re concentrating on a book and you’re into this book. Someone comes into the room and starts talking to you and you don’t even hear them. They have to tap on your shoulder to get your attention. That’s hypnotic state. You’re concentrated which hypnosis is, it’s a concentrated state. You’re focusing on something to the point where you’re not even aware of anything else, you’re too aware what you’re concentrating on. You see that with television. I remember one day I was at my daughter’s house and I was helping her move some things around and stuff. She had this show on television and I started watching it. I thought that’s a pretty funny show and I got involved in it and after a little while, I hear, “Dad.” I’m like, “What?” She was talking to me and I had no idea because I was concentrated on that show and that’s a form of hypnosis. We all experience hypnosis.
I can see how in this state you would learn faster. What you learned would have a greater impact. Is this what you’re using in hypnotherapy?
Yes, there are various ways to induce hypnosis on a stage. They usually do what we would call a surprise induction. Honestly, I’m not a stage hypnotist. I don’t know how to do it. I’m not interested in doing it but they use a different technique. They take a person suddenly into hypnosis. It’s possible to scare somebody into hypnosis. It’s a whole different subject, but when someone’s involved in an accident or a soldier is marching along or going along in some war area, and a bomb suddenly goes off. At that very moment, that’s a state of hypnosis. That’s how PTSD comes around. It is through that sudden hypnotic state, “Get me back on track. Where am I going with this?”
You are talking in stage hypnosis as opposed to hypnotherapy.
In stage hypnosis, hypnosis is usually induced in a quick manner. Whereas, at least in my practice I prefer to help a person relax into a hypnotic state, much as it is when you go to bed at night. As you lie down to go to bed, what do you do? You begin to relax and you let your mind stop thinking about things. You gradually become more and more relaxed until you finally fall asleep. That’s the same thing that I do in hypnosis. I talk to my clients about allowing their bodies to relax. I take the time to help them think about some relaxing scenes somewhere. What this does is grow out your relaxation. It helps them to enter that stage of sleep. Even though hypnosis is not sleep, I’m going to refer to this as sleep. They enter the REM stage.
It’s in the REM stage where we dream and that’s also the stage where the state of hypnosis is found. I find it relaxing people into that pre-sleep stage, it’s effective for people. At that point, you’re able to speak to the subconscious mind as opposed to the conscious mind. The conscious mind is the part of the mind that we think with on a daily basis. We think about our problems. We think about doing math. We think about our daily tasks. That’s the thinking part. The subconscious mind is the largest part of our minds. It’s 90% compared to the 10% that our conscious mind consists of.
The subconscious mind is the part of the mind that basically keeps our body running. The subconscious mind is responsible for our heartbeat, for our breathing, for all of the subconscious functions that go on in the body. The subconscious mind is there to protect us and it causes us to act based on what it believes. That’s an important part of how hypnosis works. A person may grow up believing that they’re bad at math because they’ve been told they were bad at math. They may believe that they’re not smart because maybe as a child they heard, “You’re not good enough to anything or you’re not smart,” or “When will you ever learn? When will you start behaving?” They take these things in as a small child because they don’t have a firm belief system about themselves yet. The subconscious mind takes what it’s given. It doesn’t think about, “Is this wrong or right?” It’s only, “I’m not smart.” It starts working hard to make sure that you’re not smart.
Does the subconscious store all data and anything that’s ever happened to us? We may not have in our conscious mind but it’s there in our subconscious?
The good, the bad, the ugly. It’s too bad we couldn’t use that for exams and remember all that stuff, but it’s there. We’d all be smart. We can get wrong ideas about ourselves because of past programming. It’s not just as a child. People who maybe don’t have high self-esteem or that are very suggestible, from time to time, they hear people say negative things about them. They take those things in and believe them. In hypnosis, one way to put it is we can debunk those things. We can reprogram the subconscious mind to get rid of those incorrect ideas, those old outdated ideas that are untrue.
You allow the client to see their worth, to see that they are smart, they are capable.
It’s a marvelous thing to see the change in people when they suddenly realize that they are worth it, they are capable of things. It’s a funny thing, a person may experience hypnosis in my office and not think that anything has happened. They sometimes will think, “I wasn’t even hypnotized.” As they go about the next day and the following days, they see subtle changes start to happen. They suddenly think, “I’ve improved in this way. I see things in a whole better light.” Sometimes they might say, “I didn’t need your help after all because I got better.”
These changes have happened through a reprogram from using the techniques of hypnosis. It’s something that has been done for eons. Hypnosis has been used with tribal people. They didn’t call it hypnosis but they would go to the wise woman or the wise man and they would talk to him about things. They would probably tell stories and stories are a good way to access the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind loves metaphor and I use a lot of metaphors in my practice with people.
I’m thinking of an example, a lot of times parents will find that they have fallen into a behavior pattern like getting their child ready for school. They can see the time the child should be getting ready. The child isn’t getting ready. They start filling themselves and get frustrated. They fall back on that old reliable, yell at the child. That doesn’t help. If anything, that makes the child slow down. They can recognize, “I have this behavior pattern that’s not getting me what I want.” How could hypnosis be used to change a behavior pattern?
According to me, it’s quite simple. What I would do in hypnosis is, I would help them to rehearse the desired behavior. It sounds simplistic but it is an effective way to make change and this is true, not only for that specific situation.
Don’t athletes use this?
Sadly, people that are perfectionists often don't see the good things that they do because they focus on their failures. Click To TweetEven through meditation a person can put themselves into a meditative state and imagine themselves in the future dealing with issues. In the way they desire and what they want. Athletes absolutely use those techniques to make those baskets, to run that football around the opponents.
You would guide them in visualizing themselves as remaining calm and gently encouraging the child.
Certainly, and also realizing that you’re not perfect. Don’t even think about it because you’re a human being. You’re going to mess up, you’re going to get angry sometimes. You’re not going to go through your life being 100% perfect. It’s not going to happen.
Would you also guide them on focusing on what they’re doing well and not just the mistakes they’re making?
That was another point I wanted to make because some people, they’re a perfectionist. Sadly, people that are perfectionists often don’t see the good things that they do. They’re more concerned about, “I didn’t get that right.” They focus on their failures as opposed to the many marvelous things that they do.
While you don’t have any children with special needs, you’ve worked with other families. You have a lot of respect for these parents who do not have an easy assignment.
Especially in the hospital, now and then, I would have children and some of these people are 30-year-old children with these special needs with these issues where they have to be cared for 24/7. I see what these parents have to go through. I understand that their job is difficult and they have to be saints to do what they do. I understand too that a lot of guilt can come with this job because sometimes they feel like they’re not saintly. They do have emotions, they do get upset, they do feel they could do better. People need to realize that they’re not going to be perfect. The main thing is they’re doing their best. That’s what I see. I see these parents with these children and to be honest, I marvel at how they do it. I’m glad that I’m not in that situation because I see that it’s very challenging. For many people that is their life as I see it and they have my praises.
If one of these parents wanted to come in to help reduce their stress level, to help them change some behavior patterns, how would that be accomplished in one session, would that take longer? Can you give us a general idea?
I see people from between three to six sessions. Even with the first session, changes do happen. I teach people techniques and I use some of the things I’ve already talked about. We use visualization of future situations in hypnosis. There’s a difference between doing something in hypnosis and meditating or thinking through things. When we use hypnosis, we’re programming the mind in a positive way. It’s a few sessions and within three to six sessions I’m able to help a person make the changes that they want to make.
My understanding is that you’re forming a partnership with them. You’re sharing your skills. They’re coming with the desire to change.
We do work as a team. I am there to guide you into hypnosis. All hypnosis is self-hypnosis. I’m there to help you do it. When I do hypnosis with you, you’re doing it, I’m guiding you into it. I’m showing you how and I always teach all of my clients how to do self-hypnosis.
One thing that impressed me with your approach is that it is very individualized. You know the clients you work with. Do you want to explain a little bit about your approach?
I took the time to get to know my clients, let them talk as much as they want to. I have to keep reiterating that I’m not a counselor. I’m not a mental healthcare practitioner. I do let people talk to me and I schedule them for two hours for each session. They don’t have to stay for two hours but our sessions last two hours.
You may not be a mental healthcare provider but you are a caring human being.
I don’t want to say distinction because I don’t want to say I’m doing anything different from anyone else. It’s just that in my particular practice, I feel it’s important to get to know my clients and for them to get to know me. Letting them talk gives me ideas on how I can help them. The better I know my clients, the better I’m able to fit my care to their needs.
You have an office in Ogden and you have been a hypnotherapist for a number of years but you also can help people over the phone, is that correct?
It’s true. I have clients as far away as Moscow, Russia. It’s the same thing. It’s nice when we can be there one-on-one, face-to-face. It can also be done not just over the phone. We have things like Skype and other ways that help us see one another. If someone isn’t able to come to my office then I am happy to help them through other wonderful means we have in this day and age.
When you think about it during the actual session, they would be in your office with their eyes closed listening to your voice which could also happen over the phone.
That’s right and that’s in during the hypnosis part. Normally, what we do is talk for a while and see how things are going. Discuss whatever my client wants to discuss and once we’re through with those things at that point then we do some hypnosis.
It sounds to me like you’re helping a lot of people, it sounds great and thank you so much for sharing all of this good information. Do you have any other comments or thoughts you want to share?
I did have another thought and it’s this one thing that I found in almost every single one of my clients and every one of us have what I refer to as primal human needs. There are some of the basic needs that if they’re not being met, we start to have problems. I always go over these things with my clients and help them to help themselves find ways to meet some of these needs. With parents that have children that have these special needs, I am sure that they find themselves lacking in these primal human needs. There are things such as the need to be giving and receiving attention, to be spending time with someone. Being able to talk to someone and someone talking back to them, that’s an important thing and the need to take care of themselves. Take care of their body and their mind. We have a habit of working into the midnight hours and eating poorly and not getting proper sleep. When we don’t do that, we start to have various issues not just physical ones but mental ones as well. Everyone needs to feel that they have a purpose and meaning in life. That’s something important. If you don’t feel you have a purpose or you don’t have goals then you start to suffer in different ways.
Hypnotherapy can help with that. I know what you’re describing is common for all parents but especially parents with children with special needs. They pretty much lose themselves in caring for their child and they don’t get enough sleep. They’re often sleep-deprived.
People need to realize that they're not going to be perfect. The main thing is they're doing their best. Click To TweetSometimes that can’t be helped because of the needs of these children. It’s one thing to say we needed to work on getting more sleep but sometimes it’s for some people not even possible. I understand that and then feel like you’re making a contribution to society, in some way to the community. There’re different ways of doing that.
Quite often they get a lot of criticism if they’re out in public and their child is having a meltdown, they may get comments about, “Can’t you control your child?”
I was in a big store in Canada and there was a child in front of me who was obviously mentally challenged and he was creating a little bit of a scene and saying strange things. I realized what was going on. I was patient, I didn’t give the dad any looks or anything like that. I understood what was going on. That can be embarrassing for parents because a lot of people don’t get it. They don’t understand that thing. A few other things I did want to mention about these human needs because I feel they’re important. I discuss these with all of my clients. The need for some challenge and expressing creativity in some way and we all need that. There’s a need for intimacy in the sense that we need someone that we can talk with, someone we can talk about our hopes, fears and dreams. Someone who will listen to us, somebody who cares.
Another big one is the need for control. I’m sure that these parents often feel they have no control over their lives with these kids. It’s important to explore ways to get some sense of control. Sometimes all you can control is maybe your health, control your diet or control various things. Some sense of control needs to be found in a person’s life and a sense of status. People need to feel they have an importance in some way. These parents need to realize that they do have an important status in the life of this child, caring for them. There are other ways that you can feel a sense of status. In your work, you may feel that you’ve got a certain sense or you may feel you’re nobody. Depending on what job situation you’re in but everybody has a certain status. One needs to realize that one does have an important role in someone else’s life.
For me, these parents it’s for that kid. A sense of safety and security and that involves many different things. It may be monetary. It may be physical safety and security. Those were nine different things and when those are lacking you can start to feel all kinds of negative emotions. Those are things that I feel are important for people to look at and see what they’re lacking and explore ways to meet those needs. Those basic needs are something that if you fulfill those needs, you’ll be feeling much better as a person.
Finding a way to fulfill those needs, even if it’s organizing the utensil drawer in your kitchen.
If that’s the only thing you have control over, that’s what you do. At least that’s something.
Thank you so much, Steve. This has been very helpful.
I’m glad that I’ve been able to be at help.
I appreciate your time.
You too. Thank you very much.