hypnosis: tried it to stop, try it to shop, believe in it....

[mykell]

So ive read all different threads about purging, quitting, anxiety while shopping or wandering into the reality of the "real" world...

the facts I've heard about it if in fact you can be hypnotized has been that you wont be made to do anything you dont normally do.
I want to shop without the anxiety, guy or girl mode would it help, want to go out and about one day could it help.

anyone ever used it to try and stop CDing after a purge or at all even, quitting smoking was a big thing for this a while back,
was just wondering about its possible usefulness....

[Princess Grandpa]

I'm probably not the best one to comment on this. I am still very uneasy in the mainstream public as Rita. That being said I don't think you really need hypnosis to become comfortable. Repetition is the key. Fake it until you make it. Act like your comfortable even though your insides are in knots and go out again and again. One day you will realize "hey I really am comfortable now!" It is probably the only really effective means of getting past our fears.

If you do choose to go out be safe. Remember all the safety tips you would give your daughter or any other young lady's hey apply doubly to us.

Hug
Rita

[Kate Simmons]

We can only be hypnotized as much as we are willing to be. It's a form of mental programming really.:)

[Tracii G]

Hypnosis is not something I would want done to me. Two people in my head is enough.

[Edyta_C]

Hypnosis might help you. For example, hypnosis by itself can only ease an attempt to cease smoking. This will help a person who wants to quit. It does not remove the desire to smoke. For CDing, at least for me, the need or desire to CD could not be wholly overridden by hypnotic suggestion. If I really wanted to stop, hypnosis might help, but not be the fix!

For confidence building in going out I would think that hypnosis would aid one in showing the confidence in one's presentation. Of course if you just look a "guy in a dress", a hypnotic suggestion might produce some undesired mental side effects when people laugh at you.

Overall I do not think that hypnosis can do much. Edy

[Ressie]

I think we hypnotize ourselves all the time. It's really facinating to me. If you believe everyone in the store is watching you shop in the ladies dept., you've convinced yourself this is true, but it isn't really true is it? Believing any propaganda without searching for the facts is a form of hypnosis IMO.

You may believe you could never stop CDing, but isn't it possible that you could? People put the word "can't" into their heads themselves. Face your fears and anxiety will go away.

[Beverley Sims]

Hypnosis does not work with me.

Self hypnosis is all I engage in. :)

[mariehart]

Hypnosis is a form of acting, role play if you like. I did some small acting parts in my time and while I approached some with anxiety. I performed quite well because in the context of the situation on a movie set where pretending to be someone else and expressing emotions different to what you're feeling is normal. You play along because not doing so will make you look ridiculous.

It's similar with stage hypnosis. People become caught up in the atmosphere and go for it because they have permission to do so and it's expected. The hypnotist is a facilitator.

But you have to do most of the work. As ressie says, people hypnotise themselves all the time in one form or other. You take on the role you are assigned. So if you're cop you act like a cop when on duty. Hopefully you stop acting off duty.

I think it might work for you. I think it might work for me. The fact that you want it to work and believe the hypnotist is going to help you achieve that is half the battle.

[BLUE ORCHID]

Hi Mikell, Crossdressing is like the Mafia, You just can't quit.

[Amanda M]

Mikell - It is most likely that hypnosis can help with your anxiety. If you think about it, your anxiety is mild form of phobia, similar to fear of flying. Hypnosis,combined with a situational desensitization approach would be ideal. As for stopping smoking, I have been able to help many hundreds of people in that department.

As you may know, I am a psychotherapist who uses hypnosis quite often in my practice!

[mykell]

Amanda i did not know your specialty but was looking for this type of response, although now im fairly comfortable buying things for mikell in person, i read how some could use help, shopping, going out, sort of a permanent "mothers helper" (the rolling stones).
if the day ever comes im sure the anxiety of mikell being out and about will be a guarantied nail biter, wouldn't mind help if its available,
wondered if any parents may have forced this type of treatment on a member when younger to "fix" they're baby,
and the whole stigma of hypnosis being like a magic trick and staged,

but helping 100's stop smoking is convincingly credible isnt it......


Hi Mikell, Crossdressing is like the Mafia, You just can't quit.
no worries, Im not even close to quitting the team....I celebrate it now....wondered if others tried but failed, cause you really didnt want to quit, just felt desperate...


Hypnosis is not something I would want done to me. Two people in my head is enough.
three's a party tracii....

[suzy1]

Hypnosis is very like acupuncture and other forms of ‘alternative medicine’
If you really believe that it works then it woks. Its amazing what the placebo affect can do!

[Gocaps14]

I use subliminal affirmations for self-esteem daily. I believe it helps. Whether it will help with your specific areas, I am not sure. YouTube has a lot of stuff and I generally trust the content. I also believe a search of crossdressing specific content would deliver porn more than quality material. Look for the behavior you wish to modify and I think you will find some useful stuff.

[Hermana]

I studied hypnotherapy some years ago. It does not have a lot to do with stage hypnotism. The stage hypnotist always - always - puts the audience through some simple tests to find the one or two people in every hundred who are highly vulnerable to suggestion and who of course are also willing to go up on stage knowing full well they may really and truly be asked to cluck like a chicken and lay an egg, or whatever. I have heard one stage hypnotist tell some of we fellow hypnotists that he was dreading doing his next show because the audience was only going to be 50 or 60 persons at some corporate dinner so the odds were going to be against him finding even one person who was both highly susceptible and willing to volunteer to go on stage. That's the reality for stage hypnotists and it does require a degree of self-confidence to start a show knowing in advance that 98-99% of your audience won't make the cut. Of course you will have never heard of this, for the stage hypnotist isn't about to give away the "secret" of her success... and we hypnotists never speak of it in public (...oops!)

Hypnotherapists are a different breed. We do not need and do not portray the dominant role of our stage cousins. My particular study was termed Suggestive Hypnotherapy which requires the development of a rapport between yourself and your client. And the client in an atmoshere of earned trust will open his or her mind to what is otherwise known simply as the power of suggestion. So it works. But the commitment is on the part of the client, there is no magic in it. If the suggestions go against the client's moral code or strongly held beliefs, it ain't gonna work!

IMHO, a lot of wise comments have been said by everybody in this thread. Take what works for you on board, Mikell.

Having said all that, I bow to Amanda M's greater knowledge, for I didn't study psychology beyond first-year university, but last year at 68 years young, I did get a Bachelors with sociology major, anthropology minor which hopefully might mean something to somebody, being the humanities. I was older than almost all of the lecturers, apart from one or two wonderfully endearing old fossils whom you just had to love.

Love

[Cheryl T]

Hypnosis is not something I would want done to me. Two people in my head is enough.


I agree completely with Tracii.
As I tell people, I used to be Schizophrenic, but We're ok now!

[Wiccle]

You just have to go out when you're comfortable & think "sod it!". Time of week helps.

Maybe next time (if there is one) where someone says I can't go in a changing-room I'll challenge it. Might depend on their accent though.

Wic

[Hermana]

Perhaps the issue with anxiety is not so much about the specifics of stepping out in "proper" (cross-dressed) attire, but more to do with the need for a greater sense of general self-confidence in who we are overall. Some years ago I sold my own hypnotherapy CDs aimed at boosting self-confidence (BTW this is NOT a commercial) because IMHO if we can develop a sense of adequacy and a sense that we have as much right to be respected as anybody else in the world, then provided we ourselves give the same respect and have good manners, things generally work out when we step out dressed as we wish. Things work out because I am not talking about the 1% of brainless cretins who would annoy you because that is their way, but the 99% of people who are more tolerant.

I know this to be true, and when I am a bit more used to this forum which I am new to, I could share years of the most interesting experiences, of astonishingly positive reactions to the physical manifestations of my feminine side. And actually the ultimate compliment is when your friends cease to comment on your dress sense and only see the true inner you.

If you step out with confidence, interact with confidence, then people in general may not even notice your (in my own case) visible bra outline under tight thin white top with D cup projection on a lean body.

I should probably admit to an advantage. As a late bloomer into lingerie and showing off a lovely bust line, I had no childhood negative memories to hold me back, and the knowledge that I had been a successfully functioning adult for quite some time certainly helped me in the early times when I was wondering what the hell I was doing, going out dressed like "this"...

Another suggestion for you Mikell: your opening post hints that you may be focusing your internal "self-talk" on the negative side of anxiety. I could be wrong with that assumption. I suspect that is probably the kind of affirmation that is not good for you. I suggest, why not instead, by your constant use of deliberate internal self-talk, tell yourself how confident you are and how good it is to step out en femme and be accepted as the good person you are. Some of us in the world know how to do that naturally, and some of us (like me) had/have to work at it.

Is that amateur psychology? Yup. Is that self-hypnosis? Yup (some of we hypotherapists say that "everything is hypnotism"). But I ask, where is the possible negative in simply focusing on the capability to function socially?

Love