Just Who Are You Employing to Help You with Your Mental & Physical Health?

Today I am going to speak to how one goes about choosing a professional to work with, especially in the areas of life that truly matter such as health, career, and spirituality.

There are so many people out there claiming to be able to help you with some very deep and important aspect of your life, however, all too many either are burned out or incompetent. So, how can you tell who you can trust and who is unworthy of your trust - emotionally even more so than the financial investment you may be asked to make in the services rendered?

The first thing that one has to ask oneself self when searching for these soft services is the "Why" behind why the person is in the career that they have gotten into. Because, this is something that is so very important because many people will go into a profession believing that they can make a whole lot of money in that profession. I am going to share a personal story of my own to prove this to you based on a person who saw something in my own stories of care for my own clients when I was totally underemployed, and still gave a damn about my clients - both elders and before them the severely mentally ill meaning folks who dropped out of school in their teens due to schizophrenia, paranoia, major addictions, etc.

I am going to bring you back to the American Board of Hypnotherapy Convention back in 2003. It was the first hypnosis convention I had been to about a year after I began my practice in hypnotism. I figured by that time I could learn much more from the presenters than if I was brand new and had no idea whose presentations to take part in. It was a great decision.

Inside the convention space, a bookstore was set up with all the great books on hypnotism, CDs of wonderful hypnotic inductions by Tad James, and many of the presenters' materials.

I was speaking to the then office manager, Helen Rosen, of the Advanced Neuro Dynamics who was the organization putting on the convention. She had just listened to me tell her some of my client stories from my previous jobs and my dreams of how I could use the hypnotic arts to better help my clients. After sharing a couple of these stories, she told me that the company would love to have someone like me who actually cared so much about my clients represent their work as a trainee of their training company because so many people were getting into these training to make a ton of money without much thought as to the very deep impact hypnotist and neuro-linguistic practitioners can have in helping their clients totally transform their lives from the inside out for the better.

In these days where everyone feels they can earn millions of dollars charging outrageous fees before the person has even had a single paying client to speak to their expertise is worrying. This is especially true in the world of health care and mental health where there are many coaches who have overcome mental health or medical conditions who believe they can help you too. Some of them can indeed help you as 'healed healers' are the true healers out there (never, ever 'wounded healers as they are still wounded and will most likely project their issues onto you unknowingly). However, it is rather important that you find out what type of real-life experiences that person has had working under others to learn how to do the healing work. It is also important to note if they have any certifications or degrees that allow you to know that they are indeed competent. Lastly, you want to look at their websites to see articles that they have written regarding their area(s) of expertise and testimonials from previous clients speaking to their healing journey with the practitioner involved.

I myself am not a licensed anything - and don't want to hold a license because once one has a license doing what is mandatory to keep that license becomes the underlying decision-maker in most licensees minds - meaning those who have been licensed by a state government to practice NOT someone who says they are a licensed hypnotherapist because at least in the US as far as I know there is no legal paper backed by a governmental organization licensing anyone to be a hypnotherapist, a hypnotist, a practitioner of neuro-linguistic programming or even a coach - there are more types of certifications than you would want to wrap your head around, but there are NO government-endorsed licensing of any of these designations in the United States.

With licensing, unfortunately, many will say and do terrifically damaging things to their patients such as one of my clients who was merely asked if she EVER FELT SUICIDAL, and as a depressive, said 'yes.' For that answer, she got taken by the police to the nearest hospital for a mental status exam which turned into 10 hours of being asked the same questions by 3 different psychiatrists, the last one telling her at about 1 AM that she needed to make lemon-aid out of the lemons she was given. Because, she WASN'T SUICIDAL AT THE MOMENT SHE WAS BEING ASKED THAT QUESTION, NOT AT ALL. The whole situation was taken out of context to protect that psychiatric social worker's license. And, it was because of that horror show that Donna, became my client never wanting to deal with the conventional mental health system ever again. That is but one very extreme example of what licensed folks will do to supposedly protect their license. That social worker did not put into the context of her own question, Donna's answer - no indeed - she jumped to a terribly wrong decision and ended up traumatizing her now ex-patient in the process.

The other thing that one has to keep in mind especially in the world of hypnotism is that there are licensed medical and mental health professionals who will take a weekend course in hypnotism and try to use it on their patients. This rarely works as one is working in a whole other domain and a whole other paradigm of healing than that of the conventionally trained healthcare practitioner.

Please note that I do teach these folks in 1 or 2-day intensives individually taught to the specific pain points of my trainee's patients. Additionally, I mentor them for a year so they are receiving appropriate follow-up guidance as they learn how to work with their patients safely and effectively - quite different than a weekend course with many trainees and no mentorship afterward.

I include the mentorship because I can assure you that even with years of direct care under mental health professionals in the various venues I worked in previous to entering the world of hypnosis, there would be no way in hell that I would be able to astutely know which process or technique to use to help a particular client with a particular issue. This is something that needs to be learned as one directly works with clients under the direction of those who are proficient in these processes and techniques. I actually had 2 full years of mentorship before going it alone and that was with my 6 years of mental health experience, 6 years working with elders under geriatric nurses, and 1 1/2 years of nursing school already under my belt.

Secondly, you want to know the practitioner's WHY as Simon Sinek explains it because it is a person's WHY that is going to determine the depth and breadth of one's interest and motivation for doing the work that one does.

Third, you want to know that the person who is helping you is not burned out because burned-out people are generally bored and worse maybe have fallen into depression neither of which makes for an effective practitioner from which to receive treatment and guidance.

Lastly, you want to know that the person that you are employing is not taking you on as a client or patient because they are desperate to receive your money. I speak to the practitioners and coaches in the various training and conventions that I attend that the last thing that they ever want to do is to take on a client because they need the money. Because, from the practitioner's side, all too often that client is a very poor fit for the practitioner either in terms of the scope of care or the potential clash of personalities. I have in the past made this terrible mistake and trust me, one ends up with the most demanding and yet, under-invested in taking the steps necessary to alter their lives. It certainly isn't something I am proud of, yet, it is an important teachable point when others feel that there is no other way. Yes, there is another way and it is known as getting your butt out there to attract your ideal clients from the point of view of the practitioner.

These are all important points for one to consider whenever hiring someone to help you in areas where there is a lack of truly being able to assess the work of another - it's very different than an accountant, lawyer, or building contractor for example.

Vet the practitioner well. Ask the very hard questions that need to be asked and by all means, get to know the person before hiring them. Most will give you the opportunity for a free phone consultation because they too need to find out if you are a good fit and to allow you to ask any questions you may have of them.

Watch out if they are telling you that they can deliver everything under the moon to anyone who shows up - that is a pretty good indicator that they have no expertise and therefore you may be better served finding someone who has experience working with clients with similar issues as yourself.

If the practitioner tells you that they have yet to work with someone with your exact issue but are willing to take you on with your understanding that point, at least you have someone who is being totally honest with you and will do their very best to help you out. I have found myself in that particular situation many times with the more challenging types of clients I have since learned how to treat - never once have I told a client that I had experience working with a situation that I never had - and I still was employed by these folks. And, it was these folks who taught me what I needed to know to help so many others with similar issues to their own. As I said, it is indeed through practice that we learn what we need to as well as learning who our ideal clients are based on great results and our finding the particular issues to be interesting to work in.

Learning: Beware of who you are hiring in the soft skilled areas of coaching, hypnotherapy, NLP, and other non-state-licensed professions. A certification has NO legal recourse for you so take your time to discern the practitioner's "WHY" they are in business - most will have that in their personal story on their website as to WHY they got involved in the work they do.

Look for solid knowledge in their areas of specialization, check out their website for client stories of healing known as 'testimonials,' and take the time to have a free consultation call with the provider to make sure that you are a good fit with them both for the services you need to be rendered as well as having personalities that work well together. Because, from my experience, it isn't the loss of money invested that hurts as much as the emotional (and sometimes physical) harm that can be done by a person who is incapable of delivering the services being rendered no matter the reason why.

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