Hypno-psychotherapist Daniel Nightingale, who earned a doctorate in psychotherapy in the United Kingdom, can’t control a person’s mind through hypnosis. He can’t make a person cluck like a chicken. As a matter of fact, he can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do, because in clinical hypnosis, the patient is always in control.
Nightingale, and his wife Kathleen, recently opened Nightingale Hypnosis at 4 W. Buffalo St., Warsaw. While Kathleen is a native Western New Yorker, Daniel’s homeland is England. The couple moved to Wyoming County in September after a four-year stint in Arizona. Daniel first opened his practice in Orchard Park, but the long trek from their home in Portageville during the Western New York winter prompted the move closer.
Although both use hypnosis to help heal a multitude of symptoms – it will also help with smoking cessation and weight loss – Daniel’s speciality is in dementia.
“My drive here is to cut the risk of dementia,” he said, “and smokers have got three times the risk of getting dementia than anyone else.”
Daniel trained for four years in the U.K. in hypno-psychology. However, he said one really doesn’t start learning until you begin to gain experience.
“I qualified in practice in 2002 and was U.K.’s first clinical dementia specialist. While I was there I was involved in its National Dementia Strategy and I was responsible for the dementia care for 800 care homes in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales.”
When he first qualified, he worked in forensic medicine with offenders – serial killers, rapists and the like – in the U.K.. During that time, he was asked to cover geriatrics for six months. At first, he didn’t want the position, however, he said he was told he was going to be covering geriatrics.
“I didn’t want to do it at first, but what happened was I discovered how awful the care was for the elderly and people with dementia. After the six months were up, I was to go back to that really ‘sexy’ area of forensic medicine. However, I said no. I decided to retrain and specialize in dementia and start changing things.”
U.K.’s National Dementia Strategy is a nationwide effort to educate citizens on dementia and improve public spaces for those living with dementia. The strategy encompasses a community effort from a variety of organizations and the commitment of its residents. The effort extends from education to details like sign colors. Nightingale says people with dementia tend to lose the ability to see colors at the low end of the spectrum.
He also likens the treating of dementia with the fire triangle. Whereas fuel, oxygen and heat propel a fire, with dementia, anxiety and fear fuel memory loss.
“Just think about it. Every morning you wake up and look in the mirror and the fact you’re looking at is a face you don’t recognize anymore. The house that you live in, the one you’ve live in for 40 years and you’ve been married to the same person for 40 years, and all of the sudden it’s like ‘Who the hell are you?' and 'What is this stuff?’
“Every day I see it perpetuate. You’re in this constant state of fear and anxiety and throughout the course of the day this anxiety builds up and builds up. So, you’re symptoms of not being able to remember things or not being able to do something deteriorates throughout the day.”
Nightingale says hypnotherapy alleviates those symptoms. It relieves that anxiety so the person becomes more alive and empowered to start doing things again. Therefore, the anxiety and fear are what needs to be dealt with when working with people with dementia. While hypnotherapy is not a cure-all for the disease, it has been shown to slow down its progress and there are tools that can reverse some of the symptoms.
“Coconut oil has been shown to reverse some symptoms and repetitive muscular activity exercises, a form of Montessori therapy, is used to lay down new neuron pathways in the brain so the person relearns some of the skills they have lost.”
One of the research projects Nightingale was involved with was in a nursing home where none of the patients were able to feed themselves. About 45 minutes before the meal, repetitive muscular activity exercises were performed. On day four and day five and day six, the researchers noticed some of the patients started eating by themselves again.
“What you’ve done, because of the activity, you’ve laid down new neuron pathways in the brain. We also know the hippocampus – memory center of the brain – from the around the age of 40 shrinks every year. Walking and adult coloring stops that because people are using, and concentrating on using, their brain. There is so much people don’t know about dementia. I want to make Warsaw a dementia-friendly town.”
Hypnosis is a tool quite often used in forensic medicine to tap into issues that are deep-rooted at an emotional level. And while hypnosis is not meditation, it is a deep-seated state of relaxation.
“There are similarities with meditation as far as the state of relaxation is concerned and we take you to wherever your special place is – whether it’s in a forest, on a beach, a room, or on a ship or wherever that may be – and that’s where we start doing the work.”
He likened the deep state of relaxation to opening the door between the conscious and the subconscious mind.
“It’s kind of like a sliding glass door and you have to open that door to get into your subconscious mind. But always sitting on top of that door is what we call the critical factor – a hidden observer – so that if I were to take you to a deep state of relaxation and I were to say to you ‘What’s your bank account number?’ or ‘What is your pin number to your credit card?’ The critical factor says ‘This is wrong’ and you come out of it.”
He says it’s the brain’s safety mechanism and that is why clinical hypnosis is safe. Not only can Nightingale not make you do anything you don’t want to, the brain also resists suggestibility.
“I may get you raise your hand or touch your nose, but you know you are doing it. It’s a very safe form of treatment. In England we use it a lot. Every psychiatrist is trained to use it. I find that that’s not the case here in the U.S.”
Because the U.K. has socialized medicine, Nightingale says physicians have to be careful about the cost of treatments. The first line of defense for many illnesses is hypnotherapy – depression is first treated with six vouchers to go to the gym once a week, not an antidepressant. There are many illnesses where the first-line treatment is not pharmacological.
If the hypnosis is done correctly, the patient should be able to float in and out of consciousness and at any time be able to get up and walk out the door.
“When we work with smokers, we do put a suggestion in the subconscious mind. In big, bold, red letters we put the word ‘stop.’ When you get the urge to smoke, this word will flash in your mind and as soon as that word flashes into your mind, the craving will go away. There is only 10 percent that you think, feel, see, and do at the conscious level, 90 percent is done at the subconscious level – Kathleen would say 95 percent.”
When working with someone with a deep-rooted psychological problem they may have been experiencing some issues but not know why. Hypnotherapy opens the subconscious mind and brings forward the negative experiences which have manifested into daily complications for the patient. Yet, even with hypnosis the subconscious mind will only bring forward what the person is ready to handle, but this type of therapy can help the client begin to recognize where the issues lie and then begin to work through it.
What hypnotherapy does is treat the issue quickly and for the long-term with no side-effects.
“Well, there is one. If you come out of hypnosis too quickly, you may experience a bit of dizziness but it goes away quickly.”
Like any kind of therapy, the patient has to find some inner strength to get through the underlying reasons for the feelings. Nightingale can get a person to a certain place where they actually have to deal with the issue. That’s the most difficult part. Some people just can’t deal with the issue and stop therapy. It’s a typical thing to happen, which is why he also uses cognitive behavior therapy, reiki, and a dementia risk assessment as a part of treatment.
Although his Warsaw office recently opened, he is already working with the Office for the Aging, teamed up with the Alzheimer’s Caregivers Partnership, and has joined the Wyoming County Chamber of Commerce.
For more information about Nightingale Hypnosis visit docdan.us, email him at info@docdan.us or call (585) 416-2032.
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April 26, 2017 at 09:17AM
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