Cal: Hello everybody. Cal Banyan here, Cal Banyan's "Hypnosis, Etc." Once again, I'm back with Brenda Titus, and let me tell you today's topic, it's going to be interesting, we're going to talk about medical referrals and I just might get in a rant about something else that came up this week.
All right, let me tell you about Brenda. Brenda Titus is an up-and-comer in the profession. She has done 40 . . . this will be the 43rd Podcast hypnosis training video with us. She has been doing these videos now for two years, and . . . give or take . . . and I'll tell you what she's got a great background to be doing this work. She's got a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Sociology and a Master's Degree in Criminology. She's worked at a rape crisis intervention center or network or . . . I don't know what you'd call it exactly . . . and she's presented at the National Hypnotists' Convention. And most importantly, she helped supervise practice sessions in our certification courses - our 10 day, NGH Banyan supercourse for certification in hypnosis and hypnotherapy, and our Week of Power. She doesn't just talk the talk, she walks the walk. She's done many, many sessions. She does sessions . . . gobs of clients every week. How are you doing Brenda?
Brenda: I'm doing great Cal. Thank you so much for having me today, and let me introduce you all to Cal. Cal is the authority in hypnosis that works. He developed the "5-PATH" system of hypnotherapy, "7th Path Self-Hypnosis," and I can really say that because not only have I experienced "5-PATH," but I've also performed "5-PATH" with many clients. And as Cal said, I came straight from a whole other field, had no plan that I was going to be doing this, took Cal's classes, learned a lot from him, and here I am. And I'm thrilled to be here today to talk a little bit more about hypnosis, and so thank you so much for having me today, Cal.
Cal: Hey, I don't know I can be so excited about this, I mean . . . you know when I first started this if I thought I'd be doing 400 plus podcasts, I probably would have just passed out and said "forget about it." But somehow . . . I think it's because of fresh blood like you, fresh blood like Erika, and every co-host that's been fresh blood on the line . . . you bring a certain kind of energy and perspective that just keeps me excited about this stuff. That's what I think.
Brenda: Yes, I definitely agree. I think that that is a really important part, and why actually, we love to bring great topics here to the show, things where we go out. I know actually part of what we're going to talk about today is because I get out and I meet other new people who are interested and who have questions, and so then they come and they ask us, because then we know that we can ask you.
So today Cal, I wanted to talk a little bit about working with medical referrals. And I know that back a few months ago you had Reverend C. Scot Giles on, and I will remind everybody episodes 391, 395, and 396. Cal and Reverend Scot Giles actually talked about working with the medical field and getting referrals from the medical field, doing specific kinds of hypnosis. However Cal, someone actually did talk to me about this at the convention this summer. She said "You know, I'm just . . . " she was feeling very frustrated because she was getting a lot of "nos" from the medical community. She was going out and you know, she had clients that wanted to see her, wanted her assistance, and when she would send in their release to get authorization to see these clients, the doctors said "no."
So I wanted to talk today a little bit about: obviously sometimes "no" really does mean "no." And sometimes, it means that the doctors need to know more. So what do you think about that, Cal?
Cal: Well, I think this is a very important subject, and it depends where you live, isn't that right?
Brenda: Yes, good point. Yes.
Cal: Because before we can even begin this conversation, is, one of my "Banyanisms" is: If you can't afford to do it right, then you can't afford to do it. Because you do not want to be a hypnotist who's in jail, or going broke with legal expenses because you've been convicted or you're fighting a case of practicing medicine without a license. So you've got to know the laws where you work. And secondly, above all, you've got to put your client's needs first. So you cannot do anything that could possibly harm the client. So within that context, I'm setting you loose. What you got for us?
Brenda: All right, so like . . . well actually, and you brought up such a really important point which is you really need to know the laws where you are practicing. You need to know your stuff. You need to have good training, good background, know what you're doing, be professional. And the truth is that sometimes the doctor . . .you know, there's a reason that they are saying "no." And so sometimes, you really need to accept that "no," obviously. The doctor may have a history with that client. Maybe the client isn't telling you the whole story when they're saying that they want to come and see you. So you need to be aware of that. Maybe sometimes the reason the doctor is saying "no" is because they know more about the issue, the concern, the problem, than the client is actually telling you about.
Very important that you know your limits and your boundaries. Are there mental health issues that you need to be aware of with this client? Medical issues that are beyond, you know, obviously beyond your scope, because we don't do medical issues. We help normal, everyday people, with normal everyday problems, so be very aware of what is your scope. And the truth is, okay so let's say the doctor says "no." It could be a "no" for right now. And the truth is actually I had a client recently, someone called me and they wanted assistance with their 10 year old daughter and I was very good about having very limited scope of practice with this client; self-esteem, confidence, stress relief, etc., and the doctor said "no." And I had to accept that because the truth is that the girl was actually in more crisis than I was aware of. The mom just desperately wanted me to see her, but she wasn't telling me the whole story, and so the doctor said "No, not at this time," but we left the door open as well. Maybe with a little bit of maturity, maybe a little bit on her part . . . a little bit more maturity on her part, understanding what she was going through. Further down the road, maybe the door would be open for a release. So how about that, Cal?
Cal: I think that's an excellent perspective. I want to modify something you said just a little bit, and that is, in general, we work with normal everyday people with normal everyday problems, and in general, we don't work with medical issues. But sometimes, we do. Sometimes we do work with medical issues as a part of a team. And that team, when we get . . . a doctor to give us a referral, then in a way we're teaming up with that physician. For example, with pain. You should never work on pain without a physician's referral. Because pain is a very important symptom for a doctor to know how well treatment is going, or how severe the problem is, or where it is and this kind of thing. So you must be part of that treatment team if you've going to work with pain, for example. And there's other kinds of medical issues, hypertension, things like this that through working with hypnosis, removing stress and fears and these kinds of things, then we can help the person become healthier.
But, when we're doing that kind of work, it’s highly recommended and in some places, it's an absolute legal must, you must be working in conjunction with the individual's physician. Now also, you might work in conjunction with a psychiatrist or a psychologist. Now a psychiatrist is a medical doctor whose primary care circles around mental health issues, and a psychologist is not a medical doctor but, a clinical expert in mental health and mental illness. And I've worked with referrals from both of those professions also.
For example, with psychogenic illness. Many of you out there have heard me talk about the story of the blind boy, where with using "5-PATH," we were able to help regain this 15 year old teenager's sight. But, the sight loss was psychogenic. It means the problem started because of something that was going on subconsciously. So slight modification there, I just wanted to put it out, and please continue. I've got a couple more things to add.
Brenda: I appreciate you sharing that part Cal, because I want to be sure . . . you actually are clearly more advanced than me, more knowledgeable than me, and I didn't want to get that part wrong, because I do want to be so careful about when we are talking about medical parts. Because you know, obviously a lot of times actually when we do hypnosis, clients get better, you know, and sometimes there is either, you know, just like you said, psychogenic illness, or as we alleviate, you know emotional elements, then physical ailments actually clear up on their own. But I agree, working with a team, especially on certain issues, is so, so key.
Which is where we get to that next part that I wanted to talk about, which is, instead of when a doctor says "no," N-O, sometimes they need to know more about what's going on. K-N-O-W. Being a part of the team, okay? You want to talk to the doctors about your techniques, and how they can be beneficial for your client. That might actually turn it around so that you are a part of the team that is helping this client. Be sure that the doctor understands what your goals with the client are. What your client's goals are. Sometimes just by the doctor understanding what you do, how you do it, why it works, and how it can help the client ultimately, that may change their perspective on if they agree that it would be appropriate to release the client to see you or to work in a team effort to help the client.
And then I think again, going back and carefully framing the scope of your work, you know. In a situation like I said with this young girl, you know there was a little bit more going on with her and I said, "well, you know, but mom really wanted her help emotionally dealing with test anxiety." The doctor said "no, you're going to touch too many other things that I don't see how you can do it right now while she's dealing with some other emotional issues and physical issues." So he wasn't willing to do it at that time. But if you can carefully frame then, for the doctor to understand, you're doing stress relief, confidence work, what have you, that might help alleviate some of their concerns as well so that you know, we can get clients the help that they need.
And you know what's kind of interesting Cal, sometimes we help somebody, and we help alleviate pains or difficult things that they're going through, and we don't even realize. Jessie told me yesterday that I saw a woman, just a first session, we were doing some work with procrastination, she leaves, and her foot was miraculously healed. I guess she had some sort of foot pain; I didn't really know anything about it, never mentioned. But she felt amazing when she left, so she felt like she was on top of the world, so you know sometimes when we alleviate those emotional issues, physical symptoms will go away or feel alleviated too, which is kind of a neat thing. But we want the doctors that we're working with, if they say "no," sometimes we need to accept that "no" for the time being. Like I said, always educating, helping them know what we are there to do, maybe we will be part of a team to be able to assist that client as well. So how about that Cal?
Cal: Well, I think that's an excellent observation and we see it all the time. When I started doing hypnosis work, that included age regression, forgiveness work, and parts work, this really deep, insight-driven level that raally changes how they feel emotionally on the inside, funny things started happening. Someone had come in for a "Stop Smoking," and then they come in for a second session, and they've got a note from their physical therapist: "What did you do with my patient . . ." the note said, ". . . to alleviate his knee pain?" Well, I didn't work directly on knee pain. The knee pain was a side effect of whatever was going on inside of them that was causing them to not be able to stop smoking on their own.
With Loretta, one of the videos I show in class, a series of videos that I show in class, a series of videos I show, "5-PATH," she's coming in for confidence. Because she's going into a world of getting a new job, and having the confidence to do that, and what happens? Her chronic headaches go away. Now obviously, we don't have to get a doctor's referral for that kind of thing, it's just a wonderful thing that happens.
I want to put one more thing in there too. Sometimes if I don't believe I'm going to get a, because of a legal environment, a referral, then I will . . . and this is in our business start-up pack, with a series of letters and correspondence and things like that that we use with doctors and that kind of thing. But instead of asking for a referral, which for some doctors that's too much of an association with us, they don't know about hypnotherapy, they don't know us, and so they're not going to have that kind of maybe even liability of a referral. I ask for a notification. I say "I'm just checking with you to make sure that it's not contraindicated" which means in the doctor's view there's nothing about hypnosis that would interfere with the work they're doing, So it's not contraindicated. From what they know, the hypnosis work is not going to make things worse. So contraindicated is a step down from getting a referral.
And the other thing that's cool about contraindicated, is that it's a way for you to begin to educate the doctor. Even though the doctor might not be willing to do a referral, it gives you a notification of "not contraindicated." Now you've got the doors open to give them feedback on their patient and how well he or she is doing, which educates the doctor on the quality of your work, and your scope of practice, and what you can do.
Now there's one more step down from that, and that is you can just do a letter of professional courtesy and that is just to let them know. You're not asking for permission, you're not checking to see if it's contraindicated, and you could do this with just about anything your clients work on. If you want to start educating the doctors in your area, you can just send them a letter that says "Just as a matter of professional courtesy, I want to let you know that your patient so-and-so has contacted our office and will begin receiving hypnosis sessions for fill-in-the-blank." It might be stop smoking, or it might be confidence, or it might be stress relief. And then once you've sent that, then you've opened the door, to once again continue to educate the doctor and say, you know, at the end of the sessions, or three months later, or six months later, you can send that physician once again a letter, just a follow up. "Just a professional courtesy to let you know that your patient so-and-so came to my office, received sessions for such-and-such, and upon a three month follow-up, still remains free of this problem. Still remains free of stop smoking, has lost 30 pounds," or whatever it is. And that is a huge way to educate doctors and also get possible future referrals from them. What do you think of that, Brenda?
Brenda: Excellent. Perfect. I really hope that this addressed the questions that the person had come to me and talked to me about. I'm so sorry I didn't get your name, but we talked a few times over the weekend and so I hope that this all helped clear things up for you. And always remember for all of you, you can send me and Erika questions, either through the comments section here on calbanyan.com, on the Facebook page. Cal always, if we miss it, he'll make sure to always let us know too. So you know, if you guys have questions out there, it's so important. This is how Erika and I come up with content for these episodes is by getting those questions. Either in person, or out there through e-mail, different places, so please send in your questions.
And so Cal, before we wrap up, I know that you had something that you wanted to talk about that had come up recently. What do you think about talking about that for a couple of minutes?
Cal: I'm just going to spend a minute on this, maybe two. I tell you what. Let's work together to make our profession better. Both in the work we do, and how we present ourselves. One of my "Banyanisms" is: If you can't afford to do it right, then you can't afford to do it. And the other day I was on the internet, and I did a Google search for hypnosis training, because I like to see where my websites come up on that, as I let the world know about our upcoming hypnosis training programs. And I'm starting to learn about Google Adwords in a new way.
So I was checking the advertisements, and this one school, and I'm not going to mention the school, but I've seen two, maybe three schools do this. And it says . . . have you seen those ads, the advertisements on Google? It's just a few lines, it's either on the side or it's at the top of the natural search listings. And they put there . . . I wrote it down . . . "Job placement assistance." And I said "Job placement assistance for hypnotists?" I want to know more about that, because A: I didn't believe they actually did it, I thought it was misleading, and B: if they're actually placing hypnotists in jobs, I want to know about that because I know some really great hypnotists, graduated from my courses, that I'd like to help place them in jobs.
Because the truth is, hypnosis and hypnotherapy, consulting hypnotism, whatever you want to call it, is an entrepreneurial profession. Kind of like dentists. Or like physicians. You open up a practice. You . . . very, very few hypnotists graduate from the certification course and get hired somewhere. So that's a job. A job is where you are an employee and there's an employer and you get a check once a week, every two weeks, once a month. That's job placement. And so I, as a . . . I visited their website, one of those little windows popped up, and . . . you know where it says "Hi, would you like to chat?" And I go, "Ha ha. Yeah, I want to chat. Tell me about your job placement program for hypnotherapists." And you know, they tried to kind of go off on a tangent, and I says "Well, what's your percentages?" And there was this conversation about "Oh, we can't really talk percentages because . . ." and I go "Okay. In your ad, you say job placement assistance. Tell me about you placing your graduates in jobs. Don't even tell me percentages. Tell me about that." And then my goodness, I couldn't even believe it.
And I had two such conversations on their website. They said "Well actually, that's one of our entrepreneurial programs, and we don't really do job placement. We can advise them on setting up an office." And I'm saying "Do you understand that 'job placement assistance' means that they're going to get a job? And that that's false advertising?" And they hem-hawed about it; did two chats on the website, sent an e-mail to the owner of that school, and they no longer have that in their ad. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Because you know, how do we build trust? We build trust by making promises and keeping them. And how do we build confidence in our profession? We make promises and we keep them. And when we say we're going to do stuff that we're not going to do, it hurts everybody in the profession, and it hurts our clients, it hurts possible future hypnotists who are looking for a program, so be honest.
If you see an advertisement in Google Plus, or whatever, not Google Plus, Google Adwords or on Yelp, or on anything, and it says "job placement assistance" or anything like that, I want you to contact them. And you say "Tell me about it. Tell me how you're going to help me get a job where I have an employer, and I have an insurance plan, and I have all those things that are . . . " People go to school a lot of times because they want to get a job. And if they're misleading you like that, press them on it, and maybe they'll take that ad down. Because all I'm asking for here is the truth.
Because just like we've talked about in this episode, and previous episodes: you've got to put the needs of the client first. If you're an instructor, you must put the needs of your potential students first. And then second, you have to put the needs of the profession second. And then third, you can look at putting down the needs of your business or your school.
All right, that's it. That's my rant, and I'm sticking to it. Any last words there Brenda?
Brenda: You hit it right on the head there. I really appreciate you sharing some of those things and I agree. I think we have to be very clear with people when they come in and they take trainings. This isn't about getting a job, you know, this is about starting a practice, developing your hypnosis practice. You don't have a job, you don't have a boss. It's really awesome. There's a lot of really great parts about it. It's a very different kind of world though, so, yes.
Thank you so much Cal for following through with that and getting that ad off there, because it sounds like it was really taking advantage of people. You know, people who are looking for jobs, they're seeking anything, and we've got to be sure that people who are going into this profession know what they're doing when they're coming in, and that they're getting appropriate training. Good training so that they can be successful because the more successful hypnotists that are out there, the more people are going to be helped. And that's a great thing.
So thank you all so much for joining us today, I'm going to sign off with that. I look forward to seeing you next time.
Cal: Thank you so much, Brenda. We'll have you back in about a month or so. I believe we've got Erika coming up next for the next few episodes. And for you folks out there, you want to take my training, and I hope you do, you can do it live on-site, or you can do it live online from anywhere in the world that has a good Internet connection. Our next class is Feb. 23 through March 6th , 2015, with the weekend off here at the Banyan Hypnosis Center. It is the 10 day, NGH approved Banyan Hypnosis Hypnotherapy Certification Super course. And then, we've also got our Week of Power for you folks who are already certified; skill and confidence building course, the "5-PATH" and "7-Path," that one is scheduled for May 3 through the 9th. And of course, if you're watching this video a year from now or two years from now, you can always get our schedule here on calbanyan.com, and you can always call our office.
Hey, if you like what we're doing, if you like our videos, please, if you love us, let the world know. If you're watching this on iTunes, give us a rating there, a five star rating if you can, and then also on Google Plus, give us a good rating. It helps get the word out, or hey, if you go to our Facebook page, facebook.com/hypnosisetc, you'll both get in on the conversation and please give us a five star rating. I think we deserve it.
All right, that's it. Cal Banyan over and out.