16/12/2008 by ALISTAIR RHIND.

Alistair Rhind was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1956. He trained in Psychiatry in Scotland in the late seventies, and went on to specialise in Addiction and Alcoholism therapy Alistair has the ability to engender trust and more importantly, hope, in the many sufferers he has treated during his Thirty years in the business.

Alistair has trained many other  therapists and health professionals in the, ‘how to’ of working successfully in the psychotherapy/hypnotherapy field and has been Treatment Director in several Private Rehabilitation Clinics around the country where he specialised in designing and implementing successful group and individual Treatment Programmes . He has been involved with most of the top clinics in the South including ‘The Priory’ and has worked with the rich and famous as well as the not so rich and famous.

Alistair has trained in the U.S. and the U.K. in Counselling, Psychotherapy, Hypnotherapy, NLP and Family Therapy. He is also a Reiki Master.

Alistair runs a Private Practice in Hypnotherapy, Counselling and Psychotherapy. He has designed and delivers a serious of talks for schools and industry designed to facilitate prevention as well as treatment of the many addictive problems and to encourage responsible healthy choices.

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08/12/2008 by ALISTAIR RHIND.

Understanding an Alcoholic

I am an Addiction Consultant Therapist. When I ask new clients to tell me what they have come to see me about, they often say

 “Well, I have been having a few drinks recently but I’m not an Alcoholic.” Or perhaps, “I‘ve maybe got a drink problem but I am definitely not an Alcoholic.”

It is rare in normal conversations for people to say what they are not:

“I’m not a giraffe or Blue Whale. I like the company of men but I’m no Queer”.

We usually say:

“Hi, my name is Fred and I work in a Quarry, my wife’s name is Wilma and my best friend is Barney.”

The trouble with Alcoholism is that those who suffer from the condition would rather be anything else.

“Hi my name is Rudolf and I don’t have a red nose but I am relieved to be Bi polar.”

The trouble with the poor suffering Alcoholic is that he is trying so hard to not be one because he knows deep down that he is - a paradox of Alcoholism.

Make no mistake, the Alcohol Addict is suffering and struggling with desperate ambivalence; contrary beliefs about himself and about his drinking. He cannot make up his mind if Alcohol is his friend or his enemy and sadly his solution to the problems in his life is also the cause of the problems - another paradox of Alcoholism.

The Alcoholic is not unlike the battered wife or battered husband whose self esteem, self confidence and ego strength has been so eroded by the abuse, they deeply doubt their ability to function outside of the situation. They believe that they are so useless, how could anyone else ever want them and how could they ever cope on their own?

This is the nature of the Alcoholic’s relationship with his best friend Mr Booze. They have been best buddies for many years. Their relationship has deepened and strengthened. Gradually and then rapidly they have become inseparable. If he could verbalize his inner thoughts the Alcoholic might say: “Who am I without my best pal? Without Alcohol I feel only half a person, alone, lost, misunderstood, confused and desperate. I don’t know how to cope without drink in my life yet it keeps on dragging me further and further down, beating me at every turn, robbing me of every last once of good feelings I ever had and replacing them with shame, doubt, anger and guilt. Why do I drink you might well ask? I drink because I feel so desperately bad, deeply ashamed and broken. If you were to ask what about, I would have to admit, that my drinking causes all that – the paradox of Alcoholism.

Alistair Rhind

http://www.addiction-recovery.co.uk

Posted in For Family & Friends of those addicted | Print | 2 Comments »

05/12/2008 by ALISTAIR RHIND.

How any sessions of Hypnotherapy will I need?

The question of how many sessions comes up time and time again when people telephone. Let’s try to cover this now so that we can save time later. I have from time to time seen a person once and somehow miraculously they have found benefit in the work we did together. I know this only because I have heard from them again some years later or they have referred a friend and they said hey, you really sorted me out you are brilliant. Others who have fairly simple problems such as confidence or smoking or exam nerves or simple phobias they have needed  3 or 4 sessions to make sure that they have learned and taken away the necessary skills required to sustain the changes made and to use them in the future to solve any similar problems they may encounter.

Some people will have more complex difficulties which will most certainly require more work and should look at an initial 6 sessions up to 12 sessions.

There will be others with more difficult problems like drug or alcohol addiction or severe anorexia or self harming who may require continued support after the initial stage of therapy. You will have some idea yourself just how longstanding and complex your problems are. My advice at this stage is be open minded, beware people who suggest that they can cure you in quick time without even having carried out a complete assessment. Desperation makes us do act impulsively at times and with a lot of wishful thinking. Try to slow down, know that you can get well again and that you need to invest some time in that change/healing process. If you are opting for private therapy then you will also be investing good money.

Alistair Rhind

Clinical Hypnotherapy Consultant

http://www.essexhypnotherapy.org.uk

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05/12/2008 by ALISTAIR RHIND.

Take time to chose your therapist. Speak to them on the telephone initially and dont be pushed into an appointment untill you feel comfortable with the person you have talked to. Use the first appointment as a mutual assessment. Ask your self the following questions:

• ·       Do you get the impression that the therapist understands your particular problem?
• ·       Do they seem to understand you?
• ·       Are they able to make a therapeutic plan for your treatment?
• ·       Do you feel comfortable with them?
• ·       Do you trust them?
• ·       Do you feel safe enough to reveal what is troubling you?
• ·       Do they have qualifications and when did they take them?
• ·       Are you satisfied that they have enough experience?
• ·       Are they acredited with any professional body?
• ·       Are they warm and caring or cool, cold and distant?

Please remember that there are many Schools of Hypnotherapy as there are of Counselling and Psychotherapy. Attending a school for however long, passing and exam and joinig a professional body does not make a therapist. It takes time, supervision, personal therapy and development, supervised experience with clients and further ongoing training in different sort of psychotherapy and emotional change work. You may be best to find someone who has a very broad background with several different therapeutic trainings or you may hit it off with someone who is a very natural caring empathic person who is genuine, comfortable, who can empathise and who you naturally are drawn to.

Often the success in therapy comes from the strength of the therapeutic relationship and not the particular therapeutic tricks the therapist uses. Some of the worst therapists I have known have come bristling with shiny qualifications but their people skills were sadly lacking. Dont be fooled by lots of spaghetti after the Therapists name. Its very easy to join several registers or professional organisations and use theirletters to make your name look impressive. Claims of a therapy being more advanced that another is pure fanatasy and usually geared to make you think that the therapist is more qualified than they actually are. A good qualified experienced therapist will naturally give you the feeling of confidence will be at ease and help you to feel confdent that they can help you deal with your problem.

Alistair Rhind

Consultant Clinical Hypnotherapist

http://www.essexhypnotherapy.org.uk

Posted in Hypnotherapy | Print | 2 Comments »

03/12/2008 by ALISTAIR RHIND.

Self harm is a complex problem and self harmers are extremely complex people. Their behaviour would seem to fall outside the norm; and yet its statistical increase suggests that it is becoming frighteningly more prevalent. A study carried out in schools in 2002 found that 11 per cent of girls and 3 per cent of boys aged 15 and 16 said they had harmed themselves in the previous year.I recently talked to a group of about 100 six formers at aPrivate school in the South East. In that group there were around 10 – 12 active serious harmers, boys and girls at varying stages of the condition. Each harmer was involving at least two others in their harming episodes to help with the bleeding, bandaging and emotions once they had cut. This is becoming a huge problem by anyone’s standards and requires considerable professional specialists input in order to develop an education and prevention strategy. Anyone will agree that preventing self harm is preferable than trying to successfully treat it once developed to addictive proportions.

What is self harm?

      Cutting

      Taking overdoses of tablets or medicines

      Punching oneself

      Throwing their bodies against something

      Pulling out hair or eyelashes

      Scratching, picking or tearing at one’s skin causing sores and scarring

      Burning

      Inhaling or sniffing harmful substances

      Self Mutilation 

What is self harm 

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03/12/2008 by ALISTAIR RHIND.

Things can improve if you change your behaviour If you are a mum, dad, husband or wife; girlfriend or boyfriend or best friend and your loved one is in the grip of addiction, do you have the power to control their behaviour?You may be able to temporarily put restraints on the addicted individual with some form of control or other, but this in no way deals with or solves the problem.I spoke to a young man the other day who told me:  “I’m secretly drinking at the moment; my wife would kill me if she knew. When I get the chance I know I will drink a bucketful. Left to my own devises I would be completely out of control.”Control only delays the inevitable return to out of control drinking or addictive behaviour. By definition an addicted individual has lost control and choice. He or she may still have it some of the time but they are increasingly losing control as each week and month roles by.  When we try to control their addictive behaviour we engage an inner struggle between the addict inside the person and the loved one we are trying to help. The ‘inner addict’ tends to become more powerful when this happens and the sufferer becomes more lost inside, more hopeless and feels even weaker in relation to the pull of the addiction.We have to learn to behave contrary to our impulses; we have to let go of control and begin to make choices for our own sanity. By fighting with addiction our own behaviour tends to become unreasonable and irrational.

• Do get help for yourself
• Learn what not to do. 
• Slow down
• Get as much information about addiction as you can
• Stop being reactive
• Accept that you cannot control the addiction
• Realise that you did not cause it
• Learn that you cannot cure it
• Protect yourself and the rest of your family
• Know that if you get help for yourself it will increase the chances of the addict accepting help.
• Quit nagging, bullying and manipulating.
• You can love people to death - tough love is what is needed with addiction

A. R.

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