Nicholas Olendzki
 on Healing and Habit Change
with Mindful Hypnotherapy

Both mindfulness and hypnotherapy involve being in a state of focused attention, aware of the experience we are having as it unfolds. So, how might the two modalities work together in a clinical setting? How can we apply mindful hypnotherapy to facilitate healing and habit change?

Nicholas Olendzki, PsyD, is a psychotherapist specializing in mindfulness, hypnotherapy and integrative psychotherapy. Nik currently serves as a clinical psychologist at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Counseling Center, and he is the coauthor of Mindful Hypnotherapy: The Basics for Clinical Practice.

On this episode of Noble Mind, Nik joins Katherine and Alex to share his definition of mindfulness and explain what it means to approach a difficult experience with nonjudgmental awareness. He describes what hypnotherapy is (and what it isn’t), discussing how the practice is used to treat conditions like pain and anxiety and affect behavioral change. Listen in to understand the hypnotherapist’s role in empowering people to achieve their goals and get a high-level overview of Nik’s eight-week mindful hypnotherapy protocol and the positive results of its implementation.

Key Takeaways

• How Nik defines mindfulness as open curiosity about present moment experiences and his early introduction to the concept from a Buddhist perspective
• Nik’s insight on what it means to approach a difficult experience (i.e.: sexism or racism) with nonjudgmental awareness
• What hypnotherapy is (and what it isn’t) and the phenomenon of reduced peripheral awareness we experience in a hypnotic state
• The hypnotherapist’s role as a kind of GPS that empowers people to achieve their own goals
• The relationship between hypnotability and the degree to which an individual has access to their cognitive vs. experiential self
• How hypnotherapy is used clinically to treat conditions like pain and anxiety and affect behavioral change
• How hypnotherapy differs from a guided meditation practice and what a trained hypnotherapist can do to personalize the experience
• The similarities and differences between mindfulness and hypnotherapy
• How lessons of cognitive change we are trying to affect can be enhanced and deepened by hypnotherapy
• A high-level overview of Nik’s eight-week mindful hypnotherapy protocol and the positive results of its implementation

Connect with Nicholas

• Nik at UMass Dartmouth
  

Other Resources Mentioned

• Mindful Hypnotherapy: The Basics for Clinical Practice by Gary R. Elkins and Nicholas Olendzki
• ‘Mindful Hypnotherapy to Reduce Stress and Increase Mindfulness: A Randomized Controlled Pilot Study’ in the International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis
• The Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis
• The American Society of Clinical Hypnosis
• The International Society for Hypnosis
  
• Insight Meditation Society
• Barre Center for Buddhist Studies
• Jon Kabat-Zinn
• Seymour Epstein’s Integrative Theory of Psychotherapy
• Franz Mesmer
• Relief from Hot Flashes: The Natural, Drug-Free Program to Reduce Hot Flashes, Improve Sleep, and Ease Stress by Gary Elkins, PhD
• Laurence Sugarman