Two Weekend Training with Stephen Brooks (review)

Hi all,
As promised elsewhere on hypnothoughts, (but no idea where now. lol) here are my basic thoughts on the recent 2 weekend course that Stephen ran.
So, I shall begin at the beginning. Day one:-

Being completely new to any kind of practical work with hypnosis i went into the building where it was being held feeling quite apprehensive (or if you could see past the apprehensive facade . . .crapping myself. lol) but shortly after everyone got seated and i had introduced myself to 1 or 2 people sitting nearby, Stephen got to talking and got me pretty much relaxed (as he always somehow manages) while chatting about the first lot of things we had to learn. If memory serves me correctly it was learning how to get people into trance by asking them about pastimes and then pulling out the trance inducing aspects from them and getting the person to re-experience it.
Also we went over dependent/contingent suggestions and minimal cues to be fed back during these suggestions.
So then came the exercise. Every1 into groups of 3 and practice on each other for the set period of time. As you can guess, I was pretty nervous at this point and ended up with 2 quite experienced guys, one of which was the most awkward person I have ever met in my life. Upon me asking him the question:-

"So what do you do to relax?"

In my croaking, dry throated voice with a forced smile on my face. He replied:-

"I dont relax"

Way to go dude! put the beginner off for life. As you can imagine I just sort of shrank into the chair at that response and wondered what the hell to do next but somehow managed to force myself through the next 10 minutes of my very bad questioning and his inane grin while I experienced the closest thing I can imagine to coming toe to toe with the school bully but in a hypnosis (with the hypnosis experience being the muscle) learning kind of situation. He seemed to take great pleasure in telling the third person in our group that he was 'hearing a lot of yes no questions' rather than offering guidance to the newbie. Now, I can imagine you would think its not his job to help me really, and you would be right . . . .if he wasn't one of the moderators.

So, after that initial bad experience in the first few hours I stuck with it. (unlike another poor woman who refused to do any of the exercises after working with him because she felt so stupid.) I must be honest my stomach turned over every time we were told we had to do an exercise but i got more confident with each passing exercise as it built on each previous skill giving you something extra to use each time so you were less likely to run out of things to say.

One exercise I particularly enjoyed was the scrambling technique which i asked my therapist (when i was playing patient) to scramble the sense of dread that i felt each time i heard the word 'exercise' in the context of that room. This worked quite well actually and i reckon it went from about a 7 down to a 2 in terms of nervousness for the rest of the exercises.

I'm going to give the course a 10/10 for what it did for me folks. It took me from the gibbering idiot that i was on the first day to somebody who had the confidence to sit down with somebody and take them through an induction, actually treat a behavioral problem (the guy concerned said he felt less prone to attacking people after my scrambling session. Woohoo!) and bring somebody back out. No mean feat in 4 days and there were plenty of other beginners doing exactly the same.

Another thing that I will say that gives me great faith in this course is the fact that I spoke to several qualified and practicing hypnotherapists who had been on other courses but the common theme with all these people was that they thought that this was the best course they had been on. That's a lot of points for Stephens course if you ask me so my 10/10 is backed by that info too if anyone is thinking of going on one of Stephens courses.

P.S. Please note that there wasn't meant to be any personal attacks above as I thought the man involved was a great guy when i didn't have to work with him but it needs addressing if he is putting new people off bothering at all by being so awkward. Is he really the right kind of guy to be helping out in a caring field if he feels so little empathy for people in very uncomfortable and challenging situations? Its a shame to think that maybe the woman concerned would have become a therapist, but all the ripples radiating out from the work she may have done may never exist now due to peoples insensitivity.

Tags: brooks, stephen, training

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Comment by tom keane on February 8, 2009 at 8:37am: Hi chris

I cant think who you could be comenting on :-D

I thing that stephen teachs on the course is utilisation so you could of said something like "thats right you dont relax"

he was like this on the summer school a bit so dont worry about it because a though people found him hard to work with but obviously this is a good thing because then you get to strech your self.

on the summer school the course we had feed back forms that we marked on a scale of 1-10 and everyone had to get 600 to pass and 800 for a distinction wich is the same for the online course.

the feed back sheets were also good for making down what you did wrong what you learnt and any other coments wich you could go back to to see if you were getting the same type of feeback and know what you needed to improve on.

Comment by chris naish on November 28, 2008 at 12:43am: Thanks for the feedback guys,

Just want to say that I would not let this part of my experience reflect on Stephen Brooks in any way. He is a great teacher from my own point of view and from the point of view of all the other people (experienced and inexperienced alike) who were on the course and I talked to about this. (I loved the course but had no other training to measure it against so I asked people who had trained with others how they rated it. All said it was the best course they had been on.)
After studying his material for nearly 8 months and meeting him face to face its plain to see that he is a caring, skilled and knowledgeable teacher. If you do get a chance to train with him, jump at it!

Comment by Fable Goodman on November 27, 2008 at 4:05pm: Hey Chris,

I can relate to your experience, and have had some similar expereinces myself.

one that comes to mind, (not related to hypnosis by the way) was when I was learning to paraglide with a friend Dave.

There were two instuctors. The head of the school was very good, patient, and modeled good practice, and positive feed back. His assistant, who I will call Frank, (because frankly, that was his name) was almost the opposite. Aggresive, competitive, negative, critical.

When we got round to doing our first flight, from the top of a small mountain, Frank was shouting instructions over the walkie talkie, although his voice was so loud that he didn't need it. I took off and did a passably good flight. In the air for a few minutes, and landed safely at the bottom, rolled up my chute, and started walking back to the top, elated. Dave took off, and did a pretty good flight too, and also landed safely, and was over the moon.
I waited for dave, and we walked back up together sharing our jubilation, and generally congratulating each other.
when we apraoched the top, we were confronted by Frank's belowing voice telling us all the things we did wrong, and why did we not listen to his instructions.

Dave who is not known for keeping his temper, remarkably sat on this for four days of the same.

At the end of the course, we were in the pub winding down, and Dave quietly took Frank to one side, and gave him "feedback" on his teaching style.

I don't know how much of that feedback Frank was actually able to take on board, butI do know it made Dave feel a lot better.

Neither of us went back for further training with this particular school. But I did go for another course with a different school which was remarkably better.

I think the onus is on the person who is heading up the training, to supervise, and monitor their assistants, and provide a safe, friendly environment which is conducive to a positive learning experience. I am sorry that was not your experience, and am glad that you still managed to take what was useful from the course.

LOve and hugs,

Fable

Comment by chris naish on November 27, 2008 at 7:46am: Sheila, your probably right. I thought the same thing a few days after the experience. Just think that there is nothing like a bit of encouragement to help somebody out. And remember, this wasn't a client.

I can understand you looking at it from a positive point of view to empower the people involved but its like protecting somebody who has probably actually installed a phobia on that poor woman. For me it made me more nervous for when i had to do the next exercises. I did get over that thankfully but why make a person feel like that in the first place?

Would you train somebody who had to work with people who are potentially violent by punching them in the face to see if they can deal with it on the first day of training? lol

Comment by chris naish on November 26, 2008 at 5:10am: heres the link to the course advertisement.

http://www.british-hypnosis-research.com/stephen/course_two_weekend_ericksonian_hypnosis.html

Comment by James Hammett on November 26, 2008 at 3:34am: I missed it in earlier posts, but what was the title of the course?

James

Comment by Michelle Braun on November 25, 2008 at 7:31pm: Hey Chris,
Boy I wonder who the jerkish guy (mod) was...hmmm...
Anyway, I'd love to go the next one in Thailand, in spite of the situation there right now.
Thank you for the update. [You "promised" me one after the class on my comment wall. ;) ]
Michelle