Frankly Shamanic

David might best be described as a client-centred counsellor and spiritual hypnotherapist.  He has spent a large part of his career investigating the mostly unused potential of the subconscious mind through hypnosis.  At a personal level David combines self-hypnosis with meditation to work towards individuation.

 

David first became interested in counselling in 1985 when he was working for social services in the UK looking after people with severe intellectual disability.  In 1986 he attended a course in basic counselling skills.  Following this in 1990 David went to the University of East London, where in 1992 he was awarded a diploma of higher education in humanistic counselling by independent study.  During this period he also studied for a diploma in hypnotherapy at a private college, which he achieved after sitting an external exam. Having successfully completed his Dip HE, David took a year off from studying to focus on starting a private practice.

 

In 1993 David restarted his studies with the College of Independent Study where he began a B.A. (Hons) degree course validated by the University of Wolverhampton. He completed his degree in 1994 and for his final dissertation he conducted research to test his hypothesis that, ‘people receiving client-centred counselling would enter a hypnotic state’. 

 

To achieve this, a quantitative investigation of the EEG of subjects under hypnosis and those receiving counselling was made by tabulation of results, using data spreadsheet facilities, to determine if people during counselling were also in a hypnotic state.  Fifty subjects (33 females & 17 males) had been taught self-hypnosis for this experiment.  Participants were divided into four groups for their EEG recordings as follows: A) Base rate, self-hypnosis, counselling.  (B) Base rate, counselling, self-hypnosis.  (C) Base rate, self-hypnosis, placebo.  (D) Base rate, placebo, counselling.  Results showed that hypnosis is present in counselling by presence of sustained alpha.

 

As well as starting his private practice in 1992 David also started to teach basic counselling skills at Thurrock College for Further Education in Essex, U.K.  He became the course tutor for counselling and wrote three courses in client-centred counselling.  The first was a short non-validated ten-week introduction.  The second and third were validated by the Essex Open College Federation.  These courses were specifically designed for people such as nurses and social workers who wanted to utilise counselling skills within their current field but did not necessarily want to become professional counsellors.   

 

In 1996 David started to work in medical centres.  Doctors that he worked for found his self-managed service to be efficient and cost effective with a high level of patient satisfaction demonstrated by clinical audits and client surveys.  His duties were to provide a counselling service for people with emotional, social, phobic and addiction problems.  This included facilitating people with various levels of anxiety and depression, anger management, sexual and marital problems, and also adults who had been sexually or emotionally abused as children. 

 

In 2002 research that David carried out led to the international publication of his book, “Hypnosis & Counselling in the Treatment of Chronic Illness,” that he co-wrote with his colleague Dr. Bernard Mooney.  This book received excellent reviews and in 2008 was released as a paperback entitled, “Hypnosis and Counselling in the treatment of Cancer and other Chronic illness”, which is available in Australia from Footprint Books.

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