Catching Up

Wow ... I just realized I haven't updated this blog since November.  Yeesh!  There's been a lot going on.

First, of course, was Charmed! back in January.  It was our first year, and I think we hit about 185 total people in attendance.  The energy was amazing, and I'm proud to have been part of bringing the con to the Baltimore/DC area.

In February I taught at the NELA Fetish Fair Flea along with my friends MrDream and ZanyM.  For the first time, we had an Erotic Hypnosis Lounge running for most of the event and a lot of really cool stuff happened in there courtesy of people like AmHypnotic, MentalConfetti, Hypnostory, Ariadne, Maamaine, and others.  Really hoping that becomes an annual happening (the lounge, of course -- the Flea already is).

March brought NEEHU, which meant a return to The Society and a chance to reunite with the community.  Many, many awesome things happened there, much of which has been written about already by others.  Some personal highlights for me included the workshop that MrDream and I did to help new presenters develop class ideas and co-teaching Erotic Hypnosis 101 with Ariadne.

Last week I visited with Hypnosis New Jersey and spent an afternoon doing Kinky Human Tricks and some mentored practice time.  It's really amazing how fast that New Jersey group is growing; Moon-Gazer and pinupknits have built something awesome there.

In a couple of hours I'm presenting for my hometown Black Rose SIG on "Making It Stick" -- an extended discussion, demo, and practice session about why, and what to do when, a suggestion just isn't getting followed.  This will be an extended version of one of the classes I'm offering at MEEHU later this year.

There is a lot coming up, too.  Tomorrow is the first instructional day for my first in-person professional hypnotism course.  Six people from the DC metro area, who are also members of the erotic hypnosis community, will be getting certified as professional hypnotists and NLP practitioners over the course of the next 8 weeks or so.

Some of you know that I'm a pretty serious hobbyist woodworker; most of the photos I post on FetLife are of things I've made in my garage workshop.  In May I'm treating myself to a rare non-working vacation as I attend Weekend with WOOD in Des Moines, IA.  I'll be there in my Bruce Wayne identity just for the fun of attending.  Before I return, though, I'm going to take advantage of the proximity to Mephki's new home and do a workshop for the brand-new Iowa City hypnosis group.

Come June, I'll be at MEEHU 3 along with a long list of amazing and delightful people; if you haven't been to an *EHU yet, this is a great one to start with.  (Warning:  may be habit forming!)

I'm looking to assemble another in-person professional hypnosis course in July, this time in "boot camp" style:  eight days of instruction, Saturday to Saturday, with the final exam at the end.  I'm looking for a venue in the New York City area; if I can find one that won't drive up the class cost we'll do it in person, otherwise we'll do the class online.  Looking at the latter half of July, probably July 16-23.  Let me know if you're interested or have venue suggestions.

My next for-sure online class will start in late August and run until probably early October (dates are not finalized until we know who all is attending).  This one will be in the original format, online and spread over several weeks.

It's early yet, but I fully intend to be on hand at WEEHU 2016 and hope a lot of you will be as well.  There are a couple of other things that aren't confirmed yet.  I've got an invitation to go teach in Seattle when we can find a date that works, and I want to do something as-yet-undetermined with TES before the year is out because I love working with them.  So stay tuned.

Professional Hypnotherapy Training, 2015

That's right ... he's doing it again!  The professional certification course I gave in the fall went so well that I've decided to offer it again this spring.

The course is a 100-hour distance learning course in professional hypnotherapy.  At the end of the course those who complete the final (a practical exam/exercise, not a written test) will become professionally certified through the National Guild of Hypnotists.  NGH certification is the most widely recognized professional hypnosis credentials in the field.

Whether you've been hypnotizing people for years or aren't sure which end of the pocket watch to hold, this course will teach you how to be a successful professional hypnotist.  Topics covered in the course include:

• Setting the stage for success with a good pretalk
• Twenty different hypnotic inductions, each of which gets dissected and explained
• How to know if you've got enough depth for what you intend to do
• Basics of Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) and how to incorporate NLP into your hypnosis work
• Proven strategies for dealing with the most common client issues, including
• Smoking cessation
• Weight loss
• Stress management
• Helping with fears, phobias, and anxieties
• Hypnotic pain management
• Tips and tricks for giving live presentations and demos
• How to start and build a successful hypnotherapy practice

This is serious professional-grade training, but -- largely because I don't have to rent a physical classroom -- the tuition is only $1295, which includes your first year of NGH membership dues.  Email me to get on the student mailing list and find out more about it.

Class of 2014

This past weekend (November 22-23) marked the conclusion of my first professional certification class.  As of now, there are twelve newly-certified professional hypnotherapists ready to start offering their services.  I didn't ask permission to name them, so I won't, but if any of them want to announce themselves, either in comments here or somewhere else, I'll help spotlight them.

I have to say, the class was a lot of work.  Each of the 25 instructional units had to be designed and planned from scratch, and I've been making notes since the first day on how to do it better next time.  The group was incredibly patient as we worked through our technical glitches and always ready to offer suggestions and to bring new things to the table for everyone's benefit.  That all by itself was a magical thing.

With all that work done and improvement ideas noted, it would be a shame not to make use of it.  So there will definitely be another online professional certification class in the spring.  It will probably start in April, after NEEHU 6, and run through June.

I'm unspeakably proud of everyone in this group.  Some of them had a lot of prior hypnosis experience from doing erotic mind play and had to make some adjustments to adapt their style to vanilla hypnotherapy.  They all made that adjustment well, and the sometimes-grueling final exams (they had to do a live hypnotherapy session with a volunteer client) proved to me that these are some fine hypnotists in and out of the dungeon.  It's an honor to be their teacher.