The really simple guide to Humanism is a new online learning resource that has been created to help the wider public understand humanism. The interactive website has already had over 1500 visitors since its launch and offers simple answers to the most frequently asked questions about Humanism. The website also features videos of humanists including writers Sue Blackmore, Zoe Margolis and David Nobbs, neurobiologist Colin Blakemore, comedians Ed Byrne and Lucy Porter, philosopher A C Grayling [Auther of The Good Book - a secularist/humanist bible], and journalist Polly Toynbee.

You can visit the website at: www.simpleguidetohumanism.org.uk

World Community Grid.

I was thinking of ways to volunteer for charity but being a bit lazy I didn’t get round to it. Instead I remembered that I had participated in the distributed computing initiative organised by the World Community Grid where you install some software on your computer that utilizes your free CPU cycles when you’re not using them. I had been given a computer that I thought would be good utilize for this task so I stuck a new hard drive in it, installed the latest version of Fedora Linux (15) and got the BOINC software up and running.

Being a little obsessive I decided to install the software on our Windows XP machine, a notebook running Linux and another Laptop (Quad Core i7, 8GB RAM!) too. I now sit back, very satisfied of all this number crunching that I’m doing for various projects such as:

Fight Aids at home.
Childhood Cure For Cancer.
Help Cure Muscular Dystrophy
Human Proteome Folding (whatever that is!)
Computing For Clean Water

I strongly recommend you offering up your free CPU cycles for such worthy causes. You can create an account and get the software here:

http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/

If you’ve not already found the wonderful website www.ted.com please take a look at one the the example videos you can find there:

As mentioned in the above video you can and should have a look at www.AuthenticHappiness.com  

During my Hypnotherapy training course I decided to finally read ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’ by Viktor E. Frankl and I found that it was probably the most important book I’ve ever read. Although not on the reading list – because hypnotherapy itself isn’t mentioned in it – I had seen it mentioned in the ‘further reading’ sections of many other great books I had read.

Viktor E. Frankl was an eminent psychiatrist who created a school of psychotherapy based on man’s search for meaning (Logotherapy). He proposed that, when everything else is lost, man still has the choice as to how he responds in any situation and that last of all freedoms is founded on his meaning in life.

If you are in a situation where you have lost absolutely everything - just as Frankl himself did at the hands of the Nazi’s in the concentration camps – you can still have meaning in your life. And if you have that meaning then you can find the strength to carry on.

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
~ Viktor Frankl

So, when I combine this philosophy with the humanistic methodology utilised by Milton Erickson (via the use of metaphorically vague language patterns) you have my philosophical approach to hypnotherapy. I also use NLP techniques to aid in the reframing of negative experiences – NLP uses the Meta-Model questionning approach (heuristic, flexible and logical questionning) which challenges currently held beliefs which is the opposite of the Milton-Model (artfully vague and metaphorical questionning approach). This helps me to be more flexible in my responses to different clients needs.

When I first started to study hypnotherapy I was quite aprehensive towards the use of ‘this life’ regression. Coming from a more NLP biased background I believed that it wasn’t required for the therapist to come into contact with too much of the clients’ content regarding their issues. But I have since come to appreciate the power of dealing with past issues in the hypnotic state. How many of us carry emotional baggage that can be easily and effectively dealt with by going back and telling our younger selves that we’re OK and that we’re who we are because of experiencing those trying times.

“You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”
~ Zig Ziglar