Anybody got an allergy they want to get rid of?

[noahgibbs]

Some of you know that I'm a member of a hypnotherapy practice organization called 'Sleepwalkers'. Mainly I'm not all that impressed by what they do, but every so often something interesting shows up...

On Sunday at 1pm at Stanford, they'll be using a NeuroLinguistic Programming technique for eliminating allergies. While I'm familiar with the basic idea of hypnotic allergy reduction or elimination, I haven't seen how the NLPers do it yet. But given how well their stuff works against, say, phobias, I'm quite keen on learning. So I'm planning to show up and watch.

However, they're also very interested in people who want actual allergies removed. It's only five bucks a person to show up, and there will apparently be snacks. If you actually want an allergy removed I'd happily spring for your five bucks, 'cause I want to see the technique in action. Anybody up for it?

Comments

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

Well, hmm, I do have this pesky cat allergy, and with a boy who has two cats it could certainly come in useful to not have it anymore. I think I'm free sunday at 1.

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

Great! Given our relative locations it's probably easiest to meet at Stanford. The demo is at Gates Hall 260. Directions to get there are at http://verify.stanford.edu/nlp/directions.html. There will be a guy waiting to let us all in. Apparently if you're late you'll need to call him at 650-248-7658 to be let in.

He wants an RSVP, which is why I'm putting out the call now. Figure I'll give the post a day or three and then let him know how many people are interested.

[caramida.livejournal.com]

Phobias, I can understand, but how do they propose to remove, for example, a histamine reaction to bee stings through Neuro-Linguistic Programming? It doesn't add up for me.

[japlady.livejournal.com]

Ditto on the cats, and I love cats....

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

Bear in mind that histamine is released by your body in response to foreign things perceived as toxins. Some things your body seems to always form antibodies to (I'm thinking of, say, influenza). Other things, like pollen or bee-stings, some people do and some people don't. Allergies are a matter of your body responding to something that isn't especially virulent to such an extent that you do yourself far more damage than the bee-sting would.

Bear in mind that the 'involuntary' actions of your body (heartbeat, skin temperature regulation, balance, swelling from burns or sprains, and yes, histamine release) are regulatable under certain circumstances by your subconscious mind. Your heartbeat rises when you're frightened, and good marksmen actually stop their heart briefly to make a shot. You can take a hypnotized person, convince them that the eraser of a pencil is the burning end of a cigarette and if you touch them with it, they'll get swelling just like a real burn. You can *also* convince them that a cigarette is a pencil and do the trick in reverse... And while, yes, eventually even a cigarette will cause serious burns, the body is actually doing itself much more damage by its *reactions* to the burn than the burn itself causes.

Allergies are like that as well. You can hypnotically convince the body not to release vast amounts of histamine, in the same way that you can convince it not to release vast amounts of adrenaline. So if you want more of a parallel to a phobia, that's not a bad way to go about it.

It *isn't* the same as a phobia cure, though. The technique used is different.

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

Shall I assume you're also joining us on Sunday, then?

[r-transpose-p.livejournal.com]

You may have to pardon a little bit of skepticism on my part, about whether something that works well against phobias would translate into working well against allergies.

I would suspect that either NLPers should be more careful about conveying what they mean by "getting rid of allergies", or we finally have a medically verifiable test for whether NLP "works".

[plantgirl.livejournal.com]

Tempted. Not sure if I'll be free, and not sure which allergy I'd pick. Do they allow outsiders to just watch? I'm curious about it...

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

Well, there are other medically verifiable tests of whether NLP does something at all - it does, and so does, for instance, hypnotism. The fact that both are perfectly usable for medical and dental anaesthesia is, y'know, kind of a hint.

Whether it works on allergies is a more interesting question. I know of cases where people have used similar techniques to cure allergies, but you can always blame timing or coincidence or the placebo effect - these are, after all, individual anecdotes, even if the disappearance of the allergy is documented.

However, no the same technique doesn't work for phobias and allergies. One technique works for phobias and a different technique works for allergies. Similarly, one technique works for phobias and a different technique works for, say, spelling improvement, and a third entirely different technique works for control of pupil dilation. They're all classified as NLP, but then, there are an awful lot of different kinds of therapy that are all called 'psychology', too.

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

I'd expect they'd allow outsiders to watch. That's pretty much what I'm planning on :-) But if you're going to drive all the way up, why not give them a chance to work on an allergy?

[plantgirl.livejournal.com]

Oh, because I'm planning on visiting a friend in SF this weekend, so it will be on my way home. I have a friend who lives right near Stanford, and I was hoping to stop by and see her anyway. If I showed I'd almost certainly give them a chance at an allergy. It's just, I've been wiggy about being around people recently, so I'm hesitant to commit to showing up, and to letting someone mess with me.

Speaking of which, have you ever used hypnotherapy to treat anxiety, particularly if the anxiety is focused on something specific?

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

If the anxiety is focused on something specific, it's very easy to treat. It's a bit harder if it's more generalized, but entirely possible.

I've used hypnotherapy on fear or hesitance more than specifically anxiety, but anxiety should be equally straightforward and respond to the same techniques.

[tshuma]

Hmmm, possibly. Could be worthwhile to not sneeze my way through half the year.

[teawiththecheat.livejournal.com]

You are so cool Noah!

[japlady.livejournal.com]

any chance of lunch before hand?

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

Sure, sounds good to me. Your area would be a good choice, or we could go somewhere in Palo Alto. I'm not as familiar with restaurants there.

Sushi?

[lintqueen.livejournal.com]

I so entirely and utterly wish I could be there. I'm violently allergic to cats, dogs, furry things and I would do just about anything to be rid of that! (Even needles. And I *HATE* needles).

Don't suppose you know of any similar thing on the east coast?

[ceebaby.livejournal.com]

Could you post a follow-up? With how well it worked? I would love to participate, since I'm horribly allergic to cats & I love the damn things - but I'm busy on Sunday.

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

Not off the top of my head. The general technique they're using, NLP, has practitioners all over. The specific technique for allergies is less common, and I don't know how many NLP practitioners use it.

You could look up NLP educators or practitioners and see if they've heard of it. The phrase to bounce off them is 'Counterexample process' or 'allergy elimination process'. Make sure to ask how experienced they are in its use - NLP can be tricky, though I don't specifically know much about this technique.

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

I'll see what I can do. Obviously some of that is up to the individual people who receive the technique.

[ceebaby.livejournal.com]

thanks! :)

[japlady.livejournal.com]

Nor for that matter am I, there's good middle eastern, good Jamacian but other than those two Palo Alto is all pretty yupiefied ethnic for the white person's palet, if you ask me.

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

I don't know about the good Jamaican unless you mean Mango Cafe. If you do - sure, we could go there. I haven't had curried goat in awhile. Mmm... Curried goat.

If you're referring to somewhere else, we should try that - I don't have Caribbean food nearly often enough.

So yeah - wanna do that?

[japlady.livejournal.com]

thats what I meant and yah

[japlady.livejournal.com]

are they open lunch sunday?

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

D'oh! Nope. They do lunch M-F, and dinner M-Sat.

[japlady.livejournal.com]

ok then.... alternative options are....???

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

Hm. Good question. There's a bakery on University that's quite unobjectionable. Or we could do something in Mtn View.

Don't know. Not sure what's open. We could show up in Palo Alto (or on Castro) and just wander...

[auros]

Hey, quit knockin' my town! There's plenty of good stuff here, either on University Ave or California. There's a fantastic Chinese place on Cali, as well as one of my favorite brunchy places ever.

Unfortunately, I haven't found good Indian -- the one place I heard was good, closed.

[auros]

Cafe Brioche (on California) serves a fabulous weekend brunch.

University Cafe (on Uni Ave) is not-bad for brunch.

If you want to up your price, there are some pricey-but-worth-it places up around Uni Ave as well. (I'm a huge fan of Evvia, which does Greek infused with California-funkiness.)

off-topic

[januslazarus.livejournal.com]

On a marginally related topic: being a member of a hypnotherapy practice organization, can you recommend (or recommend a person that can recommend (or ...)) somebody (yourself included, possibly) who can perform a "firmware upgrade"? (Not sure what else to call it without getting very specific, since the modification in question would not be intended to fix something that's broken.) Pointing me at a website with credible references would count.

Re: off-topic

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

The people who trained me have the domain hypnotherapy.com and are very good. If you're willing to discuss the problem in more detail with them, they're likely to be able to recommend somebody very competent - different hypnotherapists have different specialties, so they may need to know more in order to help you.

Randal and Marleen are also very competent themselves, but I never know how much spare time they've got to add new clients.

If this technique works, tell me.

[7a0.livejournal.com]

I'm allergic to dust, pollen, mold, too many other things to mention.

[plantgirl.livejournal.com]

Szechwan Cafe, on California Street in Palo Alto, is relatively inexpensive and quite tasty. Excellent place. Ask Adam what's good/fresh, give him an idea what you like, and let him concoct for you. Or, be boring and order off the menu.

Re: off-topic

[januslazarus.livejournal.com]

Thanks!
Judging from the number of good testimonials on the site, either they are really really good, or they've been programming people to say they're really really good... which would require them to be that good, so it works.

[7a0.livejournal.com]

How powerful is this? If I've had a deep powerful fear since I was a toddler that's come to overtake and control my life, can it eliminate that? I don't care if it can eliminate inconvenient little phobias. I want to know if it can make meaningful changes.

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

Meaningful changes, while possible, tend to use a different technique. The actual limit on the phobia/anxiety technique is that it works fine, but if your mind renews the phobia constantly then you'd have to use the technique constantly to fix it. Think of the phobia as a puddle of water on your floor, making you trip. The phobia technique mops up the puddle. That works great if there isn't a leaky faucet directly above it. The leaky faucet can be fixed as well, but not just by mopping up the puddle. It's a rather different technique.

Re: off-topic

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

Well, mainly they've just been training hypnotherapists for a long, long time. Which is definitely a good way to get a lot of testimonials :-)

[cortneyofeden.livejournal.com]

There's also a good Thai place on Lytton. I'd have to work to find a name or address, though. I just know where it is. :)

[tg2k.livejournal.com]

Well, this is obviously the most important part of the post. ;-)

Seriously though: Too bad I don't live in CA anymore, this might be interesting to see.

In any case, I wanted to give a recommendation for a favorite place of mine and starherd's: Tiffin's, in Sunnyvale, in the Albertson's plaza at Lawrence and El Camino. I once had a special there, which was goat curry. Pretty good. They don't often have it, but I found it to be a terrific Indian take-out place, and well priced.