Cindy Locher, Hypnotherapist – Practitioner in Focus

Cindy Locher is a hypnotherapist and trainer from Apple Valley, Minnesota.

What sort of Practitioner are you?

I am a Hypnotherapist, and I practice Diversified, Client-Centered hypnosis. Which means that no two sessions are ever the same, since no two people (even with “the same issue”) are ever the same. It’s a challenging way to work, but it prevents boredom!

How long have you been practising?

7 years.

Do you see clients from home or in a clinic?

I own a small group practice and we are also a state licensed school of hypnotherapy, the Midwest Hypnotherapy Academy.

What problems/issues do you treat most frequently?

Weight, anxiety, fears, phobias, smoking cessation, and sports hypnosis. My colleague Jody Kimmell, who works with me at the center, specializes in working with children and adults with High Functioning Autism and ADD.

What are your biggest frustrations running your practice?

Being a state licensed school brings quite a bit of paperwork, which isn’t my strong suit! However, helping others to learn and grow in this profession is one of my passions, so I’ll do the paperwork. I have written a couple of books to help other practitioners in this spirit. My first script book, Creating Resilience: Ego Strengthening Hypnosis Scripts, was written due to my frustration in not finding the resources that I needed to help people become more emotionally resilient, and to prepare for change.

I believe that focusing on creating a stronger, more resilient client, rather than simple symptom-removal suggestion work, is foundational to creating a change that is lasting and giving the client best chance to truly shift and be empowered, so that they can make further changes and face future challenges on their own.

I am pleased with increasing focus in the field on this type of work, but frustrated that I still see many hypnotists who focus on direct suggestion and symptom-removal, which has limited results, when such profound work can be done for the client in the same space of time by partnering ego strengthening suggestions with hypno-analysis work when appropriate, in conjunction with, of course, a client-centered approach.

What do you find hardest about your daily work?

It can feel isolating. Even with another hypnotherapist in the center, we’re most often in session behind doors with our clients. We meet and discuss cases, and we team teach at our school, so that helps alleviate that feeling of being isolated. And, being a small business, there is a need to wear many hats! I’m the website designer, lease negotiator, curriculum developer, administrator, strategic planner, marketer, and deliver the services. It may get lonely at times, but never boring!

Do you find your professional body supportive and helpful? Do they help you create connections with fellow therapists?

I do, actually. I feel that I’ve found a smaller professional body that, while it is growing, has a strong focus and is very welcoming and supportive. I’m a member of the International Medical and Dental Hypnotherapy Association (IMDHA), and I have no hesitation recommending them.

How do you balance work and life?

Stress management/avoiding burnout… Every morning I am at the gym lifting heavy weights, and I find that helps immensely. That along with eating clean (as I recommend to my clients) helps keep my energy up and even and I sleep better too. I also do self hypnosis and meditation, keep my values focused on my family, and play with my two Cavalier King Charles Spaniels! It does take focus, with a busy practice and a school.

There are times when I am at the center either teaching or conducting sessions, or both, for fourteen days straight, no day off! Since I love what I do, sometimes it’s more important for me to remember the impact that has on others–family and friends. It’s really a matter of making time and knowing what your priorities are, and honoring those.

I like the allegory that life is not about balance so much as it is like a symphony–each day, each week, month, year, and of course over decades. Some passages are quiet and soft, and some are crescendos. If you think of it that way, then you appreciate the busy times knowing that there will be quiet times to come, and vice versa.

Otherwise you can find yourself wishing it was quiet when it’s busy, and wishing it was busy when it’s quiet–always frustrated and never appreciating the present moment. If you’re looking for balance within each and every day, you can get very frustrated.

What frustrates you most about the way mental health is dealt with in your country?

I see such a focus on addressing symptoms rather than getting to root cause. I see a tendency to over prescribe, and to turn to prescriptions as a front-line method of dealing with symptoms rather than encouraging lifestyle changes. The American Medical Association officially says 85% of illness and disease are caused or exacerbated by stress.

Why aren’t more people being referred, then, to stress reduction and stress management techniques like meditation and self hypnosis? I see so many clients who are on medications – yet still seeking help because those medications only mitigate symptoms, rather than helping them feel truly healthy and whole. And I’ve seen many of our clients reduce and even eliminate their medications (with their doctor’s support) because of the healthy changes in mind and body that they experience using hypnosis.

I believe that making a profit (on prescription drugs) has too often superseded having the patient’s true best interests at heart. And the result is a society where people have been taught to expect a quick fix and too often stay stuck, and even get worse. My hope is that the tide is turning.

Can you tell us about your most uplifting experience treating a recent client? (anonymously of course!)

There are so many! I recently saw a young woman for anxiety. At 24, her world was already closing around her. She felt she couldn’t fly, go to restaurants, or do new things without fear of a panic attack. She had no job, and stayed at home and only did things that were already familiar and felt safe to her.

During our first two sessions, she started to panic when going into hypnosis. We had to progress very slowly at first, and I also taught her, as I do all my clients with anxiety, sleep, fear/phobia or weight issues, about the importance of blood sugar management and sleep–that getting good sound sleep and eating properly to keep blood sugar stable lessens the frequency and severity of those anxious feelings.

She began to see her anxious feelings not as something to judge and feel guilty about, but to analyze at the time how her sleep had been, whether she’d eaten lately and what she’d eaten (protein/fiber vs. starches/sweets) and saw the pattern. This allowed her to feel that, firstly, she could do something to positively impact her anxiety through lifestyle changes, and secondly, that it wasn’t something “wrong” with her.

She could dissociate from her feelings and see them as the result of a neurological/biological interaction and of course a habitual response that she could deliberately and positively impact by making changes.

By our third session she was much calmer and more accepting of hypnosis and we had some very good hypnosis sessions and she began to learn self hypnosis/meditation. As she practiced, she discovered that she could sense or feel when her mind was drifting toward an anxious response and she could intentionally bring herself back to a calm state. We continued to release and relearn and by the last (sixth) session, she was going out to restaurants and looking for a job.

Not only did she experience a lessening of the frequency and severity of her anxious feelings, she now knows that she has the ability within her to positively change her feelings–that she is in control of her mind and body, rather than the other way round. That is a knowledge that no drug can provide–in fact quite the opposite, as the feeling that you’re dependent on a medication to control your symptoms is very disempowering.

This is why I love what I do. It’s not a change just for the moment–it helps people to see themselves, and their world, in a different and more positive way, and puts them in control of their lives. While I frequently hear “you’re my last resort,” my hope is that this type of work becomes the “first resort” for more and more people every day!

Pictured above: Cindy’s therapy room. You can read more about Cindy’s work and training school at www.MinnesotaHypnosis.com. Cindy also has a radio show that you can listen to anywhere in the world through searching ‘Cindy Locher hypnosis’ on iTunes. Cindy has international listeners from the UK and Germany.

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