According to the recent PBS Special, “The Emotional Life”, the key to happiness and well-being are good relationships with family, friends and lover(s). Relationships seemed to trump, work, money and health. I found the portion on “attachment” or bonding to parents very interesting. Infants brought up in institutions without much “physical touch” seemed to have lots of problems in adjusting early on in life and this continued into adolescence and adulthood.

The good news was that intervention in the form of counseling and therapy was mostly helpful to people in improving their relationships, behavior and adjustment to a wide range of problems and challenges.

In my own clinical practice, I have found methods like EMDR, hypnosis and cognitive-behavioral therapy useful in overcoming long standing problems encountered early on in life.

Psychological Training

Given the stressors on a child prodigy and professional athletes, I believe psychological “training” should be required and is every bit as important as the technical training and physical conditioning athletes undergo.

The biggest reason for the success is the natural ability of the individual. Within 1 or 2 sessions, I can see how deeply a person gets in the trance (relaxation) phase. If they are highly responsive, I then develop a series of specific suggestions based on their needs and goals, then verbally “feed” them back to the client while they are in the trance. I often record the session and have them practice between sessions.

Accelerate Progress Through Hypnosis

While no one knows how hypnosis works for sure, it’s a great tool that can accelerate progress in many individuals.  My mental condition CD-ROM, TENNISMIND is based on hypnosis and numerous tennis coaches use it regularly with the students. It’s available on the products portion of my website, www.robertheller.net.

For many men, (myself included), I know sports and exercise are a great stress reliever and tends to improve my mood.

Other studies have reported the beneficial effects of exercise in reducing depression.

Mind-body Medicine

Mind-body medicine supports the idea that a healthy lifestyle can prevent and eliminate some of our major diseases.

To this end, I have produced a number of self help guidebooks that are easy to read and provide useful mind-body solutions to many of life’s common challenges. They are available on my products page.