succeeded. I passed the Certificate course and then went on to

pass the Diploma and Practitioner courses. I became a full

Brian Gill

Member of the British Society for Clinical Hypnosis.

A couple of months' ago, I received some very pleasing and

most unexpected news. I was awarded a Fellowship of the

I started working, some 37 years' ago, with computers. I was a

British Society of Clinical Hypnosis for my achievements. There

trainee computer programmer and progressed through the

are only two such fellowships awarded each year and I had got

ranks to my current position as Application Support Manager for

one of them. I was, and am still, over the moon.

the second largest Metropolitan District Council in the country.

I have worked in both the public and the private sectors,

As far as clinical hypnotherapy goes, I now have two very

working for a large American computer manufacturer and a

successful practices, one from my specially built consulting

large British car manufacturer. I have witnessed the evolution

room at home and one from a very prestigious health spa in

of computers to what they are today. The first

Harrogate. And all this as well as being the

computer that I worked on was a Honeywell

Application Support Manager.

H400. This was one of the most advanced at

the time. It had four magnetic tape drives, a

punched card reader, a line printer, a console

and a processor, which had 4K of memory.

Compare this to the laptops of today. It was

massive. It had to be housed in a specially

air-conditioned room of it's own and ran a

single program at a time. Programs were

written in an assembler language to which

corrections and amendments had to be made

Now you know what I do, let me tell you a little

in binary and octal. Those were the days.

about how I do it.

Now, as Application Support Manager, I am

To aid me as Application Support Manager, I

responsible for keeping the Authority's main

use a CCTV.  This enlarges the printed

application  systems  running.

image and negates it so that it becomes white

on black. I also have a PC with software

(extremely  important  to  all  37,000

which enlarges the image, shows it as white

employees), Council Tax, Benefits, Rents, Repairs and Cash

on black. With the very limited vision which I have, these do

Collection. All of these are business critical to the Authority.

enable me, albeit with difficulty, to be able to read text. The PC

But, of course, I don't do this single-handed. I actually manage

software, however, goes one better. It actually reads me the

a group of staff who do all the hard work.

text which is displayed on the screen. I also rely quite heavily

on the use of dictaphones to record notes and as an aid

My other job, the most recent one, is that of Clinical

As a Clinical Hypnotherapist, I use dictaphones to make notes

Three years' ago, at the ripe old age of 29 and (quite) a bit, I

and, very importantly, I have pre-recorded key elements of

began to think about my future as a retired person. When I do

treatments which I play back through an ear piece, at high

retire I don't want to just sit in a corner and vegetate. I think I

speed, during some treatments so that I don't miss anything

still have a great deal to offer, but not in computers. So I began

out. Another essential "tool" is my wife. She assists me in

to think. What would I like to do?

consultations by taking notes and indicating to me key activities

from the patient. These include eye closure/opening, breathing

My wife has suffered from arthritis for over 30 years and she

rate and depth of trance. Since it is not permitted to talk to me

was finding that the medication prescribed was not really giving

during a patient's hypnosis, these are communicated to me by

her very much pain relief. In fact she was constantly suffering

a predetermined series of touches on my arm or leg. It was a

from severe, debilitating headaches.  Funnily enough, these

long process to discover how to do this but, with effort, this all

were the side effects of her medication. A colleague of hers

works very well.

suggested hypnotherapy. Not knowing too much about

hypnotherapy other than seeing the stage hypnotists on

It may also be worth mentioning that I was awarded a Regional

television, we poo-pooed the idea. He didn't give in. He

Finalist National Training Award for the Yorkshire and

repeated the suggestion many times until, finally, we thought

Humberside region 2003.

that it couldn't do any harm and, perhaps, it might be beneficial.

After only a couple of sessions there was a marked

improvement. Then, my old grey matter kicked in. If he could

do that to help my wife, could I? If I could do it to help my wife,

could I do it to help others?

We sought a suitable training establishment. Believe me, this

is not as easy as one would expect. Finally, however, we came

across the London College of Clinical Hypnosis and made

contact with them. They were excellent and promised to give

me any assistance that I might need. I started training with them

at our local university. It wasn't easy; there were lots of hurdles

to overcome. But, with the help of the LCCH and my wife, I