Answers to Questions about SCS

For a general description of SCS, see What is SCS?"

How was SCS developed?

Debra, who was a Certified Healing Touch™ Practitioner, invited Joel, a professor at Western Michigan University teaching business communication courses, to teach Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) in St. Joseph, Michigan. They recognized that, however good the skill sets were separately, they were extremely powerful in combination. Over the past six years, they have been creating new and increasingly powerful, elegant ways to facilitate change and promote greater health and well-being using the combination of Energy medicine and neurolinguistics.

Can anyone become an SCS Practitioner?

Yes, SCS is open to all. At a minimum, those who wish to become SCS Practitioners need to complete SCS Levels 1 (Healing with Energy), 2 (Healing with Language), and 3A and 3B (Healing with Energy and Language). Many of the SCS Practitioners were previously trained in Energy Medicine (often Reiki or Healing Touch™), in NLP (licensed Practitioners or Master Practitioners), or in hypnotherapy. When possible, we offer those with previous certification what we call the “Fast Track” option credit for their previous training.

How long does it take to complete the SCS program?

That depends on your previous training and your willingness to take the required courses when and where they are offered. If you have no background in either Energy Medicine or NLP but were willing and able to take the classes consecutively and complete the mentoring program in the minimum time, it would take about 7 months.

What Exactly is the Fast Track?

The “Fast Track” is an accelerated program for those with previous training. It provides a way for us to acknowledge certifications already earned. Those who already have an established clinical practice based on an energy modality or NLP may waive SCS training that would cover the same material. Eligibility for the “Fast Track” is determined individuality, so if you have an appropriate certification, check with Debra about your qualifications.

How do things like “Welcome Baby!” and Pre- and Postsurgical Support fit with the rest of SCS?

“Welcome Baby!” and Pre- and Postsurgical Support, and the other titles you see on Products and Services page represent specific applications of SCS technologies. On these products—and all the SCS products and in SCS workshops—we employ energy-based and linguistic strategies to help clients achieve their desired goals and to help practitioners be increasingly effective at helping their clients as well.

What are TimeWarp Technologies™?

Joel and Debra have developed a unique combination of skills and ideas based on their training with Richard Bandler and their reading that effectively clears “debris” from an individual’s energy field back through time, into the present, and into the future. You’ll have to experience its power to  believe it.

Answers to Questions about NLP

For a general introduction to NLP, see What is NLP?

NLP has the reputation of being manipulative. Is it?

NLP is an extremely effective skill set that some people have chosen to use manipulatively. As is true for all tools, the ethics of use reside in the user rather than in the tool. The finest of automobiles may be used as the get-away vehicle for a bank robbery. That doesn’t mean that automobiles are evil.

Because NLP is a powerful skill set, you will undoubtedly wish to work or train with practitioners or trainers whose ethical standards match your own.

I have heard a lot of bad things about Richard Bandler. Are they true?

Some of them may well be, but whatever you have heard probably happened a long time ago. Richard has changed a lot over the years, and NLP has changed a lot along with him. A number of NLP trainers continue to think of Richard and NLP as they were in the early 1970s. A great deal of change has occurred in the intervening years. The 1970s Richard is now “new and improved.” The same is true for the 1970s NLP.

Why did Bandler and Grinder go separate ways?

That’s a difficult question to answer. They may not even know for sure. Simon and Garfunkle went separate ways, too. The Beatles broke up. Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis went their separate ways. Debra and Joel have discovered that working together to create something new is not always easy. The fact that Bandler and Grinder decided to go separate ways doesn’t make either of them wrong or a bad person.

Is it true that NLP trainers use foul language?

NLP trainers often use fowl language. It is true that a lot of trainers do use “colorful” language in their workshops. They typically do so for a number of reasons, the most important of which are to enhance the flexibility of those taking the training and to facilitate learning. Flexibility is enhanced any time people step beyond their comfort zones, and “foul” language is just one of the ways that happens in an NLP training. Learning is facilitated through humor, and sexual humor is remarkably effective in that regard.

Why is NLP training so long and so expensive?

NLP is a complex and valuable skill set. The length of the training corresponds with what participants are supposed to know when they have completed either a Practitioner or a Master Practitioner certification program. The cost of the program is commensurate with the potential value of certification. Whether you receive that value does, of course, depend on the effort you put into the training while you are there and your continued use of the skills following certification. In the martial arts, earning a black belt is considered just the beginning of serious study. The same is true of certification as Practitioner in NLP. It’s the beginning of serious study.

How can I use the NLP skill set?

How you would use the NLP skill set depends on your occupation and your objectives. Most of those who train with SCS use the skill set in therapeutic settings. They are working with clients who are working to overcome problems, whether physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual. Some of those who have trained with SCS wished to use the skill set to improve their relationships with family members.

Still others intended to use the skill set to become better supervisors or business managers, and still others have used the skill set to become more effective in sales and marketing. A number of educators have also completed NLP training with SCS so that they could improve their teaching strategies and create better learning environments for their students.

Do you offer a money-back guarantee?

That depends on when you asked for it. If you decided at the end of the first day of training that the training was not for you, SCS would refund your investment, less a materials and processing fee. We believe that learning the NLP skill set requires a personal intellectual and energetic investment commensurate with the financial investment. Joel and Debra make every effort to ensure that those who train with SCS receive a full value for their investment of time, energy, effort, and money.

For a better sense of who we are and how we train, see SCS Trainings and NLP Trainings.

Answers to Questions about Hypnosis

For a general introduction to hypnosis, see The Truth about Hypnosis.

What exactly is hypnosis?

No one knows for sure—at least not yet. Milton Erickson, M.D., considered the Father of American Hypnotherapy, defined it as “a reduction in the multiplicity of the foci of attention.” In some ways, hypnosis is like meditation: the body relaxes, the heart rate slows, you breathe more deeply and easily. In other ways, it’s not. An athlete performing “in the zone” is in an hypnotic trance. Everyone goes through hypnotic states when falling asleep (hypnogogic) and waking up (hypnopomic). In practical terms, hypnosis is a state in which conscious and unconscious resources and processes are brought into alignment in ways that enhance effectiveness and memory.

In brief, hypnosis is a trance state that can be used to achieve specific objectives. A hypnotist is a person who facilitates that trance in another, and hypnotherapy is the intentional use of the state of hypnosis for your healing physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual challenges. Because most trance states occur naturally while you are doing something else, self-hypnosis refers to the deliberate act of putting yourself into trance.

Can Everyone Be Hypnotized?

Yes, everyone can be hypnotized, although not everyone can be hypnotized in the same way. The absolute conviction that one cannot be hypnotized is actually a hypnotic trance. Anyone who has ever been caught up in a good book, movie, or TV show has been in a hypnotic trance. People who find that they have eaten more than they intended were in a trance while eating. Not everyone responds equally to a formal hypnotic process, but being able to enter a deep hypnotic trance quickly is a learnable skill.

Does the hypnotist have control over the person being hypnotized?

No. Those who are hypnotized retain the ability to choose which suggestions they accept and which they reject. When people are hypnotized to do crazy things as part of a stage hypnotist’s show, they are engaged in the “show business” trance. In general, individuals who are hypnotized accept suggestions they believe will be good for them and reject suggestions they believe will be bad for them. All hypnosis is essentially self-hypnosis in that the subject allows the hypnotist to guide him or her into the trance state.

Does hypnosis have medical validity?

Yes, hypnosis has been used for medical purposes for a very long time and has been approved by the American and British Medical Associations since the 1950s. The best-known medical application of hypnosis is the placebo effect. When a physician prescribes a medication and says something to the effect of, “This drug will cure what ails you,” he or she is giving the patient a posthypnotic suggestion that greatly increases the efficacy of the prescribed medication. Hypnosis has actually been used as the only anesthetic in a number of surgeries, from dental work to open heart surgery.

Is hypnosis dangerous? What if I don’t wake up?

Under normal circumstances, hypnosis is perfectly safe. To ensure your safety, allow only those who are trained and have good, common sense to hypnotize you. A person can display remarkable feats of strength while hypnotized. People in trance, for example, have been known to lift automobiles off someone pinned underneath. While such feats are extraordinary, lifting that much weight is not especially good for the individual’s body. A trained hypnotist will help ensure that what you desire to achieve as a result of the trance will actually be good for you.

A person in trance may be slow to wake up, but everyone who is hypnotized wakes up sooner or later. Individuals may find trance relaxing and choose to ignore the hypnotist’s suggestion to wake up, but if the hypnotist simply walks away, the person will fall into a natural sleep and awaken when refreshed. Trained hypnotists are well-acquainted with a variety of ways to bring a person out of hypnosis at a particular time even when the individual desires to remain in trance longer. Most hypnotherapists schedule sessions every 60 minutes or so and could not remain in business if clients didn’t wake up on schedule.

I went to a hypnotist to stop smoking, and it didn’t work. How effective is hypnosis?

Trance is powerful, but the question is which trance? If you had hypnotized yourself to continue smoking, that trance may have been more powerful than the stop smoking trance. Your unconscious mind follows the strongest, most embedded belief. Hypnosis provides a way to change core beliefs that no longer serve your purpose, and hypnosis works best when the conscious mind cooperates in the process. Hypnosis is not a tool that works against your will. It works with your will—your desire to change in ways that will best serve your needs and purpose now.

In one form or another, hypnosis is the single most effective tool for creating change—or for maintaining the status quo. You can use hypnosis to change your behavior in the direction you desire, but to make the change permanent, to persuade your unconscious mind that you are serious about the desire to change, you will need to reinforce the suggestions. This is one of the reasons trance-based CDs have become so popular. See, for example, the SCS list of hypnosis CDs on our Products and Services page.

Answers to Questions about Spirituality

Do SCS Practitioners believe in God?

SCS Practitioners tend to believe in a spiritual Source. Some call that Source God. Others call the Source “Spirit.” Still others call it the “All That Is.” Still others call it simply “the Source” or “the Universe.” SCS Practitioners tend to believe that The Source, by whatever name, is omnipresent and intelligent.

All SCS Practitioners are trained to work within their clients’ belief systems. The idea is to create ecological change that brings more of your core beliefs into congruent alignment, so that you can be healthy and happy within your belief system. It sometimes happens, of course, that individuals outgrow the religious beliefs of their childhoods and seek a new understanding of their place in the Universe that will allow them to retain their core values while finding new ways of spiritual expression. SCS Practitioners are trained to do that, too.

Most of the differences among religious belief systems are matters of vocabulary and semantics. SCS Practitioners are trained to find the expressions that fit comfortably within their clients’ belief systems.

Are SCS and NLP compatible with Christianity?

Of course. Many practitioners of both SCS and NLP are also practicing Christians. Neither SCS nor NLP includes a religious component, and practitioners are free to choose their religious beliefs. Inherent in both SCS and NLP is the presupposition that working within a client’s system of religious or spiritual beliefs is more effective than attempting to force the client to change.

In some cases, it is a matter of finding the right vocabulary to bridge between belief systems. Not everyone is fully comfortable with the term Soul Retrieval from Native American shamanism. Those uncomfortable with that term might respond more comfortably to healing the wounded child within. The processes are the same, even though the vocabulary is different. Both SCS and NLP advocate developing the flexibility to be comfortable with different metaphors to describe the same processes.

What if I am an atheist and have no belief in God whatsoever?

That’s OK, too. As long as you are open to perceiving the human energy field, and as long as you recognize your ability to influence your own energy field and those of others, you will be comfortable with SCS and NLP. Much of what happens with what we typically call “The Energy” operates according to the Laws of Physics, including the Law of Magnetic Attraction, or Magnetic Resonance. If you have two tuning forks of the same tone set close together, for example, striking one will cause the other to vibrate as well. The same is true for human beings: one person’s vibration influences another’s. It works the same way whether you are an atheist or a “True Believer.”