What have popularly become known as "12 Step Programs" have proven themselves to be highly effective for controlling and ending addictive behaviors. Resisting someone or something for which a person has developed a biological craving or need is one of the most difficult things a human can do. So difficult, it forces one to seek the help of others. Discovering how important humans are to one another is a second important outcome of "12 Step Programs", as is gaining appreciation for the wonderful abilities humans have to help themselves and each other. Still another is becoming more open to the inner power that transcends even human abilities. While "12 Step Programs" are successful for many in helping to end or control behavior, they have not proven effective in ending the need or desire for the behavior. Addictive behavior is like a train running out of control, and desire is the engine that drives it. While a runaway train can be brought under control by manipulating the rails it is running on, the train is never really stopped until the engine has stopped. There is a difference between ending a behavior and ending the desire that drives it. As long as the desire remains, the person with it feels a) deprived and b) fearful of its power.

Brain chemistry affects emotions and emotions affect brain chemistry. When repeated exposure to a person, place, thing, or behavior triggers identical, or similar, emotional responses, the subconscious mind programs a pattern of automatic bio-chemical responses to these triggers. Thus, in the presence of the same, or a similar, person, place, thing, or behavior, a bio-chemical need for it - i.e. desire - is triggered. Biological needs are extremely difficult to deny or ignore. It is a battle. Won or lost it is a battle with casualties. Suppression of desire requires tremendous expenditures of energy.

"As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." Proverbs 23:7

"You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you." James Allen

"Associate reverently, as much as you can, with your loftiest thoughts." Henry David Thoreau.

"Thought takes man out of servitude, into freedom." Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives." William James

"What you don’t understand is there is not a ‘real’ world. It is really a world we made up." Frank Oppenheimer, Ph.D., Nuclear Physicist, and lead scientist on developing the atomic bomb, when asked by his colleagues why he could produce reactions with atoms they, themselves, could not.

"Israeli researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science provided the first physical proof of the quantum mechanical theory that, by the very act of watching, the observer affects the viewed reality." Times Medical Writer, Thomas H. Maugh II.

Does any thinking person doubt that thought is the foundation of reality? Thought triggers will, emotion, and desire. Will, emotion, and desire trigger bio-chemical reactions, which in turn motivate behavior. To end the desire for behavior, one must end the thought that triggers the desire.

There is always an origin of every thought. Similar thoughts become linked in the neurological pathways of the brain. Clustered thoughts become beliefs. Beliefs are powerful engines that drive autonomic and automatic behavior. When the fuel of desire is added to belief, automatic behavior becomes addictive behavior.

Talk therapy is not "new age." In 100 B.C. the Yellow Emperor of China wrote: "One who heals the mind by talking, is the superior doctor, and by talking only, the superior doctor can heal all the diseases of the body, mind, and spirit."

What is talk therapy but attempting to find the underlying thoughts creating belief, desire and behavior in order to change these? Addiction is a disease. The only doctor who can cure this disease is you. By talking, you can heal the desire for your addiction. That is, if you talk about the thoughts creating the desire.

In a study of 112 adults with rheumatoid arthritis or chronic asthma, doctors asked two thirds of the group to write about a very upsetting event in their lives for 20 minutes a day, three days in a row. The remainder just wrote about their plans for the day. Checkups two weeks, two months, and four months later, revealed that almost half of those who’d written about a traumatic experience experienced marked improvements in their asthma or arthritis - whereas over half the others experienced no change at all. (Remedy, July/August, 1999.)

"This study shows that writing about stressful events may actually reduce the symptoms of a chronic illness," says Joshua M. Smyth, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology at North Dakota State University in Fargo. Why? "Trauma may produce hormone changes that affect long-term health and writing about it may help restore balance."

Writing is talk therapy. Writing out or talking aloud to yourself about what has upset you and how you feel about it is a valuable self-help tool, if you can do so without becoming so emotionally upset you lose control. A valuable addendum to writing or talking about what has upset you is to a) write or talk about what your upset emotion wanted to say or do at the time it happened and then b) write or talk about what you might have said and done had you felt perfectly calm and inwardly unaffected.

Therapy becomes important when:

A) you cannot write or talk about what upsets you without losing control.

B) You do not know or are fearful of facing what upsets you.

C) The thoughts and beliefs fueling desire are subconscious thoughts and beliefs.

"Positive thought at the conscious level only is like riding half an ass. It will not get you where you are trying to go." Hugh Harmon, Ph.D.

You have been forming thought from your beginnings. Every thought you think becomes linked to similar thoughts you hold until clustered thoughts form beliefs. Emotions linked to beliefs fuel desire, which in turn fuels behavior. To change desire, one must change the beliefs and thoughts that fuel desire. If you have learned to focus consciously on positive thoughts and the behavior or the desire for the behavior remains, then you must investigate your subconscious thoughts - i.e. thoughts and beliefs you may not even be aware you hold.

"Healing is a conscious activity. To heal, you must go about it consciously." Deepak Chopra, M.D.

How do you heal thoughts, beliefs, and emotions that are so buried in the subconscious you are not aware of them consciously? It is obvious one must bring them to the conscious level where one can examine and change them consciously.

Anything that happened prior to the present moment is in the past. Regression therapy is talk therapy about what happened in the past. You have learned a great deal in your life. You have grown physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. By reviewing the events of the past through the greater awareness and knowledge you have now, you are able to examine in greater depth the choices made in the past that have created your thoughts, beliefs, emotions, desires, and behavior.

Psychoanalytical therapy and psychotherapy seek to bring to the surface - i.e. conscious awareness - events of the past that affect the present. This is regression therapy.

The Six R’s of Regression Therapy:

• Recognize the events of the past that created the negative thoughts, beliefs, and emotions creating bio-chemical reactions that drive negative desires and behavior.

• Relive the experiences of those events.

• Release the unprocessed emotions linked to those experiences.

• Re-pattern the experiences with positive empowering actions, emotions, and thoughts that lead to positive, empowering beliefs, desires, and behaviors.

• Realize the lessons gained in the experiences.

• Review the experiences of the past to test for positive subconscious change.

Hypnotherapy powerfully enhances regression therapy. This is because hypnosis allows a person to more quickly and deeply access the subconscious levels. Three common misconceptions about hypnosis are a) it allows the hypnotist to gain control over the mind of the hypnotized person, b) a person must be unconscious in order for hypnosis to be effective, and c) it is difficult for most people to be hypnotized.

"All hypnosis is self-hypnosis. That is, hypnosis is not something that is imposed upon you, but rather something that you yourself do, and someone else simply serves as a facilitator to guide you. Another myth about hypnosis is that you lose consciousness and have amnesia. The majority of people remember everything that occurs in hypnosis." D. Corydon Hammond, Ph.D.

If you are fearful you may be one of those rare individuals who experiences amnesia during hypnosis, simply tape your session to take home and play. This is a good idea for everyone. Spontaneous amnesia occurs in hypnosis when one is bringing up information one is not wanting to face, which is the core of what is creating the negative conditions one desires to heal. You will not be aware you had spontaneous amnesia during the session until you play the tape. If you are disturbed by what you hear, call your therapist.

Milton Erickson, M.D., one of the most respected psychotherapists of the century and often called the father of modern hypnosis wrote: "So far as I know, hypnosis as a form of human behavior has been in existence since the beginning of the human race. Trance is a common experience. A football fan watching a game on TV is awake to the game, but is not awake to his body sitting in the chair or his wife calling him to dinner. Practically all normal people can be hypnotized."

Another myth about hypnosis is that memories brought up in hypnosis are not as accurate or believable as memories brought forward in conscious states of mind. The following is from the American Association of Behavioral Therapists: A great deal of research over the years confirms that a person’s memory of things is based less on factual recall and more on what they want and expect to be true. However, recent research by Edward Hirt at the University of Wisconsin in Madison identified a strategy that can overcome personal biases and facilitate accurate recall. During this study, researchers observed that subjects who were told to imagine - i.e. image, or mentally recreate the situation in which they first experienced the information to be recalled - were much better at recalling it accurately than were those who did not use this technique.

Since hypnosis enhances one's ability to image and to mentally recreate the past, one might correctly suppose hypnosis would enhance accurate recall of events of the past. While this is true, it is also true that an improperly or poorly trained hypnotherapist can influence this recall by the use of direct or indirect suggestions. It is as important to check the training credentials of a hypnotherapist as it is any other type of therapist. Especially as this profession is, as yet, unregulated in most states. A minimum of 300 hours of training with at least 200 of those hours in a classroom - not via tapes, videos, or books - with certified instructors is important. Look in your local yellow pages for certified hypnotherapists in your area and ask for a free consultation with several. During your consultation, check credentials and ask questions. Avoid controllers who offer quick cures. You’ve already controlled your behavior. You need to understand it, which is likely to require more time, commitment and effort than any quick cure can offer. Choose the qualified professional with whom you feel most comfortable.

People in hypnosis will often begin speaking as a child when remembering events of childhood, or will, when told to go to an originating thought or emotion, begin speaking of a past life. Permitting oneself to speak and feel as a child in regression therapy is highly conducive to changing the negative thoughts, beliefs, and emotions one developed as a child. Since the majority of one’s personality - with its attendant thoughts, beliefs, and emotions - is developed in early childhood and reinforced throughout one’s youth to be carried forward into adulthood, working with the "inner child," "inner teen," and "inner adult" can be helpful in rooting out and changing negative patterns of thought, belief, emotions, and behavior.

While two-thirds of the world’s population believes in the soul, and multiple lifetimes of the soul, it is not necessary to consciously accept this belief in order to heal thoughts, beliefs, emotions, and behaviors in what the subconscious mind identifies as a past life. It can be argued that such "memories" of the subconscious mind are metaphors, much like dream symbols, used by the subconscious to heal and transform inner thoughts, beliefs, and emotions that are negatively affecting present behavior. Flowing with the subconscious intent to heal and transform is a powerful means of effecting positive change.

While there are many ways of changing behavior, effecting healing, releasing emotions, and changing subconscious programming, hypnotherapy uncovers blocks to reaching these goals. Such blocks can be resistance with the "inner child," a "past life personality," or the influence of others on your subconscious. Spirit attachments are another area of subconscious influence which, like past life therapy, are believed by many. Again, whether this is a metaphor the subconscious uses for healing or a spiritual reality is unimportant. What is important is to follow what your own subconscious suggests (not any leading suggestions of your therapist). (For more information regarding the inner child, past lives, and spirit attachments read: Odyssey of the Soul, A Trilogy, Book I, Apocatastasis by Pamela Chilton, Hugh Harmon, Ph.D., and Light, available at all major retail and internet bookstores.) It is exciting and important to note that when blocks to goals are cleared, many processes, treatments, methods, and means that have not worked to reach the goal in the past now will work.

While group talk is supportive and enhances understanding of oneself and of others, group therapy is ineffective and can, in fact, be damaging. Why?

1. People are unique individuals who process differently and at different speeds. Experiences and emotions one person may be ready to process may trigger traumatic memories or emotions others in the group are not ready to acknowledge, let alone face.

2. The human psyche is highly sensitive to judgemental criticism. Therapists are taught to avoid remarks, gestures, emotions, and even thoughts that would anger or upset a person in therapy, unless this is a conscious step made by the therapist to facilitate healing. Untrained individuals in a group are likely to trigger the defenses of others in the group by thoughtless or judgemental criticisms.

3. People in therapy are more open to suggestion and influence. Therapists are trained to recognize this and handle it carefully. It is very difficult to avoid negative suggestions and influences in a group setting.

4. Hypnosis so greatly enhances regression therapy it is almost senseless not to use it for regression therapy, yet using hypnosis for group therapy is completely senseless. Trauma requires the undivided attention of a professional therapist. Since hypnosis is likely to bring up repressed trauma, how undivided will the attention of a therapist be when more than one member of a group brings up trauma during the hypnosis?

Pamela Chilton is a practicing hypnotherapist in Rancho Mirage CA and author of Odyssey of the Soul. She and her husband, Dr. Hugh Harmon, also have a non-profit research foundation concerned with mind motivation. For more information, see http://www.odysseyofthesoul.org.