Alternative Information

What's best?

Whenever we are about to invest money, whether it be a tin of baked beans, or a complete new hi-fi, we ask ourselves the question what's best? Where will we get the best value for our money? Where will we get the best return for our investment? Now where we all differ is in what we consider best. For some of us, value is the most important so we go for the lowest price that does the job (covers the toast, or plays CD's). For others it's quality so we go for the best we can afford (tastes divine, or makes you feel like you're standing right next to the band).

These choices seem fairly simple but they are much more complicated than that. They are complicated by things like personal knowledge (what we think we know), personal preferences (style, design, taste), informative advertising (this product does this in this way and it's new and innovative and better than all the rest).

So we might have to consider what additives, artificial colouring, sweeteners, pesticides are in the beans. We might have to take into consideration branding and choose a reliable name that's been around awhile, or be modern and innovative and take the heavily advertised newcomer that's totally healthy, and it's on the telly so it must be good. Or might know all about the difference between real watts and the sort they mention in advertising when their kit doesn't have enough of the proper ones. Or about woofers and squeakers or is it tweeters and all that techno stuff that only makes sense if you know the code. But again, apart from the mechanical performance, there's 'sound', and branding and advertising and innovation and you probably know an Aiwa won't sound quite like a Bose kit, or Sanyo the same as Bang & Olufsen. But you might be perfectly happy with any one of those if it sounds good to you and is set at a price where you think you've got best value for your money.

So what's all this got to do with the title of this article?

It's about making choices when you don't have enough personal knowledge to buy the best for you. It's about when you have a problem and you've decided you'd like help and you don't want to waste your money by spending it on something that doesn't help, or doesn't help as much as something else would have done. There's no feeling worse than feeling that you've just wasted your money on the wrong thing, because someone with more knowledge comes along later and tells you that you should have bought?

Hypnosis, unless you've experienced it at the hands of a good therapist (rather than an entertainer), is a subject most people know very little about. But it's a subject you're bound to know someone who thinks they know all about.

For the majority hypnosis is associated with stage shows, after that it helps people to stop smoking and after that it helps people to lose weight and after that they use it in past-life regression and after that there isn't any after that. But this article isn't about what hypnosis can and can't do; it is about the availability of treatment and the format that treatment can take.

In a one-to-one session you get to:
* have personal attention
* ask questions
* have a session that can be changed dynamically depending upon your responses
* effective treatment
* deal with unusual problems that CD's don't normally cover
* know that you are safe because you have a professional watching you

with a CD you get to:
* enjoy low-cost treatment
* listen to a session as often as you like
* have much more practice at entering trance (you go deeper the more you do it)
* enjoy treatment at a time and place that suits you
* portable treatment
* effective treatment
* feel safe because you are in a place of your own choosing where you feel secure
* experience hypnosis if you just want to see what it's like and if it works for you.

Like the beans, or the hi-fi, what's best is what's best for you. And what's best for you depends in part upon what you want. If you want to go and see someone and it's important for you to have someone listen to your story and give you personal advice and help and guide you step-by-step back to wholeness, and cost isn't a consideration then a one-to-one with a qualified hypnotherapist is what's best for you.

If you don't like talking about your problems; or you feel uncomfortable about the idea of choosing a therapist from Yellow Pages; if cost is a consideration, if the problem you want help with is a problem for which CD's are readily available then buying a CD and listening to it until you feel better is what's best for you.

One isn't better than the other. They are different. Both effective. Both with advantages.

At the end of the day what matters is that you make the right choice for you, even if that's a CD for weight loss, and a one-to-one for a phobia cure. The right choice for you is the one that makes you feel pleased that you spent the money because you feel good about the results, feel good about the choice you made, and feel good about encouraging others with the same problem to do what you did.

Michael J. Hadfield MBSCH is a registered clinical hypnotherapist.