Category: Depth Hypnosis
Blog: Overcoming Denial: Part 2
By Denise Colby
If we have been in deep denial about some aspect of our experience, the revelation of truth will at first be a painful one. Truth will make its entrance in ways that will seem quite disturbing—intrusive thoughts, nightmares, innocuous interactions producing strong emotions, or a general feeling that one is “not OK.” It is at this juncture that we come to a choice: we can stay in denial and find external reasons to justify our internal experience, numbing and modulating using whatever coping mechanisms we have, or we can claim our internal experience as something uniquely personal and get very curious about it.
There are many roads out of denial, but at some point we will have to choose to validate what our body and reactivity is saying over the story we’ve been telling ourselves. This breaking down of an old story — the acknowledgement that we’ve been telling ourselves a false story our whole lives — provides the crack where the light of truth can finally break through to our awareness.
Blog: Boundaries: A Case Study
By Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D.
When people come into my office with relationship problems, they do not always realize they’re dealing with boundary issues. Many people think if they’re being treated badly in relationship, they must be doing something wrong. This is generally due to a lack of understanding about boundaries, and this lack of understanding usually stems from a place of unworthiness. The person being mistreated believes they’re flawed in some way, and makes compromises to stay in relationships where they are suffering. Boundary issues almost always arise when a person doesn’t feel lovable, and consequently, they’re willing to do almost anything to get another person’s approval. Because they don’t love themselves, they are dependent on others to be sources of love and validation.
On the Air: Soulspace Podcast #16: Depth Hypnosis with Isa Gucciardi
Relying on our human will can only take us so far. There comes a time in our life when we have to surrender the mind and allow the soul’s path to unfold naturally. On this episode, we explore the unseen powers of nature with Isa Gucciardi. Isa has spent over 30 years studying spiritual, therapeutic, and meditative techniques from around the world. She has worked with master teachers of Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, and Sufism, as well as expert Shamanic practitioners from the indigenous traditions of Hawaii, North and South America, Siberia, and Nepal. Isa is the creator of Depth Hypnosis, a therapeutic modality that integrates elements of Shamanic journeying and Buddhist meditation. She guides us through a live Depth Hypnosis journey during the interview *please don’t follow this part while driving, for obvious reasons*. She is the co-founder of the Foundation of the Sacred Stream, a school for consciousness studies in California. They offer courses like Depth Hypnosis, Applied Shamanism, Buddhist Psychology, and Integrated Energy Medicine. Isa is the author of two books, Return to the Great Mother and Coming to Peace.
Video: Isa Gucciardi on Depth Hypnosis
In this in-depth interview, Laura Chandler talks to Isa Gucciardi about the highly effective therapeutic model Isa developed called Depth Hypnosis. Influenced in part by aspects of Buddhism and shamanism, Depth Hypnosis uses altered states such as meditation, hypnosis, and the shamanic journey to access ordinarily hard to reach aspects of the self in order to gain insight and effect change. Isa explains the relevance of the higher self, universal consciousness, somatic experience, energy medicine, and spontaneous regression to the healing process.
Buddhist Meditation in Depth Hypnosis
By Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D.
Depth Hypnosis is a therapeutic process that blends elements of Shamanism, Buddhism, transpersonal psychology, hypnotherapy, and energy medicine. Buddhism is one of the main engines of Depth Hypnosis, and meditation is one of many tools we use to help clients alter their state of consciousness. Meditation enables clients to shift their focus from their “thinking minds” to their inner experience.
Video: Depth Hypnosis: Inspirations and Influences
In this talk with Laura Chandler, Isa Gucciardi discusses the inspirations and influences that helped her create her groundbreaking therapeutic model, Depth Hypnosis. This interview takes place at the Sacred Stream Center in Berkeley, CA.
Video: Depth Hypnosis: Powerful Healing for Common Issues
In this conversation with Laura Chandler, Isa Gucciardi describes many of the common issues people seek help with, including relationships, autoimmune issues, phobias, anxiety, and spiritual crisis. Isa also talks about a common phenomenon known as the “Inner critic” and how her book, Coming to Peace, offers insight on the inner critic and how to heal it. This interview takes place at the Sacred Stream Center in Berkeley, CA.
Video: Depth Hypnosis: Past Life Regression for the Non-Believer
Isa Gucciardi and Laura Chandler discuss past life regressions and how they are addressed in Depth Hypnosis, the therapeutic model Isa developed. Isa explains how past life memories hold important energetic patterns that can help people heal current life issues. She also points out that it is not necessary to believe in past lives in order to benefit from a past life regression and the information that arises from them. This interview takes place at the Sacred Stream Center in Berkeley, CA.
Video: Depth Hypnosis: Hypnosis as a Tool for Navigating the Self
Isa Gucciardi and Laura Chandler discuss the highly effective therapeutic model Isa developed called Depth Hypnosis. Dr. Gucciardi explains how Depth Hypnosis uses altered states — such as meditation, hypnosis, and the shamanic journey — to access aspects of the self that are not known in our conscious awareness to generate healing and create movement in the places in our lives where we are stuck. She also explains regression therapy and how it works in Depth Hypnosis. This interview takes place at the Sacred Stream Center in Berkeley, CA.
Video: Depth Hypnosis: Accessing the Higher Self
In this conversation with Laura Chandler, Isa Gucciardi discusses the importance of connecting to the higher self in order to heal past wounds and effect change in one’s life, and how Depth Hypnosis helps facilitate that. Isa explains the concept of “spiritual emergency” and what inspired her to create this innovative and highly effective therapeutic model. This interview takes place at the Sacred Stream Center in Berkeley, CA.
Video: Depth Hypnosis: A Unique Counseling Model
Isa Gucciardi and Laura Chandler discuss the highly effective therapeutic model Isa developed called Depth Hypnosis. Dr. Gucciardi explains how it allows participants to move into deeper levels of self-inquiry and transformation. Informed in part by shamanism and Buddhism, it offers innovative processes to help people shift deeply held patterns so that they can lead happier and healthier lives. This interview takes place at the Sacred Stream Center in Berkeley, CA.
Special Announcement: Depth Hypnosis Pilot Study Featured in The International Journal of Regression Therapy
There is much anecdotal evidence about the efficacy of Depth Hypnosis, based on the many reports of thousands of people who have been helped with the modality. In 2014, Dr. Joanna Adler, a long-time Depth Hypnosis Practitioner, set up the Depth Hypnosis Research Project to measure the efficacy of Depth Hypnosis in addressing symptoms of depression, anxiety, symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, and in increasing well-being.
Article: Light and Sound: The Medicines of the Spirit
By Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D.
Energy medicine is very basic to all experience, yet it is quite difficult to speak about. One of the reasons energy medicine is challenging to talk about is that it refers to phenomena beyond the purview of our everyday waking consciousness.
As children we have a wider perception of the subtle experience that underlies our thoughts, words and actions. When we question these perceptions, we may be met with unhelpful responses or inadequate answers because the adults around us have often lost contact with what we are experiencing. Part of “growing up” involves learning to view our reality primarily with our conscious mind’s value system. Our conscious mind values organization, goal-setting, and fitting into consensus reality in a way that does not stray too far from the socially accepted norms we learn to live by as we are growing up.
Our education system focuses on developing this problem-solving state of being, designed to block out anything disorganizing or disorienting. Seeing lights in the corner of the room or an energy wave coming off of a person expressing a strong emotion are the kinds of phenomena that get filtered out by the conscious mind’s priorities of organizing and categorizing our experience.
If we allow ourselves to return to this wider awareness we were born with, and which we engage with through dreaming, we can learn about the subtle energies that surround and inform us even when we are not conscious of them.
Blog: Spiritual Maturity and Depth Hypnosis
By Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D.
People often ask me if Depth Hypnosis is like psychotherapy. If psychotherapy is a process of identifying psychological disturbance and then talking about it, possibly while working with prescription drugs to reduce symptoms, then it cannot be said that Depth Hypnosis is psychotherapy. In Depth Hypnosis there is no process of diagnosis and no use of medication. Rather, it is more a process of inquiry and discovery – particularly about client experience that might be hidden or unknown.
In “The Ten Lessons of Psychedelic Psychotherapy, Rediscovered” Neal M. Goldsmith suggests that it might be more accurate to look at symptoms of imbalance such as anxiety and depression as an indicator of spiritual immaturity rather than as an indicator of psychological pathology. This is an intriguing idea – and certainly one that resonates with the practice of Depth Hypnosis.
Special Announcement: Yoga Teacher Advanced Studies Seminar with Isa Gucciardi
Join an online community of Yoga Teachers and Practitioners in a monthly exploration of yoga philosophy, anatomy, research, therapeutics, and ethics.
The Yoga Teacher Advanced Studies Seminar is a response to the evolving need for quality continuing education programming in the yoga teaching community.
The level of proficiency in philosophy, anatomy, ethics, and therapeutics is minimal in those teachers who recently completed their 200 hour training, and even in those teachers who have been teaching for a number of years.
This seminar was designed both for teachers looking to keep the learning process alive and for those yoga practitioners who are just plain interested in the fascinating world of yoga philosophy, practice, research and scholarship.