Behind the scenes: Skills update

Over the last few months, I’ve attended several different courses and workshops to help broaden my knowledge and develop my skills. I’ve briefly mentioned the courses on social media but I thought I’d expand upon that a little more here on the blog.

At the end of the Summer, I attended Forging People Speakers Academy here in Bristol ran by Nick Elston. The day was aimed at people who either were fearful of public speaking or had no experience of doing it. I fell into the latter category. Of course, I had to do presentations and speak in front of the class at school and further education but I never really classed those experiences as public speaking. I wanted to experience it for real, developing my skills, as well as my confidence in doing it. The course allowed for this in such a perfect way. Right from the beginning, we had to speak in front of the group by introducing ourselves. Then the speaking tasks progressively lengthened and we added the skills that we learnt throughout the day. You could say we were gradually exposed to public speaking. I really enjoyed the speaking tasks which involved us speaking in front of the group for 1 minute about something that made us angry (when men comment about my boat driving ability - I’m very good by the way), 1 minute about something that made us sad (my nan passed away two years ago), 1 minute about something that made us smile (my ginger cat Beans), and 2 minutes about the best day of our life (the day I did flying trapeze - just one of the best days). These mini talks made me realise that I could talk in front of a group of people. Of course, I was a little bit nervous doing it but it was proportionate to the situation as I’d never done that before and I was stepping outside of my comfort zone. I thoroughly enjoyed doing it. For the final talk, we each had music to walk on to the stage with which was a very surreal moment. I chose Firestarter by The Prodigy as I’m a big fan of the band. I came away from the day feeling more confident in being able to get up in front of an audience and speak about things that are dear to me. If I can talk about emotive subjects, then I can also talk about subjects that I’m passionate and knowledgeable about, such as hypnotherapy and mental health.

At the beginning of October, I travelled over to Wedmore in Somerset to do a Level 3 Award Emergency First Aid at Work course ran by MJR Training Services. I’ve done many first aid courses over the years so I feel pretty proficient in being able to help someone who needs first aid. However, you need a piece of paper to cover you and mine had recently run out. I always like to have a valid certificate just in case anything happens at the clinic, be it to a client or another therapist that works there. I’ve mentioned here before that I’m part of the team organising and running the UK Hypnosis Convention which starts in a week. We needed a registered first aider for the event and as it coincided with my renewal, I booked on to one. My sister-in-law and her husband both worked in the ambulance service and they recommended this training provider as he has lived experience of assisting people in need of first aid, unlike many people who run first aid courses. I’m so pleased I chose this course. I thought I knew a lot about this kind of thing what with being in St John’s Ambulance from a young age and working in a hospital, but I learnt so much. In addition to the usual things you learn on a first aid course, I also got the opportunity to learn how to use an AED (automated external defibrillator), practise abdominal thrusts/back slaps to help someone who is choking, and learnt how to manage catastrophic bleeding. It was a fantastic course, the best first aid course I’ve ever been on.

On my birthday (yes it was a special one), I attended a course entitled Workshop Essentials - The skilled approach to outstanding workshops. It was held in Bristol by Jewell Facilitation. I want to start offering workshops in the future so that I can share my knowledge of hypnosis and mental health with larger audiences. The course was great fun and I learnt a lot about how to engage participants, the different roles of the course leader, group dynamics, difficult participants, the components of a successful workshop, various tools and techniques, and how to plan a workshop. As part of the course, we had to work on an idea we had for a workshop. I’m not going to share at this time what the workshop I started planning is about but the processes we went through on the course helped to solidify my idea and came up with some interesting things to think about.

And finally, last weekend, I travelled to Cardiff to attend an ASIST: Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training course ran at New Pathways. It was a two-day course which allowed for plenty of time to explore our own beliefs and attitudes to suicide, understand what can lead a person to suicide, the signs that might highlight to us that someone is considering suicide, as well as the risk factors and statistics on suicide. The course was attended by a wide range of people including therapists, nurses, police officers, social workers, teachers, and more besides. A very high percentage of the people there knew someone who had attempted or completed suicide. So as you can imagine, it was a very emotionally draining couple of days for everyone involved. But it was so useful and worthwhile! We were taught an evidence-based framework to work through to help people who are thinking about suicide to help keep them safe for now. This last year I’ve worked a lot with people who have suicidal ideation and done a lot of background reading on the subject. This framework brought all of that together nicely so now I feel well prepared to not only help my hypnotherapy clients who might be having suicidal thoughts, but also people in my community. This course was probably one of the hardest but most rewarding courses I’ve ever attended. I think everyone should attend this course. The more of us who know how to move someone through the stages in this framework to keep them safe from suicide 'for now', the better.

I am a lifelong learner! I love attending courses and reading books so I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all of these courses. Next up is the UK Hypnosis Convention where hypnotists and hypnotherapists from all around the world will be talking on all things hypnosis. Can’t wait!