Stephen LaFevers
Interviewed by: Lauretta Pierce
A. Stephen LaFevers is a husband, father and owner of two
cats. He has been studying hypnosis for more than 50
years. He is a Registered Nurse Practitioner,
Certified Family Nurse Practioner licensed to
prescribe medicine, and is a Certified Advanced
Hypnotherapy Specialist and a Registered Hypnotherapy
Instructor.
He is a writer, primarily of medical fiction. His
thriller, Dreams of April Ten was an Eppie Award
Finalist. He has also written a book for advanced
EMTs, Pre-Hospital Care for the EMT-Intermediate, in
addition to Hypnosis in Healthcare.
A. I was teaching classes in hypnotherapy and discovered
there was not a good text to teach from, so I wrote
one that is easy to read and includes examples of easy
trance inductions and prescriptions for change.
A. I never really thought of calling the book anything
other than Hypnosis in Healthcare. After all, I was a
primary healthcare provider who also used hypnosis in
my practice. Many people, you know, go to doctor
after doctor with the same complaints and never seem
to have them resolved. They keep trying to lose
weight, or stop smoking, or clear up a skin condition,
and never really get anything from their healthcare
provider but reassurance and medicines that don’t seem
to help. With hypnosis, at least these people have a
chance to get what they are seeking.
A. There are literally as many techniques as there are
people practicing hypnosis, thousands probably. I
only cover a dozen or so in the book, but many of them
are easily mastered. The real secret to hypnosis is
that you don’t really have to hypnotize anyone in
order to use hypnosis and this book shows you how to
do that.
A. People come to the clinic with certain expectations in
mind. I’ve found that it is best to use those
expectations to advantage. What you expect to happen
tends to happen and what you expect to work tends to
work. I like using the hypnodisk, that spinning
spiral you sometimes see at the beginning of the
Twilight Zone, because most people expect that to
hypnotize them. After all, it has no other purpose.
However, if a client has other expectations, I will
use another technique or perhaps will forego a formal
induction all together.
A. I’ve been writing seriously for about 20 years. It
took me that long to get my first book into a
presentable shape for submission. Writing in my spare
time now and then, I didn’t usually get much done. I
now write full-time and so I get more work done. I
have two books coming out next year, a humorous
science fiction/fantasy adventure with a cliff-hanger
ending to nearly every chapter. It is called The Last
Guardian and will be published by Mundania Press.
Mundania is also publishing a medical thriller/horror
novel called Dark Moon that I wrote with Canadian
author, Beverley Bateman.
A. I’ve written two books on emergency care for EMTs,
Hypnosis in Healthcare, Dreams of April Ten, The Last
Guardian, and Dark Moon. I’ve also written numerous
magazine articles on emergency care and on computers.
A. That’s an interesting question. I consider myself
primarily a science fiction writer, although
everything I write seems to turn out to be another
genre. When I wrote Dreams of April Ten, for example,
I thought it was a scif book, but the publisher said
it was a medical thriller. I thought The Last
Guardian was scifi, but it seems to be a fantasy.
Dark Moon started out to be scifi but somehow became a
horror story.
A. Actually, I’m working on two books. That’s not really
a good way to write quickly, but it is what I’m doing.
I’m working on a book about using hypnosis to
increase or explore ESP, and I’m working on a sequel
to Dark Moon.
A. I would like for people to come away from Hypnosis in
Healthcare knowing that hypnosis is a natural state
that happens to everyone every day. It is not magic
and doesn’t require any special skill. Great changes
can be made with very little practice. The first
hypnotherapist didn’t even know he was using hypnosis
or even that there was such a thing, yet he helped
hundreds of people. How much more can a person do who
understands what is really happening?
HYPNOSIS IN HEALTHCARE
September 4, 2006
Q.
Who is Stephen LaFevers?
Q. What inspired you to write a book about Hypnosis?
Q. How did you come about the title HYPNOSIS IN
HEALTHCARE ?
Q. How many different hypnotic techniques are there?
Q. Which method(s) of hypnosis do you prefer using
when you hypnotized your patients?
Q. How long have you been writing?
Q. How many books have you written?
Q. What other genres do you write?
Q. Are you currently working on another book or novel?
Q. What message would you like readers to receive
from reading HYPNOSIS IN HEALTHCARE ?