Helping individuals to change behavior patterns through a conscious and unconscious emotional investment is the specialty of Dr. Jaime Feldman, director of Accredited Hypnosis Counseling and co-director of The Institute of Hypnotherapy, in Moorestown.

Feldman is acutely aware that changing behavior patterns can happen more quickly when an individual’s conscious and subconscious personalities are aligned and working together. “In hypnotherapy, I communicate with the subconscious, the source of behavior patterns,” says Feldman, a 20-plus-year veteran of hypnotherapy, and creator of a cutting-edge technique called “Advanced Parts Therapy”. The technique is based upon the premise that we are each multi-faceted individuals, with sub-personalities that play out, positively or negatively, when we are called upon to perform different roles and tasks.

Our subconscious is protective, and through this mechanism it sets up specific “parts” to deal with trauma or other special needs the individual may require. It is the nature of the mind to be subdivided into an indeterminate number of sub-personalities or “parts”. The intention of each “part” is positive or protective for the individual. There are no “bad parts” and the goal of “Advanced Parts Therapy” is not to eliminate any “parts”, but instead to help find “New Positive Roles or behaviors”.

“I speak to the subconscious mind, the home of ‘wounded from childhood’ personality facets, which are the source of the behavioral challenge,” advises Feldman.

This approach to hypnotherapy is based on Gestalt therapy, an experiential form of psychotherapy developed in the 1950s. “Although my background in psychology is helpful in understanding the subconscious mind, I decided that I didn’t want to go in that direction professionally because it takes too long to help people with talk therapy,” explains  Feldman, who adds that with hypnotherapy, his clients realize major significant improvement in two to five sessions.

“While the client is in a safe, hypnotic state, we get the emotional buy-in from the subconscious by going back to the root cause of any trauma that caused the inner conflict,” notes Feldman, who has found that no matter what the inappropriate behavior, it is always caused by some kind of trauma.

Feldman explains that an individual can live with the after-effects of trauma for a long time and one day, without warning, they are emotionally overloaded beyond capacity. Thereafter, any inconsequential event can result in the mind refusing to tolerate any more. The result can be inappropriately directed anger, eating disorders, insomnia, obsessive/compulsive disorders, anxiety, depression or other health problems.

In communication with the subconscious, Feldman asks the client to envision and emotionally experience an event in their life and pick out a word that can later trigger these positive emotions by attaching them to that “Great” event.

“Thereafter, when I use the word during the session, they are reinforcing the positive emotion tied to the new behavior,” states Feldman, who points out that individuals are more apt to develop new behaviors if the root cause or trauma has been neutralized. “They now have new positive behaviors, instead of the old negative one,” he explains.

According to Feldman, while problems like depression and anxiety can be corrected with this technique, more physically challenging problems also respond well. “I treated a 26-year-old woman, who on a good day had eight to 15 seizures even after invasive medical procedures and a lot of medication,” says Feldman. “After using hypnotherapy for a month, she had no more seizures.” He also advises that individuals who want to quit smoking or lose weight find hypnotherapy to be extremely effective.

Feldman also travels to teach and certify medical hypnotherapists in Canada and California. He also teaches a three-week Medical Hypnotherapy Certification course in Japan once a year. 

The Institute of Hypnotherapy is located at 214 W. Main St. in Moorestown. For more information or to make an appointment, call 352-507-5435, email [email protected]or visit PartsTherapy.com