Louis Oosthuizen, a young South African golfer, defied expert predictions and held his nerve for four consective days to emerge victorious at the Old Course at St Andrews in Scotland. Oosthuizen eventually won by one of the biggest margins in history of the Championship!

So – how did he do it?

It appears that the unsung hero was sports psychologist Karl Morris.

He was asked by Oosthuizen’s management to work with the young sportman a month before the Championship and teach him how to control his concentration on the golf course to get the best out of his game.
The psychologist employed hypnosis to enable Oosthuizen to switch his concentration on and off as he toiled through the stresses and strains of competing with the world’s greatest golfers in the worst weather that Scotland could throw at them.

Louis was encouraged to relax, smile and joke as he walked around the course.

Then as he prepared to play a shot, he was to lock into a focused state (commonly known as ‘getting into the zone’) to produce the best result possible.

And to trigger that state, he painted a red dot on his glove. As he looked down at this hands, the red dot would activate the trigger in his mind, enabling him to block out any distractions and execute the perfect golf shot.

The effect astounded everyone. The results were truly amazing and he won by country mile!

Now club golfers across the country are busy painting red dots on their golf gloves in the hope of emulating Osthuizen’s stunning performance.

Sadly, most are unaware that without the help of a professional psychologist or hypnotherapist to set up the anchoring and triggering process, nothing particularly wonderful will occur.

The young South African’s success is really no surprise to me.

Hypnosis was credited with the early success of the young Tiger Woods who learned how to move in and out of ‘the zone’ at will.

Once again the sporting world has witnessed the power of hypnosis to produce amazing results.

At the moment, with the Icelandic volcano erupting, there is not much flying going on.

Although I am a very infrequent viewer of the TV channel National Geographic, about a week ago I found myself in front of the television riveted by the re-enactment of a major incident that nearly caused the destruction of a British Airways flight from the UK to Australia in 1982.

Flying at night across the ocean, the 747 became engulfed in a ‘St Elmo’s fire’ lightshow, which would have been amazingly entertaining if it hadn’t also been life-threatening.  The flight crew were initially bemused by the firework display but couldn’t understand why it was not showing up on their radar.  They couldn’t work out what was causing this phenomena and understandably became more alarmed as the passenger cabin began to fill with acrid smoke and the engines cut out one by one.

The plane had effectively become a very large glider as captain and crew struggled to control their emotions and work professionally through the required procedure to re-start the engines.  Around 50 attempts later, with the plane steadily losing altitude and disaster imminent, the engines suddenly fired up.

They eventually managed to land the plane safely at Jakarta airport and the crew were quite rightly hailed as heroes for remaining so calm and professional throughout the incident.

So what happened to that plane?  What produced the firework display, sand-blasted all the paintwork and logos off the aircraft, and turned the windscreen into frosted glass?

Well, they had flown into a cloud of volcanic ash.

And that was the moment that the airline industry learned a salutory lesson about the danger posed by volcanoes.

Today I listened on the radio to the frustration of airline passengers demanding to know why the airports remained closed when there is scarcely a cloud in the sky which is a beautiful shade of blue.  They accused the authorities of over-reacting.

The reason why the airports are closed is because the airline authorities put safety first.  It’s dangerous up there at the moment!  We should be grateful that they always err on the side of caution!

So when phone rings in my office with another enquiry about my ‘fear of flying’ treatment, I can with clear conscience offer the caller the opportunity to learn how to be relaxed and to really enjoy the safest form of transport available in our modern world.

It’s heartening to see that the lead item in a major article on ‘weight loss’ in the April edition of Sainsbury’s Magazine trumpets the benefits of hypnotherapy. “Hypnotherapy helped me change my bad habits” exclaims a university administrator describing how successful it had been for her.
A number of high profile celebrities and movie stars have recently become fans of hypnotherapy which has helped them overcome a number of problems. Not surprisingly, this new level of interest is now being reflected in a wide variety of magazines.
Thinking back just a few years, the doctors and consultants I spoke to were fairly sceptical – still locked in the ‘swinging watch’ stereotype. Nowadays that’s the exception rather than the rule.
This week St Mary’s University College in London announced a new 3 year degree course in Clinical Hypnosis.
It can’t be long before the NHS automatically refers patients to hypnotherapists, particularly for complaints such as IBS. It is not only clearly seen to be an extremely effective therapy, but it has the added benefit of saving the Health Service money, which according to politicians of all stripes, is top-priority in these cash-strapped times.

We are intrinsically social animals – we find comfort and purpose in being part of a group, a tribe, a nation. The football terraces are a graphic example of the tribal instinct in action.
This social need is not optional, it’s absolutely part of ‘being’ a human being.

If you’re defiantly thinking that’s not me, I prefer my own company thank you very much, you might want to reconsider. Perhaps there’s a reason why you feel that way, you might be short-changing yourself, and by doing so you might be missing out on some personal happiness.

Should you find yourself feeling a bit down on these chilly winter evenings, maybe feeling a bit left out of things with the world passing you by, that’s your cue to go online and search out a group to get involved with. The common interest you share with them might be an existing one, or you might find yourself curious to try something you’ve never done before.

Apparently the country is awash with wannabe ballroom dancers all stepping on each others toes, and hopeful Olympians pounding the pavements in preparation for 2012.
Hey, there might be a basket-weaving group out there just waiting to welcome you.

An ancient saying wisely states, “A change is as good as a holiday”. Another advises, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained”.
Maybe now is the time to take a vacation!

The local roads are pretty much impassable, so this therapist has been busy contacting his clients to re-arrange appointments and schedule them for another day. Nature in all its beauty is reminding us of our place in the order of things.

My wife and I took a walk through the ever-deepening whiteness up to the village, admiring the stunning views down across the rolling fields and then rising up to the steeple of St Denys Church in Rotherfield. The roads were almost traffic-free.

A man in a 4×4 with French plates pulled up next to us, wound down his window, and asked if we were ok and enquired as to whether we needed a lift. The few people we passed in the village smiled and exchanged friendly remarks about the weather and the forecast for the weekend.

It’s noticeable how people feel closer to each other when nature reveals its might. That tribal spirit of working together and helping each other, which often seems to be missing in the maelstrom of modern life, comes to the surface.

It’s a great day to be alive!

Why?  Maybe his practice is located in a particularly affluent area and his clientele are largely unaffected by the recession, or maybe it’s simply that his excellent reputation ensures his continued prosperity.   Or it might just be luck.

Others are not so fortunate.  Many, through no fault of their own, are being made redundant and face the prospect of job-hunting in a difficult market.  Some of them won’t have faced a job interview in years.  Quite a few will have had their confidence badly knocked by being deemed surplus to requirements.

Self belief and confidence are essential to turn things around.

If you’re in that unfortunate situation, if your confidence is shot, your self belief low, or if you simply need to feel mentally stronger, now is the time to act.  You’re not alone.  There are many others in the same boat.  The longer you delay taking action, the higher the mountain you have to climb to re-establish yourself.

It’s easy to forget that life is full of ups and downs.  That’s a truism, but it’s not rocket science.  Quite simply it means that if you find yourself ‘down’, around the corner there’s an ‘up’.  And as it’s ‘around the corner’, you can’t see it just yet.  But it’s there!

Perhaps this is the perfect opportunity for you to take stock and re-define your goals.  An opportunity to re-visit the dream you had when you started out. To re-evaluate and rediscover yourself.

If you find it a bit difficult to re-ignite that fire, to unearth that self-belief, consider getting some help.

You could consider hypnotherapy.  Not only is it effective in restoring self-belief, it could give you the confidence you need to deliver the goods in that job interview – to present yourself as a stand-out candidate to your prospective employer!

Life is full of investments.  You invest time, you invest energy, you invest money.  If you’ve ever invested in a house, the stock market, or a property portfolio, you’ll know how those investments can go up or down.  Sort of like life itself.  Whatever the success or failure of those investments, the best investment you can ever make is most definitely in your own well-being.

So take action now and get yourself ready for the new challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.