Hypnosis helpful ?

I've recently been wondering if hypnosis would be helpful in my development as a trader.

In searching ET i see very little written about. If anybody has experience with this please discuss. Handle, your name came up in the search. Care to share a little.

What i'm wondering is if it's possible to somehow align the subconscious trading mind with the conscious mind. Perhaps under hypnosis some of my trading rules could be read back to me or my set ups reviewed. The objective would be to create less hesitation, less stress and greater clarity while trading.

Also wondering if I have (i probably do) self limiting beliefs that could be revealed or corrected under hypnosis.

I haven't tried visualization exercises in quite awhile but i believe that could be helpful. Could that be combined with hypnosis ?

Would any hypnotherapist work or would they have to be familar with trading ?

Or perhaps it would be a waste of time ?

I'm not trying to take a short cut , i think it's more of the traders will try anything attitude. (heck, i've even considered burning incensence to create an aromatherapy atmosphere conducive to trading and have been wondering what color to paint my office walls )

 

I started going nineteen years ago, and soon after, I started to notice huge changes in my trading for the good. I still go a couple times a year to stay on beaten path, as I have OCD and ADHD.

I believe we have too much pented up problems we learned while young in school, we are taught more is better by commercials as well, this leads to overtrading. We are taught to share in life, but in trading you have to think in terms of being ruthless. So Hypnosis opens up the possibilities for me to get away from childhood and become a ruthless sob as a trader, and yet when I walk away from trading, I become a different man as I was taught in chilhood. The part of "sharing" also can be limiting your ability to make a boatload of money and I DID have these problems early in my trading life, whenever I had expanded my account, I would somehow sabotage myself and lose half of it. I do visualization five minutes before I trade, but mine has evolved into opposite of what I did when I first started. LOL. Many will laugh of what I now do and others will offer a statement of "why don't you just quit". I wake up each morning as just another day in the neighborhood, I am going to my job and will make money, sitting in my underwear, what alife we have in this country...The early visualization got so ingrained that I wake up knowing it will be a profitable day. Anyway, I visualize having a quick three losses in a row so I can go back to bed, LOL. I have back tested my method on tic data going back ten years and three in a row losses has happened six times and four of them cause of exchange data going down or exchange closed due to some sort of problem.

I think one of the biggest trouble with men is we initally don't like to open up on what is going on inside our "noodle", we are either embarrassed or afraid we are the only ones that are having a problem. Especially here on ET, so many flame others, in what really is happening with them, is they too have a mental challenge that they only feel good about themselves by putting other people down, but it is sad in our age and time so many of younger folks have digressed into being smartasses and have not thought enough as to why they do it and how that messes them up in trading. I have found that others put people down cause they are so frustrated with their life, they have not learned to stay civil to each other. I may not agree with someone's opinion, but to attack another will just lead on to more and more attacks, which will cause harm to one's trading. I am at an age now where I simply don't give a crap if people like me or not, they have to live there own lives, not me adjusting to theirs.

We all have some type of mental challedges dealing with trading throught our lives as a trader or investor and at all stages. I think if we were more honest and open about our experiences, it would benefit us and others as well. A newbie trading a one lot and has a series of losses has the same emotions of me trading size and adding by averaging down, his questions are different than mind as he questions ability and mine is more of an anoyance.

Any hypnotherapist will work, but before you go brainstorm what problems you want to overcome, I mean really work for a couple weeks at what you want to overcome and why they developed in the first place. You can't solve a problem before knowing why or where or when it became a problem.

I actually feel happier by burning scented candles of Christmas tree scent, or lemon or vanila, we all have happy scents, so I burn them one at a time for an hour then change off, leave the room as often as I can to exercise the legs and notice the scent again when I come back. I want to have happy feelings when I trade like an evil sob, take no prisoners, steal their last penny, choke the last grasp of breath out of their accounts, then leave and change back into a calm, sensitive individual that I am, but I am 6'6" and 310lbs big man, so most folks don't see this in me. I sometimes think I should change my name to "Jesus Christ", cause when folks bump into me they mutter ...

I don't care for bright colors, "my cave" is pretty dimmed as light actually hurts my eyes during trading only. I think it has to do more about concentration, the brain has more to think about when surroundings are brighter, whereas the darker it is, brain adds more to other sensors. Example: eat a strawberry with eyes open, then next day eat another strawberry with eyeslids closed, I always find the berry to be more intense, tongue can feel the small little seeds when eyelids closed. Also, cause I have ADHD and hyper, less light allows me to concentrate more on my screens.

 

It seems my mind is the crossroad where OCD, ADHD and Asperger's intersects, and so I can relate to your post, Handle123. Thank you for sharing!

I have never tried hypnosis, but I am a very visual thinker and often "dive" into my mind to sort things out.

LSD is also a good way to get to know oneself...

 

thanks Handle . Very helpful !

 

I haven't tried acid but have read several books on it and know people that have used it. it's one of those 'some day' things with me.

And have thought about in trading context as well. Re boot and break down the doors. But to paraphrase ..ah there's the rub .. for what dreams may come..

 

Mind you, I'm not advocating prolonged use. But tremendous insights can be gained from psychedelics, at least under the right circumstances.

I remember a story about the Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess and his experience with the drug in the early 70s. He was a guest lecturer at Berkeley, and was confronted by some of the students. They claimed that the professors were not willing to seek new directions and really explore the depths of the mind. He was in his 50s at the time, thus reasoning that he was too old to suffer any real damage, and so he "dropped acid" with some students. He found it to be quite a pleasurable experience, and said that while it did not do much for him in fields where he was well versed, he gained a deeper appreciation for things he had not previously devoted much time.

He was one of the greatest intellectuals this country has ever had, and not someone you would associate with drug use. Therefore I found his remarks especially interesting.
"The Doors of Perception" is also a good read; Huxley was no dimwit either.

It seems that agile minds can harvest the influx of impressions caused by such drugs, but others might suffer from sensory overload.

As I suffer from OCD myself, I found the Psilocybin experiment conducted by the University of Arizona to be particularly interesting. LSD affects the same receptors (5-HT(2A)) that are believed to cause OCD (among other anxiety/depression related conditions).
Harvard is also researching the therapeutic effects of LSD and MDMA with regard to cluster headaches.

I understand that it's controversial subject, but I am still amazed of the preconceived notions that most have about this subject.

It is probably why most fail at trading: The inability to challenge one's own belief system.

 

Great thread and insightful posts.

From my experience, no amount of hypnotherapy will help a trader if there are unresolved root issues. There is no way to align sub conscious with the conscious mind if the sub conscious has unresolved issues. In most people the sub conscious mind runs on autopilot to 'protect' the person/trader.

I have looked into hypnosis, NLP, EMDR for years. All very useful, but for the person on autopilot, no use..

LSD sounds great, I wish i would try it! but certain types of meditations are also interesting. Certain buddhist/taoists sects have developed some amazing stuff.

anyway...

 

Stanislav Grof, a pioneer in psychedelic psychotherapy, switched to "Holotropic Breathwork" after LSD became illegal.

I have always been fascinated by Buddhist monks, there is a lot of wisdom to be found there.

I also think that philosophy is a great way to expand one's horizons. If you interrogate yourself with a logical, rational approach, substantial shifts of consciousness can occur...

 

Very interesting concept. I never thought of that when I was struggling mightily to trade all my setups throughout the day instead of picking and choosing and hesitating.

I think you've pinpointed the core of the problem with the words "greater clarity".

Do you have trade setups that are ill-defined? This could be a major cause of hesitation and the solution is to filter setups by the context of the price environment. An example would be, "I buy breakouts, buying one tick above the previous high." This is a great strategy in a strong trend, but a terrible strategy in a wide channeling trend or in choppy range. So I add a filter that states, "I buy breakouts in a strong trend." and include my definition of "strong trend". This now makes it easy to place my buy stop early and feel confident with the trade and my ability to manage it.

Or is the problem one in which you have well-defined setups, but when the moment of truth arrives (price triggers action) you hesitate because you want certainty (or "clarity", or the ability to know how the chart will look up the road apiece), something that is impossible to attain in trading?

Once you clear this up, then you'll have both clarity (the ability to see a setup that fulfills all your criteria) and trust (the ability to trade every valid setup no matter how many wins or losses have transpired, knowing that the end result will be positive).

 

EMDR. Had to google that one.

Getting back to MDMA (ecstacy) don't quote me but i believe that's also been recently tested in PTSD.

Unresolved root issues is probably a whole thread itself. Thanks for sharing