by: Dr Harry Henshaw
Music has always been a very important part of our
lives, from childhood to our being an adult. As a part
of our experience, music can have both a physiological
and psychological affect upon us as human beings. In
addition to the influence that it has on our life, music
also has many therapeutic qualities and has been
utilized in promoting a variety of healings throughout
the ages. As we know further, music can be a very
powerful medium for altering our state, of changing how
we actually feel. More specifically music can be very
effective in producing a very deep and healing state of
relaxation and in the process, reduce stress and even
promote sleep. Music can also be used to assist one in
improving his or her self-esteem and furthering an
individual’s personal growth and development,
transformation.
As a therapist I have always used relaxation music in my
clinical and counseling work with others. I have found
that when I use relaxation music during both an
individual and group counseling session that my clients
do more productive work, are able to focus more
effectively on themselves and the issues that they are
becoming present to because they are more relaxed,
focused and centered and as a result, better able to
concentrate. Being relaxed during the counseling process
always tends to generate more productive results for the
individual being counseled. Relaxation music can be a
very effective and powerful aid for assisting a client
to reach resolution with respect to that which he or she
is working on with their counselor.
The relaxation music that I now utilize during both my
individual and group counseling sessions with others is
that which is found on the CD, Prescription for Stress.
The musical patterns that are on Prescription for Stress
were originally developed for my work in counseling and
especially in my hypnotic work with clients. In addition
to its application for a traditional counseling session,
the musical patterns on Prescription for Stress are
excellent for assisting in the induction of a hypnotic
state in that this music helps the client enter into a
very relaxed state of hypnosis more easily. In the past
I have used a variety of other musical compositions in
my counseling practice but was very dissatisfied with
the results that my clients and I achieved with them. As
a musician I eventually decided to compose my own music
and have found the results of my compositions with the
clients that I work with to be excellent. After using
the relaxation music that I composed for my work in
counseling, I also discovered that the music had another
application as well, that is, to assist anyone in
achieving a very deep state of relaxation and as a
result to effectively and efficiently reduce the stress
in their lives.
Managing our stress is very important if not crucial to
our overall well being. Prescription for Stress is an
audio product specially designed to assist an individual
in managing and reducing the stress that he or she may
experience on a daily basis. This audio health care
product utilizes two components to assist an individual
in effectively experiencing a very deep state of
relaxation, reducing stress and also in promoting a
peaceful, restful sleep. The first component is the
musical pattern itself. I have found that musical
compositions that are harmonically slow, repetitious,
with sustained voices, which are rhythmically, random in
tempo assists an individual in experiencing a very deep
state of relaxation. The second component of this
product is the binaural audio tones that are interwoven
into the music. The binaural tones, through a process
referred to as entrainment or frequency following,
gently guides or directs the mind/body to generate more
of the targeted frequency of brain wave activity whether
it be for either profound relaxation or sleep. The first
CD contains binaural audio tones within the alpha and
theta range, which induces a very relaxed state. The
second CD contains binaural audio tones within the delta
range and thereby assists one in experiencing a
peaceful, restful sleep.
Anyone can experience the technology and effect of
Prescription for Stress by merely playing it on their
home audio system. Use of this powerful relaxation music
can be accomplished by listening to it with ones stereo
speakers or with headphones, the latter being the more
effective way to listen to his product. Listening to
Prescription for Stress with headphones allows one to
experience the full effect of the technology, the
uniquely designed music compositions combined with the
binaural audio tones and thereby gain a deeper state of
relaxation. Those who practice meditation, self-hypnosis
or yoga will find that their practice is even more
enhanced while listening to this audio product. I now
also recommend that mental health and addiction
counselors use this product when conducting counseling
sessions with their clients whether it is in a group or
individual setting. While many counselors are not
present to the power of this type of relaxation music
when utilized within a counseling context, those who do
employ it find that their sessions with a client to be
more effective and productive due to the reason stated
above.
Self-esteem is also extremely essential to ones
well-being. Enhancing My Self Esteem is an audio health
care product uniquely designed to assist an individual
in improving his or her self esteem, supporting the
development of a positive self-image and promoting the
individual’s personal growth and development,
transformation. Enhancing My Self Esteem will assist a
person in changing negative and possibly even
destructive thought patterns to positive and empowering
beliefs about him or herself. Utilizing the same
combination of original musical compositions and
binaural audio tones as Prescription for Stress,
Enhancing My Self Esteem is an audio health care product
that creates a very profound and relaxing auditory
environment, a space for the individual to become open
or highly suggestible to a series of very positive
affirmations. Within a conversation of transformation,
the thoughts that we think and say or commit to word are
very important, very powerful for improving our
self-image and transforming our lives. Enhancing My Self
Esteem is an audio product that creates a very relaxed
auditory environment for the person to listen to, begin
to practice and eventually accept 50 positive
affirmations, affirmations designed to improve a
person’s self esteem and begin the process of
transforming his or her life.
To fully experience the beneficial effects of Enhancing
My Self Esteem it is recommended that a person listen to
both tracks once a day for a minimum of 90 days. The
first track has been designed for use with your stereo
system’s speakers and should be listened to during the
morning or afternoon hours. Track One provides a person
the opportunity to consciously practice all of the
positive affirmations, to commit them to word, to make
them real. Track two has been developed exclusively for
use with headphones and should be listened to during the
evening hours preferably before the individual goes to
sleep. The second track has been developed for a
person’s unconscious mind and will be that which the
individual takes into his or her dream state. Each
listening should be done when the individual will be
completely free of any distractions. After the first
ninety days of use, it is recommended that the person
listen to both tracks two times a week for another 90
days to further enhance the beneficial effects.
In addition to anyone wanting to improve their self
esteem and further his or her personal transformation, I
also recommend that mental health and addiction-oriented
counselors utilize Enhancing My Self Esteem with their
clients. Most of the clients that mental health and
addiction counselors see in treatment in either an
individual or group setting have an impaired self-image
and are continuously experiencing extremely low
self-esteem. For whatever reason the clients that are
seen by mental health and addiction oriented counselors
tend to have many negative thoughts and beliefs about
themselves, many negative affirmations about who they
think they are. Assigning Enhancing My Self Esteem as
homework for a client to listen to outside of the
counseling session allows that client the opportunity to
begin a process of improving his or her self-esteem and
as a result to be more productive within the counseling
session.
I am currently using Enhancing My Self Esteem with all
of the clients at the Holistic Addiction Treatment
Program, a residential and outpatient program in North
Miami Beach, Florida. The Holistic Addiction Treatment
Program is an agency that treats individuals who suffer
from alcohol or drug dependency. The vast majority of
clients of this agency experience chronic relapse.
Within Transformational Counseling, Enhancing My Self
Esteem is assigned as homework for all of my clients, as
a way of continuing the work that is presented in my
individual and group counseling sessions, as a way of
transforming the thoughts and words of the client. The
prescription for use of this product is the same as
mentioned above. After the assignment is made I always
ask the clients about their use of this product, about
what they are becoming present to as they listen. In
addition to assisting the individual in eventually
feeling better about themselves and increasing their
motivation with their recovery, I have also found that
Enhancing My Self Esteem tends to elicit important
thoughts and memories from the past, thoughts and
memories that are then processed in the preceding
counseling session.
Enhancing My Self Esteem is a very powerful, healing
product. With continued use, clients tend to always
report that they feel better about themselves and are
more motivated, especially with respect to their
recovery. When utilized in conjunction with
Transformational Counseling, the effects can be
extraordinary for a client. As Transformational
Counseling is about an individual altering his or her
very thoughts and words, that which has defined their
very being in the past, Enhancing My Self Esteem is a
product that allows a client to powerfully practice
their transformation on a daily basis. While the basis
or foundation for the actual transformation is in an
individual’s language, the thoughts that he or she
thinks and the very words that they say, the environment
from which this takes place is one that is initially
created through the power of music.