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GOLF PSYCHOLOGY “Can Hypnosis Really Help?” Dean Sunseri, MA, MED |
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The beautiful aspect of most golf players is the desire to try anything to improve their golf performance. Mechanical gadgets attached to many different parts of the body, the latest miracle equipment and the new guru psychology are some of the golden carrots that are held out to entice the ambitious golf player. What about the use of hypnosis? Can this really help, or is it another mental gadget that sounds good, yet proves to end up on the shelf with the other stuff? What is hypnosis? It literally comes from the Greek word “hypnos” which means sleep. As a therapeutic tool, it is creating a deeper level of relaxation or an altered state of consciousness to facilitate positive outcomes. In the case of athletics, it is used to enhance performance. Athlete’s often say to me, “I am not too comfortable with this trance stuff or an altered state of consciousness.” I usually reply that you experience a variety of trances all the time during your performance. Wouldn’t you like to have better control over them? For example, when you are petrified to hit your driver because you don’t know where the ball will go, yet a few days before, you hit your driver beautiful, this petrified state is a trance or altered state of consciousness. On the positive side, the day everything seemed to flow well is an example of a trance that often is described as the zone. Hypnosis can be used to assist you to have greater control over the different trances that you experience every time you play a round of golf. Hypnosis has been used for many years to improve the performance of athletes in many different sports. It has helped athletes improve concentration, reduce stress, program the central nervous system, overcome the yips and program a pre-game strategy. How can it be useful to improve your golf performance? Read the following questions, and pick one item to work on.
1. What is a particular shot that causes high anxiety? 2. What is a particular hole that is very stressful for you? 3. When do you lose your concentration during a round?
I had a particular client, who is a very good golf player, yet he would internally panic when he played this particular par 3, 17th hole, that happened to go over water. He was plagued by this for a number of years, and had tried all kinds of ways to get over this anxiety. His performance was consistently out of character on this one hole compared to the rest of round. He decided to give hypnosis a try. As we talked about his golf experience, he mentioned a competitive tournament 8 years before, where he hit two shots in the water on a par 3, 17th hole, that was somewhat similar to the one that he now experiences high anxiety. He went on to express his deep disappointment and sense of failure in falling apart at the end of the round to lose the tournament. I had him sit comfortably and close his eyes, and had soothing music in the background. I instructed him to breathe slowly and deeply into his stomach, and exhale the same, while he began to imagine relaxing on the beach, the sound of the waves, the sun on his skin and the cool breeze. As he relaxed, we revisited the disappointing performance 8 years earlier, and he visualized the intensity of disappointment and failure flowing out of his body. He began to reframe the experience as one that taught him some important lessons about concentration and handling pressure. Next, we replayed the scene with a different outcome, hitting the ideal shot right at the flag. He bathed in the sensation of a purely hit shot, seeing the ball land within tap in distance and totally free of anxiety. We replayed this scene in his mind’s eye a few more times, and anchored inside his central nervous system a totally new experience to draw upon. After some time, I proceeded to bring him out of the relaxed state and taught him how to do this process himself. Within a few weeks, he called to say that his play on that par 3, 17th hole, improve drastically. The most important improvement was the disappearance of the anxiety. What are some of the elements of hypnosis? Deep relaxation, use of imagination, releasing emotional blocks, visualizing positive outcome, reframing past experiences and focusing concentration. You can take the item that you picked and script a similar process that I did above. The more relaxed you are, the greater receptivity you experience, and the easier it is to let go of emotional blocks. Hypnosis is an underutilized tool that has improved the performance of many great athletes, yet hypnosis can not help you execute a skill that you have not developed. Develop sound golf mechanics, and learn to utilize the tremendous power of your mind and sprit, then we have the foundation for a champion. (If you are interested in hypnosis, call Dean for more information at 251-626-5454) Dean Sunseri, MA, MEd, is a specialist in Sports Performance Psychology and has coached Golf Tour Professionals, NFL Football Players, Professional Baseball Players and Professional Hockey Teams. He can be contacted at ds@ihaveavoice.com or 251-626-5454.
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