Are you and your spouse worried about what’s happening with your savings, your pension, your children’s college funds, or just staying employed? The Dow Jones is under 10,000 and European banks sound as shaky as the US banks. Do you find yourself fearful of your futures together? Do you find yourselves disagreeing with your partner about how to weather this financial meltdown? Do you find yourselves arguing because one of you makes more money and feels like they have more control over how money is spent? When money gets tight as a result of reduced income or increased mortgage payments and is combined with financial fears of the future, those old money arguments (my money vs. your money) may be causing you problems again. It is time for the two of you to have discussions again about money.

In his book Love & Money, Jeff Opdyke says: “It’s not really about the money. It’s about creating another level of intimacy in your relationship and bestowing trust on each other.” He further recommends joint accounts for couples which explicitly demonstrates the trust you have with your spouse.

When we keep secrets from our spouse about how much we make, how we spend money, or even how much money we have, this indicates a measure of distrust in the other person. When times are tough like now, you need to trust and have faith in your legal and romantic partner. All your money and all your debts are consider joint by the state. If you are not considering them joint, you are losing out. You lose resources that your partner brings to solving financial problems. You lose a feeling of honesty about yourself. And you lose some ability to manage your family finances in the best way possible.

If the two of you are not quite ready to combine your accounts, at least try to agree on and be committed to the following:

1. Agree to live within your means, so that expenses do not exceed your income.

2. Agree to open, honest communication about money.

3. Promise not to blame one another, judge each other, or keep secrets about money.

4. Be prepared to listen to your partner and understand their perspective.

You both need to be fully aware of the family gross and net income, to know where household (and individual) money goes each month and to know how much debt you have and the interest costs you are paying.

If you are unable to have a frank and open discussion about your money with your spouse, you may benefit from seeing a marriage counselor. The National Registry of Marriage Friendly Therapists (www.marriagefriendlytherapist.com) is a good resource for finding a therapist who is invested in helping you save your marriage. If you are unable to curb your spending, you might consider Debtors Anonymous, an organization for people trying to reduce debt and regain solvency. If you need a housing counselor or help with your mortgage, go to the web site of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (www.hud.gov) and click on the Hope for Homeowners link.

It’s important to realize you are not alone. Many couples and families are struggling. Don’t let your marriage be a casualty of the worst financial disaster most of us have ever seen. You and your spouse are in this together. Get the help you need to keep your marriage stable and safe.

If you decide that you might need marriage counseling, check out my website, http://www.PamLipe.com My specialty is marriage and relationship counseling. For 20 years, I have been helping couples find the love and support they want in their marriages. My therapy practice serves the metropolitan area of Minneapolis/St.Paul, MN.

Can anybody learn to be a hypnotherapist?

Complementary therapy is very much on the rise these days, probably because it is viewed by many as more ‘natural’ than the man-made intervention of medication. One of the most natural of all is hypnotherapy; it does not rely on any substances and uses simply the power of the client’s/patient’s own mind to effect an alleviation of symptoms which can be astonishingly profound.

Currently, hypnotherapy is an unregulated profession (though some would call it an ‘art’) which means that literally anybody could just start up a practice, whether or not they had carried out any formal study. The fact is, though, that they would be unlikely to survive for very long in practice without the proper resources to do the job – in order to be successful, recommendation from satisfied ‘customers’ is an essential facet of the hypnotherapist’s survival.

So, how do you set about hypnotherapy training, how do you know you’ve got good training, and what should that course teach you?

Well, obviously, how to take people in and out of hypnosis with total safety and confidence. That part of the job is so easy that anybody can learn how to do it – as long as they can have a sensible conversation with another, they can learn to be a hypnotist. But a hypnotist is not a hypnotherapist. And that’s where the quality of training is so important. In addition to hypnosis, a good course should:

- Teach you about the promotional side of the business

- Give you an understanding of the way the human psyche ‘works’

- Show you how to decide on what style of therapy is needed

- Teach you what do to if something unexpected happens

- Confer the ability for registration with a reputable professional association

- Offer total post-graduate support

As you might imagine, there’s rather more to it than that but any course worth its salt will be based around those criteria and because of this it should already be obvious that the ‘do it in a weekend’ course is going to fall far short of requirements.

A good course will comprise around 120 hours of practical and theory in the classroom (often spread over 10 months or so) and a further 450 hours of home study and assignments. Once this is completed and you have your hypnotherapy training diploma in your hand, there are ample opportunities for further study to take you to the very top of a totally fascinating tree.

Good luck!

Terence Watts makes hypnotherapy training easy with his own classrooms, consulting rooms and administrative offices at his hypnotherapy training school.

Having a panic attack can be a frightening experience. I’ve had panic attacks myself for years. There are some tips though that helped me overcome my attacks most of the time. While panic attacks are certainly frightening, they are physically harmless. All that happens during an attack is triggered by your thoughts, mostly subconsciously.

The following tips will help you during a panic attack. Please remember though that these tips won’t help you overcome the underlying disorder; they will only help you regain control when having a panic attack. You should still consult a psychotherapist or buy a professional self-help course to work on the causes – the triggers that cause your panic attacks.

Tips for Panic Attacks:

• Distract yourself: Count down from 1000 or solve math problems to occupy your mind. Don’t focus on the panic attack and don’t try to fight your way out of it. This will only make it last longer due to an increased level of adrenaline.
• Splash your face with cool water.
• Listen to relaxing music while telling yourself that those attacks have never hurt you in the past and won’t hurt you this time either. Tell yourself those symptoms you feel are just caused by your thoughts and that they are not medically harmful.
• Watch TV to distract yourself.
• If you are breathing rapidly, breathe slowly in and out of a paper bag. You are probably over-breathing and taking in too much oxygen, which can make you feel dizzy.
• Talk to someone (or phone someone). If the other person knows about your panic attacks tell them you are just having one and tell them what you are feeling right now.
• Don’t sit down, do something physical.

These simple tips for panic attacks helped me many times, and I hope they will help you, too. Always remember those symptoms you feel are just caused by your brain and are not medically harmful or dangerous.

Panic attacks are more common than you might think. Fortunately, there are several professional self-help courses that can help you overcome your panic attacks. Click here for more information on treating panic attacks at home.