Just What is an Applied Hypnotherapeutic Anthropologist Anyway?

Q:  What do you get when you cross an applied anthropologist with a certified hypnotherapist?

A:  An archaeologist who can make you cluck like a chicken?   🤣 

Before I can give you a more serious answer, let's begin with, What's in it for you? and Why should you care?  

The answers to those questions have to do with helping you get unstuck, reclaim your power, and make a difference in your world.  While I can't promise you all that in one blog article, I can tell you why you might want to help me help you, or help me help someone you know. 

First things first. I’ve been an Applied Anthropologist longer than I’ve been a Certified Hypnotherapist and Advanced EFT Practitioner. About 13 years longer, more or less, a lucky number really.  It's an odd number and also prime, which seems fitting mostly because I like puns.  It’s a prime combination, despite being odd.  Now that I've had my jollies with the word play, let's see what that combination might do for you. 

Helping you expand what's possible for you and your world is my very favorite thing to do. 

I'm an Applied Hypnotherapeutic Anthropologist.  You can call me a Transformational Anthropologist for short, if you prefer. 

Let's break down "Applied Hypnotherapeutic Anthropologist" into its components, according to my practice of it.  It’s a mouthful, so let’s start at the tail end and find our way forward:    

• Anthropologist:  Anthropologists study everything about humans and what makes us human.  In the United States, the field of anthropology includes four subfields: language, culture, the physical/biological body, and archaeology (what past cultures leave behind).  In other words, anthropology covers a whole lotta ground. 

In my case, I trained mostly in the first three subfields rather than much archaeology.  My graduate thesis advisor at the University of Missouri-Columbia, Dr. N. Louanna Furbee, was the sole linguistic anthropologist in our department after I outstayed my first advisor, Dr. Jim Hamilton, a cultural anthropologist who created courses on topics like the anthropology of thought and the anthropology of consciousness. 

Such topics were right up my alley after a year of neurology clinic while I was a medical student and then while I got a psychology degree.  (Less relevant when I did my bachelors and graduate studies in Spanish.)  Yes, I agree that appears backwards, but that's because I started out in an accelerated 6-year medical school right out of high school.  Although I didn't finish medical school (that's another story), I learned a lot of handy stuff for what I did later.  No experience is ever wasted. 

I cut my applied anthropological teeth on providing organized services where none previously existed, all because I found two challenges.  The first was how to make more money as a grad student raising a small child alone after my divorce.  The solution came as another challenge.  My friend the late Dr. Sherman Zaremski said to me, "You speak Spanish.  Why don't you go to the courts and ask if they need an interpreter?" 

Sometimes entire careers are launched by only a small suggestion. 

I called up the municipal court clerk.  There were no organized services in outside of St. Louis and Kansas City that provided qualified interpreters for people with Limited English Proficiency, so I started one, first just serving the local municipal court with Spanish. 

That municipal court clerk turned out to be an officer of the state municipal court clerks association of over 400 members, and she sent them my survey of their interpreting needs. 

Before I knew it, the local hospitals and state courts were calling too.  I found myself in the right place at the right time with just the right toolbox for providing holistic language and culture-related services for everyone who needed them. 

I had founded and then operated spoken language services in Missouri and eastern Kansas for a total of 19 years.  At our peak we provided interpreting, translation, and advocacy services in all settings with 40 languages, 125+ interpreters and translators, and 10 years of statewide contracts.  We were on a mission, and our work was exciting and fulfilling.  I even got us certified as an early Woman-Owned Business Enterprise and established one of the first computerized offices in the language services industry.   

Together we served every kind of setting:  medical, mental health, dental, social service, legal, business, manufacturing, insurance, personal and other settings.  We operated 24/7 from 1996 to 2013.  Most of that time, I was the nighttime and holiday dispatcher and often Spanish interpreter too.  

To everything there is a season.  I love learning, and I got a notion to go back to school in 2008 to study hypnotherapy and subconscious behavior.  The Great Recession hit in the same month I started my studies.  By 2013 for both personal and business reasons, I decided to end multilingual services and just do Spanish myself by appointment only, focusing more on my hypnotherapy practice.  By 2015, my daughter and I pulled up roots and became full-time RVers, leaving my remaining interpreting gigs behind. 

So here comes the hypnotherapy part:  

• Hypnotherapeutic:  As a Certified Hypnotherapist and Advanced EFT Practitioner, I use Hypnotherapy and EFT as tools to help people achieve their goals and create more success, health and happiness. Understanding how the mind and subconscious behavior work are powerful tools for helping people and organizations replace what no longer serves them with what they consciously desire. 

And then there's that front word: 

• Applied:  When people tell me what they want and can't quite seem to make happen, I ask good questions, like:  What's missing, the presence of which would make all the difference?   Then I use a holistic, multidisciplinary approach to create practical solutions to real world problems. 

For short, I sometimes use the label: 

• Transformational Anthropologist because I help people change themselves and their world for the better. 

Technically speaking, I am a Masters-level practitioner of Applied Anthropology, a Certified Hypnotherapist (with 10+ specialty certifications), and an Advanced Emotional Freedom Technique Practitioner, that is, an Applied Hypnotherapeutic Anthropologist. 

When you're stuck, I help you look at your life and your world to see what's working and what's not: 

• On a personal level, that might be your relationships, your work, your health, or your feelings of purpose and happiness, or
• It may be on a societal level of your extended family, your company, your community, your government, or society at large, like the mainstream culture. 
• And often it's multiple levels at once. 
• We can borrow from anthropology and call what's working (and even what's not working so well) an "adaptation".  There are a lot of ways to adapt to the world.  (Some adaptations work better than others, and it's helpful to remember that.)  

Here's a problem you may recognize:  All your life you've probably been told by someone to "be realistic" about how to adapt and just accept life as "how it is".  A lot of people resign themselves to adaptations they either inherited or somebody somewhere told them they were "realistic" or the best they could expect. However, the human truth of it is that most of "how it is" became "how it is" because at some point in time, somebody, somewhere, somehow, simply made it up.  

Yes, there are physical, real world constraints on us:  there's gravity, of course, and most of us have to do things like breathe, sleep, and eat.  

But almost everything we do today began in somebody's imagination! 

What we believe are the "right" ways of doing things now—the habits, the routines, the systems, the institutions—somebody else thought up, and that became "how it is"! 

Some good questions to ask yourself are:

•  Should the old perceptions and imaginations of people who came before you determine "how things should be" for you now?
•  Should your own old perceptions and past imagination keep you doing the same things now? 
•  How is "how it is" working for you now? 

When "how it is" no longer serves you or your world, it's time to change "how it is". 

About a dozen years ago, I went back to school and became a Certified Hypnotherapist and Advanced EFT Practitioner.  By adding Hypnosis, Hypnotherapy and Advanced Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT or Tapping) to my toolbox, I've been making it easier for my clients to change "how it is" for them. 

And I have to tell you, with these tools, it's so much easier than working with the conscious mind alone.  

Since most behavior comes from the "autopilot" of the subconscious mind, leveraging that "autopilot" creates deep, long-lasting change much faster than working with the conscious mind alone.  

When you understand why it's so hard to change, even when you really want to, and then you make it easier to change, that's the stuff of transformation, right there. (Watch my video here and I'll explain.)

My clients will tell you that these tools work. They will tell you how they achieved their goals for success, health and happiness.  They will tell you that understanding subconscious behavior in relationships is golden for improving them.  They will tell you they can't quite put their finger on why, but it worked for them.  And it can work for you too. 

Applied Anthropology + Hypnotherapy and Advanced EFT = Powerful Tools for Transformation

My approach is holistic, multidisciplinary and synergistic.  I'm all about what works and asking great questions that get us somewhere better.  

Here's the most important thing I've found in working with people to help them achieve their goals:

When You Access Your Unique Gifts and Act on Your Good Inner Promptings, Your Life and Your World Change for the Better.

 Mine certainly have.  I never would have guessed where my path would take me, but following my good inner promptings to develop and use my gifts has made all the difference, not just for me, but for others too. 

Through the power of the "ripple effect" and changing "how it is" for you, multiplied by every person you're connected with, and the people they're connected with, you can create a dramatically better world for everyone.  

The Harvard Medical School did a study on happiness and found that when one person increases their happiness, their friends' happiness increases too, as far as the third level.  That means your friends, your friends' friends and your friends' friends' friends can all  increase their happiness when increase your own.  Just imagine what's possible.  The ripple effect is real. 

I'm here to help you get unstuck and increase your success, health and happiness.  I've got the tools.  As soon as you're ready, let's do this together. 

For a white paper on my stats: download "Jackie Ambrow's Biography and Training" (pdf) here.