Coast to Coast AM: Strategies for Optimism — August 18, 2020
Dr. George Pratt, is a clinical psychologist and best-selling author with a private practice in La Jolla, CA for over 30 years, specializing in helping people resolve emotional blocks and achieve success. He specializes in mind/body techniques, hypnosis, psychotherapy, and performance enhancement. In the first half, Pratt discussed how we can all choose to be optimistic in this stressful time. He began with what he believes are the fundamental keys to health and stress relief: eating healthy and exercising daily. Eating foods that will stabilize mood and exercising, especially in the outdoors, Pratt says will “add to a sense of happiness and stabilize your mood.” Pratt stated that 95% of psychological problems and blockages stem from the subconscious, and it is there where he applies his techniques to change his patient’s mood and outlook.
Pratt described one of the techniques he uses to help people, called EMDR (or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing.) He says this has been quite effective at promoting a “decrease in anxiety and feeling lighter and brighter,” and involves a series of eye movements while the patient is holding “a thought about whatever’s bothering them.” Pratt also decried the circumstances that lead to most problems and commented that “80-90%” of problems in adulthood stem from traumatic experiences in early childhood, specifically from birth to age 6. These problems are deep and are caused by such things as abuse, neglect, and bullying. Even with these steep challenges, Pratt believes we can “have the ability to heal even from the most challenging circumstances.”