Daniel Ryan
Danielryancrt@gmail.com
(347) 439-3574
Offices in Brooklyn, NY
& Chatham, NJ
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About
I offer hypnosis, regression therapy and behavioral counseling for anxiety, depression, habit cessation, pain management and more.
I've been working with hypnosis, past life regression therapy and spiritual healing for over 15 years, and possess a passion for working with teenagers and young adults. I grew up in Randolph, NJ, a few miles away from Chatham, where I now have an office. As a teenager, hypnosis and regression therapy helped me to solve problems and develop my own identity and self-worth. I know how it can help young people to better live in the present and face adversity. Hypnosis offers immediate relief interrupting the patterns of thought and behavior that create stress. Regression therapy offers deep exploration into the unconscious and the opportunity to learn about our selves at the essential levels. At countless trainings, lectures and seminars all over the world I've gained a tremendous amount of practical experience prior to the age of thirty-five. In my travels, I’ve observed the application of regression therapy and hypnosis in different cultures with different age groups and trained with the most highly regarded professionals in the field.
I also see clients in my home in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Williamsburg is a wonderful and vibrant neighborhood filled with people of every age group and background doing exciting things. I am very fortunate to work with my neighbors, most of whom are artists or entrepreneurs. Life in New York offers a very special kind of experience. Hypnosis and regression therapy does the same. I love working with the people in my community.
My father, Dr. Jeffrey Ryan, was a clinical psychologist. He specialized in hypnosis and particularly regression therapy and maintained private practice in Morris Plains, NJ for 32 years. He served as president of the International Association for Regression Research and Therapies for 12 years. One spring day in the early nineties he took me with him to a seminar he was leading on past life memories and fears. I was instantly fascinated by the work and the effect it had on people’s lives. I saw people's anxieties and fears that had lasted a lifetime disappear in a day. At the time, I was particularly interested in the spiritual information that was available through hypnosis and regression, how people applied it to their lives and the behavior that resulted. I witnessed some rare phenomena, and a lot of blind faith. More than anything, I saw the quality of my father’s care. I worked beside him through out my young adult life concurrently training with Janet Cunningham Ph.D., author and President of the International Board of Regression Therapy, and Peg Davis; teacher, counselor and founder of BodyMind Wellness.
I received my undergraduate degree (BFA) from Emerson College where my research focused on literature, philosophy and sociology. I am board-certified in regression therapy by the IBRT. I attend The New York School of Practical Philosophy and am in my fifth year of study in their ongoing program. In 2011 I co-founded the Center for Integrative Healing in Chatham, NJ. I maintain private practice in Brooklyn, NY and Chatham, NJ.
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FAQs
Frequently asked questions about regression therapy:
- Regression therapy
- Past-life therapy
- Hypnotherapy
- Past-life regression therapy
All the same thing? Kinda. They all include elements of each other and cover a lot of the same ground. So why so many names? Early practitioners of regression therapy (starting in the mid-70s) were often censured from established psychological and medical communities. Professionals working in the U.S., U.K. and Netherlands were splintered and remained so. Small communities of regression therapists began establishing foundations in the 1980's. With the exception of "hypnosis", there was no name for what they were doing; A spiritual kind of healing rooted in clinical cognitive therapy. As a result there were many names, each requiring a separate explanation.
Professional organizations such as IARRT, IBRT and EARTh have been doing incredible work successfully connecting therapists all over the world for years, but there still remains a great deal of confusion over what regression and past-life work really entail. False or dated ideas about reincarnation, hypnosis and mysticism continue to pervade popular thought.
Q. What is Regression Therapy?
A. Regression Therapy is a cognitive therapy that uses deep breathing, visualization, hypnosis and talk to recover memories. Hence the word "regression". We're looking backwards to better understand the present and more confidently create the future. Sometimes we explore the memories of what may or may not be past lives. This depends on the client's spiritual inclinations and interest. It is not always necessary. Regardless, we deeply explore the past looking for connections linking to the present. We want the quality of life to improve in the present.
Q. What if I don't believe in past lives?
A. Doesn't matter. Maybe they are the memories of past lives, maybe not. The present is what matters. As with everything, openness and a positive attitude help.
Q. What about the hypnosis? Will I remember everything that happens?
A. Yes. You're cognizant through the whole experience. You see and feel everything. We keep a dialogue and I act as a guide.
Q. How much does it cost?
A. $150 for a 75-90 minute session. Reduced fee appointments are occasionally possible depending on your financial situation and my availability.
Q. Do you accept insurance?
A. I don't deal directly with insurance companies. If your insurance company offers benefits for out of network providers, see if they accept claims for hypnotherapy. I will give you a receipt that you can submit with your insurance claim.
Q. Do you believe in past-lives?
A. Yes and No. I believe in cycles and the continuance of life, and certainly I've seen a lot that would substantiate reincarnation. That said, I'm missing the empirical evidence that the rest of the world wants to see too.
When I was 16 my father told me he was looking forward to dying. I was incredulous and he grinned. "I want to know if there's past-lives or not." he said. Today I feel the same. I'm privileged to work as a regression therapist, but it has not lead to a belief in reincarnation. Instead, it's filled me with a great love of working with people, a passion for healing and a greater awareness of how important it is to live in the present moment.
Frequently asked questions about hypnosis:
Q. What is hypnosis?
A. Hypnosis is a natural state characterized by concentration, focused attention, and physical relaxation. In hypnosis, you are able to focus on only what's relevant, whether that's a narrow sliver of experience or an expansive connection with the whole world. It feels something like a sustained daydream.
In a state of hypnosis, the critical faculties of the conscious mind take a mini-vacation, allowing the unconscious mind to openly receive communication. Clinical hypnosis utilizes this line of communication to create lasting, therapeutic change in areas of life that are generally controlled by the unconscious mind.
If you want to break a bad habit (smoking, overeating, nail biting, etc.), resolve inner conflict, improve focus and concentration, enhance creativity, manage pain, overcome a phobia, improve sleep, or develop peak performance states, hypnosis is a remarkably powerful tool.Q. What if I can't be hypnotized?
A. Everyone can be hypnotized. Even if you have never experienced formal hypnosis, you experience states that are similar to hypnotic trance every day: zoning out, daydreaming, getting lost in a movie plot. If you are capable of these things, you can experience hypnosis.
There are many different hypnotic inductions — rapid, gradual, structured, conversational. I customize the hypnotic experience based on each client's needs and personality.
The major impediments to experiencing hypnosis are fears and misconceptions about what it is. I hope to dispel some of the common misconceptions here. Please feel free to email me at Danielryancrt@gmail.com if you have any reservations or concerns about trying hypnosis.Q. What is a typical session like?
A. A typical first session begins with a conversation about the problem you're having or the behavior you'd like to change. I will ask you some questions, and answer any questions you have about hypnosis.
After the initial consultation, we will move on to hypnotic induction, creative visualization, therapeutic suggestion, etc.
After you emerge from hypnosis, we will briefly discuss your experience. I will also teach you some powerful self-hypnosis techniques.Q. How many sessions do I need?
A. Most people find that one session is all that is needed to kick a lifelong habit. Some people require longer or multiple sessions. Milton Erickson, the seminal figure of 20th century hypnotherapy, saw some clients for 6 hours at a time.
Based on the history you provide during a phone screening, we will determine the optimal length of your first session. After the first session, you will likely have an intuitive sense about whether you would benefit from additional sessions. Clients who come for more than three sessions are usually tackling multiple problems in turn.Q. Will I lose control?
A. If you have seen people do crazy things at a hypnosis show, it is natural to wonder how much control the hypnotist has. It is important to remember that people who volunteer for stage hypnosis have an expectation about what participating will entail. The hypnotist selects people who seem uninhibited, and sends the reluctant back to their seats.
Context and motivation determine what makes sense as a suggestion. You will reject things that don't make sense. It would be difficult if not impossible to get someone to cluck like a chicken in my office, just as it would be difficult to suggest that the star of a hypnosis show quit smoking.
Hypnosis is a consensual state. I am literally incapable of making you do anything you're not comfortable doing. If I asked you under hypnosis to tell me your ATM PIN number, you would just say "no" and laugh at me (in hypnosis it is completely normal to talk, laugh, scratch an itch, or shift to get more comfortable in your chair).Q. Will I know what's going on while I am hypnotized?
A. Hypnosis is very relaxing, but it is not sleep. On the contrary, people become extremely alert during hypnosis. All your senses are heightened, and you are able to think clearly.
Relaxation and alertness may seem mutually exclusive, but they are not. The "deeper" you go into hypnosis, the more relaxed and more alert you become.
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Posts
- Grit Is More Important Than Talent
In the late ’60s, Stanford psychologist Walter Mischel performed a now-iconic experiment called the Marshmallow Test, which analyzed the ability of four year olds to exhibit “delayed gratification.” Here’s what happened: Each child was brought into the room and sat down at a table with a delicious treat on it (maybe a marshmallow, maybe a donut). The scientists told the children that they could have a treat now, or, if they waited 15 minutes, they could have two treats.
Read more at the99percent.
- The Possibilities in Hypnosis
“Like many others whose knowledge of hypnotism comes from movies and stage shows, my husband and Mrs. Kanter misunderstood what hypnosis is all about. While in a hypnotic trance, you are neither unconscious nor asleep, but rather in a deeply relaxed state that renders the mind highly focused and ready to accept suggestions to help you accomplish your goals.”
- Still Can't Buy Love
“…just as the human body didn’t evolve to deal well with today’s easy access to abundant fat and sugars, and will crave an extra cheeseburger when it shouldn’t, the human mind, apparently, didn’t evolve to deal with excess money, and will desire more long after wealth has become a burden rather than a comfort.”
Researchers at Boston College prompted the very rich—people with fortunes in excess of $25 million—to speak candidly about their lives and the results are very interesting. It appears that they worry about their children, their relationships, money, religion, spirituality and security.
Me too. What great wealth does to psychology is a guarded area where little trust survives. This piece was enlightening.
Thanks to Jay Parkinson for turning me onto this.
Good friend and creative director, Matt Ferrin, made this time-lapse video with the help of his wife, Bree. Composed entirely of footage taken during their recent trip to Australia and accompanied by Max Richter, it’s immediately beautiful and meditative. If you were searching for a respite from your daily business, you found it.
In 2009, 478,590 men finished half-marathons— a 53 percent increase since 2004.
More than 275,000 men ran full marathons, a 26 percent increase over 9 years.
In 2000, 29,373 runners finished the NYC Marathon (the world’s largest). In 2010, 45,103 finished.
More than thirty new marathons were introduced in 2009 alone.
In six years, the number of USA Triathlon-sanctioned events has more than doubled— from 1,541 to 3,500.
(via Esquire, hence all the men-speak)
There’s a health consciousness arising in our culture in a very significant and fast way. When I was a kid, eating whole food was something 100 hippies were doing in California. Now it’s a full-fledged movement, ideology, with an entirely new industry to sustain it. The same thing is happening with exercise. Companies like Rapha, lululemon, and a few others are making this stuff cool. Makes me very happy.
Joining the conversation is one of the most powerful points of progress in the development of one’s existence. Don’t worry I’m not going to get all deep on you. I just mean that when one sits in a room and becomes a part of a discussion moving into the future, you feel that you are an agent of change…
When the worst earthquake in Japan’s history and the subsequent tsunami knocked out all power in the city of Ishinomaki in Miyagi Prefecture, editors at the Ishinomaki Hibi Shimbun, the city’s daily newspaper, printed news of the disaster the only way they could: by pen and paper.
Newseum Acquires Hand-Written Newspapers Chronicling Japan Earthquake : NPR
Nice handwriting.
Sigmund Freud, in an interview with Giovanni Papini, 1934.
… Everyone thinks,” he went on, “that I stand by the scientific character of my work and that my principal scope lies in curing mental maladies. This is a terrible error that has prevailed for years and that I have been unable to set right. I am a scientist by necessity, and not by vocation. I am really by nature an artist… And of this there lies an irrefutable proof: which is that in all countries into which psychoanalysis has penetrated it has been better understood and applied by writers and artists than by doctors. My books, in fact, more resemble works of imagination than treatises on pathology… I have been able to win my destiny in an indirect way, and have attained my dream: to remain a man of letters, though still in appearance a doctor. In all great men of science there is a leaven of fantasy.”
- Until One is Committed
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits one-self, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way… Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”
-J.W. von Goethe
Wheels of Change: How The Bicycle Empowered Women
As much as we love bike culture and everything bikes stand for, we may have underestimated the profound significance of the bicycle as a cultural agent of change. Thanks to a brilliant new book, we no longer do. National Geographic’s Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (With a Few Flat Tires Along the Way) tells the riveting story of how the two-wheel wonder pedaled forward the emancipation of women in late-19th-century America and radically redefined the normative conventions of femininity.
“To men, the bicycle in the beginning was merely a new toy, another machine added to the long list of devices they knew in their work and play. To women, it was a steed upon which they rode into a new world.” ~ Munsey’s Magazine, 1896Read more at The Atlantic
- The David Lynch Foundation
I was sent this New York Times article on a recent surge in the popularity of meditation and the David Lynch Foundation. It starts at a benefit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in December that was M.C.ed by Russell Brand, a practitioner of Transcendental Meditation, and delineates Hollywood’s relationship with meditation since the 70s. Mr. Lynch provides my favorite moment in describing the relationship of meditation to creativity:
“Artists like to say, ‘I like a little bit of suffering and anger,’ but if you had a splitting headache, diarrhea and vomiting how much would you enjoy the work and how much work would you get done? Maybe suffering is a romantic idea to get girls, but it’s an enemy to creativity.”
The David Lynch Foundation offers Transcendental Meditation at no cost to troubled students, veterans, homeless people, prisoners and others in need. They have offices in L.A., New York and Iowa.
- My Most Loving and Best-loved Amazzi
If you ever thought you might be a romantic, read the letter below. Marsilio Ficino (far left) was one of the most influential humanist philosophers of the early Italian Renaissance, an astrologer, a reviver of Neoplatonism who was in touch with every major academic thinker and writer of his day, and the first translator of Plato’s complete extant works into Latin. His Florentine Academy, an attempt to revive Plato’s school, had enormous influence on the direction and tenor of the Italian Renaissance and the development of European philosophy.
Letter from Marsilio Ficino to Girolamo Amazzi:
Greetings.
How different is the nature of love from that of almost everything else, my most loving and best-loved Amazzi. For the bigger other things are, the stronger they ought to be; but the more extreme love and friendship appear, the frailer they seem to be. For often extreme love is injured by a succession of little things, more so than moderate love. Either the heat of the desire itself arouses fiery choler which, fanned by something trivial, sometimes floods out in a great surge of anger; or preoccupation with one fixed idea begets melancholy, which is full of groundless fears.
More precisely, when a man thinks that he has given everything to another and therefore demands everything in return from his beloved, his avarice never obtains what it was seeking with the whole force of his mind. But the desire of the erring mind, essentially weak or self-seeking, suffers these frustrations deservedly. Since this desire feeds on the winds of the world, just when it seems to be growing most it is not so much growing as swelling; thus the stronger it appears the weaker it is. Therefore human love is a thing full of anxious fear.
Divine love, however, kindled by the flames of the virtues and growing strong from celestial rays, seeks to return to the sublime heights of heaven which no fear of earthly ills can ever trouble. Of such a kind is our mutual love, Amazzi. Therefore, as you are sure of your love towards me, so be just as sure of my love towards you. Far be it from us that one human heart should fail to respond to another that is always calling. Even strings seem to respond to strings that are similarly tuned, and one lyre resounds in answer to another; indeed a solid wall may echo to one who calls.
(Volume 4, Letter 25)
“Think globally, act locally.”
— Patrick Geddes, a Scottish biologist, sociologist, philanthropist and pioneering town planner. He is known for his innovative thinking in the fields of urban planning and education. He was responsible for introducing the concept of “region” to architecture and planning and is also known to have coined the term “conurbation”.
- Poetry
Recently rediscovered this poem, Life’s Tragedy, by Paul Laurence Dunbar. First read it in High School and it spoke to me. Although I was too young to fully understand it’s message, I could hear how beautiful it was. Young people have a knack for spotting beauty. The poet, Mr. Dunbar, was the son of freed slaves, born in Ohio less than ten years after the civil war. He was a friend to Orville and Wilbur Wright. They made him a bike, and invested in a newspaper he edited aimed at the black community. His brief life was ended by a bout with tuberculosis at the age of thirty-three.
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
— Albert Einstein, a German theoretical physicist who discovered the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics. He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics “for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect”.
- Community
I had the pleasure of meeting a group of fellow regression therapists, hypnotherapists and healers based in the New York City area this weekend. The group is coordinated by Dr. Laurie Greenberg and has been meeting in some form or another since the late nineties. I appreciate the opportunity to connect with others doing this exceptional work locally, there aren’t many.
That’s my Dad, Jeff Ryan. I took this picture in Istanbul in 2006. We were there for the first International Conference for Parapsychology where he was the keynote speaker. I’ve since been back 5 times and I’ve had the pleasure of working with Dr. Janet Cunningham while there too. She and my father have traveled, lectured and taught together for over 10 years. I’ve had the great pleasure of traveling with them a lot.
My Dad served for twelve years as the president of the Association for Past-Life Research and Therapies. Out of this group of researchers and practitioners came the International Board for Regression Therapy, of which Dr. Cunningham is currently the president.
Recently I’ve been engaging my community by visiting yoga studios, community spaces and holistic centers. On one of my strolls I happened upon Dharma Yoga. They offer classes for beginners to advanced yoga students rooted in the ancient tradition of Classical Yoga. Small, personalized classes are offered solely by donation. The space is in a historic building in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn. With original stained glass windows, and curved glass surrounding the room, it is a magical place to practice. I had the pleasure of meeting one of the instructors, Barbu. He is a certified Reiki practitioner and Shamanic Healer, and shares these modalities with the local community. Suffice it to say, I’m taken with the people and the space.
- Dr. Stevenson's research
Dr. Ian Stevenson is the best known and most respected collector of scientific information that attempts to prove or disprove the existence of reincarnation. He didn’t use hypnosis, instead he chose to collect thousands of cases of children who spontaneously (without hypnosis) remembered past lives. Dr. Stevenson used this approach because spontaneous past life memories in a child can be investigated using strict scientific protocols. Hypnosis, while useful in research, is less reliable from a purely scientific perspective. In order to collect his data, Dr. Stevenson methodically documented the child’s statements of a previous life. Then he identified the deceased person the child remembered being, and verified the facts of the deceased person’s life that matched the child’s memory. He even matched birthmarks and birth defects to wounds and scars on the deceased, verified by medical records. Read an interview with the late Dr. Stevenson here.
