About Flavio

Flavio Iammarino practices Clinical Hypnosis. He is a published author, motivational speaker and clinical counsellor with more than 30 years of experience in the field of personal development and mental enhancement performance. He is world renowned for his amazing ability to affect profound changes in people within an impressively short period of time.

Over the past 10 years, Flavio has been working with Olympic caliber as well as professional athletes spanning three continents. He has trained and instructed in the martial arts for over 30 years also involving Zen meditation techniques and holds a 5th degree black belt in karate. Flavio’s clinical counselling addresses a wide range of issues — anxiety, depression, and post traumatic stress (PTS) are just a few of the areas he treats. His practice also encompasses corporate and educational seminars both in Canada and internationally and he also provides mental sports enhancement training with athletes from a variety of athletic backgrounds.

His extensive knowledge, which enabled Flavio to be so highly successful within athletic and corporate arenas, is now being applied as instrumental strategies in his role as Director of the Emotional Health & Wellness Centre in the Niagara Region. Flavio has also worked closely with top corporate executives of major corporations. Assisting with executive personnel motivation strategies to increase performance and communication, his teachings resulted in increased productivity and improved sales/marketing objectives.

His high success rate combined with glowing client testimonials, has led to establishing Flavio’s excellent reputation as an effective and skilled therapist who now works largely on referrals from physicians, psychologists and lawyers. One physician who regularly refers patients to Flavio is quoted saying, “He dares to counsel patients who have exhausted all other forms of treatment… and he succeeds!”

More recently, Flavio has taught at Brock University to help students prepare for the GMAT providing strategies to eliminate fear of exams and techniques such as “Five Steps to Success.” Flavio has also co-written the book, “Make It Happen”, as a guide for choosing the right career path for high school and college students. Currently Flavio is writing another book entitled “The Book – The Power of Being Whole” in conjunction with seminars he is currently booking.

His seminar on “The Power Of Being Whole” and “Stress And How It Affects Body & Mind” is an incredibly powerful teaching that helps people remove blocks built over a lifetime of emotional stress. He discovered the techniques, of how to help people become whole, in his therapy practice over the last ten years working with clients and the myriad of issues he has treated.

Currently, in addition to carrying on his practice both in the Niagara Region and Toronto, Flavio is establishing a new venture, which offers seminars, both to companies and to the public. Flavio is a powerful motivational speaker and is available to lecture on a variety of topics dealing with the overall improvement of one’s quality of life.

Q&A

Why did you choose to go into mental health?

The work I do today was not by choice but was an evolvement. To understand the evolvement we must go back in time before 1989. I was on top of the world, had a great family, my construction business, and had been teaching karate for over 20 years. I was happy, excited, confident, and invincible. Then in October 1989 out of the blue one morning I woke up feeling anxious and panicked… then morning after morning I would feel the same way. This feeling threw me for a loop because I would go to sleep as an invincible man and wake up anxious. This was upsetting at the least, not knowing what had happened to me. This anxiety began to affect all areas of my life… those of you that have anxiety know what I am saying. So I began to ask why? What brought about this change?

I began to study human behaviour, psychology, hypnosis, and N.L.P. to come up with a reason why. I was learning many things and nothing seemed to work. I tried positive thinking but that took a lot of energy and the underlying problem was not getting any better. I decided to go for some counselling so I went to a reputable counselling firm. It was explained to me how when you feel certain emotions this creates different brain waves, but this did not solve my problem.

I decided to investigate more about the conscious and the unconscious part of the brain and their functions and I also wanted to know more about the higher self. By understanding the primary factor and function of the mind it began to bring to light what was happening to me. So I started to do hypnosis to help others with similar problems – the more I understood about the three parts (the conscious, the unconscious and the higher self) the more successful the results were.

To simplify things I learned that first we had to reestablish communication with the conscious and unconscious part of the mind. Then we had to look for limited decisions and beliefs at the unconscious level. Once identified, with the assistance of the higher self and some simple techniques, we were able to change them easily. With hundreds of clients in my clinical research I have learned many things that help me assist others to make changes that allow them to achieve their goals.

The process is fear + fear + fear + fear = anxiety + fear = panic.

Remember that the panic is only the presenting problem and the root of the problem is fear, that when disconnected, the problem will disappear. Also I discovered how important values and beliefs are – they run the show.

The question was “Why did I choose this type of work?”… I must say that this type of work to assist others in finding peace chose me.

What is the best part of your job?

When people ask me what kind of work I do I respond, I don’t “work” I help others to change their lives for the better. This brings in joy, fulfillment and peace that I am doing something good for human beings but to me this is not work. It is a passion and when you are passionate about what you are doing then you are not working. So if you are not happy about what you are doing change it, because likely you have out grown where you are and be excited about looking for a new and better path.

How do I know if I’m just having a bad day or suffer from a mental illness?

A bad day is when you experience some negative feelings like anger or frustration. This could be caused by not having enough rest or you may have some unresolved issues in your mind that need to be resolved. This is common with a lot of people and the duration of this feeling is short lived and then things go back to normal.

When we talk about mental illness we are talking about more complex issues. The best way to assist in staying with strong mental health is when the symptoms persist for a month or two months in duration, then the best thing to do is see your family doctor. He will diagnose the problem and assist you in finding the means to resolve the problem. Through my own clinical research I have learned that if you are trying to resolve emotional pain with just medication it will not work. It will help to relieve the symptoms but if you don’t deal with the root of the problem with a competent psychiatrist, psychologist or counsellor the problem will not go away. So yes use medication if prescribed but also deal with the root of the problem.

What are the signs of depression?

When some people come to me to help them with depression I can’t because the depression part is the effect and in order to deal with the effect I must look at the cause. I ask the client what the negative emotions are that they are feeling when they think they are depressed. The two main emotions that actually cause depression are sadness and emotional hurt accompanied by either guilt or fear. When I know what the emotions are I can help the client deal with them and in turn deal with the depression.

What are some ways to fight depression and/or improve mental health? 

We have to be very careful on what types of words we use in our every day language because all of these words have meaning to the unconscious mind. For example: when the word “fight” is used it could mean that there is danger and there might be a battle that you are going to win or lose. Just by using that one word you can actually trigger anxiousness or panic. The problem starts when a person is incongruent. What this means is that there is minimal or no communication between the conscious, the unconscious and the higher self. In my experience when you are not congruent this creates many problems, so the first step is to recreate communication between the three parts so that now the problems can be resolved.

Can physical injury cause depression?

Yes. Very much so because with physical injury you are not only dealing with the pain but it also restricts your functions and what you are capable of doing. Example: You don’t feel the same as before the injury, and you cannot do what you were able to do before, so now you focus on the loss or what is missing and this can easily lead to depression. When there is an injury either at work, at home, or in a motor vehicle accident a couple of things happen depending on the severity of the impact. A lot of people actually leave a part of themselves with the accident; this part that is missing can cause depression. Also if the pain persists for a period of time this can also trigger depression.

In conclusion, if things don’t feel right with your emotions or with your physical health, approach your doctor right away. Just like a professional athlete does, surround yourself with the best doctors, counsellors, chiropractors, physiotherapists and whomever you need. These professionals will be able to assist you in achieving the goal of great physical and mental well being which will enable you to experience a happy, healthy and peaceful life!

As I like to say, emotional health = peace.

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