Hypnotherapy
At Hypnotherapy for Healing and Hope, it’s you that matters. Therapy comes in many different shapes and sizes and I use an integrative approach to find the right fit for you. But that’s only half the story. Hypnosis is a powerful tool that enhances the work we do together and puts the mind and body balance front and centre so that your mind is working for you, rather than against you.
Hypnotherapy:
- helps you reassess how you think and feel about yourself, your world and those in it – and how you behave towards them
- guides you to a healthier perspective
- helps find and maximise your inner strengths and empowers you to use them
- builds coping mechanisms and reinforces them for self-mastery
Hypnosis taps into your wonderful, creative imagination and uses your focused attention to re-set or re-frame your responses to your environment so that you can better manage your day-to-day world. It maximises language to work with your brain’s mechanisms to help you interpret things differently – for example, try not to think of a pink elephant ….. I bet you did!
Your emotions, feelings, behaviour and thinking are all inter-related and each can have a big impact on the other. A thought that comes into your head can snowball and create a feeling, such as anxiety, fear or anger, which in turn results in a certain behaviour, such as avoidance or aggression, and this vicious cycle comes with all the physical signs that you may well have become used to. You may neither have intended nor wanted that thought, but when it came you are likely to have acted like you always act, or felt the way you have always felt. How often do you hear yourself say ‘why did I do that?’ or ‘I wish I hadn’t reacted like that?’….. ‘I wish I didn’t feel like this’….. it’s almost as if there’s a part of you that does it without you thinking, just like a habit.
A mind that is working against you can feel like your enemy, but your mind can be your superpower …… my role is to help you tap into that to effect the changes you want to make in your life and then maintain them beyond therapy.
More and more evidence supports the theory that the mind and the body are inseparable – intricately linked.
- we breathe without having to think
- once we learn to read, it’s hard to forget how
- our bodily functions work effortlessly without our conscious input
- we suffer stress which affects our body in countless ways
- we drive a car on autopilot often arriving somewhere not aware of the details of the journey and never having to remind ourselves to mirror, signal, manoeuvre….
The study of psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) is opening the floodgates still further with a wealth of research into the mind’s influence on the immune system, endocrine system and even the activity of our cells. The impact of stress is well documented and it is of particular interest in PNI. The possibility of affecting our own functioning is an incredible area of growth for hypnotherapists working in this field.
The areas that hypnotherapy can benefit you are limited only by your imagination. If the mind has a part to play, then so do I. I can’t fix a broken ankle but I can help you manage the pain and even your recovery process by working with you on those thoughts and emotions associated with it. Your mindset – your belief system – your expectations – your approach – your attitude – they can all affect so much and I’m there to help you optimise them for whatever it is you need.
Some of the main areas hypnotherapy can help with are set out below but the list is non-exhaustive, so please contact me for a free initial consultation to see if working together may benefit you and how.
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Are you stressed, anxious, unable to cope as well as you would like?
Do you feel out of control, overwhelmed? Worrying excessively about the future? Fearful?
Is your home life or work life suffering?
Do you find yourself fixating on worse-case scenarios?
Are you noticing physical sensations that make you uncomfortable?
Do you lack concentration, have difficulty sleeping, suffer digestive problems?
Are you drinking or eating too much to deal with the feelings?
Are you shutting yourself away and avoiding having to face situations or people?
Social anxiety can leave you feeling isolated and can stop you being who you really know you are.
Performance anxiety can turn a well-rehearsed speech into a nightmare, make you dread being on stage or competing or stop you getting ‘into the zone’.
Are you putting up with chronic pain that no longer serves any useful purpose?
Have you seen your GP and been told there is nothing they can do?
Are you suffering in silence or just ‘getting on’ with it’?
Can you imagine a life that didn’t revolve around it?
Are you planning to undergo surgery?
Have you had surgery but not recovered as well as you had hoped?
Do you have an irrational fear beyond natural concern that annoys you, inhibits your day to day enjoyment of life or takes over your world completely?
Does the fear or phobia make you do things differently or stop you doing things at all?
You don’t need to learn to enjoy it but perhaps you’ve wondered whether you could start to learn to live with it?
Apart from specific phobias such as common fears like spiders, heights, needles, flying, mice, clowns, etc. you may also find social situations difficult or even impossible. There are varying forms of social fear that can stem from shyness, feeling self-conscious and avoiding social situations to intense fears of criticism or judgment that can destroy your confidence and your belief in yourself.
Is there something you can’t change that is still affecting you?
Are those memories keeping the feelings from the past in the present?
Is your brain overrun with unwanted thoughts that intrude?
Do you feel like panic might kick in? Like you can’t move forward?
Are you just not coping with the past?
Do you wake up dreading your day?
Do you find yourself feeling down?
Are you unnecessarily irritable and agitated?
Are your moods affecting your family, those around you or your work life?
Have you lost track of who you really are?
Does it feel like you are carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders?
Have you stopped enjoying all the little things that used to give you pleasure?
Is it easier just to sit indoors or stay in bed?
Has something or someone, somewhere, at some time knocked you down and you couldn’t quite get back up?
Have you lost belief in yourself …. your abilities?
Do you lack self-worth?
Do you compare yourself to others?
Do you need the validation of others?
Are you overly self-critical? Does negative self-talk overrule?
Do you feel inadequate, incompetent, unlovable?
Can you just not see the good in yourself?
Are you a perfectionist?
Has the imposter monster taken over?
Do you find yourself drifting towards the fridge or the kitchen cupboard every time you are bored or emotional?
Do you have to finish every last piece of food on the plate?
Are those snacks just waiting for you to take another?
Are you struggling to lose or maintain your weight?
Do you eat for the sake of it?
Are carbs or sugars your enemy?
Is the alcohol intake creeping up?
Is the treadmill still folded up in the garage?
Hypnotherapy is not a diet ….
I work to change your relationship with food and the mindset that’s behind your eating, drinking and exercise habits. So many have tried diets by changing their food but how many have tried losing weight by changing their way of thinking?
I aim to help you create what you want because you want it, enjoy it and have fun doing it. Together, we will work to allow your mind and body to co-ordinate better to achieve a natural shift towards your personal goals.
Nothing needs to be said here other than have you decided it’s really time, this time?
Smoking Cessation is done over 2-3 sessions rather than it being offered in a single session as, being an ex-smoker, I like to spend some additional hypnotherapy time on you, the person, rather than just the smoker. This helps alleviate some of the emotional baggage that has kept you a smoker and some of the fear you may have of life without them. I also offer a hold-back session should things get tough in the months following.
The package price for Smoking Cessation is £295.00.
- Hypnosis in therapy is very different to what you may have seen on TV shows or during stage performances. I will not make you bark like a dog unless that it what your treatment goal is ….! The person on stage wants to perform for the audience – that is why they volunteer. Therapeutic hypnosis in a clinical setting is used to enhance change work and its benefits are scientifically supported by empirical evidence.
- Hypnosis does not involve sleep. Although the word ‘sleep’ may often be used by hypnotists, this is more of a traditional metaphor for a feeling of deep relaxation akin to sleep. Someone ‘in hypnosis’ is, in fact, in a state of heightened focus.
- Neither is relaxation necessary for hypnosis, although depending on the techniques used, it can be a wonderful side effect or it can be the main focus of a particular treatment. It is a useful tool when working with anxiety and other associated emotions, as the two respective sides of the nervous system cannot both work at the same time. Relaxation also helps bring about homeostatic balance.
- During hypnosis, you remain fully aware of your surroundings and can hear everything that is said to you.
- It is a state of focused attention and works hand in hand with your imagination, your expectations and your motivation.
- Almost everybody can be hypnotised. All that is required is a state of concentration sufficient to follow simple instructions. You may not realise you have done it before, but you may often be deeply lost in a film or a book where you have gone inside and shut out the outside world. Of course, there are those who will resist at all costs but why would you choose hypnotherapy if this was your intention?
- You participate in hypnosis for your benefit. You are in total control throughout and can reject any suggestion that goes against your purpose for therapy or your moral principles.
- There is no risk of getting ‘stuck’ in hypnosis. You are in control. In fact, it is such a wonderful experience that most clients object strongly to having to open their eyes again or widen their focus back to the room.
- An ethical hypnotist is merely a guide, helping you into a natural state that your mind and body are already familiar with and facilitating the process of change. It is your mind that does the work and it is you that ultimately makes the changes you want.
- The aim of hypnosis is not to recover reliable, accurate memories. Although memories are helpful in therapy, any recollections are subject to contamination by everything that we have experienced since and their accuracy cannot be relied upon.
- Hypnotherapy is not an overnight cure for everything. Although drastic changes can be immediately apparent, and often are, a professional clinical hypnotherapist will usually advise a commitment of between 3 and 6 sessions for long term benefit in respect of most presenting issues.
- It is also important to understand that you are an active participant in the change process and, therefore, a contributory factor in the outcome. My goal, however, is to help you achieve your treatment goal and leave therapy with long-lasting change in the shortest possible time.
Contact me today to arrange a FREE initial 20 minute consultation
