Hypnotherapy

The myths surrounding hypnotherapy.

Hypnotherapy is safe and is in no way dangerous, you will always be in complete control.

You cannot be made to do anything that is against your belief system. You can end the session at any time if you wish to do so.

Hypnosis does not mean you are unconscious or asleep; you will be able to move, talk and responded to questions, recall events that your conscious mind can no longer remember because they are stored in your subconscious mind.

You will be able to remember everything that happened during the session.

We all naturally engage our subconscious minds every day, for example, we all day dream, some of us day dream whilst driving and can sometimes arrive at our destination without really remembering much about our journeys! This is because after a while driving becomes second nature to us (etched on our subconscious) allowing our conscious mind to wonder off and think about other things, of course we are still alert.

A little bit about Hypnosis what it is and how it works.

Most peoples understanding of hypnosis is based upon the performance of a stage hypnotist, movie or novel. Clinical hypnotherapy is quite different from stage hypnosis, movies and fictional novels.

Hypnosis is a normal natural experience. Everyone goes into the hypnotic state at some stage during the day. An everyday example would be watching television where you become so interested and engrossed in the programme you’re watching that you can’t hear someone talking to you. Hypnosis is where you have a total concentration on an idea or concept.

When we think of our minds, we think of one mind, but our minds are made up of two parts, the conscious part which consists of about 10% of our mind, it’s the logical, critical, judgemental part that compares and weighs up information, and the bit that chatters away in our heads. The second part consists of our subconscious mind, the other 90% of our mind. The subconscious mind is not logical, it has two main purposes, firstly to control our involuntary nervous system, like breathing, pulse rate, blood pressure and so on, secondly is that it seeks to meet our deepest needs, expectations and desires. For example, if a person wants to quit smoking, the conscious mind says ‘quit smoking’, but the subconscious mind says ‘how are you going to make it through the day without a cigarette?’ The 10% of your mind is telling you to stop and 90% is telling you to pick up another cigarette, what happens is you smoke another cigarette unless you have willpower of steel. Anything that we have developed into a habit, like smoking the subconscious mind believes we need to continue that habit for our well-being. That is why it is so hard to stop smoking or overcome other problems by conscious decision alone. With hypnosis, the subconscious mind can be reprogrammed to accept new positive beliefs that can assist you in quitting smoking instead of blocking change in your life.

People wonder what it feels like to be hypnotised, simply very relaxed is the answer, some people believe that if they don’t feel anything remarkably different from a normal relaxed state then they haven’t been hypnotised, but the therapist will know the visual signs of a hypnotic state which can vary in people from a light hypnotic trance to a deep trance. The experience of hypnosis allows you to relax and in the process all the tensions, stress and pressures of everyday living will start to disappear. Some people will feel light and weightless, while other may feel pleasantly heavy as they peacefully relax in the chair.

When a person is aware of being very relaxed and comfortable they are more likely to follow suggestion than at other times. The mind has what is called a ‘critical faculty’ (the conscious mind) which is bypassed and instead of evaluating the suggestion, the mind lets it go directly into the subconscious mind where the new positive suggestion can begin to work to make it a reality – this part is therapy, hypnosis is process used to get us to this point.

A hypnotherapy session consists of an induction to get you all relaxed, it could be a progressive muscle relaxation where we focus on all the muscle groups in the body to ensure that they relax and let go of all the tension and stress, this is then followed by a deepener which will relax you even further to the point where the suggestion ‘therapy’ part can be given direct to the subconscious mind, once completed, you are then gently brought back to a normal waking state feeling refreshed, relaxed and great. The suggestion therapy part will start to take effect immediately because the subconscious mind will want to act on it.

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