Hypnotherapy is a powerful therapy that is widely misunderstood. Hollywood’s portrayal and the use of it for entertainment by stage hypnotists has led to a common misconceptions about how it is done and the potential outcomes.
So to explain, it essentially works by relaxing your brainwaves to a level that makes it possible to access the subconscious mind. Once we’ve accessed the subconscious mind, we can use various techniques to release and reframe the thoughts, beliefs and feelings surrounding it. This then makes taking rapid action much easier, as we don’t have to force ourselves to do it – it feels natural. As a client, you remain in control the whole time and your brain will not accept anything that it doesn’t want to.
From phobias and habits to healing emotional trauma, hypnotherapy can be used for a vast variety of issues. Hypnotherapy can help you to move on from past experiences that may have caused your subconscious to believe your safety lies in external things – your job, your salary, your house, your body, your relationships. As such, you may identify with the following:
The best candidates for hypnotherapy are those who are desperate for change but feel there’s something stopping them. They may feel like they’re procrastinating or stuck. This can make them feel frustrated and angry at themselves because they don’t understand why they just can’t do it. Hypnotherapy helps bring the conscious and subconscious into alignment. The aim being to stop berating ourselves and allowing ourselves to take rapid, aligned action.
Please note, there are certain medications that could make hypnotherapy unsuitable. Your hypnotherapists will discuss such medications in your initial contact as a GP referral will be necessary in these instances.
Imagine the mind as an iceberg, with 10% sticking out of the top and 90% below the surface. The 10% sticking out of the top is your conscious mind, which is responsible for logical, rational thought. The 90% below the surface is your subconscious mind, responsible for your emotions, beliefs, long-term memory and automatic behaviours.
At this stage, the sympathetic nervous system causing fight, freeze and flight is switched off; you will then be working with the more creative and solution-focused part of the mind. We can then work at this level to heal emotions and harmful beliefs caused by our experiences in the world. This may be through suggestion, visualisation, reframing, inner-child healing or regression – sessions are completely unique to each individual client.
Some hypnotherapists offer a specific type of hypnotherapy that is called Solution Focused. This therapy looks at ways to move forward in life without going deeply into your past. For more information, please visit our page Solution Focused Hypnotherapy.
For more information on hypnotherapy and how it might help you, please contact one of our qualified hypnotherapists.
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