What is Hypnotherapy?
What is hypnosis?
Hypnosis is a natural state everyone experiences throughout their day to day lives. You may experience it most noticeably just before you drop off to sleep or just as you are waking up – it’s that lovely bit where you are aware of everything going on around you & could open your eyes if you choose, but you feel comfortable where you are and can’t really be bothered moving.
Hypnosis is that naturally relaxed state described above, which is sometimes used for entertainment by people such as stage hypnotists. Even during a TV or stage hypnosis show, no one can be made to do anything against their will – inhibitions may be lessened, but nothing more. Hypnotists are very skilled at identifying & choosing subjects who are particularly susceptible to suggestion & who are willing to partake in the entertainment. Hypnotherapy uses that same natural state but for a therapeutic purpose. With their full consent, patients are guided into a state of hypnosis, under which the therapeutic work is undertaken with the subconscious mind. This can include parts therapy, regression therapy, suggestion therapy, timeline therapy, inner child work among others.
No. Your mind cannot be controlled using hypnosis or hypnotherapy. You are always in full awareness & control
If you think of your mind like a computer – the conscious mind is like your desktop, this is where all your processing is done, your thinking, working things out, learning etc.Then your subconscious mind is like your hard drive – this is where everything is stored – all your memories, learnings, beliefs, assumptionsYour subconscious operates around the level of a 4 – 6 year old. It takes everything literally, knows everything about you – it remembers EVERYTHING you have ever experienced in the whole of your life & its job is to keep you safe & protected it does that really really well! It operates your body, keeps you breathing, digesting, stops you stepping out in front of a moving car, reminds you not to repeat silly mistakes, but it also equips you with fears, blocks & limitations, which keep you safe – and stuck! Hypnotherapy works so effectively because we can easily access the subconscious mind & change any outdated fears, beliefs, thoughts or behaviors, which are no longer serving you – it’s like updating the software of your mind!
If you think of your subconscious mind like your hard drive, that hard drive is divided into lots of different files or parts – each part represents a thought, feeling or belief that you have developed over your lifetime. It is these parts that may be holding you back in an attempt to protect you, even though you’ve made the conscious decision to change. During hypnotherapy, we can let your subconscious know that you want to make a change & bring forward any parts that object, you can decide whether to keep, change or get rid of the part that is no longer helpful to you.
If you think of your subconscious mind like your hard drive, that hard drive is divided into lots of different files or parts – each part represents a thought, feeling or belief that you have developed over your lifetime. It is these parts that may be holding you back in an attempt to protect you, even though you’ve made the conscious decision to change. During hypnotherapy, we can let your subconscious know that you want to make a change & bring forward any parts that object, you can decide whether to keep, change or get rid of the part that is no longer helpful to you.
- Regression therapy is as it sounds – but not as scary!
- Habits, behaviors & fears you have developed over your lifetime have all begun somewhere.
- After all you weren’t born anxious, biting your nails or afraid of childbirth – those all started at some point during your life.
- The subconscious works on a ‘2 strikes & you’re in’ system – i.e. if it experiences an emotional situation at 2 different points in time, it makes the link and decides this is the way you need to feel or behave any time that situation arises in the future.
- Using regression, we can pinpoint when the pattern started, take the emotion out of & dissolve the pattern. The memory doesn’t change but your emotional response to it does.
Suggestion is used in hypnotherapy as a means of ‘suggesting’ new helpful thoughts & ideas to your mind, with your agreement & for your benefit. This can be done during a session and also in your own time via a pre-recorded audio. This is particularly powerful following a dynamic session in which we have used some of the other techniques described above where we have begun to shift old unhelpful patterns of thought & the subconscious is ready to accept new ideas. The repetition of the new ideas over the days & weeks following the dynamic session help to create new neural pathways in the brain so that they stick for the long haul
Our inner child is that part of us which may have remained feeling scared, alone, misunderstanding some situation or event. During hypnotherapy, you can have the chance to talk to your inner child, reassuring them & letting them know everything they need to know so they understand that situation from your new wise position, making them feel safe & loved. It is a very healing practice
We all have a timeline from the moment we are born (or before) until the moment we die. Timeline therapy is used to look back at your life so far or forward at the life you’d like so we can iron out the past as well as create a powerful vision for your future