HYPNOTHERAPY EXPLAINED
WHAT IS HYPNOTHERAPY?
Hypnotherapy is a ‘quiet medicine’ in which I use a soothing, quiet voice to help you go into a state similar to day-dreaming. In this state of deep relaxation, your unconscious mind becomes very receptive to the life-changing, solution-focused suggestions I give you.
Once the session has ended, your ‘reprogrammed’ unconscious mind implements these suggestions to enable you to make positive life changes and achieve the goals you’ve set yourself.
CAN ANYONE BE HYPNOTISED?
Yes, but only if you want to be hypnotised: you can’t be hypnotised against your will.
IMPORTANT: If you have ever experienced psychosis or suffered from a psychiatric condition, psychological illness or epilepsy and are under the supervision of a psychiatrist, you should not undergo hypnotherapy as it is contraindicated in these instances.
HOW MANY SESSIONS WILL YOU NEED?
I will always strive to help you reach your goals in the shortest possible time. Unlike many other therapies, hypnotherapy is solution-focused and results can be achieved in a relatively short period of time. The treatment time varies as each person and issue is different.
I ask fertility clients to commit to a minimum of 6 sessions
Hypnobirthing is a single 4-hour session
Stop Smoking/Vaping Today is a single 2-hour session
I suggest weight-loss clients commit to 6 to 8 sessions
Nail-biting, and performance anxiety (exam, driving test, public speaking and sports performance nerves) usually require a minimum of 3 sessions
Listening to the hypnotherapy recordings I’ve sent you twice a day will help to reduce the number of sessions you need to have.
WHAT HAPPENS IN A SESSION?
In our initial session I’ll take a detailed case history to get to know you and agree on the goals you wish to achieve. I’ll also answer any questions you may have. Then we’ll agree on your ‘homework’: three actions you can commit to that will take you closer to your goal.
Next, once you’re sitting comfortably, I’ll hypnotise you. Afterwards, I’ll wake you up gently (although you can do this yourself at any time simply by opening your eyes) and you’ll be left feeling energised and refreshed.
Finally, to reinforce the therapy, I’ll remind you about the ‘homework’ we’ve agreed on, which will also include listening to a recorded hypnotherapy session twice a day.
In subsequent sessions, I’ll use a variety of hypnotic techniques to help you gain a better understanding of your issue and give you suggestions for resolving it, and we’ll agree on a further three action points each time.
WHAT DOES BEING HYPNOTISED FEEL LIKE?
We frequently experience hypnotic states in everyday life, but often we don’t label them as such. When you become so deeply engrossed in a book that you don’t notice the phone’s ringing, or when you drive a familiar route, arrive at your destination and can’t remember how you got there, you’ve been in a hypnotic state. Your conscious mind has switched off and you’ve been functioning on autopilot. Daydreaming is another example of being in a hypnotic state.
Everyone experiences hypnosis differently. At times you may think you can remember every word you’ve heard, or you may feel that you’ve drifted away and not heard most of what I’ve said. On other occasions, you may recall some sections of a hypnosis session and not others. Rest assured that whatever you experience is normal and doesn’t mean you haven’t been hypnotised. As long as you’re relaxed and comfortable, your unconscious mind will remember everything that it’s important for you to remember.
HOW WILL I KNOW WHETHER I’VE BEEN HYPNOTISED?
If you’re looking for tangible evidence that you have indeed entered a hypnotic state, you could try timing your hypnosis session. Time distortion (along with feeling you’re less aware of your body and your surroundings) is a commonly occurring hypnotic phenomenon and you may be surprised to find that what you thought was a 10-minute session actually lasted 20 minutes, or that 20 minutes feels as if it has passed by in a flash.
Other hypnotic phenomena you may become aware of are feeling you’re drifting or floating, experiencing tingling, heaviness or numbness in your hands and legs or even the feeling that you can’t move your limbs. These sensations are actually very pleasurable (they’re like that wonderful Sunday morning lie-in feeling where you know you can get up, but are so relaxed you can’t be bothered to), and aren’t cause for concern. If you did want to move for any reason, then simply opening your eyes would end the hypnosis session and enable you to do so.
WILL I REMAIN IN CONTROL?
You cannot be hypnotised against your will. All hypnosis is self-hypnosis. A hypnotherapist’s voice is just one way to help you reach the state of deep relaxation we call a hypnotic state. It’s easier and quicker if someone else guides you into it, but most people are perfectly capable of hypnotising themselves once they know how.
It’s important to remember that you remain in control throughout every hypnosis session, and if you ever want the session to end, all you need do is open your eyes and you’ll return to waking consciousness. It’s a movie-inspired myth that you can get stuck in a hypnotic state if the hypnotherapist doesn’t formally awaken you. All that would happen is that you would remain relaxed until you either fell asleep or felt ready to wake up (or became hungry).
CAN I BE FORCED TO DO THINGS I DON’T WANT TO DO?
You won’t tell me anything you don’t want me to know, nor will you do anything you don’t want to do or that goes against your moral beliefs or values. I can’t force you to do anything because hypnosis doesn’t work like that. Before you allow yourself to be hypnotised, you need to have made a conscious decision that you actually want to make the changes I’m going to suggest to you.
Your unconscious mind has an incredibly powerful defence mechanism that prevents negative suggestions – or suggestions that might go against your moral beliefs – being accepted. Were you to hear such a suggestion, you would simply bring yourself out of hypnosis. This is because the heightened state of awareness you’re in during hypnosis enables you to both reject and accept suggestions, as you would when fully awake. However, this state also makes positive suggestions more likely to take hold and influence your actions/mindset once you’re awake.
HOW DOES HYPNOSIS WORK?
Hypnosis is a state of deep physical relaxation that allows your conscious mind to ‘get out of the way’, thereby allowing you to communicate directly with your unconscious mind, where all the information that influences your actions, beliefs and mindset are stored. When you’re in this focused mental state, you’re better able to accept beneficial, life-changing suggestions which, if you were in a waking state, you might reject (or talk yourself out of!). In much the same way that it’s possible to record a new TV programme over one you recorded earlier, so listening to the positive suggestions I will be giving you in your therapy sessions (and you’ll be reinforcing when you listen to the hypnosis recordings) will help to overwrite the negative beliefs, behaviours and habits you’ve unconsciously acquired. You’ll then be able to substitute them with new, more positive ones.
If, while you’re hypnotised, you imagine yourself performing all the new, more positive habits you’ll have acquired, or having the more positive beliefs you’d prefer to have, this will help to ingrain these actions and beliefs, so that when you’re no longer in a hypnotic state you’re more likely to carry them out or believe them in everyday life and achieve the goals you’ve set yourself.
WHY WOULD I BE MORE LIKELY TO ACCEPT YOUR SUGGESTIONS WHEN I’M HYPNOTISED?
By becoming deeply relaxed it’s possible to bypass your conscious mind and access your unconscious mind, where your beliefs and habits are stored. Your conscious mind is continually evaluating information to see whether it’s true or not, whereas your unconscious mind doesn’t have this capability and accepts everything at face value without questioning it.
An example of this is how you react when you watch a scary movie on TV. By focusing your attention on the screen, you enter a hypnotic state and become so engrossed in the film that you start to react to what you’re seeing as if you’re a participant. For instance, as you watch someone being pursued by a masked assailant, your heart rate goes up, your blood pressure increases and your breathing becomes rapid and shallow – all to prepare your body in case you need to run away or fight.
Your unconscious mind is accepting what you’re showing it at face value: that you’re just about to be chased, too. When the fear gets too much, your conscious mind often kicks in, critically evaluates the situation and reassures you that ‘it’s only a movie’ and that if you want to, you can get up and calm your nerves by making a cup of tea.
So, how does this relate to hypnotherapy? Well, if, for example, you want to lose weight and I tell your unconscious mind while you’re hypnotised that you adore eating healthy, nutritious food (even if takeaways and ready-meals are your staple diet!), you’re more likely to believe this and act upon this new belief when you’re no longer hypnotised. That said, your unconscious mind has an effective defence mechanism that prevents any harmful suggestions being accepted. In other words, you really do need to want what’s being suggested to be true.
WHY DO I NEED TO LISTEN TO THE HYPNOSIS RECORDINGS TWICE A DAY?
Hypnosis is a form of ‘accelerated learning’: the more you repeat a desired action – and reinforce it by imagining it while hypnotised – the stronger the neural pathway in your brain for that action will become. Just as a jungle path will soon turn into a road if it’s used often enough, so your new, positive behaviour will become more deeply ingrained the more often you repeat or think about it, until it eventually turns into a habit (a behavior you repeat automatically without thinking about it).
The same goes for negative habits. Like a jungle path that becomes overgrown if it’s never used, if you stop repeatedly performing bad habits, they’ll gradually fade away. It’s like learning a foreign language: if you fail to practise it, you’ll eventually forget how to speak it.
Because repetition is so vital to success, I’ll ask you to listen to a hypnosis recording twice a day: once in the morning and once in the evening. The morning hypnosis session will set you up for the day by reminding you of the actions and decisions you need to make throughout the day that will help you achieve your goals.
When you listen to the recording last thing at night, it will help you to relax before you go to sleep and you’ll be sending a powerful message to your unconscious mind that reaching your goal is vitally important to you. The actions you’ve decided to take will be laid down as new neural pathways (or strengthen existing ones) while you sleep.
Exactly the same principle applies to positive, self-affirming beliefs: repeatedly reinforcing them using hypnosis will mean they eventually replace your unhelpful self-limiting beliefs.
