Hypnosis & Clinical Hypnotherapy

Hypnosis occurs when a person experiences a sense of deep relaxation detached from their immediate environment, sometimes called a trance.

It is a similar state of mind to what we all have experienced in everyday life, for example a pleasant feeling when we are so engrossed in a good book or film where our focus has been directed away from our immediate concerns or problems.

In Clinical Hypnosis a client is guided by a Clinical Hypnotherapist into a safe natural hypnotic trance. This happens by encouraging the analytical thinking part of your brain to calm down. Hypnosis is very relaxing as you feel calm and at peace. Your body may feel lighter or heavier as your conscious thinking mind is resting. Your subconscious mind drifts along in a day dream like state.

As hypnosis is very relaxing it can be useful for stress management. However, on its own it doesn’t bring about change of self limiting beliefs, behaviour or habits. For these to occur, therapeutic interventions are introduced during hypnosis and this is the basis of hypnotherapy.

Clinical Hypnotherapy is where therapies/ interventions are used within hypnosis. It is a safe, natural, effective therapy. It works with your subconscious mind to identify thoughts, emotions and behaviours which are self limiting or unhelpful and promotes positive change. It encourages more helpful ways of thinking and feeling so strengthens your positive belief in yourself and your abilities. Clinical Hypnotherapy is a helpful therapy in challenging old outdated habits whilst motivating you to adopt new positive habits and healthier behaviours

Hypnotherapy works with the subconscious mind which stores all our beliefs, habits and behaviours to encourage it to accept new helpful ideas and bring about the necessary changes needed. As the subconscious mind is more receptive when the conscious thinking mind is less active therapies/ interventions have being shown to work faster within hypnosis.

Hypnotherapy has been shown to be an excellent therapy for overcoming anxiety including fears and phobias. It can effectively build self esteem/ self worth and boost your confidence. It is routinely used in helping people to stop habits or create new ones and also when people want to achieve and maintain a healthy weight. Guided Imagery and Progressive relaxation techniques as well as Self –Hypnosis can be useful tools in reducing Stress. Hypnosis combined with Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (Hypno-CBT) is a beneficial therapy for people suffering from depression as it can reduce the number of therapy sessions needed compared with CBT alone (NICE recommends CBT as a treatment for depression).

FAQ about Hypnosis/ Hypnotherapy

+Is it brainwashing?
This is a common misconception often from watching stage hypnotism. Stage hypnotists choose extremely highly suggestible people, from a process of suggestibility testing which are incorporated into their show, in order to get a member of the audience to perform acts for entertainment. Although these chosen people from the audience are very hypnotisable readily going into a very deep trance and being highly suggestible they are still fully in control of their own mind and making choices. Therefore they still would never do anything they didn’t want to do, so in this case subconsciously they are happy to perform on stage. However these dramatic changes seen during stage hypnotism can leave a person confused and it is definitely frowned upon by the clinical hypnotherapy profession.
+Will I lose consciousness during hypnosis?
No. You actually feel relaxed but are actively focusing on the hypnotic suggestions. Your mind may wander off focusing intensely on a memory or a situation that is relevant to what is being said so it may seem that you miss some or all of what was being said (depending on the depth of your trance) but your subconscious mind hears everything and guides you to focus on the areas that are relevant to what is needed for positive change to occur.
+Can everyone be hypnotised?
All hypnosis is actually self-hypnosis. A hypnotherapist guides a client into hypnosis but they can’t make it happen. It is in the full control of the client whether they are prepared to be guided and allow it to happen.
+Will I tell you all my secrets in hypnosis?
You are in control so you won’t spontaneously divulge any information unless you want to. In fact most of hypnotherapy is done where the client processes the information privately without talking.