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.
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