Hypnosis & Hypnotherapy

What is hypnosis?

Hypnosis isn’t ‘mystical’ or ‘magical’ and contrary to how it is sometimes popularly portrayed, being hypnotised does not involve mind control, unconsciousness or sleep.

Whilst you are in hypnosis all your senses will remain aware and alert, you will remain in control of all your actions and cannot be forced to do anything against your will.

What is hypnotherapy?

Hypnotherapy is essentially a type of therapy that uses relaxation and other techniques to help you achieve a positive mental state of highly focused attention or concentration and increased suggestibility.

Accessing this powerful resource, that you already have within you, will help you to address the issues, problems and self-limiting beliefs that you want to address and achieve the positive change that you’re seeking.

What happens at a hypnotherapy session?

There is no ‘typical’ hypnotherapy session. What happens will depend upon what you want hypnotherapy to help you to do, or stop doing, and the personal goals and aspirations that you have set to recognise your own success in this.

We will already have discussed this in your free consultation session before therapy begins.

What sort of things does hypnotherapy help with?

There is a huge range of issues that hypnotherapy can help with. These include pain management, anxieties, fears and phobias, improving self-esteem and building confidence, smoking cessation and many more.

If I don’t think I can help you, I will explain why.

How many hypnotherapy sessions will I need?

That will depend on the issue/s and your own commitment to successfully accomplishing the outcomes that you want to achieve.

My view of success is not how many sessions you need, but on how few. Having said this please don’t expect miracles! We will talk about this in the free consultation session.

You may also be given some ‘home tasking’ activity to reinforce the work we did in the therapy session. This may simply be something like listening to your bespoke hypnotherapy recording one or twice a week.

I don’t think I need a free consultation session. Do you insist on this?

YES absolutely.

Hypnotherapy is a collaborative process in which it is vital that both the hypnotherapist and the client agree that they can work together and that they are both committed to doing so.

You need to feel that I am right therapist for you and I need to feel that I can help you achieve what it is that you want to achieve.

Depending on what is likely to work best for you we may use different types and combinations of hypnotherapy approaches.

This could include Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy (CBH), Solution Focused and/or Ericksonian, all of which could be blended with some Mindfulness techniques.

We will discuss and agree what is likely to be the best approach for you as an individual.

I’ve heard that self-hypnosis can be beneficial. Is this true?

Yes absolutely.

You will be taught self-hypnosis techniques as part of the therapy process. This will enable you to use this extremely valuable resource whenever you want to, for whatever reason, long after our therapy sessions have ended.

I’ve heard that there are some medical conditions that make hypnosis unsuitable. Is this true?

Yes.

If you have a pre-existing medical condition or are seeking hypnotherapy for a condition, which may need medical treatment it will be necessary for your doctor and/or other medical professional, to be consulted before we commence therapy.

It would be unethical for me to work with clients who have any of the following medical conditions:

• Epilepsy that is not under control with medication and/or if your doctor considers therapy to be unsafe for you.

• Severe mental health issues such as psychosis and schizophrenia. Hypnosis is not a psycho-therapeutic treatment or a form of psychotherapy and I am not medically trained in these areas.

• Clients who are seeking consultations for severe substance issues or who are under the influence of such substances when attending a therapy session.

A medical questionnaire is competed as part of the consultation session.

All client information is confidential and collected, maintained and stored in accordance with data protection legislation.

Do you keep your knowledge up to date?

The National Council for Hypnotherapy requires its members to ensure that their knowledge, skills and performance are of a high quality and remain up to date. In order to do so I regularly attend Continuing Professional Development (CPD) training courses.