Perfect Change Solutions

What is Hypnotherapy?

Hypnotherapy is an extremely effective and fascinating therapeutic technique, which gets amazing results where many conventional approaches fall short. 

It is totally natural, perfectly safe, non-addictive and has no side-effects.

It takes its name from the Greek word ‘hypnos’ which means - ‘to sleep’. 

And basically – it is all about relaxation!

Hypnotherapy works on the basic model that we have a ‘Conscious’ mind and a ‘Sub-conscious’ mind.

Your Conscious mind is your everyday self that runs around, juggling your busy life.

Your Sub-conscious mind is like a big computerised control centre that keeps all your body systems running 24-7, 365 days a year, whether you are awake, or not!   It keeps your heart pumping, keeps you breathing  and runs your body without you having to think about it. 

Sometimes, your Sub-conscious mind develops  faulty operating programs, just like a computer which gets a virus.  These cause ‘glitches’, which affect the Conscious, everyday self.

Sometimes these effects show up physically, sometimes emotionally and sometimes mentally.

   

Some examples of these are :

• Addictions

• Anxiety attacks

• Depression

• Insomnia

• Irritable Bowel Syndrome

• Mood swings

• Nightmares

• Obsessive Behaviours

• Over eating

• Phobias (i.e. fear of spiders / fear of flying)

• Psoriasis

• Sexual Problems

• Stress

 

Hypnotherapy works by allowing us to get in touch with the Sub-conscious mind and address the root ‘cause’ of these faulty programs.  Once the cause is addressed, the faulty program vanishes and the effects on the everyday self disappear.

Basically a Hypnotherapy session works by initially having a chat about what’s going on for you and what you’d like to change.

Next, your therapist would ask you to get comfortable and then use an ‘induction’ technique to get your everyday, Conscious mind to relax and take a ‘back-seat’.

This ‘induction’ might be you counting backwards from 300, closing your eyes and following your breathing, or even imagining you are walking on a wonderful beach…

Once your Conscious mind is relaxed, your Sub-conscious mind is easier to contact and work with.

What happens in reality, is that your Brainwave activity simply slows down.   

It’s a bit like switching modes on your mobile phone or tuning your radio to a different station – one that’s quieter and a lot…more…calm...

At slower brainwave frequencies, your Sub-conscious mind is much more receptive.

In this nice, relaxed, receptive state, your Sub-conscious mind will accept positive instructions to heal your body, your mind and your emotions.

Hypnotherapy also allows us to input some new positive programs into the Sub-conscious, whilst it’s listening!

Examples of these are:

• Increased Confidence

• Higher Self -Esteem

• Improved Concentration

• Increased Fitness 

• Increased Strength 

• Enhanced Sports Performance

Once this main part of the session is completed, your Hypnotherapist will bring you back into your normal waking state. This is usually done by counting you ‘up’ from 1 to 5, for example.

Sometimes your Conscious mind remembers the whole session – and other times it is too relaxed to bother!

The results always happen, regardless.  Most importantly - you can never be made to do anything you don’t want to - and you are always perfectly safe. 

People can be in quite deep, relaxed states and still talk perfectly normally with the therapist.

Some of the more modern Hypnotherapy approaches, which have been developed alongside NLP, use only very light relaxed states and even simple ‘language patterns’ to access the Sub-conscious. 

Hypnotherapy is being used increasingly alongside conventional medical practices and many Doctor’s surgeries have a Hypnotherapist to which patients can be referred. There are a few main regulatory bodies for Hypnotherapy, such as the British Institute for Hypnotherapy (B.I.H.). These offer approved training programs, Codes of Ethics for practitioners, and continuing Professional Development courses. The usual minimum of study for a recognised Hypnotherapy Diploma is 120 hours.