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Hypnotherapy

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Hypnotherapy has gained increasing popularity due to it’s versatility and ability to help treat issues ranging from smoking addiction to emotional trauma. The image of dangling pocket watches, swinging pendulums and mysterious mind control, during which the person having treatment has no will or control over them self, is fast disappearing.

How does hypnotherapy work?

Hypnosis is a quieting of the conscious, busy, analytical mind and a focus of attention. This attention focus offers the ability to relax deeply and recognise and utilise resources that are within you that may otherwise be overlooked. It is not a state of outside control or unconsciousness or an altered state. It is a peaceful inner awareness, similar to drifting off or losing track of time. Something that we all do naturally when we daydream. During hypnotherapy you remain fully aware, both of your surroundings and everything that is being said to you.

Being in an hypnotic state allows you to pay closer attention to your own guidance; your unconscious mind is enabled allowing you to easily make positive changes.

Hypnotherapy can work for everyone. Some people find they go into hypnosis easily, others can resist letting go and want to have a sense of control – an issue in itself, but it is a skill anyone can learn.

What can hypnotherapy help with?

There are apparent fears such as fear of flying or motorway driving as well as less obvious ones; the fear of being alone or of rejection or of fearing being unable to cope. Fear affects us in many different ways and can lead to negative and limiting behaviours such as lack of motivation, remaining in a bad relationship, anxious thoughts or addiction.

Hypnotherapy can help you to remove old, negative ways of thinking and replace them with self belief and assuredness, confidence and assertiveness.

Hypnotherapy has gained in popularity as people are becoming more open to self improvement; mental self awareness is now viewed as a strength rather than a failing. Hypnotherapy allows you to examine why you are feeling the way you feel, to remove the negative feelings and change your default thinking.

If you want Hypnotherapy, then seek out a properly qualified UKCP therapist to ensure the best results.

Anxious thoughts

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Anxious thoughts can be a problem when self-reflection gets out of hand and becomes negative rumination.

As a health professional I accept that the Mental Health Foundation place this issue as a cause of anxiety and depression.

In 2013 the University of Liverpool published a study that  said that rumination (a word for constant repetitive thinking or dwelling that comes from the action in cows of chewing the cud) far from being a player in the most common mental health issues, is the largest predictor.

So what does this mean for us? It means that when we dwell on things, not only do our thoughts tend to spiral downwards but that can lead us to poor mental health.

This will come as no surprise to therapists, but the extent may. Most therapists see the link between persistent negative thought and self-blame and anxiety and depression, but as a causative factor?

It also means that psychological issues can lead to problems at a mental health level. Replaying thoughts over and over again makes us sad and anxious.

There is also evidence that rumination is at play in OCD and eating disorders, in fact anywhere our negative thoughts are stuck on repeat, we find the potential for problems.

So… what can we do about it?

Well firstly, we can learn to relax. Relaxation is often the key in early therapy to opening up the space into which the client can grow and change can be made.

Think about the amount of time that anxious thoughts or worried thoughts take up, or as some say, the amount of space they rent in your head. With all that time and energy freed up, what would you be able to do?

After that, we can look at the sense of threat that generally underpins anxiety, often being able to identify that threat can help us move forward to explore it and perhaps re-frame it or find ways to cope with it.

Please don’t think that anxious thoughts, constant thought repetition or rumination are something that you have to ‘put up with’ or suffer. If you need help to overcome these patterns, then please reach out to a professional.