My Approach
Making sense of it all & how this can help.
All the work I do is evidence based. This means the techniques have been researched over time and peer assessed for their effectiveness.
Alongside mindfulness, meditation, utilising the relaxation response and cognitive behavioural techniques , this method is very effective at achieving lasting change.
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"Hypno-CBT® is an integrative psychotherapy: combining hypnosis, somatic awareness training, mindfulness and cognitive behavioural therapy. This integrated, mind-body psychotherapy approach – seamlessly weaving experiential “somatic” psychotherapy and hypnotic imagery with both cognitive “talking therapy” and action-focused behaviour therapy – can create deep, powerful and rapid change for clients."
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UKcollege of hypnosis and hypnotherapy
Hypnosis & Hypnotherapy
stage hypnosis has nothing in common with how hypnosis can be used to facilitate the changes people want in their lives. People undergoing hypnosis retain their full control , remember everything afterwards and can stop the process at any time.
Hypnosis is a quality of mind that most people access daily, in different ways. e.g. being completely engaged in a book or film & really inhabiting its world, losing track of time because of this absorption. It is our imagination engaging with a subject.
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Hypnotherapy is the use of hypnosis to change the things we feel are holding us back in life. The simplest defintion that makes most sense here is that .......Its focussed attention, in a calm controlled purposefully directed way.
Clarity
The structure of this therapy helps you to be clear about whats going on and to see a way through to the goals you would like to achieve.
Hypnotherapy, along with CBT is very good at helping you gain clarity, perspective and motivation and accomplishing change
Hypnotic relaxation is a great method to get all the benefits of non sleep deep rest. This enables our bodies to enter into the rest and digest side of our autonomic nervous system.
With practice its a great way for those with anxiety to practice the total opposite of anxiety, which helps get our nervous systems back into correct operation.
It also ensures that patterns of muscular tension are dropped completely and again with practice many kinds of body discomfort can be relieved.
"When the body can rest deeply not only does healing take place but the mind can begin also to relax its grip on unhelpful habitual patterns....."
There are many applications of hypnotherapy, it's a powerful tool that can be used to practice making the changes you wish to make.
Its more than simple visualisation as it can engage so much more than our visual ability. Engaging our imagination with our issues in a calm and directed way can allow for a kind of powerful practice of the changes we want to make, in a safe way, before actually going about those changes. We can also make that process easier using hypnosis.
It does not result in the subject being under the control of the hypnotist, you will retain your free will and have control of your behaviour throughout and will have complete recollection afterwards.
"hypnosis is focussed attention in a calm, controlled purposefully directed way...."
Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy CBH
Our thoughts affect the way we feel and therefore, how we behave.
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By challenging the unhelpful thoughts and installing new more helpful ones we can begin a new pattern of thinking feeling and doing.
Thats it in a nutshell.
Anxiety affects almost 1 in 5 people at some point in their lives.
Understanding how and why anxiety happens to us is a crucial part of any treatment.
The more we feel anxious the more this feeds into our feelings and therefore what we do and this in turn can lead to more anxiety....
Its possible to interupt this cycle by learning how our anxiety arises, how it affects us physically and mentally and start to reduce unpleasant thoughts and feelings that controlled our unhelpful behaviour patterns which in turn will lead to more freedom of behaviour.
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CBH requires full participation and engagement in the techniques for any success and It's worth bearing this in mind before coming to therapy.
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You drive the process and you make the gains. If you feel like you want to give it a go, thats already a positive step mindset to approach change.
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After all the more you put in the more you will get out.
when combined, hypnotherapy and techniques from CBT enhance each others effectiveness.
"Our fears are more numerous than our dangers and so we suffer more in our imagination than in reality...Seneca."
Stress Management
"stress arises when the pressure placed upon an individual exceeds the capacity of that individual to cope....”
"stress is not what happens to us, its our response to what happens.
A response the we can change at any time..."
Stress is the body’s way of responding to too much pressure, when this becomes overwhelming, stress occurs.
The autonomic nervous system sets in motion the fight or flight or stress response. When stress is experienced over long periods of time, chronic ailments, low self esteem and many more mental and physical ailments can surface.
How we meet the pressures of life, can make the difference between a well adapted reponse or a poorly adapted one.
Suffering from stress is an unhealthy state of body and mind and happens when we dont have adequate ways of addressing the pressures.
The heart of stress management is building resilience to stress. ​
If you are suffering from the effects of short or longer term stress many areas of life can suffer.
By understanding the bodies reponses to stress and how our central nervous system operates in this regard and by learning the positive effects that breathing techniques, relaxation training, mindfulness experience can have and why , we gather the knowledge and practical skills to redress the balance.
Learning how to be more assertive, addresing sleep issues, managing anger, facing worry and anxiety, problem solving etc can all be accomplished through this approach.
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Breath Training
I'm now an Advanced Instructor in The Oxygen Advantage Breath training method.
The breath can help alleviate so much of the mental and physical challenges we face.
I love teaching people the fundamentals of breathing and seeing the beneficial effects it can have when years of dysfunctional breathing patterns drop away.
I can coach you in The Oxygen Advantage Method through an initial assessment into a program of bespoke exercises for you to improve breathing efficiency.
If you'd like to know more about how training the breath can make a significant difference to you contact me for more info.
