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Hypnotherapy is therapy that is undertaken with a subject in hypnosis.
The word "hypnosis" (from the Greek hypnos, "sleep") is an abbreviation of James Braid's (1843) term "neuro-hypnotism", meaning "sleep of the nervous system".
A person who is hypnotized displays certain unusual characteristics and propensities, compared with a non-hypnotized subject, most notably hyper-suggestibility, which some authorities have considered a sine qua non of hypnosis. For example, Clark L. Hull, probably the first major empirical researcher in the field, wrote, If a subject after submitting to the hypnotic procedure shows no genuine increase in susceptibility to any suggestions whatever, there seems no point in calling him hypnotised [...] (C.L. Hull, Hypnosis & Suggestion, 1933: 392)
Hypnotherapy is often applied in order to modify a subject's behavior, emotional content, and attitudes, as well as a wide range of conditions including dysfunctional habits, anxiety, stress-related illness, pain management, and personal development.
It 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. 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 tuning a 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.
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Wirral is a Metropolitan Borough of the County of Merseyside, bordered by Cheshire. It lies between Liverpool and Chester.
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