How does hypnotherapy work?

If we imagine the brain divided into two halves, the logical side and the emotional side, then it is said that, if there is a conflict between logic and emotion, then emotion always wins out.

People with chronic anxiety, for example, may understand logically that there is nothing to worry about but, emotionally, they still worry and ‘what if…’ Similarly, smokers know logically that their habit has a one in two chance of killing them but, emotionally, they feel that smoking helps them in some positive way. Emotions always win over logic.

Therefore the key to successful outcomes is to treat the part of us that reacts emotionally, and that part is the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind holds our beliefs about ourselves and the world and is also the seat of the imagination. It is important to realise that our subconscious mind always wants the best for us and so there is always a positive intention behind even the most bizarre of behaviours. The perpetually anxious person may feel intuitively that their behaviour allows them to anticipate upcoming problems whilst the smoker may derive social acceptance, particularly if they started with friends at school or smoke socially. There are many many reasons why we do what we do and everyone will have a different experience.

Therefore the role of hypnotherapy is to reframe the negative behaviour, to cut the cord between the behaviour and the emotion attached to it and to install more appropriate and healthy emotions and behaviours in its place.

So what actually is hypnosis?

Hypnosis is simply a state of focus, no more no less. It is totally natural and people will enter a hypnotic ‘trance’ totally spontaneously many times a day. If you drive, for example, how many times have you arrived somewhere and can’t remember a portion of your journey? You were too busy drifting off in your own thoughts however, crucially, you were still in total control of the car. Similarly when you get engrossed in a good film or book and are emotionally swept away, then that’s hypnosis too. You daydream for half an hour and it feels like five minutes? Hypnosis.

And this natural state can easily be induced and used to communicate with the subconscious mind. It does this by speaking in the language of our subconscious: emotion and imagination. Little about a hypnotherapy session is logical; we work with feelings, images, emotions, thoughts and sensations to create scenarios in the imagination which are understood and taken on board by our subconscious at a deep level in order to make dramatic and long-lasting positive changes.

To find out how hypnotherapy could help you please contact me.