An Introduction to Hypnotherapy

One of my colleagues, Tina Taylor, Co-founder of the International College of Clinical Hypnotherapy notes, “You know how when you watch a film, your attention gets focused on the screen, and you notice less of what’s going on around you? With a really good film, it can go on for maybe three hours and yet the time just flies by.” This is an example of a trance, and we go in and out of trances all the time; for example, when we’re driving, thinking about an upcoming event and imagining the good times we’re going to have. Hypnotherapy enables you to make positive use of the trances or dream like states that you enter naturally.

My role, as your Clinical Hypnotherapist, is to guide the process so that you maximise the use of those inner resources that you’re not normally aware of. Put simply, I talk to your unconscious mind [the one that makes things happen automatically] to programme it so that change happens more spontaneously. Your unconscious mind doesn’t know the difference between real life and make believe; if you rehearse it well enough it thinks that change has already occurred, and new behaviours become more automatic.

As Tina says, “It’s in the unconscious where most of the important stuff happens. You can’t regulate your body processes consciously, or learn to speak that way, and it’s the same when it comes to dealing with problems. If we could make them disappear by thinking about them, they would. But that’s not how it is. It’s by working with the unconscious in an altered state that changes happen.”

Hypnotherapy may sound like a magic wand and it can feel like magic! However, it’s important to be aware that in order for you to reach your full potential, your conscious effort is still important. The good news is that the more you listen in trance, the easier your change will be.