Exploring insomnia and hypnotherapy

Over the past five years, I have noticed a significant increase in patients complaining of insomnia. Technically, chronic insomnia is defined as a sleep problem on three nights per week or more, for three months or more.

Ostensible reasons (presenting problems) for this phenomenon might include work stress, phone addiction, difficulties within a relationship, anxiety, and an inability to "switch off". Of course, many other factors may also contribute to insomnia, and this can vary from person to person.

You might have already tried relaxation exercises, tiring yourself out at the gym, cutting down drinking, taking regular work breaks, going to bed at a different time, turning your phone off at night, or having planned chats with your partner in the hope that your sleep will improve.

These are all positive steps. However, they can be without any lasting impact on your sleep pattern. The insomnia persists, or recurs.

Insomnia's hidden causes

As a hypnotherapist and psychotherapist, I am aware that some causes of insomnia are not amenable to alleviation by the obvious methods. This may be because the cause of your sleeplessness rests not in the conscious but in the unconscious mind.

You may be stressed at work, communicating badly with your partner or unable to switch off at night. However, beneath these issues lies something of which you are not consciously aware. It is this lurking thing that might be at the heart of your sleep problem.

How the subconscious works

The reason that it is not accessible to you is that it has been repressed. Repression is the mechanism by which the psyche pushes down and hides some reality that is frightening, shameful or otherwise unacceptable to us in our day-to-day lives. This reality is not necessarily derived from trauma. Equally likely, it could concern an unfulfilled desire. Perhaps the root cause is fear.

The repression process does not make the fear, desire, or shame disappear. One way or another, it will make itself felt, through symptoms as variable as jaw clenching (bruxism) or road rage. It may prompt impulses to drink alcohol or vape nicotine. It may make your dreams so troubling that you wake from them in a sweat. The problem might have been hidden in the subconscious mind.

Struggling with sleep

Ever struggled with sleep for hours, eventually falling into REM sleep, to dream such disturbing dreams that you wake, in a shock, once more? 

You may be frightened of your dreams. What is really frightening, however, is something unknown to your conscious mind. Something hidden. Something repressed. This fear can inhibit sleep altogether. Hence, insomnia.

How hypnotherapy can help

With this in mind, a hypnotherapist can help you to delve beneath the presenting problem to something deeper.

Session one might be used to gather information about your background, your sleep habits, and difficulties to get to know each other a little. The therapist will explain the process of hypnotherapy in general terms. It is possible that repressed issues may already begin to emerge.

Often, a week later, session two might involve relaxation hypnosis, lasting around twenty-five minutes, followed by a conversation about your feelings and current sleep patterns. If the presenting problems are shrinking down to size and your sleep is improving accordingly, that's great. However, a good therapist will be able to identify whether deeper, repressed issues are lurking behind the surface problems and act accordingly.

Typically, during the third session, you will receive further hypnotherapy. This time, perhaps, the therapist might communicate with you while you are under hypnotic suggestion. You may use your voice to reply, or the therapist may suggest an idiomotor method – moving a finger to indicate "No", "Yes", or "I don't know", for instance.

If appropriate, you will be questioned about the root cause of insomnia while you are in this deeply relaxed state. With the conscious mind quietened and the repression process relaxed, you may be able to begin to make progress here. When the therapist brings you out of the hypnotic state, in the light of the therapy room, you might discuss what has travelled from the unconscious into full consciousness.

If the insomnia is largely caused by repressed issues, we will be able to discuss whatever has been preventing you from sleeping soundly for so long. You should feel a sense of relief in knowing and sharing this truth with your therapist. A sense of hope should also be growing – you can see an end to insomnia.

In a typical fourth session, you might discuss your sleep and your feelings about life more generally once more, including whatever might have been causing trouble in your subconscious.

Additionally, perhaps, deeply calming, sleep-focused hypnotherapy may be delivered during this fourth session. This hypnosis will further assist in returning your sleep pattern to its natural, healthy state.

A better night's sleep

This approach is flexible and realistic. For many people, four sessions of hypnotherapy may have a positive impact on sleep. If the unconscious issue has proved more complex, however, bringing with it more painful, formerly repressed material, further sessions of therapy may be agreed upon. A good hypnotherapist will continue to work hard until you are getting a consistently better night's sleep.