Hypnotherapy - why bother?

For many people, hypnotherapy is viewed as a fanciful way to deal with challenging issues and not for the likes of them - you know - the ordinary man in the street. It is seen as an expense and difficult to quantify or qualify the results. They reason it is just not worth putting in the time, money or energy to try it out and feel it is easier to follow more traditional, popular methods in dealing with their problems than try something new. People generally do not like change.

Some people assume hypnosis can only be used for certain, ‘popular’ issues such as weight loss, giving up smoking or phobias, so if they don’t need those issues addressed then what would be the point? Hypnotherapy however, can help you overcome so much more from low self-esteem to bruxism (teeth grinding) and from fear of public speaking to insomnia.

In fact nowadays, as hypnosis becomes much more mainstream due to the popularity of celebrities using hypnosis, people are using it for everyday problems including alleviating physical pain, improving sports performance and even to enhance their sex lives. More and more clinicians are seeing the benefit of offering it to their patients as a viable alternative to the more traditional pharmaceutical option seeing it as a safer, cheaper alternative with no side effects. Some clinicians such as GPs and dentists now even practice it themselves to help their patients overcome their ailments or fears.  

Many people now use hypnosis as a ‘top up’ for any issues that they find can reoccur. For example if they are prone to depression and recognise the early signs they are beginning to flail, they find using hypnosis a quick and easy way to get back on track without using medication which normally takes longer to show results. Hypnotherapy can be more instantaneous and extremely beneficial in allowing the person to gain insight as to why they are beginning to regress back into a depressive state. With perhaps only one or two therapy sessions they can revert back to their normal self before depression takes hold. The hypnotherapist can also teach their client self-hypnosis techniques which they can use on themselves as and when required for quick, no fuss results.

Hypnosis works by working on the unconscious mind to get to the root cause of whatever the presenting problem is which allows the client to understand their actions from the deepest level. That lack of confidence may originate from a long forgotten throw away comment from a teacher for example. It doesn’t matter whether you consciously can recall the event but your unconscious self does and can work on addressing this. Or perhaps the client has struggled all their life trying to lose weight and despite trying numerous diets can never lose more than a few pounds which are immediately put back on as soon as they stop the latest diet. Hypnosis will guide the client through the various emotions they may have which they attach to food and discover perhaps an association with comfort eating and a previous pleasant memory such as always being rewarded with chocolate for doing chores. Or remembering a much loved Gran who always made them toast before going to bed therefore they now have that ingrained habit of making toast at bedtime as they remember feeling good and it still brings them comfort.

Long gone are the associations with swinging pocket watches and people walking about in zombie like trances. Today, hypnosis can be just as effective using conversational hypnosis as popularised by Milton Erickson, seen as the forefather of modern day hypnotherapy and from the likes of Bandler and Grinder who introduced NLP in the 70’s allowing real change to manifest in people just by guiding their minds to improve their well-being. Today, Job Centres are just as likely to refer you to hypnosis for confidence as they are to sending you on a traditional course run by a training provider. It is quicker and more cost effective in the long run.

Whatever challenges you may be facing, check out whether it is something hypnotherapy can deal with and if it does, find a hypnotherapist who has dealt with that particular issue and ask for testimonials.