What is Hypnosis?

Hypnosis is the term given to the naturally occurring human trance states which have been used by civilisations across the world for centuries. In fact, each one of us goes in and out of natural hypnotic trances every day, without perhaps calling it hypnosis. Have you ever been so absorbed in a book or film that the hours seemed to fly by in a moment? Or been in a boring meeting where every minute seemed like an hour? Or been so lost in thought driving to work that you don’t remember the last few miles?

So who's driving the car?

Hypnotherapy uses these natural hypnotic mental states to help you communicate with the part of your mind we refer to as ‘the unconscious’. The unconscious acts to protect us by filtering the millions of pieces of information received from our five senses and working out if there are any threats nearby to move away from, or sources of pleasure to move towards.

If the unconscious spots something that, on the basis of past experience, it believes is a threat, it immediately rings the alarm bells and gets you ready to fight the threat or run away from it (known as the ‘fight or flight’ response). The unconscious emotional response also hijacks your conscious mind, leaving you unable to pause and think.

This worked great for our ancient ancestors: threats were obvious, with sharp teeth and claws; stopping to think meant certain death. The problem is this response is not so well adapted to modern stresses. So when you go to pieces before that big presentation, interview or exam - your mind a total blank - it is actually your unconscious trying to overrule your conscious mind and get you away from the situation.

Conversely, if you had an experience when you were younger that led your unconscious to conclude that eating sweets was a good thing (say they made you feel happier), then it will continue to motivate you to crave sweets, no matter how much you consciously wish to stop. In fact, the more miserable you feel as you struggle to lose weight, the harder it tries...

Cognitive Hypnotherapy

Many problems can be attributed to an unconscious that is acting on incorrect, outdated or incomplete information. When we are stuck with behaviours, beliefs and habits which we know are reducing the quality of our life, but which we seem powerless to stop or explain, the unconscious is often in the background, acting because of thought patterns which are out of conscious awareness.

Cognitive Hypnotherapy uses the client’s natural trance states to uncover the unconscious thoughts and memory patterns generating and sustaining a particular problem. With guidance from a qualified hypnotherapist you can find ways to modify these patterns and take full conscious control of your behaviour.

And because we work within your model of the world (there are no 'one-size-fits-all' scripts) - the changes you wish to make are more likely to be accepted by your unconscious mind, making them ongoing and permanent.