Today, more than ever, it is not out of the ordinary to experience a variety of feelings, in particular anxiety. And coping with anxiety can seem to be like an uphill struggle which never ends. That continual gnawing sensation of tension, of stress, can attach itself to you and take over your life and your well-being. It’s often at this point someone will head to Google and search for ‘therapy near me anxiety’, looking for a solution to their situation.
There are a number of outstanding treatments for anxiety but one that needs a fresh, new look is hypnotherapy. Whilst the presence of the word “hypnosis” may cause disbelief in the thoughts of some prospective clients, hypnotherapy is a safe and well respected treatment option. Hypnotherapy uses guided experience that involves intensive focus and concentrated attention to gain understanding about how past experiences, feelings and traumas. Hypnotherapy can help you see how these play a role in creating behavioural patterns of the present. Usually, these elements also create constraints to successful relationships, careers and overall life fulfillment.
Let’s better understand the procedure of hypnotherapy, how it alleviates anxiety and about any misunderstandings that might stop people investigating this safe, effective type of therapy.
How hypnotherapy works
Hypnotherapy is really about looking at the conscious, subconscious and unconscious mind. The conscious mind, already according to Freud, includes thoughts, sensations, and feelings that we are aware of and can easily access and analyze. As such the conscious mind is sometimes considered to be the part of our mind where we reason.
Continuing debate exists related to the terms “subconscious mind” and “unconscious mind”. Both terms often will include the idea that lots of feelings and painful memories are repressed or suppressed, typically in childhood. And these same thoughts and recollections generate challenges in our psychological state. These challenges can develop during traumatic expereinces or much later in life after the particular unwanted event.
In Freud’s model the subconscious and unconscious levels are more or less equivalent, but the unconscious level is seen as the deepest level, and includes deep-seated emotions and trauma, whilst the subconscious retains thoughts, behaviour patterns and emotional information which is more readily attainable. The subconscious is seen as more of a entrance between the conscious and unconscious levels.
Hypnotherapy is great for making the focus the subconscious or unconscious information that is driving current responses in the background, a bit like a computer drive. So, with hypnotherapy, the process begins by looking at the present emotion which would usually be among the core emotions: fear, anger, sadness, guilt or shame. Anxiety is found on that fear spectrum.
Even if it’s a free-floating anxiety, a term currently being used to explain the feeling of anxiety that a person has without a connection to a particular stressor, the next step is to explore if that anxiety is also linked to an incident in the past. Maybe its related to something from earlier in life.
It’s not that the anxieties that are happening today aren’t real. They are, but the response to it might go back to primary school days, when the person made a decision or a conclusion about ourselves. A conclusion based on the thinking of a nine year old, with a more concrete mind and in many cases, without the emotional support from an adult or did not know how to access that support. In other words, sometimes it’s that child conclusion which gets subconsciously pulled forward, causing us to operate from that historical place.
Hypnotherapy often will start with guided imagery to help the client enter a more relaxed state. But, the client maintains awareness during the session and memory of the session following it. Once in a relaxed state, the person is guided to begin connecting the current stressors with feelings from the past. And gain insights about what’s fuelling their behaviour in the present.
Hypnotherapy may also help someone process the suppressed or older emotions and change any negative subconscious or unconscious thoughts that they’re having about themselves or their life circumstances.
You can have memories about situations from certain ages in your life. Hypnotherapy aids people to link the feelings and experiences of our child selves to our more complex understanding that is accessible with our adult minds. This, subsequently, can help to handle feelings of powerlessness from childhood and allow people to make healthier choices in the future.
Hypnotherapy is a process which honours where each client has been in life and how their own strengths can assist them with what’s developing in the present.
The stigma of hypnotherapy explained
The differentiation between hypnosis and hypnotherapy is that hypnosis is a method characterised by providing relief from symptoms through a relaxed state and post-hypnotic suggestion. On the other hand, hypnotherapy is an interactive therapeutic process using hypnosis and techniques from other therapy models, such as cognitive therapies, somatic theory, mindfulness and inner child/wise adult work.
If you do Google, ‘therapy near me anxiety’, be prepared to find a range of treatment options. Hypnotherapy should be provided by a licensed therapist with specialised certifications and is focused on the client and therapist discovering the root cause of anxiety and other emotional challenges. In society, there is often a pop-culture view of using hypnotic suggestions for comedy purposes or mind control purposes. This is the definitive opposite of how hypnosis is used in the hypnotherapy setting.
Clients benefit from hypnotherapy by exploring which roles that they have taken on in life, (beginning in their family of origin), and this type of therapy empowers them to gain self-awareness and healthy boundaries with others and themselves. In doing so, they report feeling less anxious and more connected to their own goals and purpose. It’s a supportive, effective and safe method. Emotional safety tools are built into the model, including the client’s option to stop the process at any time.
The advantages of hypnotherapy
While there are a number of therapy styles available to people, hypnotherapy can target the emotional blocks or natural resistance that we have in our subconscious/unconscious minds. Hypnotherapy can also help a person connect with their deeper healthy inner resources and learn new skills to manage and let go of emotions too. This therefore is a strong weapon against anxiety.
Here are some specific ways that hypnotherapy is an effective therapy for anxiety.
1. Sleep Problems, Insomnia, and Sleepwalking
Hypnosis might be a beneficial tool if you sleepwalk or battle with falling and remaining asleep. If you have insomnia, hypnotherapy can relax you enough to help you to sleep more readily.
If you’re a sleepwalker, hypnotherapy can also teach you to wake up when you truly feel your feet reach the floor and help you steer clear of sleepwalking escapades. When you simply want to sleep a little better, hypnotherapy may assist with that, as well. Discovering self-hypnosis approaches can enhance the quantity of time you sleep and the time period spent in deep sleep, the particular sleep you need to wake up feeling rejuvenated.
How it works: Spoken cues place you in a trance-like state, comparable to how it feels when you’re so involved in a book or movie that you don’t notice what’s taking place around you. After hypnotherapy, or even during it, you will fall asleep.
2. Anxiety
Relaxation approaches including hypnotherapy may sometimes relieve anxiety. Hypnotherapy is usually more effective in people whose anxiety stems from a long-term health condition such as heart disease, as opposed to from a generalised anxiety disorder.
Hypnosis can also assist if you battle against a phobia , which is a type of anxiety disorder where you are intensely anxious about something that does not pose a significant danger.
How it works: Hypnotherapy functions to help anxiety by stimulating your body to activate its natural relaxation response with the use of a phrase or nonverbal cue, slowing down breathing, lowering blood pressure, and instilling an overall experience of well-being.
3. Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) Symptoms
The effectiveness of hypnotherapy on IBS has been routinely backed by clinical studies. IBS is abdominal pain created by your bowels, and hypnotherapy may help improve symptoms such as constipation, diarrhoea, and bloating.
How it works: Hypnotherapy brings you through progressive relaxation, delivering relaxing imagery and sensations to overcome your symptoms.
4. Chronic Pain
Hypnosis may assist with pain, for example following surgery or from migraines or tension headaches. It may assist with chronic pain, as well. People with pain related to conditions like arthritis, cancer, sickle cell disease, and fibromyalgia, as well as individuals who have lower-back pain, can experience relief from hypnotherapy.
How it works: Hypnotherapy may enable you to manage pain and achieve more self-control over your discomfort. Furthermore, research indicate that hypnotherapy can do this effectively for long periods of time.
5. Quitting Smoking
Giving up cigarettes is not easy. There are many approaches to help you stop smoking, such as nicotine patches or prescription drugs. Many people have discovered that hypnotherapy has helped them kick the smoking habit.
Hypnosis for quitting smoking works best if you work one-on-one with a hypnotherapist who can customise the hypnotherapy sessions to suit your needs.
How it works: In order for hypnotherapy to work for smoking cessation, you need to truly want to stop smoking. Hypnotherapy may work in a couple of ways. The first is to help you find a healthier and more productive replacement activity. It may then guide your subconscious toward that new behaviour, instead of smoking. This might be something like chewing a piece of gum or taking a walk. The second is to train your mind to connect smoking with unattractive feelings like a bad taste in your mouth or a foul odour from smoke.
6. Weight Loss
As with smoking cessation, there are some studies that do indeed confirm the effectiveness of hypnotherapy for weight reduction. Some research shows hypnotherapy to be most helpful when hypnotherapy is used in combination with exercise and dieting adjustments.
How it works: When you are hypnotized, your attention is highly concentrated. This makes you more likely to pay attention and respond to suggestions for behaviour adjustments, such as eating a healthier diet or getting more exercise, which could help you shed weight.
If you have goggled, ‘therapy near me anxiety’ and reached this page, I hope it’s information has been helpful. For anxiety hypnotherapy sessions, click here.