What I Treat
After assessing the individual needs of each person I draw on a range of tools from cognitive behavioural techniques, mindfulness and Acceptance and Commitment therapy, relaxation techniques, hypnosis, stress inoculation training and habit reversal to better tailor a treatment plan for each individual. Read more below to get an idea of the general techniques used for each problem.
Rumination
Do you have unhelpful or irritating intrusive thoughts?
​
Learn to spot when the sticky thoughts begin and employ thought stopping techniques to stop them spiralling so you can get on with real life.
​
The combination of cognitive behavioural therapy and hypnosis has proven to be particularly effective in stopping those thoughts winding you up. In sessions intellectually help yourself understand your rumination patterns. Add the focused hypnosis to stop those thoughts and allow yourself to more easily let those thoughts go and choose what you want to think about.
Relationship Issues
Are you finding it hard to deal with a break up? Is being assertive a challenge? Are you finding there are control issues?
​
There are many things that can be difficult in a relationship in CBH I help you delve into the core problems, we explore ways to regulate emotions and improve communication, we can also build new relationship skills and address any underlying issues.
​
The cognitive-behavioural component helps you identify specific thoughts, beliefs, and behaviours that contribute to relationship difficulties. Hypnosis and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) teaches you emotional regulation so you can remain calm during difficult conversations, conflict or stress.
The combination helps you to take back your power and work towards solutions or recovery.
Phobias and Fears
Is a fear or a phobia impacting your life or stopping you doing something you really want to do?​
​
Evidence has shown that CBH is particularly effective for specific phobias and people improve after only a few sessions.
​
Fear can range from paralyzing panic to an uncomfortable sensation. We work together in a safe place using a range of techniques. We usually begin with grading your fear and slowly building up resilience. We also challenge the fearful thoughts to restructure your response; we then imagine the anxiety-provoking scenarios while in a deeply relaxed hypnotic state.
This helps break the automatic fear reaction and instead pair the fearful image with relaxation. Once you have rehearsed the calm response it becomes more automatic in the real world.
Do you struggle with negative self-talk?
​
Learning the principles of mindfulness and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) completely shifts the view of the self and the impulse for negative self-talk. You learn to observe thoughts and let them go both in daily life and while focused in hypnosis. This totally frees you from any negative self-talk. Even if the occasion thought pops in you quickly let it go.
​
In addition to ACT and mindfulness you can choose to restructure your responses to mistakes or hiccups in life by reevaluating your thoughts, actions and feelings and rehearsing new automatic thoughts in hypnosis. Use life aa a lesson, events are external to you move from “I am ?%*#” to “This is just a thing that happened”.
Habit Change
Nail biting, hair pulling, stuttering, doom scrolling, food habits. There are so many habits that seem easy to adopt but hard to change. Do any of these or others affect you?
​
I use habit reversal training with hypnosis to help you become aware of what triggers the habit and get on top of it in advance. Learn a new action that steers you away from the unwanted habit and see the benefits of losing the habit.
​
It’s all made easier with hypnosis to deepen your awareness of habit triggers, make new response patterns more automatic, and use your imagination to mentally rehearse successful behaviour change.
​
The relaxed hypnotic state reduces stress that often causes habits while allowing direct communication with the unconscious mind to strengthen your desired change. This combination talks directly to both conscious decision-making and unconscious habit loops for more effective, lasting change.
Has stress manifested over time? Do you notice it in your emotions? Your behaviour? Are there physical signs? Is your mind and are your thoughts a mess?
​
For many relaxation is a skill to learn, together we learn how to become deeply relaxed and to build resilience to your stressors. We may learn any combination of techniques from a list of breathing techniques, restructuring how we think about a stressful situation, muscle relaxation, problem-solving skills, communication training, and positive self-talk.
​
Hypnosis directly and immediately gives relief from symptoms of stress by activating the rest and digest system in the body, regulating the emotions and calming brain activity.
Add some new ways to cope with stress into the hypnosis and you are soon good to go.
Pain Management
What are your aches and pains? Do they vary from day to day, hour to hour?
​
Pain varies so greatly from person to person. Although cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy can’t completely alleviate all pain it can help modify your perception of pain by promoting deep relaxation, calming the nervous system, and allowing direct communication with the unconscious mind to alter how pain signals are processed.
All the evidence backs this up and shows that hypnosis consistently decreases chronic pain more effectively than non-hypnotic interventions, creating lasting changes in brain pain processing.
​
The therapeutic interventions help you learn how to think differently about your pain and how it is affecting your life. Learn coping skills through ACT and CBT to be motivated to take on change rather than fall into patterns of fear and avoidance.
Do you want to do better in your sport? Do you have a presentation you want to feel confident about?
​
"Learn to push through your perceived limits, we can always give more and do more.
It is your mind to control to do what you want with".
David Goggins
​
These words from the Navy seal and ultramarathon runner David Goggins and his methods align with a lot of CBH. We can focus on and learn from our success to become even more successful.
Cognitive Behavioural hypnotherapy techniques help you recognise your mental barriers and push past them. With hypnosis you can rehearse achieving your goals and how you will achieve them. The mind can achieve what it has already practiced and believes.
​
In addition, you can see failures as a chance to learn ‘what if I tried it a different way?’ identify the lessons you learned from a failure and try again, next time improve your future performance.