Now Open Your Eyes

Progress through Hypnosis

It is never about solving someone's problems for them, but rather helping them solve them for themselves. 

There are many areas that hypnotherapy and derivatives can support. 

History

There is evidence of a use of hypnosis as far back as ancient Egypt and Greece, but the modern day understanding of hypnosis is considered to begin with Franz Anton Mesmer (hence mesmerising) in the 1700s. Mesmer experimented with magnets and trance states, but with some success. 
James Braid is acknowledged as bringing hypnosis into a scientific light in the 19th century. Whilst he wrote papers on its uses, he struggled to get a sceptical medical world to take it as seriously as he would have liked.
Emile Coue, a french pharmacist at the beginning of the 20th century brought much of the principle of hypnosis into the conscious state with autosuggestion- the power to repeat affirmations until they filtered through into results. "Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better".
Freud, Pavlov and latterly Dave Elman all moved hypnotherapy forward, but Milton Erikson is given credit with expanding it into the lateral uses and applications it has today

 Misconceptions

Firstly, the myths need addressing...
Will hypnotherapy make me cluck like a chicken? Only if you really want it to!
What if I can't wake up? Hypnosis is the most natural form of relaxation. It is a similar state to that just before you fall asleep or just as you're waking up. There is no inescapable rabbit's hole
Will I be made to do things I don't want to? This is a therapeutic arrangement. We are only looking to achieve what you want to achieve. 

What can hypnotherapy help with?

Hypnotherapy can help with a wide range of areas.
It is probably most commonly known for treating phobias and helping people to quit smoking, but it can do so much more!
Sports performances- in fact performances generally- work well with hypnotherapy. 
Anxieties, panic and stress can all respond well to hypnotherapy. 
Hypnotherapy can work well with pain management.
It is a tool for helping you be your best you. Laterally it can be used in an endless number of areas

How does it work?

Many of our problems are based in our own responses. We react to what we see, feel, experience. These responses are made, by ourselves, with the best of intentions. Sometimes these responses, when mixed with our imagination, can become unhelpful.
Anxieties, stresses and panic become coloured by what we anticipate or expect. These expectations are fuelled by our imagination. Suddenly we are crippled by things that have not actually happened, and are not based on logic.
The Fight or Flight Response is a reflex reaction we have built in for survival purposes. It dates back to caveman times. It is that primal knee-jerk when faced with a threat. As the marauding monster comes running towards our caveman self, we have two options. If we think we are stronger, we may stay and fight. If we think we will be eaten, we run. Faced with this caveman ultimatum our body, with a rush of adrenaline, pushes energy to our larger muscles for a big response. 
After the life or death encounter, our caveman self will either be stood over the defeated monster; in another field far, far away, or not in a position to worry about making anymore such decisions!
We can see echos of the fight or flight response best played out with domestic dogs. After an altercation between two domestic dogs you will often see the dogs shake off any lingering stress, as they return themselves to a less alert state.
In modern human terms, things are not so clear anymore. We can become stressed about things we cannot resolve- certainly not with a socially acceptable fight! We can activate our fight or flight response, prepare for action, but not have any channels to achieve resolution or run away. An angry letter from a bank manager can create a sense of stress that we cannot instantly deal with. We might carry that stress until such time as we get to see the bank manager, but even then we might not feel the matter has gone away after. Society throws up many peculiar pressures that we have not worked out how to deal with. Our mind and body still use the same old survival responses, but without any end solution. As a result we can carry unhelpful tensions; be prone to quickly states of nervousness; be unable to rest properly; and subsequently feel inferior. These sensations, mixed with our active imagination will find the most colourful explanations which we buy into. Why wouldn't we? 
Once our thinking is disturbed and our perspective lost, we can get ourselves into all kinds of tangles
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