Hypnotherapy -what not to expect.

Unless you study the subject of the human mind, or work in the field of Psychotherapy and Neuroscience, it is unlikely that you will have thought much about Hypnotherapy.

As humans we love predictable things. Your Brain can be described as a system of systems or a Brain made up of Mini-Brains. Each one of these Mini-Brains have specialised areas that they deal with- sensory input, emotional response, basic stimulus to events, thoughts and even memory to name but a few. As with an Orchestra, where each section has its own responsibility during a performance, the mini brains both work separately and together to produce the Symphony of your mind.

Predictability helps your Brain to not have to expend energy on new stimulus from the outside world and in turn, this predictability allows us not to have to generate a strong physical and emotional response to events we perceive. How does this help us? If you think of things from an evolutionary point of view and see yourself as an evolved ape, then your ape brain is concerned with your hunger, your role in the group, your satisfaction in terms of sleep and food and ultimately reproduction. All of this is trumped by your need for safety, which when combined with hunger and social (group) role, means that your Brain is constantly evaluating threats, risk and danger.

If something is predictable, whether that is the migration of prey, the change of the seasons, the shelter provided by a cave or the route to and from the hunt, then it allows the other parts of your brain to concentrate on new things that could be an opportunity or a threat.

So how does this relate to hypnotherapy? As I mentioned at the start, most people come to Assisi Therapy with little or no experience of Hypnotherapy. Their main understanding of it derives from TV and film, where often the practice of Hypnosis is portrayed as scary or weird and the subject is made to look ridiculous or behave in a way they would never want. The type of hypnotherapy which we train for at Assisi Therapy, could be described as Clinical Hypnotherapy. This might sound like it belongs in a hospital, but in short it describes a therapeutic treatment that puts the client at the centre of their own healing in a way that is tailored to their unique experience of life.

Hypnotherapy at Assisi Therapy is a wonderful experience that allows you to relax into yourself, stripping away all the social concerns, rules and structures that you normally carry around with you and accessing the astounding wealth of experience and knowledge that your conscious mind has sat on for your entire life. We call this wealth of “you”, the unconscious or subconscious mind (depending on what book you read). Think of it as the library of “you” where hypnotherapy holds the key to unlocking all that fantastic understanding and knowledge held within.

Having understood that, most clients simply relax into the chair and start their hypnotic journey. However, some clients are looking for predictability and don’t want surprises or to experience something they see as being out of their control. They look online and watch videos of other people being hypnotised in the past and in different continents. They seek to build predictability and lower their anxiety by seeking an understanding of Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy. This is all totally understandable and needn’t be a problem. I always tell clients to see their hypnotherapy as being totally unique to them. If you allow yourself to engage with the experience and allow my words to open that wonderful library, then the possibilities are endless. And yes, if you have watched videos on the internet of other people apparently being hypnotised, then you can make things a bit more predictable, but then are you really experiencing Hypnotherapy for yourself or are you replaying a video of someone else being hypnotised?

Therapy at Assisi Therapy is made up of elements of Counselling, Psychotherapy and Hypnotherapy and this integrative approach means that no one session is the same and all clients have a hand in creating their own therapy. If you feel yourself giving in to the urge to predict how it will be, then just know that your experience is always a safe and reassuring one, which if you engage with it, will open up your mind and unburden you of your problems.