How can Hypnosis help with mental health?

What is Hypnosis?

When you think about hypnosis, you might think about stage hypnotists who say the word “sleep” and make members of the audience run around the room doing silly stuff. Or maybe someone with a solemn tone of voice and a swinging pocket watch guiding you into a deep trance, comes to mind? You might then think, how the hell would hypnosis improve my mental health?

What is the difference between Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy?

First of all, Hypnotherapy is nothing like this. In reality, it’s when you work together with a qualified Hypnotherapist who uses hypnosis to guide you through a therapeutic process of discovery and change.

The easiest way to understand hypnosis is thinking about it as a focused state of attention and something you are already capable of achieving. You might not know it, but you have already experienced hypnosis before you found this site. Yep, true story. It’s a totally natural occurrence that we experience many times throughout the day. People do it when they’re driving. They get so lost in thought that they reach their destination without really knowing how they got there. It happens when we watch TV too. We get so engrossed in the programme that we don’t hear the conversations taking place around us. This is hypnosis.

Our unconscious mind is like a vast database full of our life experiences; we use our past experiences to predict our future. Sometimes in that database, there are beliefs that we formed, decisions that we made and behaviour we engaged in, which at the time made sense. However, in the present, they are unhelpful, unwanted or distressing.

Have you ever had an unwanted thought or feeling that keeps popping up in certain situations? Or have you engaged in unhelpful behaviour repeatedly and wished you hadn’t? It almost feels automatic, like you don’t have any control of them. Chances are these thoughts, feelings and behaviours were informed by this incredible database in your mind.

Hypnotherapy can help you become more aware of your past beliefs, experiences and behaviours. You can then connect to them and understand them more compassionately. Once we have this knowledge, it allows us to make powerful and lasting to change to our lives.

How does hypnosis work?

Here’s a quick example of how hypnosis that works.

Unhelpful thought - I have to get this work task perfect the first time. Otherwise, my boss will think I’m incapable and I might get in trouble, or worse, lose my job.

Feeling(s) – stress, overwhelm, anxiety, fear, frustration, anger.

Unhelpful behaviour(s) - over researching or planning. Cancelling plans to work late or avoiding other projects and then worrying about them. Obsessively checking the final piece of work. Procrastinating or putting off handing in the finished piece of work.

Potential underlying belief – I have to be perfect, if I am not perfect, I won’t be loved or accepted

A Hypnotherapist will guide you through the process of understanding where that belief was informed. The Hypnotherapist will help you explore how it’s affecting your life now and what is a more realistic belief to have instead. You will work together to look at how you would like to feel and behave instead, and then put all of this into action. The Hypnotherapist will use a range of different tools and techniques to help you achieve this.

But how does hypnosis actually work?

One of those many tools and techniques used in hypnotherapy is visualisation. Did you know your brain processes imaginary things as if they were really there? Think about all the times you’ve felt anxious and imagined something awful might happen, what makes it worse? I bet it’s the image or movie in your mind of that situation actually playing out and happening. The imagining of that situation feels just as real as if it were happening right there and then. Research shows us that whether the situation is real or imagined the same parts of the brain light up. In the case of anxiety, both the real and the imagined situation can trigger our fight or flight system. It can cause some pretty uncomfortable physical and phycological effects, like panic attacks.

A well-known study of how visualisation works in this way is the ‘piano study’, carried out by neuroscience researchers at Harvard University. Researchers compared the brains of people actually playing a sequence of notes on a piano with the brains of people who were imagining playing those same notes in their mind. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans of the region of the brain connected to the finger muscles was found to have changed to the same degree in both groups of people. This was regardless of whether they hit the piano keys physically or imagined hitting the keys through visualisation.

Visualisation is so powerful in helping to develop new beliefs and behaviours that elite athletes and sportspeople use it to improve their skills and performance. Olympic athlete, Sally Gunnell credits visualisation as a massive part of how she won her Olympic medals.

The visualisation process also provides Hypnotherapists with an alternative way of working with sensitive stuff until you’re ready to share out loud. Some things you might not feel comfortable to talk about straight away and that is absolutely fine. You will know when the right time is to share. Until then, some of the processing can happen through the power of visualisation. The therapist won’t hear what you’re working through in your mind.

A Hypnotherapist can also teach you the process of self-hypnosis so you can continue the therapeutic work outside of the therapy room. Self-hypnosis will equip you with the confidence in your abilities to look after your mental health long after the sessions have finished.

Is hypnosis safe?

An accredited Hypnotherapist is safe to practise Hypnotherapy and hypnosis. However, it is not recommended for all types of mental health conditions. Hypnotherapy is not suitable for those currently experiencing Psychosis or those with Personality Disorders. Make sure that when you are looking for a Hypnotherapist, you check their qualifications and insurance. The best way to find a Hypnotherapist in the UK or a Hypnotherapist near you is to visit www.hypnotherapy-directory.org.uk, www.psychotherapy.org.uk or www.cnhc.org.

Are you ready to book a Hypnotherapy consultation?

If you think Hypnotherapy might be for you, or if you’re still undecided and would some more details before you book a consultation, give me a shout. I’d be pleased to book you in for a consultation at my office in Manchester City Centre or answer any other questions you might have. Get in touch here.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

I am a Hypnotherapist working to help people understand their mental health better. I offer private Hypnotherapy in-person in Manchester City Centre and also online. I also offer free advice on my blog and on Instagram. Please share this blog post if you found it helpful or know someone who might benefit from it.

Disclaimer: Please note, the information in this blog post is not intended to be therapy and does not constitute a client-therapist relationship.