I'm a Hypnotherapist. AMA

[felonia]

Been full time for 10 years, have appeared on TV shows and radio as well as training new therapists. I've worked with all kinds of issues and feel fairly unshockable these days!

Do hypnosis recordings work? Paul McKenna type stuff?

My 9 year old is suffering terribly with anxiety following cancer diagnosis of her younger brother. She is being seen by CAMH but we aren't making much progress. Could hypnotherapy help? They have said there is no evidence to support it. I have had hypnotherapy myself and believe she would be very "open" to this kind of therapy. Any advice greatly appreciated!

Very interesting.

What is the cost of a session?

Can you tackle multiple issues at once (say a phobia, anxiety & sleeping issues) or would they need to be treated separately?

Thank you!

Iv had it twice and neither time has it worked both for weight loss and I was laying there the whole time thinking this isn’t working and it didn’t!
Waste of money for me sadly but a gain for the therapists. I was younger too and didn’t feel I could say anything.

Do you believe that some people just can’t be hypnotised?

nurgh look for a therapist using either recommendation or https://www.hypnotherapy-directory.org.uk/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI4bfli8iX3AIVRfhRCh3XuQXKEAAYASAAEgKgFDD_BwE

The therapists on there have to have been trained to a certain standard, have insurance and affiliated to a specific professional organisation.

A professional therapist is likely to charge upwards of £50 a session depending on location. £75 upwards is pretty standard

tiny radish if the problems are linked then you may noticed some improvement on all them If hitting the main cause. Otherwise I'd work on them individually. Habits usually respond well to being worked on separately

imjustabitmeh it sounds like you've had a poor experience as to what to expect from hypnosis. There are so many ways to change mindset and for some people, direct suggestion just doesn't cut it!

I had a pain free labour after listening to hypnosis cds. I also use apps daily to manage anxiety, sleeping, lots of things.

I have found them so effective. And i go under almost instantly most of the time. Is there a name for people like me? Is it a spectrum of susceptibility, and if so what makes someone more or less likely to respond to hypnosis?

han01 yes hypnotherapy could help with this. It's not an approved therapy as it draws upon so many different psychotherapists and is hard to measure which is why service providers prefer using a more tangible method such as CBT (which I don't rate personally)

timshortforthalia yes some people are a lot more susceptible than others. Everyone has some level of suggestibility and an ability to visualise

Thank you @felonia, great thread!

I've had hypnotherapy twice. Once for general anxiety to help me get over a baaaaddd breakup, the second time for a hypno-gastric band neither worked and cost me a fortune. Two different practitioners. Am I unhypnotisable?

Indifference is the word!

Hello, could hypnotherapy work for my 5yr old nail biter? He has bite marks in the ends of his fingers :( How many sessions approx?

Could I pm you a more complicated question about me please?

ellafruit please go ahead and pm me

diabolical it really depends how many sessions you had and the approach of the therapist. For anxiety you need several sessions to get to the root cause of it.

I'm not a massive fan of the Hypno band, it is merely a gimmick around portion size. It does nothing to address emotional eating, psychological issues, eating disorders or addictive behaviours!

If my clients specifically ask for it, I might do it several sessions later when we have actually addressed the real issues. It's not a long term fix, it's a short term tool to kick start weight loss.

For any issue, a single hypnotherapy session is unlikely to be sufficient ... after all it's likely that the anxiety / weight has been a problem for a while... one 60 minute session is not a magic wand. You really need a minimum of 4 sessions to get into the issue.

timshortforthalia it's great you are getting results with audios. They are fab for relaxation & mindset. Also to reinforce positive habits & behaviours.

I'm currently working on a new product portfolio that will be available as ebooks and MP3's! They are good to have as a tool to help. I listen to a daily audio to aid relaxation and keep me focussed on achieving my goals.

Women (specifically mothers!) have a habit of sacrificing themselves. My new book is aimed at women to give them tools to help cope with what life chucks at us!

Where can I get your book?

What's the likelihood of hypnotising someone to give up smoking when the reality is, they don't really want to give up as they see it as a massive part of their identity, have done it for donkey's years and quite enjoy it. But, they recognise reluctantly, they need to give up for the sake of their health.

Asking for a friend

Also, a friend of mine went to one recently as he is recently bereaved and has trouble sleeping/relaxing. He said the therapist (while he was under) asked him to go back in time and stop at the age he first felt anxious. He landed at about the age of 4. When he told me this, I welled up as I have a LOT of unresolved issues surrounding upbringing and felt that whilst it would be something I'd like to explore, I genuinely think I'll either collapse or at least be a complete emotional wreck.

Grateful for your thoughts on this, if any

stoppop I have great results with smokers! (Ex smoker here too and I loved smoking!) firstly we have to detach your identity from that of smoking... smokers say "I am a smoker" which makes it part of their identity! When we want to lose weight we don't call ourselves as an "eater"... instead we say "I am someone who eats too much junk/drinks too much fizz/ etc"... we refer to smoking instead as something that we have done "I'm someone who has smoked" sounds better already doesn't it?

We then give the subconscious a blast of a reality check... smoking is NOT their friend it is a manipulative bully! (What does it make them do? Cost? Time? Health?) etc? We detach the idea away and it becomes a habit problem instead.

Nicotine only spends 48 hours in the body anyway so it's not much of an 'addiction' it's a habit problem... and we are far more powerful than a mere habit are we not?!

After 2.5+ hours of pulling smoking apart you'll be bored of the fake lies that tobacco has led you to believe. We don't need fake friends in our lives 😁

With the hypnosis part to the session (yep I spend a long time talking to my clients before we get that far), I just pull everything they have told me into the hypnosis. I don't need to use scripts... I use your own fears and goals instead which is 100% more effective & relevant to you 👍🏼

stoppop it can be a really healing process. Tears are normal and afterwards the healing can start. I always want my clients to leave feeling better than when they walked in! Life can be horrible... And also cruel. Sometimes bad stuff happens through no obvious fault even. Blame is rarely helpful either.

We heal the trauma and the brain can start to repair and allows us to move on. Time does not alone heal trauma, PTSD can exist for decades after the initial event. EMDR (eye movement desensitising and reprocessing) is vital in healing trauma rapidly.

Trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a huge part of my work. I want people to live the happiest lives possible.

Can hypnotherapy work with giving someone the confidence to achieve amazing goals? in the way that perhaps some life coaches can.

bluetrampolines it will be out later this year, we are finalising the websites which sit behind the books (I had the crazy idea of having a 3rd baby and then unexpectedly had sepsis which further derailed the publishing schedule!).

I have a Facebook page called Midlife Fabulous (coincidentally also the name of the book) which will release more information when we are near release. In the meantime I post uplifting and light hearted content 😁

My addiction ebooks and MP3's will be soon available from my other website www.axeingaddictions.co.uk

essexmummy I use coaching skills in my approach and I always integrate these into the sessions. That's just my approach however, other therapists may work differently. Any therapist who uses NLP (neuro linguistic programming) or coaching skills is likely to do this also

I tell my clients that I am their wing mirrors, to help them see their blind spots and get them to where they want to be 👍🏼

Thank you Felonia. I aim to make an appointment after my summer holiday (one last fling- famous last words!)