What is it?
Hypnotherapy is a type of complementary therapy that uses hypnosis, which is an altered state of consciousness. Hypnosis
is a naturally occurring state whereby your conscious, analytical mind
becomes more relaxed and less bothered by your surroundings. This can becompared to when you are daydreaming whilst in company; you can hear
other people talking but you are not paying attention to what they are
saying.
Because your thoughts become distracted elsewhere, your subconscious
become more heightened and receptive, and it is at this point that we
can being to makes changes at this subconscious level.
How does it work?
Hypnosis is thought to work by altering our state of consciousness in such a way that the analytical left-hand side of the brain is turned off, while the non-analytical right-hand side is made more alert. The conscious control of the mind is inhibited, and the subconscious mind awoken. Since the subconscious mind is a deeper-seated, more instinctive force than the conscious mind, this is the part which has to change for the patient's behaviour and physical state to alter.
For example, someone who consciously wants to overcome their fear of spiders may try everything they consciously can to do it, but will still fail as long as their subconscious mind retains this terror and prevents the patient from succeeding. Progress can only be made be reprogramming the subconscious so that deep-seated instincts and beliefs are abolished or altered.
How can it help me?
Hypnotherapy is all about direct communication with the unconscious mind,
and is the most powerful tool we have for bringing about change at the
unconscious level. It can be used in any situation where you need to
let go of old patterns of behavior, and learn new ones. These may be patterns of behaviour or thoughts.
Hypnotherapy can also be very valuable for reducing one's experience of pain and other physical symptoms of illness; for improving performance such as in sports, sales etc., exam or driving test nerves etc. In fact, in an situation where the mind and imagination has an input, hypnotherapy can help to help you make the changes you want.