Online Therapy: As the coronavirus outbreak restrictions grip the nation, its effect is undoubtedly having an impact on the way we live, work and spend our leisure time. It is important to follow the government guidelines to minimise the spread of infection. Wash your hands, keep surfaces clean and cover your sneezes and coughs. Self-isolation and social distancing has been advised to contain the coronavirus.
Online Therapy: Pre-existing health conditions
Self isolation has been advised to contain the coronavirusChanging your lifestyle to protect yourself from the coronavirus can have a negative effect on your emotional health. Your may have had emotional issues that caused you distress before the coronavirus outbreak. Now with the need to self-isolate, many of these emotional issues will be intensified, increasing feelings of fear, anxiety and loneliness.
Anxiety
Coupled with anxiety is the inability to manage uncertainty. Your mind will dwell on catastrophic outcomes, anticipating the worst case scenarios if you (or someone you know) has underlying medical conditions. If you have pre-existing health anxiety, you may be convinced that minor benign symptoms are a sign that you are infected. If a medical test proves negative, you might dismiss it and fear that any new symptoms will need a retest. During calmer moments of rationality, you will feel guilty that you are wasting the very limited resources available at your GP surgery during the pandemic. Panic disorder, characterised by random panic attacks, will also be more distressing with the current level of communal fear.
OCD
Obsessive compulsive disorder is another pre-existing condition that can be intensified during the coronavirus outbreak. OCD can include a number of repetitive thoughts and behaviours such as counting, checking, arranging items in a specific order and hand washing. With a fear of contamination, compulsive hand washing can be excessive. You are convinced that your hand washing is not thorough enough. You then start the hand washing routine over again until you feel comforted.Prior to the coronavirus outbreak, some OCD sufferers may have self-isolated as a “safety” behaviour, unconvinced that in normal conditions there was sufficient protection against infection from others. With the government advising self-isolation, the OCD sufferer will be “proven right” to be in fear and may become near-agoraphobic even after the coronavirus pandemic is over.
Phobias
There are similarities with OCD hand washing and certain phobias, such as a mysophobia (fear of germs). With both conditions, you spend an excessive amount of time washing hands but rather than being a comforting ritual, mysophobia stems from a fear of contamination. A fear of contamination sufferer can have both conditions.Other phobias will generate more anxiety during the coronavirus crisis including monophobia (fear of being alone), thanatophobia (fear of death), xenophobia (fear of the unknown) and nosocomephobia (fear of hospitals). Those with social phobia (fear of embarrassment) and agoraphobia (fear of open spaces) may ironically experience a reduction in anxiety with the current self-isolation and social distancing advice, compared to your gregarious and extrovert counterparts.The coronavirus pandemic will activate many fears, obsessions and compulsionsLooking ahead beyond the coronavirus pandemic, the situation will have an impact on those who have a predisposition towards health anxiety, OCD and certain related phobias. The crisis can act as a “traumatising” event, activating fearful, obsessive or compulsive behaviours. It will undoubtedly act as a reinforcing event that will exacerbate many of these pre-existing conditions.
Online Therapy: Lifestyle changes
With the major change in your lifestyle during the coronavirus pandemic, the need to self-isolate and social distance throws the usual demands, routines and ways to relax into chaos. For example:
For some people, work can normally act like a distraction giving you something to focus on when there is anxiety.
People will feel loneliness without the comfort of face to face human contact.
Stress will be higher with the closure of many resources. Families with small children may find it difficult to entertain their children for what could be months (?), especially with their usual physical activity outlets closed e.g. parks. Bad weather will also deter peoples from wanting to go outside.
An absence of goals and increased boredom can heighten feelings of depression.
There are a number of other lifestyle issues that can be worsened during the coronavirus pandemic.
Increased anxiety can affect sleep
Family home life can be more stressful particularly for teenagers with their usual social venues closed (e.g. pubs, nightclubs, wine bars etc.)
Normal eating patterns can be affected without an established routine. Snacking can become an activity to fill time causing people to gain weight.
Boredom and isolation can be a trigger for intensifying negative habits and addictions.
With boredom, people can self-medicate more than usual, drinking more alcohol at home and smoking more cigarettes.
People who are socially motivated to exercise may find it difficult to motivate themselves to exercise during the coronavirus pandemic.
Online Therapy: Finding a way through
It can take time to settle into positive lifestyle patterns and accept the emotional impact of the coronavirus pandemic. But there can be effective ways to cope:
Wash your hands but... – If you have contamination OCD or health anxiety, it’s likely that your rituals will be excessive. Keep to the advised guidelines of 20 seconds. Consider if you are washing hands as a ritual for it to feel comforting or for the purpose minimising the spread of infection.
Work and study from home – Working from home where it is possible will minimise exposure to the coronavirus. Check on government websites if you are entitled to any financial assistance (benefits or loans). As with home studying for many pupils and students now completing their study courses, working from home demands self motivation to assign quality time to your work/studies.
Limit media exposure – Look at reputable media sources no more than once or twice a day. Ignore social media gossip as these often unreliable sources are likely to increase your fear about the coronavirus; they usually lack evidence to back up their claims. Appreciate that just because you think or read about something on social media, it doesn’t make it right or always mean that it will always come true.
Plan ahead for routine medication – With many medical services feeling the strain, ensuring that that you request repeat prescriptions early will minimise the fear that you may be without important medication.Online communication can help feelings of isolation
Use phone/video calls to communicate – Where you have access to electronic forms of communication, devote some part of your day to social interaction, keeping in touch with close family and friends.
Other ways to exercise – Find other ways to exercise safely to reduce stress and physical tension. Uninterrupted walking is a good form of exercise. If you have no medical conditions, running or circuit-based activities on YouTube can motivate you to exercise a variety of different muscle groups. Just getting some fresh air by stepping outside your door and connecting with nature (if it is in easy reach of your home) can help clear your mind.
Devise an effective home routine – Working from home with small children can be challenging. How and where you each spend your time in each part of the house will need a discussion to accommodate everyone’s needs. Spend time with your children helping them to understand the facts about the coronavirus pandemic and how it has changed your lifestyle. Consider any hobbies that you can (re) start, especially the ones that you keep saying “if only I had more time...”
Allocate some time to worry – Using some of the relaxation techniques above, devoting some “active worrying time” can help you appreciate the difference between the present and being in fear of the future. It’s ok to feel anxious during a pandemic, but the feelings need to be placed into perspective with hopeful feelings too. By acknowledging worries as wasteful thoughts you can work on disposing them during your “mindful” exercises. This will also help you to...
Focus on what you can control – Focusing on what you can influence in your life will help you feel like you have more control over it. This approach is very different to focusing on concerns which tends to be worry-based and has very little impact on outcomes.
Take care of your lifestyle issues – Set home based goals that are realistic under the present conditions, take moderate exercise, eat healthily, learn how to sleep well, quit destructive habits like smoking and reduce your alcohol intake. By taking care of your health and wellbeing, it may prepare you to fight the coronavirus should you become infected.
Help your community – Where it’s safe to do so, helping others will lift your mood. Even small acts of altruism, like taking an elderly neighbour’s rubbish can make you feel virtuous.
Grieving during the crisis – Whether you (and your family) are grieving the death of someone caused by the coronavirus or due to other circumstances, it may be a useful time to seek professional online help with social distancing measures in place and the ability to hold large funerals is restricted.
Pace your days, weeks and months – Long term goals need to be placed to one side until the coronavirus pandemic is over. By focusing your energy on short to mid-term goals, it help to you feel that you are achieving something tangible. Your normal life experience will be different for some time to come.
Seeking Online Therapy: Coronavirus anxiety and related disorders
During the coronavirus pandemic you may feel an overwhelming sense of worry due to health anxiety and related disorders. With the current uncertainty about when it will end, some people can lapse into feelings of depression and anxiety. Persistent anxiety can trigger the release of stress hormones that keep you in “high alert” also known as the “fight of flight” survival state. Being stuck in this mode for long periods can lower your immune response and cause persistent panic attacks. This continuous state can have a negative impact on your personal wellbeing, ability to work or study, maintain close relationships and your ability to take care of others.If you tend to struggle with anxiety, online therapy could be a great solution to help you cope during the coronavirus crisis. With online hypnotherapy you will access the same level of professional care that would receive with face to face therapy. Online therapy ensures that you can access help in the safety and comfort of your own home without any of the health risks to you or your hypnotherapist.How suggestible are you to hypnosis? Try this hypnosis test to assess your level of suggestibility.
The benefits of online hypnotherapy
Online hypnotherapy has many benefitsThe benefits of online hypnotherapy include:
Deep relaxation to alter the affects of continuous anxiety.
Suggestions designed to accelerate the achievement of your specific goals.
Regression therapy to treat the “cause” of your condition.
Immune system-directed suggestions which could improve its efficiency.
Treating lifestyle issues that are also being affected by stress, anxiety and depression.
Restrictive eating behaviour goes beyond what is commonly termed “fussy eating” or “being picky” with food. Restrictive eating can start in young childhood as displaying a preference for a limited diet. As the child grows up, the repertoire of food choices remain small and may even become narrower in response to a various individual and social experiences.Meal times can be challenging with restrictive eating behaviourMeal preparation for a young child with restrictive eating disorder can be challenging for the food preparer. The child may prefer to remain hungry when encouraging them to try new food and offering no suitable replacement. As a parent of that child you can then feel that you are neglecting them and failing to give them nutritious meals. The tension at meal times can increase when the food preparer is enthusiastic about cooking and finds that the time spent on your gastronomic delight does little to inspire the child’s appetite to eat it.As a disorder, restrictive eating has changed from Selective Eating Disorder (SED) to the group term Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorders (ARFID). It can also be termed as a Food Neophobia.
Do you have restrictive eating problems?
With restrictive eating habits, there is usually a sensory aversion to the unwanted food. The appearance of the food, the colour, the presentation, the taste, the texture, the temperature and/or the smell of the food causes disgust or an anxiety response (panic attack). Seeing the food nearby or talking about the food is enough to provoke the negative response.Generalised avoidance patterns can usually be identified e.g. the fibrous, crunchy or varying textures found in raw fruit, vegetables or meat; the smooth or lumpy textures found in sauces, or the acidic or spicy tastes found in certain fruits or Asian foods.But the restrictive eater can also have specific and random aversion issues too, usually caused by an individual direct or indirect bad experience. The bad experience is often forgotten, but it continues to direct the aversion. The problem food appearance, flavour or sensation is then difficult to rationalise; it just looks, tastes or smells horrible, feels unpleasant in the mouth, or is difficult to chew or swallow.Apathy towards food and mealtimes is a natural consequence of these negative reactions. Pressure to eat can trigger anxiety responses which can then become the focus of the aversion.
Can restrictive eating be connected to other eating disorders and phobias?
Parents of children with restrictive eating patterns may become concerned about their potential anorexia, bulimia or binge eating behaviour. However, a child with restrictive eating disorder does not have the same weight and body image issues connected with these other eating disorders. Instead, the lack of nutrition becomes the concern, threatening to affect the physical development of the growing child, and the future health implications for the adult.Restrictive eating behaviour, however, can be part of a general neophobia (or fear of anything new) and even connected to OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder). Those with a neophobia feel insecure about trying new things and tend to rigidly stick to their already-formed habits or routines. Avoiding the risk of new food with unknown flavours and textures can be just one aspect of a general neophobia.The term food phobia is sometimes used to describe restrictive eating behaviour since there are common avoidance patterns and the similar negative emotional responses of fear and disgust. But a food phobic person tends to be preoccupied with contamination and hygiene issues. They worry about the hygienic contents of the food, the way the food is prepared, how it is stored or if it is still safe enough (within its use-by date) to be consumed. They believe that if they eat the food, it will cause a bacteria-related illness or food poisoning (sickness and diarrhoea etc.) If an illness has been associated with a problem food, the food type will then be temporarily or permanently avoided in case of further contamination.Over-generalisations are common with traumatic experiences. When you connect a “cause” to an illness with symptoms of say, diarrhoea, you can be forgiven for wanting to avoid that “cause” ever again to prevent another bout of diarrhoea. If it’s chicken that did the damage, chicken only needs to be “off” once to be convinced that it will always be “off” in the future.Diarrhoea: Is it anxiety or contaminated food?These illogical and mistaken over-generalised connections can be easily made with “bad” food, however. With food digestion being closely related to your emotional state, anxiety can be the real “cause” of symptoms like diarrhoea and not the food that you happened to eat around the time of experiencing your diarrhoea symptoms. When you believe that food is the culprit, it’s difficult to separate cause and effect. You may just blame the food without realising the impact of your anxiety, because food is an easier object to target. You expect to be unwell, and your anxiety makes you unwell.Your anxiety symptoms can also affect other aspects of digestion, not only diarrhoea. When you forcibly eat food that is “bad” or that you dislike, it can cause muscle tension (spasm) in the upper oesophageal tract (and diaphragm). The result of this spasm is difficulty swallowing the food. The body can react by gagging (retching), choking or feeling nauseas (vomiting). In more severe cases it can even cause persistent vomiting (rumination syndrome). Whilst these symptoms are “normal” reactions under the tense conditions triggering them, nobody wants to react in this way. If you persistently react to a particular food by retching, you will naturally want to eliminate that food from your diet.
Restrictive eating and social anxiety
Without parental and family pressure, a young child with restrictive eating behaviour will focus on their own food choices and accept their own boundaries until they are ready to change. But the growing child will inevitably make comparisons with themselves and how others eat. At around the time of teenagehood, the value system typically shifts towards social standards of acceptance. “Fitting in” during social eating occasions has increasing importance and peer judgement gradually leaks into what you should and shouldn’t eat. Just having “different” eating habits might draw attention and embarrassment, which a teenager with restrictive eating behaviour and social anxiety will want to avoid. It could be a high risk situation adversely reacting to new food with everybody watching you. With social anxiety, it’s as if you are constantly on show, but without wanting to give a performance.School dinners, the increasing number of friend’s parties and formal dining events become a continuous source of anxiety. There is pressure to eat what everyone else is eating in case you stand out. But the anticipation can start days before the event, not knowing what is on the menu, not liking what is on the menu, being in fear of offending the host if you don’t eat everything served on your plate, or feeling guilty about wasting the money of the person buying the set menu food at a fancy restaurant.It would seem logical and helpful to communicate your restrictive dietary needs, but the inability to assertively communicate your needs is often part of the (social anxiety) dilemma. Just mentioning the issue is likely to bring you attention. It doesn’t matter if you have praise, encouragement or criticism; you just don’t want to be the focus of any attention.These internal conflicts in being able to handle the situation will build up your anxiety. Your appetite is usually lost by the time the event arrives. Cancelling with notice or not showing up at all increases the guilt of letting people down and losing friends, and acts as a deeper trauma likely to cause the avoidance of all future social dining experiences.For those who feel under pressure to attend and try new food that you dislike, a panic attack is likely to trigger the digestive muscular spasm symptoms (gagging, choking etc.) described above. It’s distressing enough being at home and provoking these tension-related symptoms. For the socially anxious person who fears embarrassment, displaying these tension-related symptoms at a formal dining occasion like a family wedding, would cause complete humiliation.Social anxiety then adds another problematic layer to the restrictive eating behaviour. Having a social trauma with that food (or a different food that has similar properties) will associate a deeper avoidance of future social dining experiences.
What causes restrictive eating behaviour?
The causes of restrictive eating behaviour can be linked to physical, emotional/psychological and socio-cultural factors most influential during childhood.Some developmental disorders and temperamental traits can be inherited from your parents, predisposing you to develop similar patterns of restrictive eating behaviour in childhood. Research by Schreck at Pennsylvania State University found a higher percentage of children with obsessive compulsive disorder and autism are more likely to have selective eating problems.Children with acute sensory processing abilities (sensory processing disorder) are likely to overreact to “normal” sensory stimuli. The condition causes certain sights, smells, tastes and sensations to overload how their brain handles sensory inputs. Other research suggests that a small percentage of the population are “super tasters”, possessing a gene that heightens their taste response. Super tasters are overwhelmed by certain taste sensations that “non” or “normal” tasters can manage comfortably.Children can imitate a parent’s restrictive eating behaviourSome children will acquire their selective eating behaviour by imitating parents (or significant authority figures) that also eat a small repertoire of food. Parents can have a selective eating disorder themselves or may be influenced by hectic lifestyle choices. Convenience food like takeaways tends to be high in saturated fat, sugar and salt with many of the ingredients being overcooked. Children can become conditioned to eat only these flavours and textures. This can then set up an expectation for these flavours and textures that are rejected with healthier home cooking food choices. The pressured parent who wants to feed their child quickly (without meal time conflict) will give children what they know that they will eat, rather than spending time extending their curiosity for new food types.Some (non food-related) learned experiences can be emotionally destructive to the growing child’s eating patterns. Family traumas like parental rowing and abuse can cause constant fear and insecurity. Since appetites are affected by emotions, a child who feels anxious and insecure during meal times may struggle to eat certain flavours and textures. These foods can then be associated with trauma and avoided because they symbolise family trauma.Other indirect traumas can be caused by seeing a parent or family member choke on a certain type of food. Without an explanation about why the parent has reacted in this way, the young child might identify the food as the cause of this trauma to their parent and avoid it in the future to be safe from danger.Direct trauma with food is often the major influence of restricted eating behaviour, where the child concludes that the food is associated with the trauma. If the child has a physical or emotional condition (mentioned above) that initially restricts their eating behaviour, then trying food that is outside the “norm” can overwhelm their sensations and prevent them from wanting to eat that food again. If the food causes an illness (food poisoning) or a physical tension-related symptom (when alone or in public), then this food type will again be avoided.Parents who possess overly strict eating patterns, are controlling and abusive with food will cause lasting damage to a child’s restrictive eating behaviour. The majority of clients who have sought hypnotherapy treatment from me often recall agonising memories of battles with food involving their parents or other significant authority figures. Being force fed certain food, having to stay at the table for hours until the plate is cleared and being punished for not eating the food are common childhood traumas.The parents may have been subjected to abuse themselves and continue to inflict these abusive and manipulative patterns on their children. Other parents are just overly enthusiastic about their (lack of) “parenting skills” when it comes to eating methods and stimulating a child’s appetite. By forcing the child to eat at just one meal time, they are unaware of the damage that it is doing in the long term. Insisting that the food is “healthy and good for you!” won’t make the food taste or feel any better. Yes, it’s common for some children to avoid the main course when they know that a dessert awaits them, but the child’s manipulation is usually innocent at a young age. It’s up to the parent to tactfully work around this.Food traumas can have a lasting effect on restrictive eating behaviourEither way, the emotional conflict that these food wars create becomes the association that the child wants to avoid in the future. Eating this food type again as an adult would “bring the horror story back into their lives”. And a child who is defiant then feels that eating this food as an adult would be a victory for the parent because they historically connect “healthy food” with control and manipulation. It’s not surprising that the defiant growing child then opts to stay “unhealthy” to spite the controlling parent.
Treatment for restrictive eating behaviour
Most restrictive eaters would like to broaden their limited food choices. There can be numerous personal and lifestyle changes that can motivate a desire to overcome the restrictive eating behaviour. For example, reaching teenagehood or young adulthood, being in a new relationship and being a new parent are common situations to encourage a dietary change.Motives to change restrictive eating often include: the limitations it places on your lifestyle, new healthier eating values, feeling embarrassed about how the restrictive eating appears in public and how the restrictive diet is affecting significant others e.g. your partner or your children. A successful treatment will confront the variety of issues that cause your food aversion and identify progressive realistic and achievable goals.A combination of cognitive behavioural therapy and systematic desensitisation are conventional approaches used to treat restrictive eating behaviour. The strategies will vary for adults and children. The teenager or adult who chooses to start therapy will arrive with a motive for change. Young children are still responsive to the conditioning patterns offered by their parents. Both the young children and parents will discuss the child’s current restrictive eating behaviour and how it is conditioned by the parents. A treatment plan is discussed and new conditioning strategies can be suggested. For example, the emphasis with young children can focus on offering non-food related rewards (e.g. a sticker) for being curious about tasting food that is new or disliked. It’s important to avoid giving food-related rewards like sweets. The experience should be fun with the parents similarly being involved in the new taster sessions.Exposure to the new food needs to be repetitive (with trials completed at least once a day) and thus keeping a stock of that food item is essential for continuity. It can take ten attempts with the new food to convert it from a “dislike” to “acceptance”. A parent typically surrenders to a child’s refusal after two attempts and will then give the child what they know they will eat. This prevents “failure” on both parts and reduces food wastage, but the submission is premature for long term gains. When persevering with the food trials, the food doesn’t have to be “loved”, more that the anxiety and tension-related symptoms are alleviated. The new food item can then be “accepted” and can be included into the general meal.Some parents try to disguise food to reduce the anticipation of rejection. This can have the benefit of minimising strong flavours or rough textures when they are liquidised into a soup for example. The child has already eaten the food that they “dislike” (albeit in a disguised form) and this can be used as a reference to reduce the fearful reaction when they say “I don’t like carrots!” The parent then (smugly) replies “you didn’t object to the carrots in my homemade soup that you’ve been eating on the last ten occasions!” If applied carefully, it can enable the child to separate the “danger” that a disliked food might cause them. There is a risk however. When outsmarting the child too frequently or too obviously (when the carrot isn’t disguised enough), the child can feel betrayed and will distrust not only the parent’s future cooking, but other’s attempts to control what they want to eat. It’s far better to gain their approval with trials, praising being curious with new food and ignoring their refusal of a food. Criticising the refusal will hinder their progress.Getting children involved with food can help their curiosityAnother useful way to encourage children’s curiosity with food is to involve them in the preparation, cooking and serving of food. This can still be done with some of the food that they dislike e.g. using a selection of liked and disliked food to top a pizza. This helps children be creative with food, learn about textures, and how food changes in flavour and appearance when it is being cooked. Again, they should not be forced to eat the disliked food, more that they gradually get used to it being present. When they are involved in family meal preparation, it gives them a sense of responsibility and ownership with the food that can transfer into curiosity and acceptance in the long term.
How can hypnotherapy help restrictive eating behaviour?
My hypnotherapy treatment for selective eating behaviour incorporates cognitive behavioural therapy approach to challenge negative attitudes and systematic desensitisation to encourage graduated exposure to disliked foods.Hypnotherapy is used to reduce anticipatory anxiety and control the anxiety reactions when sampling the food. Positive visualisation of food eaten can accelerate the food trials, acting as pleasurable experiences that have already been practised in reality. Regression is also used to remove past negative “causes” of an aversion, releasing the beliefs that are contributing to an emotional block with disliked food.
For more information on treatment for your restrictive eating behaviour in Cardiff, contact Richard J D’Souza Hypnotherapy Cardiff
One of the most common and oldest recorded phobias is a spider phobia (or arachnophobia). The term is derived from the Greek terms “arachne” meaning spider and “phobos” meaning fear. Whilst the term is usually associated with spiders, it also includes other arachnids including daddy long legs and scorpions.
Arachnophobia in UK
In UK, about 45% of the populationadmit to being terrified of spiders. However, the research doesn’t say what percentage of the sample is too embarrassed to admit that they have a spider phobia!Are UK spiders dangerous? Some UK spiders are known to bite, but their venom is considered harmless.
Spider phobia symptoms and reactions
A panic attack is common with all phobias including a spider phobiaThe fearful reaction that is common with all phobias (including an intense fear of spiders) is a panic attack. Your panic reaction can seem disproportionate to the actual danger that confronts you, but “knowing” that the actual harm you face is minimal doesn’t ease your severe emotional response.The panic response can include, but is not specific to:
A racing heart rate and stress induced chest pains
Breathlessness (rapid and shallow breaths)
Sweating and hot/cold flashes
Trembling and Dizziness
Confusion and hysteria
Nausea and other gastrointestinal tension
The role of anticipation with your spider phobia
The panic reaction is generally acute when actually confronting your phobic object (a spider). Where you see the spider and experience the panic attack can then become a fearful location in which you anticipate seeing the spider again. Your fearful mind is trying to protect you from yet another “trauma” by generating anxiety symptoms, so you feel the breathlessness and the rapid heart rate etc. as you approach the (previous traumatic) location. You now distrust the location and avoid it, whether there is a spider there or not. Your anxiety symptoms predispose you to believe that you will see another spider because your “instincts” are being emotionally influenced by fear. At this advanced stage of your spider phobia management, others might say that you are becoming paranoid! You are just responding to how your brain has become wired to deal with spider fear.In addition to location traumas, there are other associations that you will instinctively make. The season in the year can be a significant trigger for anxiety. Feelings of apprehension can creep up on you, leaving you confused about having Seasonal Affective Disorder or some background virus and then you remember that “spider season” in UK is around autumn (early September until mid October). This is when the outdoor temperatures drop and male spiders seek their mates in warmer indoor locations.With advanced spider phobias, generalised anxiety (to unrelated issues) can raise your irritability and expectations that you will confront a spider. It’s as if the more anxious you are, the more spider-paranoid you become. You may even have “arachne”-related dreams that are part of your unconscious mind symbolising your anxious connection with spiders.
Spider Phobia: Home used to be a safe place
Progressively, as you are traumatised by seeing spiders, you become more alert to their whereabouts. You want to stay ahead of yourself, so you ask others where they have come across them and label their account as a potential danger. Google is a great place to traumatise yourself further because, still in avoidance mode, you are drawn towards topics that confirm that spiders are a threat to your emotional wellbeing. Your mind is filtering “in” the content that confirms your beliefs about spiders.With your hyper vigilant action plan, you then compulsively cleanse popular spider assembly areas before you can relax. You might approach the location armed with a long vacuum cleaner and frantically suck up cobwebs as you go. Or you send your “spiderphiliac” loved ones to thoroughly investigate and purify the location first.Here are some of the popular spider assembly danger areas:
Under and behind furniture including sofas and under your bed
Confined spaces with limited exit points such as cupboards, attics or basements
Outdoor areas such as the shed or garage
In the ceiling corners of a room
Various places in the bathroom or toilet
Near holes, crevices and cracks in walls (all of which need to be sealed)
Outdoor areas of clutter, debris or vegetation
If you believe that harming a spider is cruel, this may compromise your ability to take assertive action over the spider. You may have access to a “spider catcher”, but you struggle to maintain the dexterity to use it when you are trembling with fear.For many people, home is the safe place where you close the door and recover from a stressful day, but with a spider phobia, home becomes a restless and insecure place which needs your constant hyper vigilance to feel safe.
Spider pranks, social anxiety and other phobias
Arachnophobics can be traumatised by spider pranksEven though your own spider phobia panic reaction can seem illogical, your panic attack can also seem highly irrational to those around who do not have a spider phobia. Unfortunately, their lack of compassion can make you a victim of their practical jokes. I have treated many arachnophobes who have retold their accounts of friends (I use the term “friends” loosely here!) who have placed a toy spider (and worse!) down the spider phobia sufferer’s back just to get a kick out of their startle response. Don’t ask me what their enemies have previously done to them!These experiences can be traumatic for the spider phobic sufferer. When you have social anxiety (social phobia), you generally struggle to cope with embarrassment, humiliation, negative attention and judgement. The effect of these social traumas (or when having social anxiety as a separate issue) can elevate the spider phobia from a simple phobia into a complex phobia. A complex phobia combines additional layers of distress and avoidance where one established phobia can overlap with the anxiety from another established phobia or fear. In this case, it’s the additional embarrassment of displaying your spider phobia panic reaction to others, which makes the situation even more difficult to manage; even more traumatising.New phobias can also develop from the reactions of an untreated already-established spider phobia. With a spider phobia, you can become progressively claustrophobic, particularly if you have been in rooms, seen spiders near the exit points and then struggled to leave the room quickly enough to feel safe. These traumatic situations build up the “withdrawal urgency” typically experienced in a (claustrophobic) panic attack when someone hastily flees the source of the fear. Over time, this learned response becomes automated; you see a spider and then dash away from the area knocking down people as you go, just to feel calm again!Progressively, with these automated reactions, when you feel generally anxious or feel confined in a location, it’s as if your subconscious mind is telling you to “move from your location to feel relaxed” as you have done previously with confined spider traumas. This process can start to link to new confined situations which previously had only low levels of anxiety e.g. when having a dental procedure. When you now have dental treatment and need to stay put to have a filling, you feel tenser than ever before. You associate into your “rapid withdrawal response” and feel claustrophobic, desperate to get out of the dentist’s chair to feel calm again. The untreated spider phobia is entrapping more situations, more triggers and more avoidance reactions that will reinforce your need to run away from danger, but the list of dangerous situations is growing.
Fear and disgust with spiders
Although the fear reaction is considered illogical, people may not appreciate that there can also be a disgust response mixed in with the panic reaction. The internal disgust reaction associated with spiders can be so hideously repulsive, that you can then fear it being triggered. The mix of fear and disgust can vary between spider phobia sufferers, but it adds another layer of distress to the panic reaction. Disgust can be associated with anything, but in this case, it’s the sight of spiders and what you imagine that they could do to you that overwhelms you.Most spider phobias are started in childhood. The imagination is so vivid at this young age, that a child will traumatise themselves with ghoulish images of spiders doing ghastly things. As a child, these “horror movies” then leak into your dreams giving you nightmares about it. It’s common to be awoken in a panic imagining the object of fear near you. Even worse is a nightmare where you are in contact with this fearful object, something that is likely to make your skin shiver with disgust. It's a dream that was terrifying as a young child and remains terrifying as an adult, even though you can appreciate that the dream is just a dream.Children’s imaginations can amplify fear and disgust with spidersAt this young age, the child’s conscious mind is not able to contain these fearful and disgusting boundaries. They become installed as “video nasties” that will have a huge emotional impact on your behavioural reactions to spiders as you age. By the time you are old enough and your conscious mind is ready to challenge it with irrationality, the emotional mind-set is already in place. Even when the conscious mind is ready to challenge it, the challenges tend to be inadequate because they tend to lack emotional intensity to have any effect on it. For many spider phobics, some of these images remain as the peak of emotional distress that combines both fear and disgust together.
Causes of a spider phobia
Spider phobias are generally learned by personal direct traumas and indirect traumas from authority figures. Biology may also be a cause of your arachnophobia. Click this link for more information on the causes of a phobia.
Treatment for a spider phobia
Medication from your GP may be used to alleviate the short term effect of a panic attack or general anxiety caused by long-term uncontrolled exposure to spiders. It’s common to combine medication with therapy involving relaxation techniques, visualisation and controlled exposure.
How can hypnotherapy treat your spider phobia?
Phobia sufferers are very responsive to hypnosis (you can try this hypnosis test to assess your level of suggestibility). You can benefit from a combined approach including, visualisation techniques, regression to remove the cause, controlled exposure and anxiety (panic) control to assist the removal of your fear of spiders. There is more information in this link on how hypnotherapy can treat your phobia.
For more information on treatment for your spider phobia in Cardiff, contact Richard J D’Souza Hypnotherapy Cardiff
Phobia and fear treatment Cardiff: Fear is a natural emotion that helps protect you from imminent or real danger. A phobia is an anxiety disorder that causes you to feel intense fear of an object, situation, place, or living organism. In contrast to the level of danger commonly felt with a fear, the reaction with a phobia is more severe, usually triggering a panic attack. With a fear you may cautiously interact with the object or situation but with a phobia, the intensity of your anxiety influences the way that you lead your life. When you have a phobia, you mould your lifestyle to avoid the object or situation, even though the imagined danger is usually far greater than it actually is in reality.
A panic attack is major distinguishing feature of a phobia
How common are phobias?
Some phobias that develop during childhood can be short term and can disappear within a few months. However, 80% of phobias that progress into adulthood can become chronic and need to be treated. Approximately 10 million people in the UK have a phobia, and the sufferers can be of any age, sex, and social background. You may feel embarrassed about having a phobia, but you are certainly not alone however remote your phobia might be.
Phobia and fear treatment Cardiff: Types of phobias
Phobias can be divided into 2 main types:
Specific or simple phobias
Complex phobias
Specific or Simple Phobias
Specific or simple phobias are an irrational fear caused by the thought or presence of a single specific object or situation. The phobia usually develops at a young age, and as you grow into adulthood, its intensity may become less severe. As an adult with a phobia, you can appreciate that your panic reaction is usually disproportionate to the actual danger you are in, but you are still unable to prevent your reaction from overwhelming you.
Specific or simple divided into the following types:
Animal phobias: these are the most common, and can include being afraid of anything living such as a fear of spiders (arachnophobia), fear of dogs (cynophobia), fear of snakes (ophidiophobia) or a fear of insects (entomophobia).
Situational phobias: these can occur in response to a specific situation such as a fear of flying (aerophobia), fear of visiting the dentist (dentophobia), or fear of being in enclosed spaces (claustrophobia).
Natural environment phobias: these can include examples such as a fear of water (hydrophobia), fear of heights (acrophobia), fear of storms (astraphobia), or a fear of contamination or germs (mysophobia).
Blood-injection-injury phobias: this category can include a fear of blood (haemophobia), a fear of needles or invasive medical procedures (trypnophobia) and fear of injury (traumatophobia). These are specific fears that evoke the emotion of disgust and anxiety. They can also cause a further fear of fainting.
Other phobias: these can include various fears such as a fear of falling (basophobia) or fear of costumed characters such as clowns (coulrophobia).
Complex Phobias
Meeting new people can be a challenge with a social phobia
These phobias have an overwhelming effect on an individual’s life and mostly develop during teenagehood and adulthood, although the roots of the phobia can be caused in childhood. These are commonly divided into 2 types:
Social phobia: This is also known as Social Anxiety Disorder, and is affiliated with feeling extremely shy or anxious in social situations. With a social phobia, your “danger” is focused on another person’s negative reaction. Thus, you fear embarrassment, humiliation, attention, judgement and intimidation from other people. In its generalised form, all aspects of social interaction are affected by anxiety and can also be combined with introversion where you feel even more anxious in the presence of larger groups. In its specific form, social phobia can affect individual situations such as meeting new people or eating in public. It can also be characterised by performance anxiety situations e.g. when public speaking (or performing in front of an audience), during exams, interviews, in sports performance and in sexual performance situations. When you have an individual phobia and a social phobia to cope with, the social phobia adds another layer of “embarrassment” anxiety. You fear drawing negative attention to yourself with a public display of your panic attack. With an individual phobia and social phobia, great effort is also placed on hiding your anxiety symptoms, since you don’t know who to trust with this information or whether you will be taunted or bullied by your peers.
With agoraphobia, your constant retreat can leave you feeling a like a prisoner in your own home
Agoraphobia: Agoraphobia is commonly associated with the fear of open spaces but can include numerous fears which ultimately leave the sufferer housebound. Before a complex agoraphobia develops, individual phobias and/or a social phobia may combine to gradually affect the sufferer. Other fears that can activate the agoraphobia include a fear of loneliness (monophobia), a fear of confined spaces (claustrophobia) which conditions a hurried exit from the situation to a safe place (usually your home), and health anxiety (hyperchondriasis) - the fear of that your anxiety symptom is a more harmful condition. As these fears and avoidance strategies progress, panic disorder can surface where the panic attacks can seem random and unexpected. Your home becomes the “safe place”, but journeys from home can vary from individual to individual depending on the method of travel, distance from home, the activity upon arrival, the situation, time of day, whether you can trust your company during the journey and/or upon arrival. When agoraphobia is untreated, the anticipation of leaving the house can trigger the panic attacks meaning that your home is no longer your safe place.
Phobia and fear treatment Cardiff: What causes a phobia?
There are numerous causes of a phobia ranging from direct trauma, parental influences and genetics. Follow this link more information on the causes of a phobia.
Diagnosis and prognosis of a phobia
Most specific or individual phobias are not formally diagnosed by a doctor. As the condition develops in childhood, you are often told by parents or other authority figures that you have a phobia. As a young child, you live “within” the condition, guided by your parents’ reactions and management of your phobia. Their diagnosis or lack of diagnosis could be influenced by the existence of their own phobias which biases their reaction to you e.g. if they have a social phobia they are more likely to protect you from embarrassment, advising you to avoid a social situations where you could be exposed to “embarrassment” harm.
Following their informal diagnosis and you grow older as a child, you will then research your own condition for confirmation of your behaviour, symptoms and potential coping strategies. Avoidance is the common short-term coping strategy but each retreat only serves to reinforce the power of the phobia over you.
Shock is a common reaction to the diagnosis of a condition as you begin to come to terms with the full meaning of a phobia. As a growing child, avoidance may continue to dominate your behaviour even with your progressive understanding of the phobia. Assessing possible solutions to your phobia can be met with indecision because the commitment necessary to confront it can build anticipatory anxiety when the situation beckons. The accumulation of anticipatory anxiety itself can “flood” your response to the phobic situation, overwhelm you and create yet another traumatic setback in your self help phobia treatment plan; your anticipatory anxiety feelings justify your avoidance instincts.
Fear of embarrassment may play a central role in the prognosis of a simple phobia through teenagehood as your value system shifts towards the approval of your peers. Again with a social phobia you can rationally understand how it is affecting you, yet still feel helpless to deal with the negative attention that it can generate.
Between teenagehood and adulthood, some phobia sufferers can react with denial or shame until you are able to fully accept how the condition is affecting you. To admit that you have anxiety might be considered a weakness by your peers and be a target for bullying. This adds more anxiety in those situations where your panic reaction could be visible to your peers e.g. when speaking in public.
The need to speak in public can return at many stages of your life
A fear of public speaking (glossophobia) is a demanding situation for many people. When you add social anxiety, it can expose the common social phobia symptoms like blushing and shaking to your peer audience. It can also affect the control of your speech with tension felt in the diaphragm and vocal chords, leaving you breathless when you are desperately trying to sound confident. The effort to suppress these symptoms becomes a distraction to the skills needed to speak in public, but are considered the priority for the social phobia sufferer.
A fear of public speaking is a phobic situation that can span school, undergraduate study and your adult career. Public speaking traumas from school can leave avoidance footprints throughout this period, influencing you to avoid undergraduate presentation tasks, or job applications (or promotions) that specify public speaking in the new role. Where there is the opportunity to delegate, you will justify it as being good development for the subordinate staff.
If the growing need to confront your phobia hasn’t sabotaged your career opportunities, the damage that it can do to your relationships may serve as a “wake up call” to treat certain phobias. In a new relation, the early motivation of the “honeymoon period” can easily mask a deeper social phobia, with shyness appearing as an endearing quality. During this stage of relationship bliss, the anxiety is temporarily “transferred” to your partner as you both push emotional boundaries and are being supported by the other partner to be your “best” person. As the honeymoon period fades, the social anxiety “returns” to its original owner with the declining desire to socialise if the social phobia has not been overcome. The social phobic partner hopes that their gregarious partner is accepting of these changing relationship dynamics or the relationship can be strained with a diminishing desire to socialise together.
Even a flying phobia can impact on a couple’s holiday arrangements and be a source of relationship break down for intolerant partners. Indeed, there are solutions to enjoy holidays together without the need for flying, but the pressure to overcome a phobia is again brought into the limelight with a new family. Parents are aware of how young children can easily learn and imitate phobic behaviour. In an attempt to avoid guilt and shame, this can be a time to motivate the phobic parent to confront the phobia. A phobia held for many years is still treatable, but the treatment now has a long history of conditioned avoidance to work through. The treatment also has to take into consideration the time pressures of working and a family lifestyle that limit the time necessary for graduated exposure to the phobia and its benefits to alleviate it.
During adulthood, the consolidation of personality traits and other mental health conditions can reinforce the affects of a phobia e.g. anger may be communicated as a defence strategy to mask the embarrassment of the phobia or some OCD issues can attach themselves to the phobia forming deeper ritualised patterns of avoidance.
But despite the potential restrictions that a phobia can cause you, your family and your lifestyle, the growing awareness and tolerance of a phobia as a mental health issue can mean that your phobia can still be supported. As you learn to live with your phobia and justify your avoidance, those people close to you can, where possible, change their lives so that you are protected from the distress of your panic attack.
What are the major common symptoms of a phobia?
A panic attack is the acute anxiety condition common with all phobias. You can feel specific symptoms whenever you encounter the object or situation of your phobia. In some cases, you can also experience milder symptoms just by thinking about that object or situation. The severity of your individual anxiety symptoms can vary from person to person.
Psychological anxiety symptoms can include:
Extreme feelings of fear: these will be intensified as you get closer to your specific phobia object or situation.
Irrational thoughts: you can appreciate that what you fear does not affect other people in the same way; and that the likelihood that the feared experience is going to actually happen is very remote; and that your fearful reaction is usually disproportionate to the degree of actual harm that you are in, yet this still does not alleviate the severity of your response.
Hopelessness, frustration and confusion: the conflict of these emotions tearing away at your mind can leave you feeling helpless, anxious and embarrassed.
Physical anxiety symptoms can include:
Dizziness, light headedness, and nausea when facing your phobia.
Excessive sweating and an increase in heart rate/palpitations.
Shortness of breath and shaking.
An upset stomach (nervous diarrhoea) or IBS is also a common.
Phobia and fear treatment Cardiff: Common Phobia Treatments
For many people the common self help phobia treatment is avoidance. If the phobic object or situation rarely affects your life then avoiding it (in the short term) will give you a feeling of control. Connected to avoidance is delegation with certain specific phobias. Getting someone else to remove a spider with a spider phobia (in the short term) is an effective way of minimising anxiety. Changing your lifestyle to minimise exposure can seem drastic to non-phobia sufferers but would only be done out of necessity to reduce long term suffering.
After avoidance, delegation and lifestyle changes to minimise exposure, the next level of treatment approach can include a combination of attending self-help groups and self-initiated exposure therapy. With simple phobias, creating a hierarchy of graduated exposure situations can take time to work through but with the effective use of relaxed breathing techniques or mindfulness, it can prevent the “flooding” of intense anxiety. Flooding (when the participant is not prepared) can cause traumatising setbacks in the alleviation of a phobia.
Therapy can help your controlled exposure program
Complex phobias and agoraphobia are usually more difficult for the sufferer to objectively confront and work through by yourself, unless you understand your belief system and can stage graduated exposure situations that don’t generate internal conflicts. This is where certain talking therapies like counselling or CBT can be helpful, creating an understanding of your beliefs and conflicts so that you can then progressively confront your phobia.
Medication such as tranquilisers is not usually helpful for phobias but they can reduce the short term effect of a recent traumatic exposure of anxiety. Beta-blockers can reduce the effect of panic when you know that you are about to confront a phobic situation e.g. when public speaking. Antidepressants are more beneficial with certain long terms situations found with complex phobias and agoraphobia. The use of any medication should be done in consultation with your GP.
Phobia and fear treatment Cardiff: Treating phobias using Hypnotherapy
You may tell yourself that the source of your phobia does not pose an actual threat, however, your mind and body will still react with fear because your phobic reaction exists at the subconscious level. Hypnotherapy is a technique that allows you to understand and disconnect the cause of your phobia. It can help you communicate with your subconscious mind to change how you feel towards the phobia. Under hypnosis, you will feel extremely relaxed while still being in control allowing you to confront your fears without actual exposure trauma. Follow this link for more information on how you can treat your phobia and fear with hypnotherapy.
Phobia and fear treatment Cardiff: for more information contact Richard J D’Souza Hypnotherapy Cardiff
Treat your phobia and fear in Cardiff using hypnotherapy
Are you ready to treat your phobia and fear in Cardiff using hypnotherapy?
Long term avoidance makes phobias and fears a bigger challenge to overcome
Avoidance of a fearful situation is a natural, short-term response to feel safe. In the long-term however, the avoidance behaviour can leave you helpless and stuck with a situation that is far more challenging to overcome. When you are ready to confront your phobia, you have decided at some level that avoidance is no longer the best option for you.
Your decision to overcome your phobia or fear may have been prompted from an external situation or forthcoming lifestyle change. I often ask my clients their reasons for confronting their phobia and fear. They include health changes, internal conflicts, despair, embarrassment, relationship issues, travel arrangements, study needs, conflicts within your family, fear that your children will learn your phobic response, general lifestyle changes, promotion at work or potential situations in your next job.
Whatever your motive to change, you can live your life freely with your anxiety in the distant past when you want to treat your phobia and fear in Cardiff using hypnotherapy.
How will your phobia be treated?
A previous BMJ publication by Vickers and Zollman gave a clinical review of existing research on hypnosis and relaxation therapies. It concluded that there is good evidence from randomised controlled trials that hypnosis is an effective treatment for phobias and fears.
My treatment therapy will essentially use a variety of hypnotic techniques to help you overcome your phobia and fear. Some types of phobias need a different treatment approach e.g. when treating a fear of fainting compared to a fear of spiders. In addition to this, each client also brings different core beliefs and issues into the treatment process. These need to be analysed to find the most appropriate hypnotic solution.
Hypnotherapy treatment techniques can involve strategies such as removing the emotional “cause” of your phobia or fear, anxiety control, and changing the thoughts, emotions and behaviour connected to your phobia. The treatment will also apply methods used in CBT and controlled exposure to ensure that you are benefitting from other effective processes used to alleviate phobias and fears.
Can you treat your phobia and fear in Cardiff using hypnotherapy if you have an uncommon phobia or fear?
Some of the more common phobias and fears include:
Agoraphobia – commonly considered as a fear of open spaces, but is characterised by the fear of leaving home. When you are outside, you fear having a panic attack in a confined space or around other people where you would feel extreme embarrassment. The need to rush home to your “safe” place exacerbates the agoraphobia.
Mysophobia – a fear of germs or contamination commonly associated with obsessive compulsive disorder.
Pyrophobia – a fear of fire.
Xenophobia - a fear of strangers.
Entomophobia - a fear of insects.
Speksophobia - a fear of wasps.
Cibophobia – a fear of food. Food is avoided to minimise illness (contamination) or vomiting (emetophobia). It can also be called a restrictive eating behaviour when there is a disgust/panic/choking response with certain food types. It can also be mistaken for anorexia.
Gamophobia – fear of commitment, affecting long-term relationships but can affect other lifestyle situations such as long contract work, mortgaging a house and staying in one city location.
Hydrophobia & Aquaphobia - a fear of water and drowning.
Ophidiophobia - a fear of snakes.
Panic disorder - a fear of panic attacks which can be associated with hypochodriasis, medical anxiety and health anxiety.
Hemophobia (blood phobia), trypanophobia (injections phobia) and traumatophobia (injury phobia) which can develop a fear of fainting or passing out.
Illyngophobia - a fear of vertigo (or feeling dizzy).
All phobias and fears can be treated however obscure they might seem
If your phobia or fear is obscure and is not listed as a common phobia, you can still treat your phobia and fear in Cardiff using hypnotherapy. Your phobia and fear will have a sensitising event and subsequent reactions in which you have associated your panic attack. The acute anxiety or panic attack is common with all other phobias and fears. The treatment will analyse your individual background experiences and disconnect your panic response using some of the same hypnotherapy techniques discussed in this article.
Are phobia sufferers receptive to hypnosis?
There are many intra-personal and inter-personal factors that can influence how receptive you are to hypnosis, including a strong desire and commitment to change your behaviour. When you have made the decision to seek professional help from a hypnotherapist, you are already a step closer to being open to therapeutic hypnotic suggestions. What then happens during your treatment will continue that process to its resolution.
When I look back at the profiles of my previous phobia clients, almost all of them have been highly responsive to hypnosis. Does this reliably mean that phobia sufferers can be hypnotised easily? Studies from Stanford University state that phobia sufferers “tend to score high on hypnotic susceptibility scales and... respond favourably to hypnotic intervention.”
Are phobia sufferers generally treatable? In the same article, a psychologist Joseph Barber, PhD considers that the source of a problem and its resolution can conveniently originate from the same place. “The very capacity that lends itself to developing the problem is the same that lends itself to solving it." Barber considers the learning of phobias as “environmentally suggested anxiety”; which means that the anxiety can be effectively un-learned or relearned with the use of external therapeutic suggestions. You can assess your level of suggestibility using this hypnosis test.
What happens in your first phobia and fear hypnotherapy consultation?
The first important stage in your phobia and fear treatment is to analyse your individual phobic or fearful situation. This is conducted in the early stage of the first consultation but can also continue through your treatment as new issues are uncovered. Every situation can be different and this process ensures that your treatment is individualised to your specific needs. The process includes the following:
Establish the history of your direct and indirect traumas: This usually answers the “how and why” you have arrived at your phobic or fearful situation. Sometimes this is obvious with direct traumas, but with complex situations like agoraphobia, it may involve a number of issues. By understanding this pathway, it helps you to appreciate how your sensitising events have affected you and continues to inhibit the achievement of your goal (the removal of your phobia).
Identify any conflicting beliefs and emotions: Other beliefs and emotions (outside of your specific phobic or fear) may have contributed to your phobic situation. For example, during your teenage years, defiance may have added anger into your coping strategies when people tried to control how you should deal with your insect phobia. So anger and anxiety are now triggered when you confront insects because you anticipate people interfering with how you will cope with your phobic situation. Or social anxiety during your teenage years may have added embarrassment into trying to confront your wasp phobia. So now when you have to cope with the fear from wasps, you also feel embarrassment from your anticipated peer’s judgements.
Examine your coping strategies: In most cases, the (negative) coping strategies that you have previously employed have gradually transformed your fear of a situation into the current phobic situation with panic attacks. With repetition sustained over a long time period, your reactions have now made your coping strategies automated even though you try your best to keep yourself safe from perceived danger. This build up of avoidance reactions can create a complex phobic situation especially when it involves more than one fear. Aviophobia (fear of flying) can involve direct flight-related traumas, but it can also be a complex situation that involves a number of fears e.g. a fear of heights, fear of confined spaces and social anxiety. In order for you to maximise the effective use of your new therapeutic coping strategies and prevent “flooding” of anxiety, this process is made easier when a complex phobic situation has been analysed.
Define your treatment pathway: In response to the analysis of these specific and wider issues that impact on your phobia and fear, your treatment plan can then be formulated to ensure that it is individualised and goal-oriented.
How can hypnotherapy treat your phobia and fear?
Listed below are some of the ways that you can benefit when you are ready to treat your phobia and fear in Cardiff using hypnotherapy:
Your phobia or fear can be treated in a controlled environment
Treat your phobia and fear in a controlled environment
Hypnotherapy offers you the opportunity to confront your fears in a controlled and detached environment, limiting the amount of exposure to your situation so that you are not overwhelmed (flooded) with panic. Hypnotherapy also allows you to safely deal with your fears and the removal of your panic response at an unconscious level. You can accept positive suggestions without interference of your conscious mind.
Control of your anxiety and panic response
You may not feel that you have conscious control over your phobic response but appreciate that you have ownership of your reaction; it’s yours to change. Your hypnotherapy treatment will help you to alleviate your panic symptoms that cause you to feel so traumatised when confronting your phobia and fears. For example breathlessness (hyperventilation) is a common symptom of panic. After learning relaxed breathing techniques, these techniques will be incorporated into your hypnosis treatment so that your breathing rate and breathing style can be calmer when you are ready to deal with your phobic situation. Other symptoms like palpitations, shaking, profuse sweating etc. will also be alleviated in your hypnotherapy treatment.
Treat anticipatory anxiety
With some anxious situations, the build up to the situation can be as bad (if not worse) than the actual demands needed to cope with the situation. Your anxious mind will instinctively play any number of random “what if...” scenarios where you meet your doom. Learning to cope with anticipatory anxiety is integrated into your phobia treatment so that you can disconnect the anxious build up to the phobic situation. You can then apply your positive resources when it is needed during the phobic situation.
Dissociate your disgust or nausea responseDisgust is a common phobic response
Fear and panic dominate most phobias, but your panic response may combine with (or be specific to) a disgust reaction. When your disgust response is triggered, it creates such an overwhelming, internal feeling of revulsion that you are then unable to cope with this emotional response and you fear it being activated by your phobic object or situation. Disgust reactions are common with certain phobias such as a fear of vomiting, fear of insects, fear of holes, fear of germs, fear of blood, etc. They can also contribute to a penetration phobia (vaginismus) depending on your individual background history. Dissociating your emotional disgust reaction is essential for you to overcome this type of phobia.
Treat your fear of fainting with a blood phobia, injection phobia or injury phobia
About 15% of the population have an in-built fainting response (some people sense it before fainting, whilst with others it happens spontaneously). Physiologically, fainting occurs when blood pressure spikes due to the initial anxiety and then suddenly drops, causing blood to be diverted away from the brain. There numerous physiological explanations (e.g. vasovagal response) and self protective psychological theories why a fainting response is activated. Fear and disgust are the emotions responsible for the creation of a blood, injection or injury phobia. If you have previously fainted or near fainted, it can then trigger this additional fear with the insecurity and embarrassment that can accompany it. Your hypnotherapy treatment is specific to keeping your blood pressure raised as you confront your fears and inhibit your fainting response. This particular hypnotherapy treatment technique is a method also used in The Applied Tension Technique.
Assisted desensitisation (controlled exposure)
When you research how to treat phobias, you will see the term desensitisation or controlled exposure appear time and time again. Desensitisation is an effective way of treating phobias. By itself however, this method can be cumbersome and time consuming. Hypnosis can offer you the positive mental rehearsals that act as accelerated controlled graduated exposure away from the phobic situation. So when you are ready to progressively deal with your fearful situation, you will feel as if you have already done the practise with the appropriate positive mindset. When combining hypnosis with desensitisation, you can expect a rapid progression your phobia and fear solution.
Treat the causes of your phobia and fear (sensitising event)
This technique is favoured less by solution focused hypnotherapists who tend to disregard the influence of the past on the treatment of a phobia. The sensitising event holds the repressed emotions contained in the memories that “cause” the phobia and generates the anticipatory anxiety (panic attack) when confronting similar future incidents. When the emotions contained in the sensitising event are released (as an abreaction), it can have a dramatic effect on the alleviation of your phobia. This technique uses regression to identify the experiences just before the sensitising event so that the unconscious details of the trauma (e.g. beliefs held at that time and conflicts that influenced the learning of the anxious response) can be studied and reframed. When you remove the roots, you set free everything above the ground to allow new positive resources to be planted. The Rewind Technique can sometimes be used with some clients with the same purpose of reframing the traumatic emotions contained within the sensitising event or panic attack.
Visualisation of your desired positive experienceVisualisation is a powerful tool in phobia and fear treatment
Visualisation is a powerful tool that can launch you towards the achievement of your goal. When you visualise positive change, you are creating the network of neural pathways that can be accessed more easily when you are in that situation. Hypnosis is a relaxed state where the depth of visualisation is enhanced. When you visualise in hypnosis, it’s as if you are passing those “real” imagined experiences down into your unconscious mind to help it accept that this is the new reality without actually being in the experience. Put another way, you are accessing the necessary “in-vivo” controlled exposure that can sometimes be difficult to access in real life situations. For example, when you have a wasp phobia and you want to practise your relaxation techniques with a wasp nearby without being re-traumatised with panic. It can be difficult to recreate a controlled situation involving real wasps. In hypnosis, you can do the “mind work” necessary to dissociate your panic reaction without always having to access the real life situation.
But hypnotherapy can you offer more than just visualisation when using advanced techniques. Many of the cognitive restructuring processes used in CBT can be applied during hypnosis, helping you to accelerate the change of your thought patterns towards the removal of your phobia or fear.
Contact me for more information
So when you are ready to treat your phobia and fear in Cardiff using hypnotherapy, please contact me giving a few brief details of your phobia. These details will help me understand the precise nature of your phobia or fear however obscure you think it may be. This information will be treated in the strictest confidence.
If you are ready to treat your phobia and fear in Cardiff using hypnotherapy, contact Richard J D’Souza Hypnotherapy Cardiff
Most writers have experienced writer’s block at some pointDefining writer’s block: The writing process, like any other art, is a creative pursuit that can pose many difficulties along the journey of producing writtenmaterial. Some of these difficulties can be overcome with practice, but one of the most infuriating problems is known as writer’s block. If you are a writer, you will probably have gone through this state at least a few times, and it would have undoubtedly been an extremely frustrating phase for you.Writer’s block can be described as the condition in which a writer is no longer able to engage in or produce new material. As a general condition, you may experience this creative shut-down in varying forms, but ultimately, you will end up staring at a blank screen or page after a very copious period of trying. When you have writer’s block, it’s as if your ‘creativity power’ has become paralyzed and the more you try to break through your block, the more helpless you become.Writer’s block, however, is not usually a symptom of a lack of writing skills. You can be a very successful writer, a fountain of ideas even, but you can still be susceptible to it for a variety of lifestyle and psychological reasons. And with whatever is causing your creative block, it may even occur to you during this period of stagnation (which can last from hours to years by the way) that you should quit writing altogether. This can be accompanied by a period of extreme self criticism and insecurity exclaiming “what kind of writer am I if I can’t write?”Managing writer’s block can be helped, and sometimes prevented by understanding what the condition is, appreciating what traits you bring to your writing projects and being aware of the situation and conditions in which you write.
Does writer’s block only affect writers?
Whilst the term “writer’s block” is primarily associated with writers who write novels, it can affect anyone who produces creative written content e.g. students working towards your degree or higher degrees, playwrights, poets, scholars, television producers, article writers in magazines or newspapers, blog writers etc.A similar “creative block” is commonly experienced by professionals required to produce creative materials, content or products. This list can include artists, architects, sculptors, designers, composers, musicians, songwriters, inventors, teachers, researchers and choreographers. In a much broader sense, a ‘mind block’ can also affect business professionals involved in problem-solving and project management roles.When you are stuck in your block, you may have gone deep into a project, are now committed to completing it, but you fear that the solution evades you in the time required. As the stress and pressure mounts, it further inhibits your creative abilities to complete the task.
What happens when you have writer’s block?
When you have writer’s block, creative ideas stay below the surface of your subconscious mindConsider the mind as a vast lake. Below the surface of the water is your creative subconscious mind that gives you access to your creative zone. It is brimming with stimulating ideas, enriched past experiences and inspiring emotional content. When you are writing expressively, you can freely access the content below the surface and apply your creativity to the task in hand.But when stress, anxietyand negative beliefs are overwhelming you, access to the content below the surface is obstructed. The surface of the vast lake freezes over. Your creative (subconscious) mind is blocked and you are left to operate from above the surface of the water (using your conscious mind).Your conscious mind struggles to work by itself. The conscious mind can function, but its concepts are slow, rigid, structured and at times, dull. When your subconscious mind is at hand, your inspirational flow of ideas and emotional creativity can be accessed. The collaboration between the two parts of your mind forms a creative unity that is inspiring and abundant.At a physiological level, excessive adrenaline and cortisol levels created by stress and negative emotional states cause your brain waves to function at a higher Beta level. At this level, your brain struggles to be creative. When you are in your relaxed creative zone however, the brain waves operate at the Alpha level. At this level, there is a reduction in stress hormones and an increased production of serotonin that can balance your mood and give you open access to your creativity.
What causes writer’s block?
Since the process of writing is usually a day-to-day requirement for the writer, you will discover that many of the causes of the writer’s block are related to your personal lifestyle and habits. If you are a diligent writer, for example, you may have been overly focused on the prospect of completing certain milestones in the time required. But, as a consequence, you have had to sacrifice your resting periods and indispensable full night’s sleep. As you settled on this poor sleeping habit, your brain began to decrease its efficiency and it no longer offered you the surge of creativity you always received in a less pressured lifestyle.The process of engaging with your creative work is now the hardest phase because your body and brain are not rejuvenated with the needed rest. Coupled with this, there can be the issue of poor eating habits, over-reliance on addictive substances (like caffeine, alcohol and nicotine), a lack of exercise as you attempt to maximise time efficiency. The writer’s block will easily become the standard mindset if your body and brain are not getting the balance of creativity, rest, nourishment and tension-release from exercise. The mind becomes deeply affected by fatigue and “mental fogginess”.If you are working from home and balancing family life, the slightest distraction from family commitments can justify extended periods of frustrated “clock-watching”. You become agonisingly aware that if you happen to find the key to open your creative door, then it will need to be shut again within a short period of time to meet the external family demands.Multitasking will distract you from your creative workA more subtle cause of writer’s block can be related to your organisational skills. The writer’s block is a condition in which your mind is paralysed, unable to manage a complex task with diplomacy and ease. Therefore, some of the causes that breed the writer’s block can be your unrealistic management of tasks. You can be having too many irons in the fire, trying to handle different and unrelated tasks at the same time, for instance, trying to write while using social media and then over-planning the future. In addition to this, you may have made the environment in which you write too distracting. Constant stimulus from the outside world answering trivial emails for example not only decreases your focus and productivity but also drives you toward procrastination. When faced with frustration, responding to the email waiting in your inbox can seem like a temporary honourable achievement. Meanwhile, the available writing slot is getting shorter!The approach that you use in organising your work is also extremely critical to the rate of your productivity. A lack of realism when dividing your time and work tasks, writing your draft and finding the suitable ideas for your piece ultimately decides how much you will be able to complete. The general cause for this mismanagement is being a perfectionist in the handling of your projects.Lastly, a common cause that produces a writer’s block is the awareness of pressure to meet creative demands in your day-to-day life. You are probably familiar with the feeling of frustration as soon as you face a blank screen. It can be accompanied by a fear of failure and associated financial worries. This constant anxiety takes you further away from the creative control that you seek. It impedes you from writing imaginatively and stifles your confidence. As your anxiety levels increase, it affects your level of concentration and ability to recall information. Without these valuable internal resources, you are almost guaranteed to have a writer’s block
How is the condition diagnosed?
A writer’s block does not need an expert to diagnose your condition since it is a subjectively recognised. Its presence is likely to be detected as you fail to produce any acceptable content after trying for hours or even days. You may not want to acknowledge to your peers that you have writer’s block as it could define your failing. Instead you persist with “trying” in the hope that some miracle will surface and rescue you from your helplessness. For how long you struggle in denial is your own subjective boundary to establish. Once admitted however, it may then release you from your chains and allow you to recover. You are free to admit that you have the condition and invite others to empathise with your plight.
Major Common Symptoms:
A writer’s block has distinct symptoms that can intervene at all stages of your writing work. Recognizing them will help you understand the severity of your writer’s block and what lifestyle areas you can focus on to release it.One major symptom you are likely to experience during a writer’s block is a gripping feeling of brain fog. This state reduces your ability to concentrate or think creatively. It is a mental state where your vision is severely limited by the “fog” and as a consequence, you form very poor writing scenarios. When you are experiencing this brain fog, you will find it very hard to write coherently or follow the plot line that you initially decided.Another common symptom of writer’s block is that of defenceless distraction. You have gone to endless trouble to prepare your ideal creative mood. You sit there poised with the keyboard on your desk and screen in front of you. But instead of progressing with your ideas, the slightest noise or physical imperfection leads you astray. Then your own thoughts send you on another diversion that achieves everything else but the writing task. Irrelevant ideas and activities fill your time until you leave your work-station infuriated and in need of a break; only to return refreshed and ready to start the whole bewildering process off again.Another symptom that typifies writer’s block is the absence of inspiration. You have a reservoir of ideas and scenarios listed in your journal, but you seem to return back to your starting point with no substance in which your ideas can flow. As you rebound from one meaningless idea to another, your mind gradually becomes disinterested and fatigued. You long to recapture the good old days when resourceful and inventive ideas would spark your creative engine. Your growing apathy depresses you, knowing that there is a world of unceasing ideas that surrounds you. Somehow you just can’t connect with them.Frustration will take you further way from your creativityFrustration and anger filter through all of these common writer’s block symptoms. These emotions have secured themselves to the whole process of your writing. You grow more helpless and irritated as you type each sentence. You review the meaningless content on completion, delete it and then churn out another sentence in the hope of a revelation.Whether writing as a hobby, occupation, or ambition, the symptom of frustration will question your desire to pursue any of them further. As it takes over, it can penetrate into the deeper essence of your creativity. In the end, these and many other psychological symptoms can make the condition of writer’s block a torturous suffering for any creative soul.
Common treatments:
Given the serious symptoms that a writer’s block can create, being ready and motivated to subdue its grasp on your creativity should be paramount to ensure your longevity. But like most situations where there are multiple demands, the strategies that prevent a writer’s block (the worst case scenario) may only be heeded after it has struck. Only then does it serve as that “wake up call” that can ensure you apply a balanced approach to your writing and give attention to yourself.The nature of the writer’s block is not beyond your conscious understanding. You probably know exactly what causes it and maintains it, and in light of these, you can arm yourself with the following techniques and treatments to manage it.Initially, address the poor lifestyle issues that have become a reflection of your struggle. It may seem to be ignoring the primary issue (your need to produce written material), but your mind and body needs nourishment (healthy eating) and recuperative sleep in order to be creative again.Then, take an objective look at your writing approach. Analyse your organisation plan that formulates your writing process. What are the measures that you go through in every writing project? Usually, by having a schedule, brainstorming and using outlines for writing drafts, you will guide yourself right back into the heart of productivity. In the same vein, eliminate distractions where possible and improve your work environment to cut out many sources of procrastination.In order to drive your mind out of the mental inertia, you can provoke your mind by reading an interesting book. Reading can entirely influence your thinking and ideas. One of its benefits is its effectiveness in placing you back in an imaginative and creative mindset.Additionally, you can flush out your physical tension with a refreshing brisk walk around your local area. Physical activity forces deeper breathing techniques that can clear your mind of clutter.Once you are back home and ready to write, focus on one more effective treatment: humility. Perfectionism is a paralysing thinking habit. Be prepared to tolerate the first mediocre paragraphs, the recurring incoherent ideas in the draft and the holes in your plots. They are a necessary human component of any writing project. In other words, be more realistic about the imperfections in your work as they are; it is only when writing them that you can discover them and weed them out.
How can hypnotherapy treat writer’s block?
If you are struggling with your self help strategies and are no longer responsive to your peer support, decide on a timescale in which you will seek professional external help. Someone who is objective to your situation can identify solutions that are limited by your own perspective. Hypnotherapy offers a number of solutions at different levels.Fortunately, writers, like just about all other creative professionals who use their imagination in their skill are highly responsive to hypnosis. You can experience rapid changes from the implementation of hypnotherapeutic techniques.Hypnotherapy can reduce your stress and anxiety symptomsStress and anxiety symptom reduction is an integral part of your hypnosis treatment. You will feel more relaxed about your condition and the way that it is affecting you. Detaching these symptoms will help you feel less affected by it. You can then objectively focus into your block with potential solutions.Hypnotherapy will help you deal with your lifestyle issuesThe negative lifestyle habits that have accumulated due to your writer’s block like eating habits, poor sleeping patterns and lack of exercise will be examined with suggestions to address them. Some of these habits (like smoking and habitual drinking) and major lifestyle changes (like bereavements and relationship changes) can be treated specifically where they seem to be having a direct negative impact on your creativity.Hypnotherapy will analyse your work situation and working methodsSome work situations and working methods are counter-productive to your creativity; they serve to distract you rather than stimulate you. You may be helplessly and habitually clinging to them believing that they benefit you when, in reality, they stifle your creative potential. Some work situations need a deeper acceptance and humility that can be accessed and boosted in a therapeutic treatment. This can ensure that you continue to be inspired by your talents without being envious of others.Hypnotherapy will identify your emotional blocks and negative traitsIf you don’t already know which negative emotions and traits are exacerbating your writer’s block, your hypnotherapy treatment will be instrumental in identifying them. If you already know what they are, hypnotherapy can help create strategies to reduce their intensity.Hypnotherapy can help you access your creative zoneHypnotherapy will re-establish your creative zoneAs your negative psychological structures are flagged and then demolished, the aim is to reposition the good structures and create new ones that will redefine your creative zone for writing. This rebuilding process will lift your stress, depression and anxiety. It will also boost your self esteem, placing you back within your core self definitions as a writer.Hypnotherapy will help you practise self hypnosisYour continued practise of self hypnosis will keep your creative writing zone active and ensure your longevity. It will also help you to be mindful of internal and external changes that affect your creative zone. It is continuously evolving throughout your career, even with positive experiences and it needs to be resilient to withstand these changes. Learning and practising self hypnosis is an essential part of your hypnotherapy treatment.
Writer’s block conclusion
The writer’s block is a “roadblock” that every writer has to face in any process of writing. When its effects are troubling you, you can be reminded that most writers have already wrestled with them and come through them successfully. In other words, this condition is not a quality of poor writing skills. Instead, it is a symptom of many of the ill-made conditions under which you formulate your creative work. In knowing the causes which produce this condition, you can begin to be more conscious of your bad habits and poor lifestyle choices that surround this creative pursuit. As you improve your lifestyle and habits with reference to the treatments already shared, your mind will once again climb to its maximised creative performance.
For further information on how to overcome your writer’s block, contact Richard J D’Souza Hypnotherapy Cardiff.
Solution focused hypnotherapy is a type of hypnotherapy that has a distinct approach to the treatment of psychological issues. It combines the use of hypnosis with some modern psychotherapeutic principles to create change.Solution focused hypnotherapy focuses on solutions rather than unpacking past problemsThe core tenet of solution focused hypnotherapy is the focus on finding solutions rather than unpacking the problematic issues contained in the presenting condition. So, in practice, it assesses your present condition and sets future desirable goals instead of looking back into your past traumas and problems.This strategy makes solution focused hypnotherapy a dynamic approach compared to other types of hypnotherapy. Moreover, it’s very well-structured, systematic, and practical. Through its application you can eventually tap into your own inner potential to achieve therapeutic solutions.
The Origin of Solution Focused Hypnotherapy
The origin of solution focused hypnotherapy can hardly be pinned to a single phase of time, location or therapist. If you study the history of solution focused hypnotherapy, you will determine that it was born in the USA. But, the body of techniques, strategies, and principles had to be developed gradually and consolidated thanks to several remarkable figures and specialists through many decades.Firstly, it was Milton Erickson, the great psychiatrist and hypnotherapist, who taught and implemented solution-focused strategies and techniques in therapy, in both formal and informal settings. So, with his large contribution in hypnotherapy, he established a base for solution focused hypnotherapy to advance.Then, the team of Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg put forward their theoretical work to create Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT). Their developed theories and techniques were largely influential as they experimented throughout the years with a diversity of clients. They formed the foundation of a solution focused approach to therapy. It continued to evolve with further experiments and contributions from theorists and neuroscientists until it was completely established as the modern solution focused hypnotherapy approach.
Differences between Solution Focused Hypnotherapy and Other Types of Hypnotherapy
Solution focused hypnotherapy’s strategy is to focus aheadSolution focused hypnotherapy differs from other types of hypnotherapy in many ways. If you are familiar with these other types, you will observe their focus on the complexities of the client’s psyche, and more importantly, how they trace back undesirable symptoms to their causes. Solution focused hypnotherapy, however, considers the causes and past as distracting and instead guides the client to focus on an achievable goal in the future.Another key distinction is the way this therapy approaches the client in the treatment session. Because it is goal-oriented, it has a very specific structure and a set of techniques through which it fosters the pathway to the client’s solutions. For example, as a solution focused hypnotherapist, you can use planned hypnotic strategies at the beginning of every session to get the client to the next mutually agreed goal. Other types of hypnotherapy, on the other hand, are less specific. They rely on the immediate responses that will develop during the consultation whilst the treatment seeks to analyze or go back to the roots of an issue.Additionally, these other types of hypnotherapy are generally considered less effective and require lots of therapy to bring about efficient treatment.
What Conditions can Solution Focused Hypnotherapy treat?
Solution focused hypnotherapy can treat a great variety of physical and emotional conditions within a client’s unique profile with care and efficiency.For example, many clients report that it is effective with anxiety, stress, panic attacks, phobias, chronic pain, irritable bowel syndrome, low self-confidence and low self-esteem. It can thus help you eradicate the psychological problems that hinder you from a well-functioning personal, social and professional life.In most cases of a holistic treatment plan, solution focused hypnotherapy can be used in conjunction with medication prescribed by your GP.
The initial consultation stage of a Solution Focused Hypnotherapy Treatment
All hypnotherapists conduct a detailed and thorough initial consultation stage to ensure that the treatment takes the right path. During these initial stages, you can expect your solution focused hypnotherapist to ask you to sign a consent form which will detail the conditions and terms of therapy. These terms are usually detailed in their advertising literature.Then your hypnotherapist will start a discussion about the issues that you want help with. This will include your goals, the healthy emotions and behaviours you wish to maintain, and the history and relevant facts about your life that are affecting your condition. These stages create your unique profile.The Miracle Question helps you explore your ideal futureWhat then follows is a forward projection of your goal. This helps to establish the boundaries of your goal and whether it can be realistically achieved. This process is called asking the “Miracle Question”. It may be phrased as follows: “if a miracle was to happen and you became the ideal version of yourself having achieved your goal, how would you start to notice this as you go about life? Will there be some specific behaviour that would demonstrate this change?” The “Miracle Question” is one of the techniques developed by solution focused brief therapy. Once asked, it can be referred to again in subsequent sessions. It will help both the hypnotherapist and client refine the goals that you would like to achieve, but also elaborate on the stages, the beliefs, and habits that can generally help your life. This discussion can be quite deep, but is an extremely important part of your treatment. It often involves using techniques from other therapeutic disciplines like cognitive behavioural therapy and neuro-linguistic programming.Unlike some other types of hypnotherapy, solution focused hypnotherapy then adopts a specific approach by detailing facts about how the brain works, the predictable causes of your issues, and how and why emotions manifest in the way they do. Once you have gained this insight, the hypnotherapist will estimate the number of sessions expected for you to achieve your goal, whether it’s a phobia, anxiety or a whole set of connected issues. They will explain the commitment needed during your treatment and what you can expect at stages through your treatment course.Hypnosis may then be used to introduce you to the experience (if you have never formally had a hypnotic induction). Hypnotic suggestions will be used to direct you towards your goal.
A Typical Solution Focused Hypnotherapy Consultation
After your initial consultation and each time you attend your follow up session, the hypnotherapist will start off by asking you about any developments from your previous session. In particular, any emotional changes, and whether there is any physical progress towards your goal. Your opinions about yourself and how they are developing are important discussion questions too because they throw light on your current mindset and self-concept.After you relate your experiences to them, the hypnotherapist will aim to elucidate your emotions and physical changes in relation to the functioning of the brain and its psychology. These explanations will help you have an objective view of yourself.The discussion then moves to the stage where the hypnotherapist engages with you to reflect on your goals, and most importantly, the steps you should take to continue their attainment. There will be a lot of collaboration and cooperation between you and the hypnotherapist as they ask ‘’solution focused” questions.Lastly, the hypnotherapist will use hypnosis techniques to guide you into a relaxed state and use suggestions to direct you towards your goal achievement. More discussion will be made following the hypnotic induction so that you can summarise some of the key points made during in the session.Some hypnotherapists provide you with a generalised hypnosis audio to reinforce the suggestions towards your goal.
The Shortcomings of Solution Focused Hypnotherapy
Like all types of hypnotherapy, solution focused hypnotherapy will have advantages but also, inevitably, some shortcomings. This is because any approach that gives more emphasis to certain aspects of treatment will inadvertently neglect other important factors in the overall treatment process.Helping a client achieve their goal is a fundamental part of any treatment process. But does the client’s goal take into account all aspects of their condition? How well does a client know themselves? Most clients come into hypnotherapy with symptom-related goals. What they bring into the treatment often dismisses core issues. For example, stopping smoking can be beneficial for many reasons, but smoking is generally used to cope with core issues such as stress, anxiety and depression. When you just remove the symptom, what happens to the client’s ability to cope? Do they replace the symptom with another more destructive negative symptom? By over-focusing on symptoms, solution focused hypnotherapy may not deal with these broader issues that are creating the symptom. And by placing the client’s goal at the centre of the process, the solution focused hypnotherapist may be compromising some of their own expertise (if they have been trained to deal with core issues).Solution focused hypnotherapy leaves the past behindRelated to what lies under a symptom is the “cause” or “why” an unwanted behaviour has been created in the first place or continues to persist in the client. Delving into past issues is deemed unnecessary by solution focused hypnotherapists, yet it may offer more insight into persistent negative behaviour. So the smoker who wants to stop smoking, but keeps lapsing soon after they attempt to quit usually has an unconscious reason for their lapse. Just focusing on stopping will cause the underlying issue to resurface and force another lapse in smoking cessation. Regression and Hypnoanalysis can be used to take the client back to the triggering motive and release the emotion contained in that experience. For example, when the client was younger, they started smoking as a defiant reaction to an abusive parent’s control. By now attempting to stop smoking in their adulthood, the anger from the past abuse draws them back to smoking again. Releasing the anger from their parent’s control removes the emotional cause to smoke. When both the cause and symptom are treated, it can be more effective at helping the client stop smoking.Regression is often criticised for dwelling on past events and extending the treatment time of a problem. Yet when used skilfully, it can be very effective at creating change in a relatively short period of time, treating issues at the causal end of the continuum. Solution focused hypnotherapy may not be able to make these underlying connections to unconscious issues just by focusing ahead.
Solution focused hypnotherapy: summary
Solution focused hypnotherapy remains a popular and effective approach to treating psychological problems. In many cases it is the baseline strategy to goal attainment. When a client’s goal is blocked by unconscious issues, other approaches can be used to ensure that the client’s treatment is successful.
For further information on Solution Focused Hypnotherapy, contact Richard J D’Souza Hypnotherapy Cardiff.
It can be immensely useful being aware of the various types of hypnotherapy, whether you are aspiring to be a hypnotherapist or a potential client wanting treatment. Hypnotherapy is a domain that offers a huge toolbox of treatment techniques. Various approaches can be applied for different clients with different conditions. Each style of hypnotherapy can have its respective benefits when a client presents a specific need.Which route will your treatment take?Understanding the types of hypnotherapy can improve your therapeutic skills as a hypnotherapist. As a client it can help you appreciate what to expect in your hypnotherapy session and be treated in a way that matches your expectations. I have used all hypnotherapeutic approaches in my experience, and am flexible enough to adapt my approach when the situation demands it. My training included all of these various types of hypnotherapy styles even though my qualification has the classification of “Clinical Hypnotherapy”.
Types of Hypnotherapy: Solution Focused Hypnotherapy
As the name suggests, this type of hypnotherapy focuses on achieving solutions to your issues rather than deconstructing past problems. From a solution-focused perspective, delving into the past is considered ineffective.Solution focused hypnotherapy can generate impressive and tangible results. It is used by a great number of hypnotherapists and can be implemented with just about every client. The approach is employed as soon as you are asked the question “what is your goal?” If you have a ‘fear of public speaking’, then your treatment is aimed at ‘confidence in public speaking’. Your ‘public speaking’ situation is analysed and the treatment is staged in measurable progressive steps, assessing where you are now and how your public speaking confidence can increase.This is one of the types of hypnotherapy that has a focused interaction where the hypnotherapist helps you tap into your inner resources and capacities. It assumes a level of motivation and commitment on your part, as you are provided with homework tasks that move you towards the achievement of your goal. You will mutually set fixed interim goals and hypnosis will essentially be used to guide you to your destination. Eventually, you will become familiar with your inner strength and solution-seeking abilities to access your psychological wellbeing.Does it have any shortcomings? Some of the mutually agreed goals in solution focused approaches can overly focus on symptoms. Symptoms can be coping mechanisms of deeper unconscious problems that are ignored until the treatment comes to standstill. The deeper unconscious issues are also known as the causes or “why” you behave as you do. For example, you want help to reduce your weight, but your weight gain is an unconscious defensive reaction to childhood abuse (i.e. you stay overweight to be less attractive to potential abusers; a form of Secondary Gain.) In your solution-focused treatment, you are asked “what is your goal?” and respond to the question appropriately “to lose weight”, because your reason for gaining weight is unconscious. Your treatment can then plateau unless the solution focused hypnotherapist is also trained to uncover past causes using other hypnotherapy techniques. Without this training, the weight loss solution would be temporary. When causes are uncovered, the solution can take a more successful treatment pathway, treating the cause and the symptom together.
Types of Hypnotherapy: Ericksonian Hypnotherapy
This style of hypnotherapy is named after one of the most prominent figures of psychiatry and hypnosis, namely Milton Erickson. He believed hypnosis to be a natural state that we involuntarily encounter several times a day. Erickson’s informal approach to treatment matched his beliefs about hypnosis. He was renowned for using indirect suggestions and storytelling in which his patients may not have known that the treatment had formally started.Milton Erickson’s approach is admired amongst top hypnotherapistsUnlike most direct (and authoritative) types of hypnotherapy, the Ericksonian style attempts to access the client’s behavioural, cognitive, or even analytical levels in a way that speaks to the subconscious rather than the conscious. As an approach, it uses symbolism, metaphors, stories, and implicit suggestions that help the client not only collaborate, but also adopt the healing message or command within the suggestions. Many hypnotherapists call themselves Ericksonian, but they may be very far from using the true approach that Milton Erickson devised.It may be helpful for all types of hypnotherapy to make room for this kind of creativity. The Ericksonian approach requires the hypnotherapist’s inner judge and subtle creative capacities to be employed. They need to be very sensitive to client’s distinct problems and profiles to ensure that the indirect suggestion or story yields the desired effect. For these reasons, clients with excellent visualisation skills and reflective abilities should be encouraged to seek hypnotherapists who employ Ericksonian tools.Changes within the client can be quite deep and profound when these techniques are used effectively. It can be used to treat (but is not limited to) addiction, OCD, pain management and habit control.
Types of Hypnotherapy: Analytical Hypnotherapy
Analytical Hypnotherapy borrows primarily from the school of psychotherapy. It is also known as hypno-analysis and curative hypnotherapy. It can be used to treat a number of conditions including phobias, negative emotions, depression, psychosomatic symptoms etc.Being analytical in its approach, this method of hypnotherapy investigates the client’s hidden causes that are creating issues. Fundamentally, it analyses your behaviour, reactions, and beliefs by using probing questions. It asks ‘’why’’ and seeks to identify the root impulses behind the said problem. When the true causes are brought to the surface, you will be guided to think and respond differently to them. As a result, positive and altered behaviours will be the new positive change to your health. Whilst the hypnotherapist works together with you to get to the core of an issue, the object of the session will be to obtain insight and understand the real dynamics that are controlling your life. You will be more self-aware of your psyche and the nature of your behaviour, and therefore will be able to take control and change negative behaviour.In the treatment of a phobia for example, analytical hypnotherapy aims to discover and treat how your panic response attached itself to the phobic stimulus e.g. a spider. It also validates how the “wrong” childhood association has been carried into adulthood. The adult mind knows that this connection is irrational and unhelpful but is consciously unable to access where these feelings originate. Using Hypnoanalysis, the adult mind can go back and reinterpret the event, releasing the fearful emotion created as a child.
Types of Hypnotherapy: Behavioural Hypnotherapy
Behavioural hypnotherapy is probably the most direct and immediate types of hypnotherapy in its working methods. There are no disguised suggestions or analysis of issues. Instead, behavioural hypnotherapy focuses solely on the behaviours, (present or future ones) that the client demonstrates. In the first session, the hypnotherapist takes note of all the negative behaviours that the client has accumulated. Judged simply as learned behaviours, both the client and hypnotherapist proceed to agree on the appropriate changes and positive behaviours that are desired. Hypnosis is used to integrate these changes until they are firmly established. You are advised to keep practicing self hypnosis even after treatment is over, so that you have personal control over the new behaviours.Behavioural hypnotherapy is useful for behaviours such as negative habits (nail biting, habitual drinking and smoking). It can also be used to modify the finer details of behaviours such as specific eating habits that are contributing to weight gain.
Types of Hypnotherapy: Cognitive Hypnotherapy
All types of hypnotherapy have a specific focus, but what is “spoken” in the mind is the main focus of this style of hypnotherapy. Whether you are battling with phobias, anxieties, or lack of concentration, cognitive hypnotherapy will help you get rid of the thinking patterns, beliefs, or feelings that you are dominating you. Cognition here is believed to be at the heart of your negative behaviours and psychological harm. In other words, the cognitive hypnotherapist will work with you to replace unhelpful thoughts and bad beliefs about the world so that the subconscious is in tune with a ‘’healthy’’ thinking conscious.Once identified, common cognitive distortions such as over-generalisation and catastrophic thinking are realigned using hypnosis. The assumptions of this style of hypnotherapy derive from the theories of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. And the common process that unites these theories is the change of bad ‘’actionable’’ thoughts in consideration for your goals, values, and needs.
Types of Hypnotherapy: Past Life Regression
If you believe in past lives, then this style of hypnotherapy can help youThis is one of the types of hypnotherapy to have an unconventional view of the client’s problematic behaviours and issues. By using hypnotherapeutic techniques, it addresses a client’s problem with the belief that it is affected by a ‘’previous life’’. So, the causes and logic that are thought to drive any kind of issue are believed to come from “past life” experiences. Clearly, this belief is always implemented with respect to the client’s own beliefs. So, it may be found that some hypnotherapists interpret the past life belief literally, whilst others use it metaphorically. When an issue is at hand, the client and hypnotherapist observe the emotions and behaviours then travel together to a regressed interpretation of it in the past life. The issues will be understood in the context of past memories so that they are given real meaning. The issues are treated using other types of hypnotherapy.In the end, this type of hypnotherapy can work well with some clients by providing them with insight and understanding into their issues. And this can help the client take back control or cut the ties from harmful past lives’ memories. An example of its application includes the treatment of phantom pain in which the client was convinced was a trauma in a previous life. When the client was regressed to a past life, it is found that they sustained an injury to that limb that was left untreated. The therapy involves “treating” the past life injury so that the current life pain can be released.
Types of Hypnotherapy: Hypno-Psychotherapy
This is a merged type of hypnotherapy where both the contents of hypnotherapy and psychotherapy work together to solve problems. Psychotherapy is, in essence, an analytic approach that tries to trace back psychological problems to a cause. It has views on emotions and psychological impulses that can be given rise either from a traumatic event, childhood attitudes, or some bad parental conditioning. So, with the addition of hypnotherapy, hypnosis and relaxation techniques are used to further the process of psychotherapy in the sessions.For example, a cause can be attributed to your very first trauma with airplanes which became the root cause for your flying phobia. You may not be aware of it or simply forgot it, but the hypnotherapist will work with you to uncover these causes and tensions that are behind any complication or disorder. Most types of hypnotherapy try to work within the client’s psychological perspective, but this type leans more toward allowing understanding to take place in the client’s way of thinking.
Types of Hypnotherapy: Clinical Hypnotherapy
Clinical hypnotherapy is normally the implementation of hypnotherapy techniques in a clinical environment such as a hospital of GP practice. It gives the impression of being a more “effective” treatment than other types of hypnotherapy, but may include very a similar application of techniques.Not all clinical hypnotherapists are really “clinical” ones unless they are medically qualified. “Clinical hypnotherapy” became popular as a hypnotherapy qualification during the late eighties and nineties to distinguish it from stage hypnosis, when the boundaries of hypnosis as a “therapy” and artistic stage show were blurred. Thus the term “clinical” emphasised that the hypnosis was therapeutic.Clinical hypnotherapy can be concerned with treating medical conditions such as stress-related skin issues, chronic pain, IBS, psycho-sexual disorders and psycho-somatic conditions, but is not limited to treating only these conditions. So, while many types of hypnotherapy exist, this type of hypnotherapy can focus on treating those conditions in which traditional medicine approaches has been unable to treat.
Types of Hypnotherapy: Regression Hypnotherapy
The basic premise for this style of hypnotherapy is dissipating a problem issue by regressing back to its initial formation. In the example of treating a phobia, regression is executed by taking the client’s mind to past incidents related to the phobia. The hypnotherapist uses a combination of hypnotic techniques to access negative (or positive) memories related to the client’s goal. By safely re-experiencing the event, the client will understand the self-limiting beliefs and emotions surrounding the event that triggered the phobia. They can then start to reinterpret these beliefs and emotions using the adult mind.Not all use of regression is helpful or reliable when accessing certain traumatic events, especially if the hypnotherapist has a biased view of the client’s history. For regression hypnotherapy to deal with your past events, it is important to seek a hypnotherapist who is well-versed in using regression hypnotherapy techniques.
Types of hypnotherapy: Other Therapies & Techniques
Hypnotherapy possesses many techniques to help you achieve your goalHypnotherapy is a vast domain. It is definitely not limited to the various types of hypnotherapy already mentioned here. Generally, the types of hypnotherapy already discussed are more dominant in hypnotherapy sessions given their suitability to client’s problems and needs. But, it is common for hypnotherapists to use other types of therapy, with or without certification.One such type of therapy is Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). NLP is a system of communication skills for psycho-therapeutic ends. NLP certified therapists may also take courses in hypnotherapy because they both use mind reprogramming techniques. Their combined knowledge allows them to use these skills that may take longer to treat using traditional counselling methods.But, it doesn’t end here. Certain hypnotherapists also pursue counselling qualifications and offer both hypnotherapy and counselling. The counselling techniques can be effective in creating rapport and directing the use of suggestions when using hypnosis. Unless the client has specified their treatment style, does it really matter how they get there as long as they ultimately still achieve their goal?Other therapies such as Time-Line Therapy draw from NLP and are concerned with the treatment of negative emotions and anxiety disorders. It assumes that the unconscious mind is a linear timeline of events. Relaxation techniques including hypnosis are used to help the client to release painful emotions connected to traumatic events. It can be very effective in reducing negative emotions such as depression and post traumatic stress disorder.Some hypnotherapy techniques have classifications that aim to distinguish themselves from other types of hypnotherapy. Integration hypnotherapy (also known as Parts Therapy) for example, considers your personality to be composed of various parts. These parts have been formed from good and bad past experiences and now serve specific functions of the inner mind. These parts want what is best for you but can be in conflict when you desire or have to cope with change.Parts therapy aims to resolve these inner conflicts and desires by allowing the parts of your personality to communicate more freely. Parts therapy can be usefully applied when a client says that “part of me wants to do this, but the other part of me wants to do that!” It can deal with many conditions where anxiety is the restraining emotion and the desire for confidence is the inspiring emotion. It can be used to treat unwanted habits like smoking and weight issues where momentary urges inhibit the achievement of long terms goals.Integration hypnotherapy approaches can be varied, drawing from other modes of therapy including Ego State Therapy and Gestalt Therapy. How you use these modes of therapy will depend on the situation, the client and experience of the hypnotherapist.Hypnotherapy has no shortage of new techniques that claim to be more effective than older ones. Some techniques complement a new scientific trend. One such example is Gastric Band Hypnotherapy, which followed the development of gastric band surgery for obesity. With Gastric Band Hypnotherapy it claims that you can lose weight by visualising that you have had the same (Gastric Band) surgical procedure, but without any medical risks involving surgery!There is a vast domain of specifictechniques used in hypnosis and hypnotherapy. Hypnotherapy schools teach different ways to hypnotise clients e.g. using “a handshake” method, not just by using voice induction. Then there is an abundance of visualisation techniques that can be used to induce a depth of relaxation or “trance” and rapidly treat certain conditions. Commonly taught visualisations include ‘’The Arrow’’, ‘’The Swan’’, and ‘’The Kinetic Shift’’.
Types of Hypnotherapy: Summary
This article has listed the various types of hypnotherapy. With experience and skill, the hypnotherapist can adapt the specific treatment approach or technique to the individual situation with some excellent outcomes. Hypnotherapy is only limited by the imagination of the hypnotherapist and their skilled ability to apply creative visualisations when it is deemed to be helpful in the session.
For further information on the various types of hypnotherapy and how hypnotherapy can help you, contact Richard J D’Souza Hypnotherapy Cardiff.
Finding the services of the best hypnotherapist can be difficult if you have never experienced hypnotherapy before. And even if you have experienced it before and the outcome was negative, then there could be several explanations for this. Definitions of hypnosis and its use as a therapy are open to interpretation. And it goes without saying that every practising hypnotherapist is different to one another! What filters into yourtreatment will be a mix of the hypnotherapist’s life experiences, their hypnotherapy training, problem-solving ability, treatment experience, personal qualities etc. These are just some of the dynamics that live on the hypnotherapist’s side. Then consider what you bring into the treatment – your treatment issue and the specific background that individualises your problem. And not to mention the collaboration of all of these processes! Phew! When you take these various factors into account, it’s no wonder that it can be challenging weeding out the best hypnotherapist from a bad one.When you want to find the best hypnotherapist, it can pay to do a bit of research.Finding the best hypnotherapist is not rocket science, but it shouldn’t be done hastily either. Failing to vet your hypnotherapist could mean that you end up wasting your time and money. If you want your condition to be successfully treated using hypnotherapy, but have no idea how to choose the best hypnotherapist then read on...
The best hypnotherapist has hypnotherapy credentials
First ensure that your hypnotherapist is a member of a recognised hypnotherapy association. With a registered hypnotherapist, if you are unhappy with any part of your therapy, you can contact the association who will investigate your complaint.Some of the bigger associations include the General Hypnotherapy Register and Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council. The CNHC register is approved as an accredited register by the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care. This professional body is accountable to Parliament for maintaining standards of patient safety and service quality. Patients who ask medical staff to recommend a hypnotherapist have been advised by the Professional Standards Authority to recommend those hypnotherapists registered with the CNHC – how’s that for a seal of approval?As a registered member of an association, your hypnotherapist will hold a recognised hypnotherapy qualification, professional indemnity insurance and will follow a strict code of ethics which will include maintaining Continued Professional Development. With the latter, it means that your hypnotherapist is actively developing their knowledge of hypnotherapy in practice and is probably passionate about their subject.
The best hypnotherapist has experience
An experienced hypnotherapist is more likely to have developed their knowledge, skills and expertise with “real” clients. In this experience, strategies are employed and techniques are refined with efficiency and effectiveness. With knowledge and practise comes confidence to appreciate what to do – and what not to do when treating different clients with different conditions. With experience, you can acknowledge how to manage the subtleties in each individual case.How much experience is enough to develop confidence? In my opinion, a hypnotherapist who has worked five to ten years is developing their craft. That’s not to say that a novice cannot help a client, but they may still be in the experimental phase of their career where they “try this and see what happens...” The novice hypnotherapist feels less confident about adapting their treatment if your mind is not fully accepting their suggestions.The quality of the experience is far more important than just the quantity of treatments given by your hypnotherapist however. The quality can be defined by dealing with a variety of medical conditions and having an understanding of their background causes. But the quality of that experience can also be affected by the hypnotherapist’s life experiences outside of hypnotherapy. Are you more convinced of a hypnotherapist’s treatment of your fear of public speaking if they have extensive experience of public speaking themselves? Do they have a medical or health-related background experience that helps them to understand what’s behind your presenting issue and not just understanding the presenting symptom?Some hypnotherapists advertise that they specialise in treating certain conditions, having attended CPD workshops, extensively researched the condition or had personal experiences with the condition. This may “qualify” them to treat your condition more than a “general” hypnotherapist, but in practice it may only be evident that they are more qualified when you begin your course of therapy. This is because a symptom may be connected to other core issues e.g. a client’s weight gain (symptom) may be related to their low self esteem (core issue). A specialist in weight loss may have very little experience of treating low self esteem, whereas a general hypnotherapist with a wider knowledge base may be able to treat both issues effectively during the course of your treatment.On the subject of experience, another important feature is that...
The best hypnotherapist has broken away from generalised scripts
The best hypnotherapist will personalise your hypnotherapy script.As a member of the public, are you aware that one of the novice hypnotherapist’s basic tools is a pre-written generalised script? Yes, an “expert” hypnotherapist has used their experience to write a script called (for example) “panic attacks” and you can access these on YouTube and various phone apps to help you deal with your panic attacks. They may have been supplied on the hypnotherapy training course and can be found easily in hypnotherapy textbooks. The script features a mix of generalised and specific suggestions for treating “panic attacks”. Some of the generalised content will be ignored by you and some of the pertinent suggestions that connect with your issues will focus your mind into your issue and be more readily accepted. The novice hypnotherapist is likely to hypnotise you and then read the script verbatim as part of your treatment.There’s nothing wrong with this approach; it’s still considered “hypnotherapy”. But the experienced hypnotherapist is likely to have developed a repertoire of “panic attack” suggestions and is confident enough to apply what has been discussed in the consultation into your individualised treatment “script”. This gives your treatment relevance and usually more positive change than an approach that is generalised with the hope of making a connection with you.Please note that there is a multitude of dynamics in hypnotherapy that can influence a successful outcome in your treatment that includes using relevant personalised suggestions.Another issue that can affect a successful outcome is...
The best hypnotherapist has a broad skill set
Using relevant personalised suggestions to help you achieve your goal is the building blocks of a hypnotherapy treatment. But when your unconscious mind partially accepts or resists these suggestions, does your hypnotherapist have other hypnotic techniques to assist you or do they continue with a generalised “relaxatherapy” session hoping that it does the trick? The best hypnotherapist can creatively employ a variety of techniques including regression, hypno-analysis, and the use of stories and metaphors to release blocks. They can work with your mind when progress is slowing down.With experience, the effective use of these techniques can be adapted into your treatment quickly and confidently. The combination of a broad skill set and experience ensures your hypnotherapist can choose options to adapt your treatment program when issues develop in the moment. The unskilled novice is more likely to adopt a “one treatment fits all” approach.Another issue that can influence a successful outcome is when...
The best hypnotherapist values the importance of building rapport
When you have a strong rapport with your hypnotherapist, you are more likely to accept their suggestions in the hypnotic induction and throughout your therapy. Building rapport is a two-way exchange of many dynamics that helps you feel that you “connect” with your hypnotherapist. When you have rapport with them, you trust them, you believe that they can help you, and you believe that they have the skills to treat your presenting condition.Rapport is built during many stages of the treatment. It can happen in the enquiry stage when seeing an informative article about your condition, or when speaking on the phone or during an initial consultation. During these situations, there are many opportunities to offer you insights that they understand your problem and can help you. It continues throughout the treatment and is displayed by good listening skills, the hypnotherapist’s voice (an important tool in hypnotherapy), and even their non-verbal gestures. What your hypnotherapist says resonates strongly with you and develops a deep conviction that they are passionate about their subject, they understand your problem and they will assist you to achieve your goal.Rapport is often helped by succinctly explaining what happens in your treatment and how you will benefit. It involves answering your questions and concerns about any aspect of the treatment in an open, honest and reassuring way. When there is rapport, it ensures that you feel confident and secure during all stages of your treatment.Without rapport, the treatment process collapses. This can happen for a number of reasons including a mismatch of expectations. If given the opportunity, the best hypnotherapist will attempt to close that gap, but will readily accept that when there is a weak rapport, it’s better to refer the client on to another source of help.Strongly connected to rapport is...
The best hypnotherapist has empathy
Showing an understanding of your presenting condition and the emotions that you bring into your treatment is just a small part of having empathy. An experienced hypnotherapist will demonstrate this understanding by asking appropriate questions but will also be prepared to listen to your individual responses, reassuring you of any concerns. The hypnotherapist’s listening skills may be part of their nature, part of their training or has been developed by dealing with real hypnotherapy clients. In whatever way that it has been acquired, you will very quickly feel this connection deepen when they have empathy (which is far more than just a feeling of sympathy). Your treatment will be explained in a way that helps you to understand what is going to happen and how you can benefit. When there is empathy, you feel ready to discuss your issues and trust that there will be no judgement from your hypnotherapist.
The best hypnotherapist is able to apply the right balance of hypnosis and therapy
The best hypnotherapist applies the right balance of hypnosis and therapy.An understanding of “hypnotherapy” requires an understanding of both “hypnosis” and “therapy” to be able to achieve an effective hypnotic treatment. Some hypnotherapists make better “hypnotists” and others make better “therapists”. The balance of these two concepts can influence the hypnotherapist’s approach to your treatment. This balance can usually be found in their advertising literature but becomes obvious very quickly in the hypnotherapy treatment stages. “Hypnotists” emphasise the power of hypnosis over you to create change, whereas “therapists” emphasise the power within you to help you change.Whether the style of approach comes from the hypnotherapist’s personality e.g. extrovert/introvert, their training, or their experience in practice, the ability to adapt the approach to the individual is important. It will influence the building of rapport (see above) particularly when it meets your expectation about hypnotherapy. Where they “sit” on the continuum of hypnosis and therapy, and where you feel comfortable with their position will influence a successful therapeutic outcome.
The best hypnotherapist is not (exclusively) a stage hypnotist offering hypnotherapy
A stage hypnotist’s art is entertainment and some of it can be very entertaining. But does a stage hypnotist’s skill transfer into therapy? A stage hypnotist who dabbles in hypnotherapy may not have undergone any “therapy” training or supervision. That’s not to say that they can’t help people lose weight and quit smoking, for example, by using suggestions targeting those respective conditions. It’s when those conditions are connected to deeper emotional issues like depression or low self esteem where the symptomatic “quick-fix” has limited affect and can expose an underlying emotional issue that needs continued support. As mentioned in the previous point regarding the “balance of hypnosis and therapy”, if you really want an exclusive stage hypnotist to “use their hypnotic powers” to treat you, then you can make an informed choice when their hypnotic modality is openly advertised.Most respectable hypnotists and hypnotherapists will advertise their profession, the conditions they treat, their location and their professional association membership. The latter can be verified by spending a bit of time researching the stated hypnotherapy association online.Some hypnotherapy associations will not permit membership for those who perform stage hypnosis, whilst others are open to membership provided that the hypnotist/hypnotherapist has a relevant hypnotherapy qualification.
The best hypnotherapist does not make exaggerated claims about hypnotherapy
Wouldn’t life be easy if...when you have an emotional or behavioural problem, you consult with a hypnotherapist, they “put you under” and the problem is fixed! This is the view often portrayed in the popular media with anecdotes of miraculous changes that happened in one session.Hypnotherapy is generally considered a short-term therapy (in relation to other talking therapies) and can often produce rapid results when a number of therapeutic conditions are in place. The problem comes when a hypnotherapist advertises a “quick-fix” guarantee without any prior knowledge of your presenting problem and historical background.When you are desperate, it can seem tempting to sign them up for a quick fix, but therapeutic change usually takes a few sessions of hypnotherapy, and here’s why: Advertising that a condition like smoking cessation will “be treated in one session” for example assumes that the hypnotic approach has been scientifically tested and controls were in place when it was researched. But very few hypnotherapy treatment strategies have been tested in this way. It is difficult to reliably test hypnotherapy because it involves so many variables (as mentioned in the introduction). Thus you are unlikely to create a guarantee that everyone will get the same outcome regardless of what the client brings to the treatment process.As an additional point, when you are desperate to have a condition treated, it’s easy to misread an advert that states: your condition “can be...” treated in so many sessions. You are likely to interpret it as it “will be…” treated in the stated number of sessions, only to be disappointed when your treatment takes longer than you originally thought.
Choosing the best hypnotherapist – other considerations
Cheaper might seem better, but are you getting the best treatment?This section is less about what makes the best hypnotherapist and more about the other issues that might limit your choice when making an appointment with the best hypnotherapist.Treatment costs – Prior to booking, ensure that you are fully aware of the cost, the length of each session, and methods of payment. Cheaper fees may seem attractive at first but could end up being money down the drain with a hypnotherapist who lacks the experience to deal with your presenting condition. Likewise, you don’t want to book with a hypnotherapist who charges extortionate fees without there being a good justification. In my opinion, a fee that is say, five times the average fee would almost need to offer a guarantee to justify the cost.Paying upfront for a course of hypnotherapy – Be wary of paying upfront for a course of hypnotherapy sessions to save money before you have even met the hypnotherapist. It’s wise to try one or two sessions first and then review how your treatment is progressing without a huge initial financial commitment. Since each course of hypnotherapy can vary between one client and another, paying upfront for a course can be called into question. What are the terms if you achieve your goal early or wish to terminate your treatment early? Is there an option of a pro rata refund (which would seem fair)?Type of practice – Consider if you would prefer to have your treatment in an established practice or the hypnotherapist’s home. Clients usually feel more secure in a practice and often feel that the whole treatment process is more professional. The location of the practice is something that is usually identified early in your research. Google tends to favour proximity when you search online. It’s obviously convenient having a practice close to you, but some treatments are worth the journey when it gets results.Cancellation policy – Ensure that you understand the terms of any cancellation policy. A hypnotherapist who rents from a professional practice is more likely to have stricter cancellation terms. This is not surprising when the hypnotherapist will have paid a rental fee to accommodate your session and will lose that fee if you do not attend.Availability – Check that the hypnotherapist can be available at the times and days to suit you. Their general availability to maintain continuity between each session is also important. Hypnotherapists who practise part time or who have various other non-clinical commitments may not be able to maintain a treatment schedule to help you.Your past hypnotherapy experiences – When you have had a bad experience of anything, it’s easy to over-generalise the experience and extend that feeling of failure to all. With a previous negative outcome with hypnotherapy some might say “I had hypnotherapy once and it didn’t work, so I’ve done hypnotherapy now!” There are good and bad hypnotherapists, just as there are good and bad medical practitioners. The results that you get will only be as good as the individual hypnotherapist treating you. Some clients are also ready to admit that with a previous attempt to change a habit like smoking for example, they were not ready or motivated to quit smoking when they tried to stop smoking with hypnotherapy maybe ten years earlier.The value of personal recommendation – A personal recommendation from someone you know can build trust and belief into your own treatment process with the recommended hypnotherapist. Even with a personal recommendation however, it’s still advisable to go into the treatment with an open mind and respect that everyone’s background and presenting condition is different.Keeping an open mind is particularly significant when the person recommending you made rapid progress in their treatment. This might influence you to expect the same rapid outcome for yourself. If you don’t get the same results, it’s not uncommon to think that you have personally failed the treatment in some way. This is not the case however; no two situations are identical in hypnotherapy.And finally...Trusting your gut feeling usually works – Trusting your gut feeling is often considered a good basis from which to make a decision. When choosing the best hypnotherapists too, it’s a good format to use. Take note of some of the points in this article and do a reasonable amount of research to find the best hypnotherapist for you.
For further information on how hypnotherapy can help you, contact Richard J D’Souza Hypnotherapy Cardiff.
A question that I am often asked is whether there is funding available for your hypnotherapy treatment through the NHS. Even though some hypnotherapists are registered NHS providers, currently hypnotherapy is not usually available through the NHS.
If you were to ask your general practitioner to recommend a hypnotherapist, they may suggest using a hypnotherapist approved by the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care, a body accountable to Parliament to regulate standards of professional practice. Hypnotherapists who are registered with the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council are recognised by the Professional Standards Authority as meeting the UK standards of patient safety and service quality. So you will get a recommendation from your general practitioner but funding your hypnotherapy treatment will still need to be paid by you.
If you are seeking general therapy in Cardiff (but not hypnotherapy) from your general practitioner, they are likely to place you on a waiting list. You may be seen by the Primary Mental Health Support Service, administrated by the Cardiff and Vale Action for Mental Health. If you are under 18 years of age, you will be placed on a waiting list and be referred to the CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service). In some cases you may be able to refer yourself to the above – chat to your GP for further advice.
Funding for your hypnotherapy treatment using Private Health Cash Plans
You can get funding for your hypnotherapy treatment using Private Health Cash Plans
There are a growing number of health insurance companies offering private health cash plans that will reimburse part or all of the costs of hypnotherapy treatments not funded by the NHS, or by private health insurance policies. These private health cash plans can be funded by your employer or purchased individually by you for yourself and members of your family. Each company offering private health cash plans will have varying levels of coverage for which they will reimburse your costs over an annual period.
The following Private Health Cash Plan providers recognise hypnotherapists registered with the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council, of which I am a registered member (please click the link in the website footer).
(Disclaimer – the following listed health cash plan provider companies are correct at the time of writing this article, summarised from the CNHC, last updated July 2019. These companies may change their policies without notice to the public or to the CNHC. Please contact the individual company to verify that the condition in which you are claiming reimbursement is accepted prior to starting your hypnotherapy treatment. No refunds for your hypnotherapy treatment will be given where there are any disputes about reimbursement between you and your health cash plan provider company).
Medicash – provide health cash plans for individuals and businesses, covering 50% of your treatment costs up to a set limit per year, depending on the health cash plan.
The Health Insurance Group – a broker that will find the best health cash plan for you or your business.
Pure Benefits – provide corporate health cash plans through Medicash (https://www.purebenefits.co.uk/product/health-cash-plan/ - Password needed to enter site).
Westfield Health – provide reimbursement for a limited number of corporate health cash plans.
Health Shield – provide reimbursement on specified corporate paid plans.
Elect – working with Health Shield, Elect provide reimbursement for hypnotherapy on their health cash plans.
Paycare – provide reimbursement for hypnotherapy on all of their health cash plans, up to an annual limit of £150 depending on the level of coverage.
Other health cash plan companies – there are other companies that list hypnotherapy as a treatment available for reimbursement on their health cash plans e.g. SMP Healthcare. Other companies may not list hypnotherapy as a therapy available for reimbursement, but may consider it on a case by case basis when an application is made. To be eligible for reimbursement for hypnotherapy, your condition must usually be at an acute stage and referred by your GP or company medical representative.
Funding for your hypnotherapy treatment: what conditions can be treated?
Check with your private health cash plan company if they will accept hypnotherapy to treat your condition
As mentioned above, a referral from your GP or company medical representative will usually ensure that your hypnotherapy treatment is considered medically necessary and eligible for reimbursement. A diagnosis would usually indicate that you are suffering from stress, anxiety or depression in some way and it is affecting your personal quality of life and/or ability to work.
Some of the conditions that I have previously treated include anxiety, stress, depression, insomnia, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety following an accident, panic attacks, smoking cessation, anger management, relationship issues and substance abuse (addictions). But other conditions may be accepted depending on the strong case that you make for your treatment with your GP and health cash plan company.
Your GP’s approval will be easier if they know that your hypnotherapist is a member of the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council.
Funding for your hypnotherapy treatment: procedure
Make your application and receive your formal notification that part or all of your hypnotherapy treatment can be reimbursed through your health cash plan. Then contact me using the Contact Form stating that part or all of your treatment is eligible for reimbursement.
A formal receipt including any of your reference numbers can be given at the end of each consultation or at the end of your hypnotherapy course of treatment. Please specify if you would like a paper copy or email copy of your receipt.
You would send each receipt to your health cash plan company and they would reimburse the cost up to a certain amount within an annual period. Processing time of each receipt can vary between each health cash plan company.
For more information about funding for your hypnotherapy treatment using private health cash plans contact Richard J D’Souza Hypnotherapy Cardiff.
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