Holistic Hypnotherapy
‘The mind is like an iceberg: one-tenth is seen, nine-tenths is unseen and submerged’
(Sigmund Freud)
Why we do what we do is not always accessible to our conscious mind. To gain access to this deeper realm of our mind workings, I often use hypnosis with therapy (hypnotherapy). This requires deep trust and the full consent of those I work with. Hypnotherapy for therapeutic purposes is about guiding the client into a trance state, where they are fully aware and control of what is going on, but are abler (and less) inhibited to work with issues that arise at a deeper sub-conscious level.
As a holistic hypnotherapist I use a number of further tools: mindfulness, Internal Family Systems, and Emotional Freedom therapy (as an alternative to hypno-therapy)
Mindfulness
‘Paying attention to ourselves without criticism’
(Williams and Penman)
One of the most important skills we can learn is to lovingly observe what is going within without criticism. My style of hypnotherapy is to encourage you to become a loving witness to your own mind: to recognise, accept, and look deeply into your own suffering in order to transform it from the inside-out. I use hypnotherapy to strengthen your witnessing part, what may be called your mindful or true Self. My Buddhist leanings deeply influence how I see therapy and understand suffering. Suffering is not all there is. If we look deeply, the ‘mud’ of our suffering always inter-exists with the ‘lotus’ of insight and well-being.
Hypnotherapy, as an aid to developing mindfulness within the client, is a central pillar to the style of therapy that I offer. The focus being more on the solution, than the problem.
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
‘He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.’
(Marcus Aurelius)
I understand a person’s mind to be a multiplicity of sub-personalities or ‘parts.’ My main aim is for you to step into your true power, where your mindful or true Self is present and has insight in how to be free and happy. The difficulty is that we are often unaware of our different parts and the roles they play in feeling trapped and unhappy. My job is to enable and empower an understanding of our own internal family system and encourage a re-aligning to harmony, where parts are more integrated in working towards the client’s true purpose. Here I am particularly indebted to Integrative Psychotherapy (Erskine), and Internal Family Systems Therapy (Schwartz).
Most problem behaviours are a cry for help and stem from exiled or disowned part whose unskilful behaviour is an unsuccessful attempt to find purpose and happiness. The exiled part is unskilful rather than ‘bad’, and needs help in finding new skills to align itself to the core self and purpose. IFS is really about understanding what parts are trying to tell us, and how unskilful parts maybe recognised and voluntarily find new strategies to align with the core self and its purpose.
Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)
‘The body holds the score’
(Bessel van der Kolk)
‘The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world’ (Marianne Williamson )
EFT is a bridge between talk and body therapy. It is like having a counselling session whist tapping on acupressure points with a client. One way of changing thoughts, core beliefs and hidden feelings that have power over us and our behaviour is to clear the emotional charge and motivating force behind them.
I understand that consciousness interpenetrates body as well mind, and that trauma, pain and dis-ease is often held in the body which cannot be accessed by talking therapy alone. I use EFT to complement hypnotherapy, especially when I get the sense that the client’s trauma is nameless and impossible to access directly in words.
For my fees and arrangements, please see here.