HOW HYPNOTHERAPY WORKS
Although clients experience various issues, the actual process of hypnotherapy works the same way for all areas.
I will give you a breakdown of the stages I commonly go through during a hypnotherapy session, based on the example of a client’s fear of public speaking.
Below are the six steps involved:
#1 THE PRE TALK
I start by finding out what emotions you have around public speaking. When we discuss the emotion and how it shows up, I also need to know where you feel it in your body.
When we have an emotion, we have a physiological response.
For example, you may feel anxiety and worry before giving a public speech, and you feel it in your chest. You feel a tightness in your chest.
#1 THE PRE TALK
I start by finding out what emotions you have around public speaking. When we discuss the emotion and how it shows up, I also need to know where you feel it in your body.
When we have an emotion, we have a physiological response.
For example, you may feel anxiety and worry before giving a public speech, and you feel it in your chest. You feel a tightness in your chest.
#2 GETTING INTO HYPNOSIS
Then I would get you into hypnosis, which is like a guided meditation. So we're relaxing different parts of the body. And when we relax different body parts and get into a relaxed state, we get access to our subconscious mind. And that subconscious has your beliefs, habits, memories, etc.
#2 GETTING INTO HYPNOSIS
Then I would get you into hypnosis, which is like a guided meditation. So we're relaxing different parts of the body. And when we relax different body parts and get into a relaxed state, we get access to our subconscious mind. And that subconscious has your beliefs, habits, memories, etc.
#3 ACCESSING MEMORIES
When you’re in that relaxed state, I would ask you when else you have felt that anxiety, that feeling in your chest, that tightness in your chest. We want to connect that feeling back to other memories where you have felt the same.
The first memory you come up with may be an incident where you are, for example, 19 years of age, you are at University, and you’re giving a presentation to the class and your teacher. You have the same feeling.
Next up, it may be a memory from school. You were 13 years of age, and again it’s a memory of giving a presentation to the class and your teacher.
#3 ACCESSING MEMORIES
When you’re in that relaxed state, I would ask you when else you have felt that anxiety, that feeling in your chest, that tightness in your chest. We want to connect that feeling back to other memories where you have felt the same.
The first memory you come up with may be an incident where you are, for example, 19 years of age, you are at University, and you’re giving a presentation to the class and your teacher. You have the same feeling.
Next up, it may be a memory from school. You were 13 years of age, and again it’s a memory of giving a presentation to the class and your teacher.
#4 EARLY CHILDHOOD MEMORIES
At this stage, we're looking to go back to memories generally under the age of 10. And more specifically, between the ages of 4 and 8. The reason is that your conscious mind is not fully developed at that age.
As there’s no filter, everything goes straight into your subconscious mind. Everything seems a lot worse than it is; that’s why you’ll find a lot of emotion surrounding a particular memory.
And if there’s emotion surrounding particular memories, you will still be triggered by those emotions when similar things come in adult life.
#4 EARLY CHILDHOOD MEMORIES
At this stage, we're looking to go back to memories generally under the age of 10. And more specifically, between the ages of 4 and 8. The reason is that your conscious mind is not fully developed at that age.
As there’s no filter, everything goes straight into your subconscious mind. Everything seems a lot worse than it is; that’s why you’ll find a lot of emotion surrounding a particular memory.
And if there’s emotion surrounding particular memories, you will still be triggered by those emotions when similar things come in adult life.
#5 WORKING THROUGH MEMORIES
So we'll get back to a memory; for example, when you are 6 years of age, you're in a classroom. The teacher is having a bad day and is in a bad mood. The whole class is supposed to be silent.
You speak. The teacher then gets you up in front of the class and asks you some difficult questions, really, to make an example out of you to teach the other pupils a lesson.
You get the questions wrong. And then the whole class laughs at you for getting the questions wrong. So from that day onwards, you see getting up in front of people and also speaking in front of others as something to fear. It’s something dangerous.
So what we are looking to do (which is the critical part) is to reframe the memories. We are looking to release the emotions surrounding the memories.
I’ll then ask you what it feels like when you think of being in this situation as a 6-year-old in front of the class getting the questions wrong. You would then say something like, “I feel the tightness in my chest. I can feel the anxiety.”
I then want you to start picturing this incident from the outside, through your adult eyes. I’d ask, “What does it look like to your adult self?” So you may say it looks like a 6-year-old doing something they shouldn’t have done and being dealt with very harshly.
So I’d ask you to go back in the memory to that 6-year-old self, and we would use inner child work to calm 6-year-old you down.
Then continue reframing the memory as something that happened in childhood. “It’s just a story. It was a 6-year-old who was laughed at by other kids. All kids get laughed at by other kids at school. It happens all the time. We also would say, the teachers having a particularly bad day. They're in a bad mood. See that stressed 50-year-old. It would be embarrassing for that teacher. It would be embarrassing for other teachers to see them act that way.
It’s just one of those things, and it doesn’t need to cause a response like it has previously.” We would work through the memory until we release the emotion.
#5 WORKING THROUGH MEMORIES
So we'll get back to a memory; for example, when you are 6 years of age, you're in a classroom. The teacher is having a bad day and is in a bad mood. The whole class is supposed to be silent.
You speak. The teacher then gets you up in front of the class and asks you some difficult questions, really, to make an example out of you to teach the other pupils a lesson.
You get the questions wrong. And then the whole class laughs at you for getting the questions wrong. So from that day onwards, you see getting up in front of people and also speaking in front of others as something to fear. It’s something dangerous.
So what we are looking to do (which is the critical part) is to reframe the memories. We are looking to release the emotions surrounding the memories.
I’ll then ask you what it feels like when you think of being in this situation as a 6-year-old in front of the class getting the questions wrong. You would then say something like, “I feel the tightness in my chest. I can feel the anxiety.”
I then want you to start picturing this incident from the outside, through your adult eyes. I’d ask, “What does it look like to your adult self?” So you may say it looks like a 6-year-old doing something they shouldn’t have done and being dealt with very harshly.
So I’d ask you to go back in the memory to that 6-year-old self, and we would use inner child work to calm 6-year-old you down.
Then continue reframing the memory as something that happened in childhood. “It’s just a story. It was a 6-year-old who was laughed at by other kids. All kids get laughed at by other kids at school. It happens all the time. We also would say, the teachers having a particularly bad day. They're in a bad mood. See that stressed 50-year-old. It would be embarrassing for that teacher. It would be embarrassing for other teachers to see them act that way.
It’s just one of those things, and it doesn’t need to cause a response like it has previously.” We would work through the memory until we release the emotion.
SUMMARY OF HOW IT WORKS
By reframing the memories this way, we remove some of the emotion from it. And by being removed, that emotion is not triggered in the same way as we move forward.
We are also removing the root cause or changing the root cause so that there's no longer the same alarm-type response. Once we stop the alarm response, you can do what you're logically supposed to do rather than just trying to keep yourself safe.
Memories are extremely malleable, so that we can reframe the memory, and then you only get the latest version. So if we make changes or reframe a memory, release the emotion, we're only going to get the latest version so that the six-year-old interpretation of the incident is no longer a memory. The memory now is the adults.
As you can see from the above breakdown, this technique has very powerful benefits as it removes the initial root cause by educating and reprogramming your subconscious to see a new version of what is safe and what your potential is.
SUMMARY OF HOW IT WORKS
By reframing the memories this way, we remove some of the emotion from it. And by being removed, that emotion is not triggered in the same way as we move forward.
We are also removing the root cause or changing the root cause so that there's no longer the same alarm-type response. Once we stop the alarm response, you can do what you're logically supposed to do rather than just trying to keep yourself safe.
Memories are extremely malleable, so that we can reframe the memory, and then you only get the latest version. So if we make changes or reframe a memory, release the emotion, we're only going to get the latest version so that the six-year-old interpretation of the incident is no longer a memory. The memory now is the adults.
As you can see from the above breakdown, this technique has very powerful benefits as it removes the initial root cause by educating and reprogramming your subconscious to see a new version of what is safe and what your potential is.