Releasement

Hypnotherapy

A few coincidences helped me to find the path to hypnotherapy. In the first place, I was told of a course, and immediately decided to take it, despite having no knowledge of the subject. My then husband, while not against it, laughed at the idea and in a fit of pique, I decided I would pay for it all myself - a great idea, but I had no job, and all our money was joint. Just then, a friend asked me to help her in her business for a couple of weeks, and that was the amount for the deposit sorted. It turned out that her assistant never did come back from holiday, so that was the course paid for and off I went. I was lucky enough to be taught by Sue Washington, unaware at that time that she was a leading figure in the hypnotherapy field. I had not thought about synchronicities much before then, but they were to play an important part in my personal and professional development.

Hypnotherapy nowadays is an eclectic collection of techniques for self-improvement and development. Most of us have heard of the relaxations and post-hypnotic suggestions for stopping smoking or losing weight, for example. In hypnosis, we are in an altered, heightened state of awareness where we are able to contact the subconscious without the critical factor inhibiting progress. That is not to say that we are putty in the hands of a hypnotist, because we bring our own values and ethics to the session. Neuro Linguistic Programming uses hypnosis to promote better inner communication through vivid imaging and improved self-talk, thus enhancing our abilities. Even cognitive therapies, which address the brain processes and behaviour, use hypnosis as a tool to embed change more effectively. It is all psychotherapy in some form with an added dimension of using altered states as an aid to change. Regression therapy, where we review our past in the light of the knowledge we have now, explores the deeper roots of baneful habits and behaviours. Sometimes imprinting a new habit is not enough; it is thrown off by the subconscious because the scars of past events are not yet healed enough. We have developed strategies for coping based on these wounds which are no longer appropriate to the present, but time in the unconscious is a continuum where past, present and future are undifferentiated. Triggers for reactions, once laid down, set off responses we would love to change, if only we knew how.

While past life therapy is perhaps the more glamorous sister of regression therapy for this life, they are very similar in technique and aims. The essence of regression hypnotherapy is perspective.  Viewed from up close, life is difficult to manage and understand at times. But when we step back in time, we can become aware how we trap ourselves in behaviours that do us no service. By going back in this life (and that is usually enough for us to cope with when we are embarking on psychotherapy), the adult that we are now and the child we were then can talk with each other: the adult gives the child the grown up understanding of an incomprehensible (to the child) situation, and the child helps the adult to have a fuller awareness of just how it felt to be treated as he was. An apparently mild example of the child being shouted at by a teacher, say, is edited by the adult as a non-event, but for the child it was an utter humiliation in front of the class. The adult then begins to understand how his fear of public speaking arose, and the child learns it was not his fault the teacher was having a difficult day – or indeed a difficult life. With this fuller picture the head and heart can come together to release deep-seated patterns. If the head alone could do it, we would all have been sorted a long time ago. Without the emotional content, which acts as a fixer, we continue to repeat patterns which seem to disappear on good days but which have an awful habit of resurfacing when we are feeling less than robust. Thankfully, we do not have to revisit every time we were shouted at to break the habits of our reactions.