So what can Hypnotherapy help with?
Benefits
Because hypnotherapy works by reducing the stress response, it can help alleviate the symptoms of:
Pain
Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Anxiety/Depression
Phobias, such as spiders or flying
Anger
Insomnia
Work, relationship, or life related stress
Smoking cessation
And because it is in the family of non-sleep deep rest, it may:
Stimulate neuroplasticity
Improve productivity
Limitations
Hypnosis is safe for most people, just like mindfulness and mediation is.
However, it is NOT suitable for everyone.
For example, hypnosis is not recommend for people who experience extreme forms of mental distress, like:
psychosis, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder
What is Solution-Focused Hypnotherapy?
I’ll define it in three parts:
“Solution-Focused” refers to the idea that we are not focused on the problem, like childhood experiences, parents, or conflicting emotions, but on the solution.
“Hypno” refers to hypnosis, which is a method for inducing relaxation in the body and brain.
“Therapy” refers to psychotherapy, which is a fancy work for talking therapy, such as cognitive behavioural therapy.
A typical hypnotherapy sessions looks like:
As in all most psychotherapies, the client sits in a chair, and has a discussion with the therapist about the goals of the therapy. Less anxiety or better sleep, for example.
Then, hypnosis takes place. Here, the client remains in the chair, closes their eyes, and relaxes. The therapist reads a specific script designed to induce calm, relaxation, and hypnosis, which is a particular brain and body state. With the help of the practitioner speaking and some relaxing music, the client listens to the sounds around them, and slowly drifts off into a relaxed state.
There is no magic here. Instead, the purpose of hypnosis is to bring about a particular brain and body state, relaxation, on purpose. This works in combination with the talk-therapy component to facilitate therapeutic goals.