Hypnotherapy: Helping You to Help Yourself
What Is Hypnotherapy?
Hypnotherapy is an often misunderstood branch of psychology, evoking visions of flamboyant hypnotists waving gold watches and asking people to look into their eyes. This image tarnished the field for almost the entire 20th Century, and it is only recently that psychologists have begun to study the potential of hypnosis as a way of unlocking the power of the subconscious.
Hypnotherapy is a potent way to reprogram the subconscious mind, replacing negative emotions with positive, and helping you to tackle fears, addictions, and mental issues. From giving up smoking to overcoming anxiety, Hypnotherapy can help you to wrestle back your life, using the power of your own mind to create lasting change.
Hypnosis has a very long history, with many ancient societies using altered states and trances as a way to heal the psyche. It was in 1840 that the Scottish hypnotherapist, James Braid, coined the term and began to explore the possibilities of this alternative therapy. The phrase ‘Hypno’ derives from the Greek word for sleep, although we now know that the state of hypnosis is subtly different.
20th Century psychologists largely concentrated upon the conscious mind, the part of our awareness that controls reasoning and logic, criticizing and analyzing every aspect of life and giving us control of our actions. However, the conscious mind is only the apparent, surface aspect of our personality and, in recent years, we started to plumb the depths of the subconscious. This aspect makes up 80 – 90% of our mind, yet we are rarely aware of its powerful influence.
Negativity stems from an instinctive mechanism for survival, as our conscious mind filters out positive thoughts and counters impulsiveness. Negativity stops us from doing stupid things, using fear and anxiety to ensure that we avoid dangerous situations. These emotions filter into the subconscious, where they create instinctive responses to situations. However, the subconscious often overreacts, creating negative emotions and phobias, or fuelling addictions.
Hypnotherapy Glasgow: Use Your Imagination
Hypnotherapy targets the interface between the conscious and the subconscious mind, and a skilled hypnotherapy practitioner will help you change the information and emotions filtering between the two.
Using hypnosis, a hypnotherapist can help you to reach a semi-conscious state, called somnambulism, where you can overcome a range of psychological disorders and get rid of addictions, habits, and negative feelings. This holistic hypnotherapy approach also builds self-confidence and self-acceptance, helping patients to throw off the shackles of negativity and become much more proactive in determining their own course in life.
Alternative hypnotherapy will help you to change for the better, using your own inner strength and imagination to move forward rather than sink back. Instead of suppressing emotion, a skilled hypnotherapist turns fear and doubt into positives, channelling your energies in a new direction.
A hypnotherapist works directly with your subconscious mind, helping you to enter the relaxed state where they unleash your own imagination, using stories, symbols, mental images, and suggestions to help you overcome fear, negativity or dependence. They will isolate where your fear springs from and will help you to tackle it. The key to success is that you help yourself, and the practitioner merely guides you through this process, helping you to plot a way out.
For example, if you have a phobia, it is because you have a powerful imagination that creates the worst case scenarios. This is because your subconscious is desperately trying to protect you from harm but is overeager. Now, imagine this same, vivid imagination generating positive thoughts; this is the key to hypnotherapy, using your own mind, imagination, and determination to change.
What Can Hypnotherapy Do For Me?
Some of the things that a hypnotherapy centre can help you with are:
- Smoking
- Eating Disorders and Weight Loss
- Phobias
- Procrastination and Feeling Stuck in a Rut.
- Anxiety, Fears and Stress
- Low Motivation
- Low Self-Esteem and Confidence
- Repairing Relationships
- Anger, Jealousy and Negative Emotions
- Public Speaking and Interviews
- Recovering from Traumatic Incidents
Hypnotherapy Glasgow: Find the Best Hypnotherapist
As with any psychological therapy, you need to find a practitioner that is right for you, and you must feel relaxed and comfortable with your therapist. Ultimately, you have to have trust, because this will help you to remain positive and confident of change.
A good hypnotherapist uses many skills other than hypnosis, such as counselling, and a good hypnotherapist will be trained in other areas, such as nutrition, Ericksonian hypnotherapy, lifestyle coaching, sports psychology and neuro-linguistic programming, ultimately developing a holistic, individualised program.
Hypnotherapy can work very quickly and, with the right hypnotherapist, you will begin to see changes in relatively few sessions. Trust lies at the root of this change, and finding a course of hypnotherapy in Glasgow will help you to turn your life around quickly and easily, knowing that you are in safe hands.
Hypnotherapy Glasgow as a Force for Change
Hypnotherapy is a world away from the stage acts that serve only to entertain; a hypnotherapist cannot make you do something that goes again your core ethical beliefs or change your personality.
Instead, hypnosis is a powerful tool for helping you to overcome stress, anxiety, and negativity, changing your life for the better. With the right hypnotherapy Glasgow practitioner, who understands you and treats you as an individual, you can look forward to enjoying the rest of your life.