What is Hypnotherapy?
Hypnotherapy is the use of hypnosis for therapeutic purposes. Unlike other therapies hypnotherapy works at the unconscious level allowing you to achieve the changes you want and to allow you to move forward with you life. Hypnotherapy will allow you to access resources within yourself to achieve your required outcome.
Hypnosis is similar to daydreaming and is an altered state of awareness where you will have a focused attention. You will enter hypnotic trances regularly every day when the conscious mind closes down and the unconscious processes recent events. Daydreaming is a good example of this trance state. Whilst in a trance you can hear everything around you and you can bring yourself out of the trance at any time.
Although hypnosis is a powerful tool it cannot make somebody do things that they don’t want to. Normally our left side of the brain is primarily in control (the conscious analytical side). When induced into a trance state the right side (the creative side) is allowed to become the dominant side. This allows the unconscious to absorb suggestions or new concepts directly.
The unconscious mind controls all the major body functions e.g. breathing, heart and body movement. All our learning is through the unconscious mind and every thing we have learned is within our unconscious. The unconscious uses abstract non-sequential thinking such as dreaming, feelings and memories etc.
The conscious mind uses sequential thinking by means of logic, words and numbers etc. The conscious mind can only process seven plus or minus two pieces of information per second. Whilst the unconscious mind can process millions of pieces of information per second.
Driving analogy
Have you ever arrived at a destination and thought “How did I get here?”
That is an instance where the unconscious mind is doing the act of driving while the conscious mind is elsewhere. The progression to this ability is:-
| Driving experience | Conscious state | Driving ability |
| Driving isn’t even a consideration | Unconscious incompetent | Don’t know about driving |
| Learning to drive | Conscious incompetent | Total concentration and making lots of mistakes |
| Just passed the driving test and have some experience | Conscious competent | Total concentration and making a few mistakes |
| Very experienced driver | Unconscious competent | Arrive at destination safely not aware of the journey |
Native language is another example of unconscious competent. Rules of grammar are complex with many exceptions. Many of us use these rules without consciously knowing them.
