Anxiety and panic: It can be debilitating to live with anxiety or panic but through the use of hypnosis you can be taught how to relax in the middle of a panic attack, how to reduce or eliminate anxiety or panic altogether, how to control or stop thoughts that produce panic attacks and instead replace these thoughts with positive coping statements and how to accept all the feelings and sensations related to experiencing anxiety or panic.  Hypnotherapy can help you to regain control and experience balance; teaching you to breath fully and evenly, helping to reduce physical sensations such as weak legs, difficulty swallowing, feeling hot or cold or dizziness and discharge your fear once and for all.

Lack of confidence/low self-esteem: Hypnotherapy can help you to increase your confidence and self-acceptance, resulting in a positive self-projection.  Furthermore, you can program your subconscious to help you achieve specific goals whilst instilling feelings of comfort with regard to success, rid yourself of past negative behaviour due to negative programming, and change your perspective on your relationship to a given problem.  Release the confidence within you and watch your world change!

Phobias: Phobias are irrational fears of certain situations and / or things and with hypnosis you can successfully eliminate these fears and regain control of your life.  By utilizing the power of your imagination you can gradually confront your fear whilst feeling completely calm and relaxed in a state of hypnosis and within a safe and secure environment.  As you successfully and calmly experience your fear in different stages your self-confidence will increase and you will be in a position to confront your fear in real life should you need to.

Exam nerves/improved learning: Hypnotherapy can help you to change habits and procedures that are detrimental to the exam/learning process - replacing them instead with new successful habits and procedures, to improve your confidence and self-esteem and boost concentration and memory.  The use of positive suggestions, visualization and relaxation techniques can help you to perceive the exam/learning experience as a positive opportunity, enabling you to approach learning with a positive and calm attitude.

Weight loss: Hypnotherapy recognises that dieting does not always work in the long term and that many people’s weight issues are related to emotional problems that are acted out through their relationship with food.  Hypnotherapy therefore seeks to address the causes of overeating and in doing so works to implement permanent beneficial changes within the subconscious mind which is the part of the mind responsible for our emotions. 

With the use of hypnotherapy you can benefit from the following:

~ Give less importance to food as it relates to your feelings of well-being

~ Build up your confidence and self-esteem so you can accept a slimmer you

~ Increase the appeal of healthy foods and make fatty foods less desirable

~ Incorporate into your life new patterns of behaviour with regards to the times, places and reasons for overeating.

Please note: Weight loss can only be achieved in conjunction with a calorie controlled diet.

Smoking: If you are ready to stop, contact me for more information and a chat.  I aim to work with you to quit smoking in one session, with the option of a free follow up session, if required.  The session will last for 2 hours and follow up lasts 1 hour.  Various independent studies have shown that hypnotherapy is one of the most successful methods of helping you to quit.  In a recent study, reported in the Journal of Applied Psychology, which involved 72,000 people in the US and Europe, hypnosis came top as the most effective therapy to help people give up smoking. (Source: Guardian Unlimited, 7th Jan 2006).  Hypnotherapy can help you to build confidence in achieving your goal, change your perception of cigarettes and of yourself (perceive yourself as a healthy, energetic nonsmoker) and incorporate into your life new patterns of behaviour with regard to times, places and reasons for smoking.

‘Hypnosis is the most effective way of giving up smoking, according to the largest ever scientific comparison of ways of breaking the habit. Willpower, it turns out, counts for very little.’ – Robert Matthews, New Scientist.

Nail biting and other habits: Hypnotherapy can be effective in eliminating many detrimental habits in just a few sessions and can help you incorporate into your life new patterns of behaviour with regard to the times, places and reasons for your habit/s whilst strengthening your confidence in achieving your goal.

Driving test nerves: Pass your driving test with the help of hypnotherapy as it strengthens your resolve, enhances your memory and concentration and builds your confidence and self-esteem.  Through the use of positive suggestions, visualization and relaxation techniques you can perceive your driving test as a positive experience which you confidently approach with a positive and calm attitude.

Chronic pain/illness: Hypnosis produces a balancing of mind and body that allows healing to take place. Controlling pain or discomfort with hypnosis is common, safe and effective.  Hypnotherapy empowers patients to control their state of mind; lifting stress and depression from their minds and bodies. Working in conjunction with traditional medical treatment, hypnosis as a complementary treatment is a powerful healing support that can help reduce and control pain or discomfort, ease symptoms and reduce negative effects, helping patients to heal and recover more quickly and maintain good health.

Hypnotherapy is used in the treatment of many chronic conditions such as: hypertension, cancer support, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), chronic pain, arthritis, migraine, burns, pre/post operative states, to name a few. 

According to new research from the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre in Boston, people using self-hypnotic relaxation techniques during surgery needed less pain medication, left the operating room sooner, and had more stable vital signs during the operation. (http://www.bidmc.harvard.edu/sites/bidmc/home.asp)

Pain is a subjective experience which can be deeply associated with remembered pain, current pain, anticipated pain or a combination of all three.  How we view pain can be based on our experiences, beliefs, attitudes, emotions and personality.  Hypnosis can help you to manage your pain by reducing it, changing it in some way or changing the area or place where pain is felt using a range of techniques.  Relaxation is used to reduce stress and anxiety and positive thinking and a positive attitude are enhanced by using positive suggestions and guided visualization which also serves to direct your attention away from pain, visualizing yourself as healed and strong and gaining some control over your pain.

Psychologist David Patterson, associate professor of rehabilitation medicine at the UW Burn Centre has been using hypnosis with burn patients for more than 12 years. Used in conjunction with medication, hypnosis can decrease pain, especially for patients experiencing high levels of pain. (http://depts.washington.edu/rehab/contacts/patterson.html)

Please note: If you suffer from chronic pain/illness please check with your doctor that hypnosis is an appropriate conjunctive treatment for your condition. 

Insomnia: Regain your natural ability for sleep with the use of hypnosis; break bad night time habits, restructure your pre-bedtime mental activity to relate night time to sleep time, reduce or eliminate negative thoughts and expectations, replacing them instead with positive ones and reduce anxiety and stress.  Stress can often result in insomnia and the promotion of relaxation can help to reduce stress.

Public speaking fears/stage fright: Increase your self-confidence and reduce your anxiety with the help of hypnotherapy through the use of relaxation and positive suggestion and achieve positive expectation with the use of guided visualization.

Blocked creativity: Hypnotherapy can aid you in releasing blocked potential in areas of writing, painting, and the performing arts by motivating production and promoting the use of the trance state as an aid to insight and inspiration.  Furthermore, hypnotherapy can assist you to accept the necessity for unproductive periods during the formative stages of your creative process, dispel your fears, reduce your self-criticism and reinforce the productivity and pleasure of your creative process. 

Sports performance: Hypnotherapy can help you to overcome fears and pressures, to accomplish a specific goal for personal achievement, to program yourself to have a winning attitude and for a perfect game through the use of guided visualisation.  Positive visualization can help you to achieve the following:

~ Increase your agility

~ Improve your co-ordination 

~ Improve your concentration

~ Refine your technique

~ Heighten your awareness of body position

~ Eliminate inhibiting thoughts with regard to your performance

~ Increase your capacity for enjoying the sport

‘If you can think it, see it, and say it – you can do it.’ Hypnosis for Change

Fear of dentist: Reduce or alleviate your fear of visiting the dentist.  Hypnosis can also aid healing and the control of the gag reflex, assist in anesthesia, grinding of teeth (bruxism), chronic jaw pain and adjusting to new oral appliances.