What is cognitive hypnotherapy?
Cognitive hypnotherapy helps people with a wide range of issues. Cognitive hypnotherapists work with the unconscious mind which is normally the part of the mind that drives the unwanted behaviours. For example, if someone has a phobia of dogs, they could run away at the sight of one before consciously being able to determine that it is a cute chihuahua. Therefore, we work to change the unconscious mind so that it no longer holds you back from doing what you would like to do.
As each person is unique, we design a bespoke treatment plan tailored to each individual. Three people with the label of anxiety will experience it in three different ways, so why should they all be helped in the same way? Specific hypnotherapeutic language (Wordweaving) is used to help prime your unconscious for change. We have all noticed how words can have a really strong impact on us
A variety of techniques and hypnotherapeutic suggestions are used while the client is in a state of "trance". However, this state of "trance" is nothing magical, actually, it is quite ordinary: we are in it most of our lives. It is like the "day-dreaming" state that we enter while we are entranced in the story of a good film.
Quest Cognitive Hypnotherapy Institute has also performed research to determine the effectiveness of its therapy process. The research showed the effectiveness of treating anxiety and depression with Quest cognitive hypnotherapy (QCH) compared to other therapies such as CBT. 71% of QCH clients improved compared with 42% with other therapies (in an average of 6 sessions). The paper was published in the Mental Health Review journal in 2015 and you can find more information on the study here.
How can wordweaving help?
Wordweaving uses aspects of Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP), developed by Richard Bandler and John Grinder, and the Milton model developed by Milton Erickson.
We have all noticed the powerful nature of words. How kind words can help a friend in a troubling situation and also how words of anger can fuel negative thought. The potential that words have is often overlooked.
Wordweaving aims to create suggestions that would result in the client seeing the world in a different way. This "different way" is totally unique to each individual needs and wants. Therefore, during the sessions, I ask questions to discover the changes that YOU want to see happening in your life. These changes are then "packaged" using hypnotherapeutic suggestions that are tailored to the way the client sees the world.
The recording is meant to be listened to every night before sleeping which will help you see the positive changes that are happening in your day-to-day life: even on days between sessions!
What techniques do cognitive hypnotherapists use?
Techniques range from working within the context of the issue and working with the feeling itself. Each option has a time and place, but generally speaking, we incorporate both in the treatment process.
The foundational belief of cognitive hypnotherapy is that each person is unique so the therapy process will be different for everyone.
For example, everyone generally experiences the world from these 4 representational systems: visual, kinesthetic, auditory, and through internal processing. We each have tendencies to prefer one or two of these representational systems and we use them to experience and interact with the world. The techniques that I will use and teach depend on the way that the client interacts with the world since they will be more proficient in using them.