What can CBT and Hypnotherapy be used for?
Confidence
Few qualities can outshine simple self-confidence, if you think of anyone you admire whether it is a friend, work colleague or artist you will probably find that they all ooze self confidence. Confidence is very attractive to most people, it tells everyone that they are happy in their own skin. They may have had a trouble free life or maybe it is just what they tell themselves. This is not the case for a lot of people, some don't take knocks so easily, it doesn't mean they are weak, it is usually because they are sensitive, a nice quality to have. It may be that one knock comes after the other and so can make a person feel like retreating.
Regaining the knowledge of our own worth is all it takes, accepting ourselves and liking ourselves, our own unique value. Everyone is born confident but as we go through life we have different experiences of people and our environment which may sometimes take away some of our confidence. The good news is confidence can be re learned, once you recognise what might have taken some of your confidence away and that you survived the situation, you will regain confidence in the knowledge that you learnt from a situation only to become stronger. Confidence is infectious, your confidence will inspire those around you.
Depression
Depression is a very debilitating experience for any individual and can affect a person and their family in many ways. It may have the affect of a person wanting to withdraw, not to take part in life and relationships, which in turn may lead to other problems such as losing a job, marital problems, financial problems, use of alcohol etc.
Some people may be prescribed anti-depressants from their GP, in some instances, particularly clinical depression, these are necessary but in reactive depression whereby a person is reacting to a particular event sometimes these drugs are merely masking over the problem. Most people do usually know what started the ball rolling but were unsure of how to stop it gaining momentum. Therapy helps to stop this ball and learn techniques of how to deal with other and similar situations in a different way for the future without pills. Long term solutions are required not a quick fix.
Habits
Some habits keep us safe and well i.e. checking the house is safe before we go to bed, checking it is safe to cross the road, taking regular exercise etc but some habits are annoying to us. The habits that annoy us are usually habits we acquired when we were maybe emotionally vulnerable and they helped to distract us from what was bothering us, in turn a dependency develops and becomes hard to shake off, even when we have moved on from a particular emotional situation.
What a relief to realise you are no longer in that situation and you can drop that habit as it is no longer required, you just need to have a word with your subconscious mind and let it know you are now ready to drop this habit.
Social Anxiety disorder
This is a very common anxiety disorder and affects a large number of the population, around 10% at some point in a person's life and can affect anyone. It conjures up all sorts of negative thoughts about how someone thinks of them and can make a person want to retreat from people and the environment where they are safe from ridicule. The fears experienced would be in social situations i.e. parties, public speaking, socialising with large groups and all sorts of other social situations. It becomes very self limiting and prevents a person enjoying and experiencing life to the full.
It usually starts in early childhood or adolescence when an experience happened to knock the confidence of a person, they may have drawn an incorrect evaluation of themselves which then led them to avoid similar situations, which in turn just compounds the situation.
Social phobia has different levels of severity and can be a painful condition to live with but with CBT and Hypnotherapy a person's life can be transformed out of this prison step by step with realistic achievable tasks and goals.
Stress Management
Stress is something we can either feel suddenly or can be a gradual increase in demands from many situations such as family, work or relationships. If functioning under stress for long enough our bodies start to react physically, we struggle to sleep properly, eat properly, think properly it is then that we resort to using alternative distractions to help us cope i.e. overeat, drink too much alcohol, use pills to help us sleep. This merely creates a spiral as overindulging in these masks only brings with them other underlying problems, which eventually, have to be addressed to prevent long term health problems.
CBT and hypnosis can help enormously with breaking this spiral by recognising where the stress began, under what circumstances it is worse and how it is best to be dealt with. Managing your own stress is taking back hold of the reigns, knowing where and how to direct this stress.
Bereavement
There are many different emotions felt by people who are suffering from the loss of a loved one. The emotions will vary for each person, circumstances will be different for everyone. The death my have been sudden or expected, in which case the emotions may be either complete denial through shock or overwhelming sadness after a long illness. All the emotions such as helplessness, guilt or anger are all normal feelings and need to be recognised and understood so that a person can feel they have grieved for their loved one.
CBT and hypnosis helps you work out where you are in the process of grieving and understand your thoughts and feelings. As any new emotions appear it can help you keep your thoughts realistic and truthful, it can make the journey of bereavement less daunting. It enables you to share thoughts that are sometimes difficult to share with other members of your family and friends who may also be grieving the loss of the same loved one.
Healthy Eating
Most of us know what healthy eating entails, we are forever being educated through the media nowadays about healthy foods and how many calories are healthy for men and women. So why do we continue to have trouble managing our weight, one problem is that we do have to eat to survive and so cannot refrain from doing it altogether and so habits we may stop within our eating regime can easily creep back in. We also have unlimited access to fast, fatty foods, we also seem to think that it is wrong to feel the slightest feeling of hunger and so consistently eat between meals and late at night.
Many of us turn to diets, and there are and have been many over the years, which seldom work. Why is this? Well first of all no two people are the same, we are all unique, so how can one diet be expected to meet the needs of so many people. Diets do help initially to lose some pounds but they are notorious for, once ending the diet, the pounds going back on and then you are into the spiral of feeling bad about yourself. You begin to feel a failure, your self esteem takes a bashing and you are very likely to then start comfort eating which in turn puts back on the pounds you tried so hard to lose.
We all have different eating habits, some are learnt from childhood or sometimes we take on habits because of how we are feeling emotionally, comfort eating, we may have a poor image of ourselves, we may reward ourselves with food. Through CBT you will be able to establish what your eating habits are and where and why they have established themselves. You will then be able to change your thoughts and beliefs about the way in which you would like to eat more healthily, using hypnosis will reinforce these thoughts. It is no longer about diets and deprivation.
Insomnia
Hypnotherapy is very good for someone suffering from insomnia, as you can imagine the two states you achieve in hypnosis are calmness and relaxation, the main ingredients needed to achieve sleep. Insomnia is caused by the mind's inability to 'shut down' which may be because of a noisy environment or what is going around in your mind. Worries about various matters, family, work, money etc, eventually the worry may be more about getting to sleep. You may then find your anxiety increases as you watch the clock and see your sleep time slipping away.
Again through CBT and hypnosis you will recognise which thoughts and beliefs are being taken on with regard to future events and situations and reframe them into manageable, realistic thoughts. Teaching yourself new techniques which will help you manage and control your thoughts at a more appropriate time, not when you want to sleep.
Teamed with CBT, you can imagine how hypnosis can reduce the time it takes for your mind to take on new thoughts and ideas which will in turn alter your behaviour. Eliminating old thoughts and beliefs and introducing new ones then acting them out, seeing the results is very empowering.
