What is Hypnosis
Hypnosis is simply a state of highly focused concentration and heightened awareness. You unknowingly experience this natural state every day. It's just a way of tuning out distracting thoughts, and focusing your attention, just as you do when you're daydreaming, or when totally absorbed in a film, book, TV show, or favourite hobby, or even when driving.
Hypnosis is thought to work by altering your state of consciousness, in such a way that the analytical left-hand side of the brain is quietened down, while the non-analytical right-hand side is made more alert. This allows the unconscious mind to come to the fore, where it is able to accept suggestions more easily. The unconscious mind contains all your memories and experiences, and controls your automatic thoughts and behaviours, and this is the part which has to change for your behaviour and physical state to alter.
What is hypnotherapy?
In hypnotherapy you are guided into hypnosis for therapeutic purposes. It is literally therapy done while in hypnosis and can be thought of as an effective and speedy form of psychotherapy. Hypnotherapy can change your patterns of behaviour and perceptions, enabling irrational fears, phobias, habits, negative thoughts and suppressed emotions to be overcome. With the help of the hypnotherapist, you are able to look at problems differently and maybe discover solutions to problems that had been missed before. Hypnotherapy and NLP can quickly and effectively treat many of the things that you might otherwise have considered visiting a counsellor for, and a lot more.
Using hypnosis to gain access to the unconscious mind allows the therapist to suggest positive and beneficial ideas which become firmly planted in your unconscious. It is also possible to recall and resolve past memories which relate to current blockages. Old, outdated and inappropriate patterns of behaviour can be dropped, in favour of new and more rewarding ways of being.
It is generally assumed that hypnotherapy is limited to dealing with problems such as smoking and excess weight, however a major part of a hypnotherapist's practice is in dealing with such problems as stress, anxiety, panic attacks, as well as physical complaints such as migraine, arthritis, digestive disorders, asthma, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and numerous psychosomatic illnesses.
Are there any dangers in hypnosis?
There are no substantiated cases of harm befalling any hypnotised subject. The British Medical Association approved hypnotherapy as a valid medical treatment in 1955 and the American Medical Association followed in 1958.
What is NLP?
Neuro-Linguistic Programming is a powerful body of information about how the human mind works built up since the 1970`s and continuing to evolve through new research. You are likely to find many different descriptions of NLP.
At the heart of NLP is a wide range of methods and models it offers for understanding how people think, behave and change. It offers a flexible approach which brings about positive, fast change in individuals and organisations and empowers them to adapt to an ever-shifting world.
NLP training provides the skills to define and achieve your outcomes or goals and a heightened awareness of your five senses, allowing you to remain flexible, on track and maintain rapport with those around you.
"NLP is an attitude which is an insatiable curiosity about human beings with a methodology that leaves behind it a trail of techniques." Richard Bandler (co-creator of NLP)
"The strategies, tools and techniques of NLP represent an opportunity unlike any other for the exploration of human functioning, or more precisely, that rare and valuable subset of human functioning known as genius." John Grinder (co-creator of NLP)