Explaining What I Do (Just Calm Anxiety?)

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to explain hypnotherapy in a way that makes sense. I was asked recently by a medical professional and I have been pondering ever since. Summing it up as ‘I help clients calm anxiety’ is not enough. I think, perhaps, its easier to start at the end and work backwards. Let’s look at the outcomes people can expect. In other words, what can you achieve using the tool of hypnosis in your therapy.

Firstly, clients seem to discover a lot about themselves they hadn’t previously understood. Sometimes they come because they consider they want to lose weight or control their IBS. What is being described to me is the symptom. For instance, ‘I’m overweight and want to be thinner’, or ‘I want to be able to leave home without an upset tummy’. Then, when we are 2 or 3 sessions into the work, clients often discover that what they really wanted help with was to have greater self esteem or to calm their constantly anxious feelings. So we dig deeper and find what is beneath all of this. How did we arrive in the moment with these ‘issues’. We look at that and then move forward in a positive way.

Hypnosis is a brilliant tool to use to explore all the things we store in our inner minds that we are unaware of. So we use that brilliant tool. We make it work for us. It’s almost as if we are training our amazing brains to do things differently, To experience things differently.

Along the way clients often gain other positive things from their work too. How to prioritise themselves for certain periods of the day or how to relax and let stressful things float away.

So that’s how I would explain what I do. Do I just help clients calm anxiety? No, I’m  supporting clients to become their best selves at any given moment in time.