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Secrets of HypnotherapyIt would be useful to have read the pages about how your mind works and how personal limitations develop before reading this page. I am about to tell you something about hypnotherapy that should immediately dampen any fears about being hypnotised or losing control. Are you ready? (Hypnotherapy is actually a process of de-hypnosis). In its many guises, hypnosis contributes to our thoughts, behaviours and feelings. This is through influence, the suggestions of our parents, friends, teachers and colleagues, repetition of attitudes or perceptions through the media and adverts, our own experiences, and the basic mechanics of trying to simplify a complicated world. You simply can’t be expected to know everything, so your brain searches for patterns, associations, attitudes and beliefs to narrow it all down into the perception you have of life. This is a great thing, as without such things we simply wouldn’t know what to think or feel about anything. But for every bit of ‘narrowing down’ of options, there is a risk that something important is being excluded. You may have developed an attitude of being all strong and independent, when deep down you crave for the option to just have a cry and not feel bad about it. You may have learned to associate public speaking with fear and rejection, when you want to have the option to be confident and charismatic instead. So to make the world simpler and to cope with it all, we reduce our options by making a lot of our inner workings ‘automatic’. The arachnophobe doesn’t choose to be afraid of spiders, it is automatic. They don’t have the option of not being afraid. Hypnotherapy increases your choices in life. I wouldn’t want the arachnophobe to never be afraid of spiders, because not having that choice is just as limiting as only being afraid. Instead I provide them the choice, the ability to control how to feel. There are processes that occur naturally to gradually limit our choices over how we think, behave, perceive or feel. These processes have been carefully researched, studied, practiced and developed by the hypnotherapist in order to reverse the limitations, and free up more choices for you. The same psychology can be used to limit choices but in a more useful fashion, such as limiting you to not smoking again. So, a smoker could be given the choice to be able to quit, and be able to choose to feel confident and proud about it (as opposed to uncertain or anxious). Further, they could be given subconscious associations that compel them to quit smoking, so that they don’t have much conscious control over it at all. Whilst this is limiting (for example they may want to smoke socially) it may be a limitation that is welcomed. Deep down within you is an abundant reservoir of resourceful energy. The flow becomes trapped behind the giant dam of your self-image, or how you see yourself subconsciously. As expectations, attitudes, perceptions, and self-beliefs get shaken, the dam walls crumble and more of your resources are freed up. This is what hypnotherapy is all about.
Will Williams Clinical Hypnotic Consultant 
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