Solution Focused Hypnotherapy
A safe, forward thinking approach to resolving the past and becoming the truest, happiest and most resilient you.
It’s reassuring to know that the General Medical Council in the UK stated that clinical hypnotherapy could be recommended by NHS doctors. They said this in 1955. Hypnotherapy is recognised as a safe and supportive modality that can be used as a compliment to medical treatment and as an alternative when hypnotherapy is recognised as the better solution.
If you’re curious about how we’ll work together and why we’ll use a solution focused approach on your path to being a happy human, dive in.
Solution focused
This means we can resolve and move on from the past without having to relive or retell your story. You don’t need to give me your life story in order for me to help you.
This makes the solution focused approach particularly effective for people suffering trauma, PTSD, C-PTSD, and phobias. However, anyone who would rather work in a more now and future focused way will enjoy the benefits of this approach.
Whilst it can be important to honour and acknowledge the past, what brought you to therapy, happiness can only be found when you build towards a future that looks the way you want it. The future is both negotiable and created by you.
Psychotherapy
There are many hundreds of models and combinations of psychotherapy and hypnotherapy, so it’s important you find the right one for you. I predominantly use a modern, evidence based model of solution based psychotherapy (SFBT), combined with the relaxing and restorative benefits of hypnosis and informed by up to date neuroscience.
Neuroscience
The advantage all therapies have now, that maybe early psychotherapists did not have, is the fast moving field of neuroscience. Neuroscience has allowed us to see the brain at work, rest and asleep. It has shown us how adaptable and ever changing this organ is – constantly making, strengthening and changing neural pathways that control our thoughts, actions and habits. Through almost 100 years of scientific research and many thousands studies, we have learned much about how the brain works and the most effective ways improve and maintain its function.
Neuroscience has broken down assumed barriers between the mind and the body, changed the way many physical ailments and highlighted just how adaptable the brain is when it is focused on outcomes rather than problems.
Working with me, you’re not going to need to become a neuroscientist (I’m not one!) but you will learn how to get the very best out of yourself using the knowledge we have about how brains work.
Hypnotherapy
You’ve almost certainly read that hypnosis is a natural state, but it’s so much more. Hypnosis is the brain at its most effective, creative and powerful. We use solution focused questions to consciously create a positive picture of the future, when the problem that brought you to therapy is gone. At that point, we must leave it up to the subconscious to complete the far more complicated tasks of bringing that vision to life.
When you make a plan you are looking for a specific outcome. Until you’ve got the outcome you can’t figure out how to make it happen. Over the minutes, hours, days weeks etc that follow, your brain will continue to work on it for you, figuring out the logistics of how to make it happen. You’re not even aware of most of what goes on behind the scenes because it is a constant state of problem solving and adjustment.
We use leverage the problem solving power of the subconscious to help you navigate, step by step, towards your goals.
Online Hypnotherapy
Online therapy has been seen to be as effective as face to face therapy; people choose online hypnotherapy for comfort, convenience and choice.
Many people I work with struggle with overwhelm, sensory issues and nervous system dysregulation, which means working online is the preferred choice because it allows you to control and manage your environment to be as comfortable as possible whilst in therapy.
Read this blog to find out more
2020 study* in the Journal of American Health stated that solution focused brief therapy was equally as effective, for anxiety sufferers, as face to face therapy.
Other studies focusing on issues such as IBS, PTSD and depression, have been carried out and showed positive outcomes for online therapy, which is reassuring when you’re deciding whether online hypnotherapy is right for you.
*Reference: Novella JK, Ng KM, Samuolis J. A comparison of online and in-person counselling outcomes using solution-focused brief therapy for college students with anxiety. Journal of American College Health. 2020:1-
Research and evidence
Hypnosis and hypnotherapy are one of the most heavily researched fields of medicine and psychology.
David Spiegel, M.D., is professor and associate chair of psychiatry and behavioural sciences at Stanford University and a highly respected expert in clinical hypnosis. Results from a study, conducted by his team, show brain activity of hypnotised people using an fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) scanner. What they saw revealed what hypnotherapists have known all along.
Many areas of the brain increase or decrease in activity and connectivity in the brain, which can lead to reduced worry, more body brain connection and less introspection.
Other studies show the creative, imaginative and narrative systems of the brain, usually inactive while conscious, become incredible active whilst in hypnosis – leading us to believe that in hypnosis we role play new ways of acting, thinking and reacting.
What this means is that, as a model of psychotherapy, clinical hypnotherapy and hypnosis are a long way from the pocket watches and stage shows we once thought of. Modern clinical hypnotherapy is evidenced, researched and pioneering.