What is Cognitive Hypnotherapy?

Cognitive Hypnotherapy is very different to traditional hypnotherapy,it draws it influences from a wide variety of therapies and disciplines including:Psychodynamic theory; Neuroscience;Humanistic psychology; Evolutionary psychology and cognitive approaches including NLP and Behaviourist therapy.

It takes the most effective and applicable parts from these various areas and brings them all together under the Cognitive hypnotherapy umbrella;this gives it greater flexibility than other therapies by not being limited to one approach, if something better comes along it can be easily incorporated into the therapeutic framework of Cognitive hypnotherapy.

There are various beliefs which underpin Cognitive hypnotherapy one is that trance is an everyday occurrence; it does not believe that trance is something that only an hypnotist can induce. Research suggests that our conscious is only in control of our behaviour 10% of the time,for the other 90% our unconscious is controlling our behaviour: everybody experiences losing track of time;perhaps when watching TV or travelling ; how many people drive their car and get out the other end of their journey not knowing how they got there,these are trance states.

Strong emotional responses can cause a trance state where our ability to reason is hampered. Stephen Wollinsky author of ‘Trances people live’ says “that trance states are the means by which our symptoms are created and maintained” in other words our problem states are trances that we slip into without being aware of it;Cognitive hypnotherapy uses the clients natural trance states to create change.

Another core belief is that the main purpose of the unconscious is self preservation all behaviour has a purpose even when the behaviour is having a negative affect,it has a positive intention behind it. Our unconscious mind seeks meaning in all events,every minute of the day it is processing millions of bits of information through our senses determining what around us will bring us towards pleasure or pain. So we are drawn towards things and behaviours that our unconscious thinks are good based on our past experiences and keeps us away from things it believes will cause us harm.

Another important belief of Cognitive Hypnotherapy is that the mind and the body are an integrated system;we are our thoughts and our bodies can be directly affected by those thoughts. The unconscious mind is always aware of our surroundings modern human beings are subjected to much greater stimuli than our bodies were designed for; the fight or flight response was designed to protect us from predators not modern day stresses, as a result this can lead to a breakdown of the system which can effect our metal health which can also effect our physical health.

The glue which holds Cognitive Hypnotherapy together is Neuro Linguistic Programming;much of the language and the techniques used are drawn from this field. NLP is a process theory which focuses on how people do things,if someone does something well, NLP believes there is a process involved which can be modelled so that anyone can utilise it to improve their performance.

Cognitve Hypnotherapy is a cutting edge therapeutic approach designed for the 21st Century. Using the best that science and psychology has to offer and bringing them together in order to help people be the best that they can be.