Unless you've experienced hypnotherapy before, and unless your previous therapist had an approach that incorporated NLP, then chances are you're not quite sure what to expect. My answers below are based on my own experience (as I've been on the receiving end of Cognitive Hypnotherapy too) and not just the standard responses you might have found elsewhere.
- But first, it might help if I explain a few things about NLP...
Neuro Linguistic Programming
NLP is a pretty big subject but two useful things to know about it are:
1 - That through careful questioning and observation a therapist can help you identify the thoughts, feelings and behaviours involved in pretty much anything you do, whether what you're doing is helpful or not. Of course some of these thoughts, feelings and behaviours will be obvious to you when you're right in the middle of 'the problem', but others will be outside of your awareness. Maybe your voice changes somehow or you stand differently, maybe you get a feeling in your chest, whatever these unnoticed elements of the process are, the NLP approach can reveal them. And it's amazing how, once we can see the overall 'process' at work. it suddenly becomes clear which of its 'components' is the most important one to work with.
2 - NLP provides a tremendous range of tools for tackling all manner of issues. An effective therapist will use these tools in a completely flexible way, moving between them as your therapy evolves, enabling you to find your own, authentic solutions (even if you don't believe that's possible right now).
- And here are a few simple definitions for words commonly used when talking about hypnotherapy...
And here are some straightforward definitions for Trance, Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy:
Trance - Focussed attention. By this simple definition we're in trance whenever our attention is focussed on 'something' to the exclusion of 'everything else' that's going on around us. So daydreaming whilst driving counts as trance, as does being engrossed in a book and not hearing someone next to you speaking. Being highly anxious and unable to deal with something you normally could, being engrossed in solving a problem and, funnily enough, being caught up in sustaining a problem are also examples of trance states. The kind of trance needed for most change work is a light, creative, almost playfully curious state, so it's not surprising that most people find therapeutic trances to be relaxing and interesting, opening up as they do for most people, a new insight into their own natural problem solving abilities. A deeper trance, the kind most people think of when they imagine what being 'under hypnosis' is like, can be useful for reinforcing change and if needed then we'll get there in a relaxed, gentle way, as a seamless part of the change work.
Hypnosis - Simply, the act of leading someone into trance. I use my voice to gently guide you into a useful state, ready to work on resolving whatever it is you've comitted to change, or to reinforce the change work we've done previously. There are other ways of achieving trance but just in case you were wondering, I've never used a swinging watch.
Hypnotherapy - Leading someone into an appropriate trance state and then working with them in a way that achieves their change goals.
