In the fourth and final part of this mini-series, ‘Help With Anxiety’, I explain more on my uncommon blend of therapies and coaching strategies and, how adopting the right combination of these dynamic techniques means freedom for you from anxiety as you learn to take control.
In the third part of the series I shared with you my view on how Advanced Hypnotherapy can help you to effectively calm anxiety and regain a sense of balance in your life. I totally understand of course despite my reassurances here, some of you may still be a little hesitant to embrace the idea of hypnosis and I am also mindful that just that one particular style of therapy may not fit with you. If you are willing and totally open to working collaboratively with Advanced Hypnotherapy, it can work wonders – I have my own personal and first-hand experience of that following an emotional breakdown myself twenty years ago.
During my early years in hypnotherapy, I began to realise that a more rounded approach drawing on other dynamic techniques and talking therapies, would enable me to help clients more effectively than using just one mode of therapy, which the majority of therapists offer. So now, many years and much experience later, I offer an uncommon blend of therapies (both with hypnosis and without) and the way I use these therapies and coaching strategies in my own unique way is what I believe brings success for my clients time after time.
To help you to understand a little more about the different therapies and coaching I offer to help with anxiety, here’s a summary…
Counselling and Emotional Support – is our starting place and offers you a safe place to express your thoughts and feelings. It allows us to explore an issue, to gain understanding and to build rapport. At times, you will want to talk through into conscious awareness any issues raised in hypnosis. Sometimes you may need advice for how handle a particular situation.
Neuro-Lingustic Programming (NLP) – helps you understand the relationship between how you think (Neuro), how you communicate (Linguistic) and your patterns of behaviour (Programming). It is the science of how the brain codes learning and experience. NLP is an effective vehicle for accelerated human change and has radically altered the ‘old way’ of lengthy conscious psychotherapy. Working very much with a future focus drawing on your resources, it aims to bridge the gap between where you are now and where you want to be. We all have all we need – sometimes we just don’t know it yet! These strategies help you to set compelling goals, build motivation and change your life for the better.
Psychotherapy – encourages insight into emotional and behavioural issues to help you relieve anxiety symptoms and create a change in behaviour. Used as an ‘old school’ conscious talking therapy it can take a great deal of time to create substantial change, however when used within the dynamic of Advanced Hypnotherapy, it can be incredibly powerful to help with anxiety and boost confidence so that you can grow and move forward.
There are three key approaches in Psychotherapy, namely Behaviourist, Psychodynamic and Humanistic.
Behaviourist – Focuses on reinforcement of stimulus-response behaviour
Psychodynamic – Assumes subconscious irrational and instinctive forces that determine human thought and behaviour
Humanistic – Seeks to empathetically understand the whole person.
It assumes free will to make choices and to accept consequences for decisions made.
My methods are largely humanistic as I believe we all seek to better ourselves and our environment and, that we can all achieve personal growth and satisfaction in our lives as we learn to better understand and accept ourselves. I love the optimism of this approach and how it focuses on the human capacity to overcome adversity.
I do combine a psychodynamic element also in seeking to understand your subconscious needs and motivations, your use of defence and behaviours which may be protecting you, but which may hold you back at the same time.
Hypno-CBT – introduced in the 70s as a modern approach to mechanical behaviour therapy, it has become most widely known as a safe government endorsed therapy. Similar to NLP but much less dynamic in my opinion, it is based on the idea that your thoughts, feelings and reactions are inextricably linked and that by changing one aspect of these will have an affect on the other two. GPs and clients have described CBT to me (in its conscious talking therapy form) as academic and how it assumes a one size fits all as you simply ‘talk the talk’.
However, using dynamic CBT principles in hypnosis allows you to actively try on and rehearse new beliefs and behaviours in a safe way, with heightened thought and feeling. In essence, you don’t just ‘talk it’ you ‘walk the talk’ too. As you generate your own unique thoughts (and not just ideas academically suggested to you) you convince your subconscious that positive choices for change are for your benefit and you better condition yourself to adopt and implement these positive changes into your real life situations.
Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) – aims to desensitize and re-frame psychological and physiological effects of dysfunctional memories and event trauma. The effects of disturbing events and circumstances can create an imbalance in the brain’s functioning and cause insufficiently processed information to be ‘held’ within the nervous system in the same way that a foreign body in a wound can halt the healing process. The mind makes sense of present experience by associated past experience. If that particular experience was disturbing, you may ‘freak out’ or behave irrationally and unexpectedly. If you have heard the term Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), this is what it means.
Using a series of eye movements, disturbing information may be unblocked and reprocessed in a healthier way. This can help with anxiety because it creates a more appropriate perspective in the present.
Hypnotic Coaching – helps you to integrate self understanding into your daily conscious awareness to create positive lasting change. At the right time, we work together to set compelling and achievable goals in the short and long terms. Together we create a clear action plan to achieve your goals adopting pro-active sensory strategies to keep you motivated and focussed, so that you fly through any obstacles in your way.
I have to add here that given that I tend to seamlessly blend these therapies and coaching strategies together throughout our sessions in order to ensure the most efficient and effective result for you, most clients don’t really notice that we switch from one therapy to another – it just flows.
I trust you have found my mini-series helpful and interesting. I’d be delighted to answer any specific questions. Just find me on social media or email me and we can chat.
If you are looking for the right help with anxiety, you’ve found it here with me. Simply click the link below to find out how to book a consultation with me either face2face or online and we can get started!
Lisa Skeffington, Anxiety Expert – Anxiety Help in Bournemouth
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