Hypnotherapy in Therapy

Hypnotherapy in Therapy

As a psychologist, I  encounter many clients wanting help in overcoming fears and phobias. Many people long to expel the fears that can often rule their lives and hypnosis, as part of a mind-body-soul approach to healing, has been proven to be very successful in helping people with anxiety and phobias overcome their challenges.

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is a mental health condition characterized by excessive, persistent, and uncontrollable worry and apprehension about a variety of events or activities.

Situational anxiety is a temporary anxiety response triggered by specific, perceived threats or stressful situations, unlike generalized anxiety disorder which is persistent and not tied to specific events. 

Both generalized and situational anxiety can be helped by incorporating hypnotherapy into treatment.

There are different styles of hypnotherapy:
1. Directive: direct suggestions no patient choice
2. Ericksonian: Prioritizes unconscious wisdom of patient and assists in awakening said
wisdom
3. Generative Style: Both conscious and subconscious are wise. Symptoms arise with
inability to bridge the two. Hypnosis meant to construct a bridge and establish a
connection between conscious and subconscious mind.
4. Eclectic: Combines parts of different styles.

Hypnotherapy provides working with both the conscious and subconscious aspects of the mind and emotions. In so doing clients can delve deeper in therapy. Hypnotherapy helps the patient to relax the defenses that prevent them from living freely and fully.

Levels 1 and 2:

When providing hypnotherapy, I begin by inviting my client into a state of mild relaxation with breathing exercises and soft music. I encourage them to begin to shift their focus inward. This inward focus gives the person support in slowing down their thought processes.

Level 3: Deepening relaxation, richer internal sensory representations and possible
creation inner movies
Level 4: Intense immersion in sensations while maintaining connection to reality. Light
hand levitation.
Level 5: Diminishing need to focus on external world, meaning of hypnotherapy dialogue
fading, cataleptic bridge.
Level 6: Feeling as if under a dome, expanded external sensory representations, mild
anesthesia and analgesia
Level 7: Slight loss of body sensations, temporal distortions, strong catalepsy & levitation
Level 8: Near complete loss of connection to reality with abundant sensory
representations. Possible hallucinations with eyes open.
Level 9: Very active interaction between conscious and subconscious mind, sense of
wholeness and clarity of mind, willingness to follow hypnotic commands, sense of
depersonalization
Level 10: Disorientated as to time, loss of understanding of present condition,
considerable anesthesia and analgesia, full visual hallucination with eyes open.
Level 11: Nearly completely disengaged of conscious reactions, full negative
hallucinations with eyes open.
Level 12: Complete absence of conscious reactions to all phenomena.

Pattern Interruption is the key method for deactivating patient’s defense mechanisms.
The somatically oriented vector of hypnotherapy is a step toward body-mind connection.