“People are disturbed not by things but by the views they take of them.”Epictetus c. AD 75

Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy helps to teach people how to deal with the past by focusing on the present. The result is a uniquely powerful tool for therapists and an effective and often rapid treatment for patients.

It is an action-oriented therapy based on common sense and pragmatism, which enables people to overcome problems and implement gratifying and realistic alternatives to many emotional and behavioural problems.

It stresses the capacity within everyone to create, alter and control his or her emotional states.

Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy is the integration of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Clinical Hypnotherapy.

Studies have shown that combining these two powerful interventions can improve therapy effectiveness by up to 70%.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy helps us to understand why our patterns of thought and action have come about and how they affect our ability to achieve goals or live more effectively.  It then provides an integrated therapeutic framework, which provides a route to a healthier, more enjoyable, balanced life.

The objective of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is to empower individuals with a set of tools, which they can use to help themselves out of limiting beliefs and unhealthy negative emotions.

Hypnotherapy is the therapeutic application of the hypnotic state to help people overcome a wide range of problems and challenges.  The hypnotic state is a natural phenomenon, which most of us experience everyday.  It is a safe and natural therapy, which can produce rapid and long lasting positive results.

How does Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy work?

The main premise of Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy is that we, as individuals are largely responsible for the way we feel and act.

This can be difficult to accept particularly when external events seem to be causing us to feel angry or depressed, however when one steps back and analyses an event to see how others might react to that same event, it becomes clear that not all people would act in exactly the same way to a given stimulus.

In essence therefore it is the way you think about something that affects your feelings and actions. This is the principle of emotional responsibility and once people start to embrace this idea, they begin to become empowered to change they way they think, act and feel if they choose to. It can liberate them from limiting behaviours, unhelpful thought patterns and unhealthy negative beliefs, which have hindered them in the past and continue to in the present.

A Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapist uses a structured approach to pinpoint the unhealthy negative beliefs that lead to unhelpful behaviours, emotions, actions and symptoms and to agree the goals that will be achieved after the desired changes have been effected.

The therapist goes on to work with the client to identify healthier alternative beliefs that are more helpful and to use a variety of therapeutic interventions to help bring about long lasting change.

Finally through the CBH process the therapist teaches the client to be able to help himself or herself recognise where emotional problems originate and to make the changes necessary to lead a more fulfilling and balanced life.