HI, I’M JIMMY.
When I mentioned to friends that I was studying to become a hypnotherapist, the reactions have been ones of curiosity but pretty much everyone has made a similar joke: the swaying of a pocket watch whilst whispering, “look into my eyes,” or say bluntly, “thats the last thing I say to you tonight”.
I would have said the same.
There is a growing open mindedness about hypnotherapy but cultural imprints still have a small grip on how we view it, and could hold some people back from giving it a go.
When stripping away all the theatre attached to it and focusing on the personal experience, I realised hypnotherapy is as practical or profound as you make it, or both. Clients have taken their own meanings from suggestions I've put forward and usually not from the part I felt might resonate the most. It can be as dressed up or as understated as you like but in the end what seems effective to me about hypnotherapy is the internal experience.
MY APPROACH
It is a comforting thought to know that we all have a force within that knows what’s best for us. This force is the subconscious mind. We use our conscious mind to make decisions and apply logic/reason to plan our days. This is an essential yet flawed mechanism that enables us to simplify and regulate our experience in this beautifully complex universe.
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Have you ever asked for directions only to find that after the 7th advised turn your mind overloads and you'd rather take your chances on your own? This is an example of your conscious mind grappling with too much information at one time. Whereas our subconscious is the limitless database that we pull from continuously, our accumulated life-force that holds all our experiences, both conscious and subconscious. The subconscious is everything in our mind and body that we are not conscious of in that present moment. It is also where we hold our capacity to change. The conscious mind can be very stubborn and rigid, not willing to challenge beliefs (and ultimately close minded) or behaviours, but the subconscious is quite the opposite, chaotic and raw but also vast and versatile.
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An example of the power of our subconscious mind is how it governs over our body when we are asleep. It is our conscious mind that craves our 8 hours rest, but the subconscious works around the clock running our various systems and repairing the parts of our body that need it. That is why we do all our healing and growing when we are asleep and the subconscious has full reign. It makes sense to me that if the subconscious is responsible for healing our physical damage or stress then it can be responsible for healing our emotional stress too. Time heals but I wonder whether it is really the subconscious that heals, and we are not conscious of it until we realise, perhaps six months later that that 'thing' doesn't bother us like it used to.
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It is my aim to communicate with the subconscious, to reframe certain associations you have with an issue at a deeper and more empowering level, but also to give you the room to make your own discoveries on how or where your issue has come about. I believe hypnotherapy is at it's most effective when helping to build an internal understanding of your own issues/difficulties rather than external direction from your therapist, as this is where lasting change and fresh resilience can be cultivated.