How does Hypnotherapy work?

Hypnotherapy works with the relationship between the conscious and the subconscious components of the human mind.

Hypnotherapy enables direct access to the subconscious mind, the source of all behaviour and works to unlock the power within the subconsious to enable positive behavioural changes.

The conscious mind comprises approximately 10% of our total mind. Thought is created by the conscious mind and it is the component we use to analyse, plan and store our short-term memory.  It is the base of evaluation and decision making.

The subconscious mind comprises the rest.  Our subconscious mind is the source of our long term memory, retaining information about everything we have ever seen, heard, tasted, felt, or done.  It is also the source of our intuition and spirituality, and is responsible for the majority of our bodily functions.  The subconscious mind is where we store and process information.  It is the base of all emotions, feelings, beliefs, opinions and expectations and is the root of all our behaviour, including addiction, obsession, habits, or fears.

We receive constant suggestion from the minute we enter the world through our senses (sight, sound, touch, taste and smell).  As we grow we form subconscious belief systems based on these experiences.  This is called autosuggestion.

The subconscious mind is unconditional.  Whether an experience is positive or negative, destructive or beneficial, the subconscious mind absorbs the information without prejudice.  It is incapable of analysis, or consideration and incapable of deciding what to accept and what to reject.  It simply stores it as ‘truth’, on which it then bases belief. Similarly, the subconscious mind does not decide which thought or feeling to react with.  It simply acts in accordance with its belief system, regardless of the impact on the individual. 

The subconscious mind cannot differentiate between what is real or imagined.  To the subconscious mind our thoughts are realities.  Whatever the focus of the conscious mind, the subconscious will present to it the feeling, emotion, or behavioural reaction it associates with that experience, based on what it has learnt and believes to be ‘true’.

All our thoughts, feelings and responses are determined by the belief systems held in the subconscious mind.

If you have ever been aware of doing or saying something automatically, that you know is not in your best interests, or that you would prefer not to have said or done, then you have witnessed this process at work.  We can all credit our instilled belief systems as the primary source of this kind of behaviour.  However, most of the time, we are not consciously aware of the beliefs and values that influence our lives in negative ways.

If, for example, a person is told continually from birth that they are just like their mother, there is an extremely high probability that they will form a belief that this is the case.  If that same person witnessed arguments between their parents, where the mother was labelled “controlling”, or the one to blame for the disagreements, over time, they will form an association between their mothers’ negative personality traits and their own personality, believing that they are also controlling.  This is how autosuggestion works.

Hypnotherapy works by directly accessing the subconscious mind. This is where change can occur and where negative beliefs, values, principles, and patterns can be updated, and more positive affirming principles can be created and reinforced, establishing new ways of thinking and behaving and subsequently, creating the basis of a much more positive, healthy and happy life.