How Does Hypnotherapy for Phobias and Trauma work ?
Phobias and Fears are created and stored in our brain. Our brain contains an area called the Limbic system and is the area of the brain responsible for keeping us alive. It controls all the Fight or Flight responses in our body and mind, it keeps our heart beating, encourages us to reproduce, to eat and it reacts to outside stimulation to keep us safe. These signals come from our senses and sometimes our thoughts.
If you are faced with a threatening situation, your Limbic system takes over to protect you, before you are even aware of a threat. For example, if you were to come across an escaped Lion, your primitive Limbic system would get your body ready to run away, it would increase your heart rate, pushing blood to your limbs, making you breathe faster to pump more oxygen through your body to make you run faster. Your stomach might churn, your head might start to pound and you would be out of there as soon as you could. If you survive, the Limbic system has done its job and it will respond in the same way the next time it encounters a threatening situation as the Limbic system relies on previous patterns of behaviour to protect us.
But its not only Lions that trigger the Primitive Limbic area of the Brain, it can be anything that it may have learnt over your lifetime that you believed were threatening, including small spiders, Clowns, Thunder and many other fears.
It could be just a thought of a past trauma triggers the Limbic system into thinking that it needs to protect you today and you suffer with an increased heart rate, dizziness, anxiety or a panic attack.
The process we will follow is to initally reduce Anxiety levels and encourage better sleep. When the level of anxiety is managable, we will tackle the Phobia or traumatic event using Neuro Linguistic Programming techniques, specifically Visual Kinaesthetic Dissociation which is done using deep relaxation or Hypnosis.
Sessions last up to an hour each and some sessions use Hypnosis at the end to allow you to process what has been discussed and make you feel calm.
The sessions are relaxed, hopefully enjoyable and you will never be exposed directly to the things that make you anxious. There may be occasions when we don't even mention the reason why you came to see me, but dont worry, I won't have forgotten, its just part of the process to get you back on track.
