Hypnotherapy can help alleviate the symptoms of anxiety.  Anxiety is a human emotion experienced by everyone and if you imagine a scale of 1 to 100, where 1 is very low and 100 is very high, our anxiety levels are on that scale somewhere at all times.  Sometimes we may be veering towards the upper end, other times we may move towards the lower end.  For some people, anxiety can be particularly prevalent and they may feel that they are towards the top end of the scale for a lot of the time and are finding it hard to control this.  Read more ….

With anxiety being a natural emotion, it is linked to our survival instincts and this is very true of panic attacks.  A panic attack is the arousal of the Flight or Fight syndrome where the mind believes we’re in a position of mortal danger and will do all that it can to ensure we are at our best to flee or fight in that situation.  This is often triggered unnecessarily and can be very traumatic for the sufferer.

Hypnotherapy works by relaxing the conscious mind so that we can communicate with the subconscious.  The subconscious is the part of us that holds all our automatic responses, our habits and our instincts.  By communicating with this part, we can seek to alleviate the symptoms and the triggering of the symptoms.  Additionally, often hypnotherapy will include visualisations.  This is where the client imagines specific situations how they would like to feel.  In doing this, it creates a memory in the subconscious, therefore, when we are in a similar situation, our subconscious will act in accordance with this new memory as it will feel a sense of familiarity and security in feeling that way in this situation.  We often do the complete opposite of this. Often we imagine being a situation and things going terribly wrong for example we can think that we’re going to have a panic attack or feel terribly nervous at the party we’re going to.  In doing this, we’re rehearsing for things to go wrong, so as they begin to, it feels familiar and the rest of the ‘going wrong’ ensues.  In this sense, it is very easy for our fears to self fulfil and to escalate. 

 Learning how to relax plays has a valid part in managing anxiety, to take time out to truly rest and switch off from the world, even if it is only for a few minutes each day.  This can be invaluable and in doing this, the visualisations mentioned above can be incorporated to allow the individual to imagine being as they want to be in whatever situation, whenever, wherever.  It can allow our minds to focus, it can reduce anxieties and allow us to be as we want to be.

Hypnotherapy can also be used to go back (regress) to early parts of our lives to tackle the root cause or situations of anxiety.  In a relaxed state, we’d go back to be at that time when we first felt anxious or when we first had a panic attack to provide comfort or to feel safe in that situation.  In doing this, it provides resolve to our subconscious which will alleviate future unwanted responses to situations.

Each individual will have their own unique circumstances regarding this common and largely untalked about issue, therefore the therapy offered is likely to be tailored to cater for that person to allow them to be as they’d like to be.  The first step to seeking help is often seeking further information so the individual realises what is going on.  Many people join online forums to share experiences and quickly realise that they are not mad, losing control or becoming crazy.  The internet has a mass of information on anxiety and mass of resources to help.

(post by Duncan Quinney of Personal Empowerment Therapy who provides counselling and hypnotherapy in Great Barr, Birmingham and Sutton Coldfield)