I am a Solution Focused Hypnotherapist. This therapy focuses on the future and how life will be better when you make positive changes to your life.  Life is supposed to be fun…
… so where did I go wrong?  I regret doing that and I’m dreading that meeting with my boss tomorrow.
Sound familiar?  Well, beyond this paragraph there’s no room for this type of negative thinking or reflection – just think about those statements for a moment, recognise perhaps, how your mind sometimes gets caught up in similar futile thinking that has no resolution!
We all experience times in our life letting our anxiety and fear get the better of us.  Many people allow themselves to be consumed by these feelings often debilitating and preventing us from carrying on with normal activities and enjoying our lives – existing rather than living perhaps?
You may be surprised to learn all our fears are rooted to the primitive part of our mind.  
If all this sounds alien and mystical – please read on as I attempt to dispel any myths, concerns about hypnotherapy, hypnosis and the trance process below.
How does hypnosis work?
Put simply – it is “suggestion” generally guided affirmation with some metaphor whilst the subconscious mind, body are relaxed and open to such goal orientated and practical suggestions.
The full initial consultation will explain what gives rise to our fears, anxieties, depressive episodes etc.
There is nothing mystical about hypnotherapy, no mind control – you might be surprised to hear that people who walk around on a stage eating a raw onion and making chicken noises are at least as likely to do that if you asked them in full waking consciousness!

Hypnotherapy is all about suggestion and allowing positive affirmation and change, which would otherwise be filtered, by this sentinel and vigilant mind when you take in a suggestion, to your subconscious it becomes real. You still have to take that suggestion in for it to become real. And this is where your mind makes choices.
While in hypnosis you could never be made to do something you wouldn’t do in your everyday life, when not hypnotised.
So what does it feel like under hypnosis?  It is physiologically, no different from that one constant experience each of us experience daily – sleep, or specifically, dream REM sleep.  Clients report positive feelings of relaxation, calm, focus and attention.  Some also report imagery.
Solution Focused - There are various disciplines of hypnotherapy – generally, practice and ethos is directed toward past events (which led to the presenting issues) – typically called regressive or analytical approach to how we’ve internalised experience.
My school of training and programme are aligned to SFBT (Solution Focused Brief Therapy).  In this scenario, all consultation and orientation is practical, goal focused and only concerned with the immediate present and future state (of where you want to be).  
Applications are wide and varied – aside from anxieties, OCD, anger management.  Performance, anti-smoking, effective communication, weight and pain management are all examples of conditions, which are successfully treated.  Phobias are another great example – spiders, getting on a plane, public speaking, are addressed in normally, 4 sessions maximum (initial consultation included).