Hypnotherapy can be used to treat anxiety and depression by accessing the unconscious mind. The therapist first talks to understand the client's life experiences and patterns that may be driving their issues. Through hypnosis, the root causes are uncovered by exploring past memories and untangling emotional connections. Suggestion therapy then provides positive ideas and tools to develop new, healthier thinking habits. The goal is resolving problems at both an intellectual and emotional level to overcome challenges in a holistic manner.

1. So, today I'd like to talk to you
about Hypnotherapy and how it's
used to treat anxiety and
depression.
I guess, from the outset, I should
say that hypnosis isn't a therapy.
Hypnosis really is just a state of
mind. And the thing that makes
hypnosis useful as far as therapy is
concerned is it gives us access to
your unconscious.

2. N T Q ow he uestion C omes HOW ??
Now, that access can be used in a few different ways. One way that access can
be used is by putting information in, which is probably what a lot of people
think hypnotherapy is. A hypnotist getting someone into trance and giving
them positive suggestions to reduce their anxieties or to give them a more
positive outlook on life. That is one way of using hypnosis. And typically I
would do that with someone, but before I do, I would like to sit down and talk
to you about past, present, and how you want the future to be. To get a real
mud map of you and your life, about how things have been when you were
growing up, what things trigger what thoughts and what feelings, what that
causes you to do, when you're able to overcome that and when you're not able
to overcome it. So I get a real good idea of what's going on, and perhaps, have a
few little insights into, perhaps, what could be driving the problem.

3. So that's what I call suggestion therapy. Essentially, it's
me giving you useful suggestions while you're in a nice
relaxed hypnotic state. But the thing is that doesn't
touch a problem because anxiety isn't the problem
which may sound like a very strange thing to say. See, we have these
brains that are always patterning things. We always use a process of
patterning in order to try and make sense of the
world around us. And we are continuously referring
to past experiences - information from past
experiences - in order to ascertain what's about to
happen next. And if something in our past has either
hurt us, or frightened us, or upset us in some way,
then that experience kind of gets tagged unconsciously and then we're
unconsciously on the lookout for anything that may vaguely
resemble that.

4. So that when we find ourselves in a situation and, perhaps, our
unconscious mind refers back to that past experience completely
outside of the conscious awareness, where our unconscious kind of
goes "Oh, that's just like that thing that happened when we were
two, or five, or ten, or whatever. That wasn't good”; and then it
sends it off those alarm bells, like the beating heart, the shortness of
breath, the churning stomach, and all those symptoms of anxiety
that we experience. And that's your unconscious mind doing its best
to help you. It's giving you a very strong warning signal that you're
in some kind of danger, either physical or emotional.

5. Second Session
Typically then, in the second session,
I would get you into hypnosis and
give you all those positive suggestions based on all
the positive changes that you want to make for yourself. And typically I
would record that session LIVE so we can get that
recording onto a CD or an mp3 for you to use at home
because you need a reinforcement of all those
ideas so they will become integrated and become
a part of you. The thing about hypnosis that makes suggestions
work so well is that the critical factor of your mind becomes
more relaxed so that those ideas are much more
readily accepted and, indeed, acted upon
(especially if they're your ideas and they're in line
with what you want for yourself).

6. So, me giving you all the suggestions in world in trance or out of
trance isn‘t touching any of that. So what we really need to do is find
out what it is your unconscious mind keeps referring back
to that's letting it think that you're in danger. So, in this
way, we're using hypnosis once again, but not so much to
put ideas in, but to pull that information out. So, using
that access to pull information out so you really have a
deep understanding of where the anxiety comes from. So you
discover the root cause of it. Firstly, you get an
intellectual understanding of that.

7. "Ah, no wonder!” You learn why this makes you
feel this way, or that frightens you, or why you
get frightened in this sort of situation." But more
importantly than that, is you get an emotional
understanding about why you feel the way you do. And essentially, by doing that
regression work, finding out the root
cause of your problem, what I'm really helping you
to do is to untangle yourself emotionally from that
experience or event in your past.
Now, that event may be what's called a
repressed memory, where it's currently
completely outside of your conscious awareness, or it
could be something that is within your conscious awareness,
but you haven't made the connection between the two.

8. Or it could be something that's within your
conscious awareness and you have made the
connection - you do have an intellectual
understanding of where the cause of your
anxiety comes from -, but you're still
emotionally tangled up in it.
Essentially, it doesn't really matter which one of
those three it is. All that matters is we get back to
the root cause of the problem and get it sorted so
that it doesn't tug you back by those emotional
chords anymore; so that you're free to move
forwards.

9. So, that is the second line of attack that I would take in helping you to overcome
anxiety, or depression also. Although, with depression, we're more looking at any
beliefs that may be running around in your head at an unconscious level that
may be causing problems. And so, when I'm helping someone with depression,
we're really looking at any of those beliefs; and when we come across a belief
that looks like it's causing problems, then we use hypnosis to access the memories
to find out where you learned to believe whatever that belief is so that we can
resolve that, both intellectually and emotionally.

10. Now, the other part of the problem is that you, like the rest of us humans,
develop habitual ways of looking at things and thinking about things.
And so, what we need to do is to give you some tools that are helpful in
helping you to undo the habitual side of your problem and to form a
whole new habit. And the way I do that is a real integration of
mindfulness, and self-hypnosis, and cognitive behavioral therapy.
Essentially, here, what I'm helping people to do is to habituate new
neural pathways in the brain - ones that feel a lot better than the ones
that are currently being used.

12. So, I hope I have been able to explain the ways
I use hypnotherapy in helping people to
overcome anxiety and depression.
Visit www.hypnotherapyqueensland.com
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