HYPNOTHERAPY
FOR ANXIETY
Hypnosis refers to both a therapeutic technique and a modified state of consciousness. You will discover in this sheet its principles, the different types of hypnosis, its benefits, how a hypnotherapist works during a session of hypnosis, as well as the dangers and controversies around this practice.
The term “hypnosis” comes from the Greek word “hupnoein” which means to fall asleep. Hypnosis refers to an altered state of consciousness also called “trance”, in which the individual is between waking and sleeping. This state is natural and experienced every day: when you read a good book, watch a movie that transports you, watch a fire carefully, temporarily lose the notion of time driving a car or, quite simply, when one is “in the moon”. Hypnosis therapy aims to make the subject’s resources available to the brain and to activate self-healing powers through suggestions made during this modified state of consciousness.
People with generalized anxiety keep a permanent anxious state for months or years or even forever (according to them). This anxiety is “floating” or “free”, not related to a specific concern. The person has little control over his cognitive intrusions of imagining a threatening future. Concern is perceived as a means to prevent or eliminate the threat.
Unlike intrusive images constructed obsessive disorders, the person feels realistic and trivial fears. The worries usually revolve around the themes of money, loss of work, sickness, family, everyday activities such as the systematic fear of missing a bus or being late for an appointment. . Anxiety can focus temporarily on a more specific situation such as the fear of misfortune for a loved one. In some serious cases, one can speak of “fear of everything”. It is these uncontrollable and excessive aspects of these anxieties that cause the most pain.
While psychoanalysis seeks to know past causes, in order to explain the patient’s illness, which is not a guaranteed solution but sometime it may backfire and pushes the patient to get worse. hypnosis seeks a concrete solution to improve the present and the future of the patient, knowing that if his unconscious encoded a fear, without it goes through his conscious, he can discard, without this also goes through his conscious. It’s common sense.
Moreover, it is difficult and complicated to go back to one’s past in an efficient way, in order to find the real cause of our problem, because our unconscious may have forgotten it, and because our brain is transforming our interpretations. Not to mention the fact that rehashing the past, and our anxieties, is recognized that this can be harmful for the well-being.
This is why hypnosis helps to change our behaviour in the face of the same events, by dramatizing them and interpreting them to their true weight and measure. It does not change the events of our past, but the subjective interpretation that we have.
Hypnosis allows very concretely to deprogram negative conditioning in us, our brain permanently creates anchors and can also undo them, thanks to the exceptional plasticity of our neurons.
The brain is made of miniature cells, called neurons. These neurons have miniature branches that connect to form a neural network. Physiologically, when you practice something over and over again, or you keep telling yourself, these nerve cells will develop a neural network related to your problem, which will become increasingly addictive, invasive, even haunting. the person. What is called in familiar We know that when we stop practising an activity, we lose competence in it, and at the level of our neurons, we can now see through medical imaging what results: nerve endings are discarded what you can actually see on the third video. In other words: the hypnotherapist, helps you to use a vocabulary as well as thought patterns that act on your neurons, and of course, they act in the other direction: when we speak, or act, we think unconsciously and very quickly, and our neurons are behind these mechanisms.
During the first interview with the therapist, the person presents the difficulties they encounter and defines their wellness goals. To treat his episodes of anxiety leading to tetany, the patient is guided. He is immersed in a hypnotic state, invited to close his eyes, relax and listen to the messages of the hypnotherapist. The person is brought to access his resistance and draw from it his resources. The autonomy of the patient is privileged.
The conscious is put aside. To access the subconscious, the therapist induces messages aimed at treating anxiety and modifying problematic behaviours. Indirect suggestions are intended to signal to the unconscious changes in behaviour to operate before the process leading to the tetanus crisis is triggered. Visualizations can be proposed, their purpose is to stimulate internal security and to establish or restore a climate of trust. The hypnotherapist treats the anxiety-provoking situations of the past in particular, but also the crisis situations in themselves. Hypnosis, therefore, acts in prevention and as a treatment for tetanus attacks.
The effects of treatment with hypnosis are immediate. Patients suffering from tetanus attacks treated by hypnosis are not only satisfied by the spacing of seizures or even their disappearance, but they quickly realize secondary benefits such as better sleep, reduced anxiety and a disposition. particular to savour the present moment.