Habits are created through a process called habit formation. This process involves three steps:

1. Cue: A cue is a trigger that tells your brain to go into automatic mode and perform a behavior. For example, the smell of coffee might be a cue that tells you to make a cup of coffee, when you get anxious you may bite your nails.
2. Routine: The routine is the behavior itself. In the example of the smell of coffee, the routine might be to go to the kitchen and make a cup of coffee.
3. Reward: The reward is something that your brain likes that helps it remember the habit loop. In the example of the smell of coffee, the reward might be the feeling of caffeine coursing through your veins or the action of biting your nails may make you feel less stressed.

When you repeatedly perform a behavior in response to a cue, your brain creates a neural pathway that connects the cue to the routine. Over time, this pathway becomes stronger and stronger, and the behavior becomes more automatic.

Habits can be either good or bad. Good habits can help you to achieve your goals, while bad habits can sabotage your efforts. If you want to change a bad habit, you need to break the habit loop. You can do this by:

• Identifying the cue: The first step is to identify the cue that triggers the behavior. Once you know the cue, you can start to avoid it or change it.
• Changing the routine: The second step is to change the routine. This might mean replacing the bad habit with a good habit, or it might mean finding a new way to respond to the cue.
• Reducing the reward: The third step is to reduce the reward. This might mean finding a way to get the same reward without performing the bad habit, or it might mean finding a way to enjoy the reward less.

Changing a habit takes time and effort, but it is possible. 

Here are some additional tips for changing habits:

• Be patient: It takes time to change a habit. Don't get discouraged if you don't see results immediately.
• Be consistent: The more consistent you are with your new habit, the more likely it is to stick.
• Make it easy: Make it easy for yourself to do the new habit. This might mean setting up reminders, putting things in convenient places, or finding a partner to help you.
• Reward yourself: When you do the new habit, reward yourself with something you enjoy. This will help you to stay motivated.
• Try Hypnosis: A proven strategy to reduce bad habits and encourage good ones.

Termination of trance is very simple, there is no need to count the client out of trance, asking them to open their eyes is enough to bring them to full wakefulness. But if we do this simple method, we miss a great opportunity to suggest positive things, as the client is still very much open to suggestion at this stage.

Giving positive suggestions while exiting trance is a powerful tool. It could be the very last, or only suggestion that they remember during their session. Clients should always leave in a positive frame of mind, feeling great and very relaxed, knowing that they feel different and refreshed and that they enjoyed the experience.

It may be appropriate to suggest things relevant to their goals or how they will feel when they are further up the “scale” of if used during a smoking cessation session, how much more the smell of cigarettes puts them off ever wanting one again! Short, Sharp, focussed suggestions to help them on their journey.

There are many ways to exit, I like to personalise the exit specific to the clients’ goals, just as little nudges in the right direction. We mustn’t lose sight that the client is very much open to suggestion post trance and being positive and complimentary of how well they did during the session is valuable to boost positivity further and encourage the client to “keep up the good work” between sessions.

www.bestmindtherapy.co.uk

For more info, email me This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Solution Focused Hypnotherapy: A Quick Guide to This Innovative Therapy

Solution Focused Hypnotherapy is a type of therapy that combines the principles of solution-focused therapy and hypnosis. It is a short-term, goal-oriented therapy that focuses on the present and future, rather than the past.

What is Solution-Focused Therapy?

Solution-focused therapy is a type of therapy that focuses on the client's goals and solutions, rather than the problem. It is a strengths-based approach that believes that clients already have the resources they need to solve their problems.

What is Hypnosis?

Hypnosis is a state of heightened suggestibility that can be induced by a therapist. In hypnosis, the client is more open to suggestion and can learn new behaviors and skills.

How Does Solution Focused Hypnotherapy Work?

Solution Focused Hypnotherapy works by combining the principles of solution-focused therapy and hypnosis. The therapist will first work with the client to identify their goals. Once the goals have been identified, the therapist will use hypnosis to help the client achieve their goals.

Hypnosis can be used to help the client learn new behaviors and skills, change their thinking patterns, and reduce anxiety and stress.

What Are the Benefits of Solution Focused Hypnotherapy?

Solution Focused Hypnotherapy is a short-term, effective therapy that can help people with a variety of problems, including:

• Anxiety
• Stress
• Depression
• Phobias
• Eating disorders
• Pain management
• Performance anxiety
• Sleep problems
• Weight loss

How Many Sessions Do I Need?

The number of sessions you need will vary depending on your individual needs. Most people need between 8 and 12 sessions.

Is Solution Focused Hypnotherapy Safe?

Solution Focused Hypnotherapy is a safe and effective therapy. There are no known side effects.

What Should I Expect During a Session?

Positive Solution focused conversations, identifying small steps to help you reach your goals in life. followed by a session hypnosis,, you will be asked to relax and focus on the therapist's voice. The therapist may use a variety of techniques to help you relax, such as guided imagery or progressive muscle relaxation. Once you are relaxed, the therapist will work with you to identify your goals and develop a plan to achieve them.

www.bestmindtherapy.co.uk

A Hypnotic deepener takes someone from being in a trance to being in an even deeper trance. It is generally believed that the deeper the trance the more effective the therapy, but this may not be the case as a lighter trance can give more flexibility during the session.

www.bestmindtherapy.co.uk

The Solution Focused Hypnotherapy process does not necessarily give tasks between sessions. Although, we do use elements of CBT, which does set tasks, the difference would be, in CBT they check to see if tasks have been completed, in SFH we don’t... we rely on the client telling us as something that may have been good, or something that has helped since the last session. We do not ask, as we do not want the client to feel he or she has failed in any way.

We do encourage actions between sessions, one of those is to listen to our guided relaxation MP3 as a means of self-hypnosis and to find moments of hypnotic trance between sessions and to aid the therapy process. This gets our clients used to our voices, which in turn helps them to enter trance more easily when they come for a session. It trains their mind to accept suggestion through repetition and makes the most of the improved sleep that it will encourage, therefore hopefully improving REM (rapid eye movement sleep)

Part of our Initial consultation and the workings of the mind presentation explains the physiology of the brain and how we keep a constant flow of beneficial neurotransmitters, serotonin, dopamine and endorphins flowing through our bodies. We use a caveman metaphor to explain the rewards our ancestors received for Positive Actions, Positive interactions and Positive thinking We rely on a good explanation of the physiology of the brain, the MP3 and the work we have done with the client on a subconscious level, to encourage self help and we hope, as the client has come to see us for help, that they will attempt to make small changes in these areas, to aid their journey towards their goals.

We can of course, jump on a suggestion from the client of something that they will do and ask them if indeed they will try it or do it, if we believe it will have a potential positive outcome. Asking them if they will try it and what they think will be better if they did? But again, we would hope that the self-set task was completed, but we would wait to be told if they have.

The swish technique is something we can train our clients to use between sessions, if they feel this would be helpful, something very easy that they can do at anytime during the day when they have a few moments. Once this is taught, the client has it for a lifetime and can use it in many different situations.

I mainly use progressive relaxation inductions, which allow a gentle drift into trance. The subject matter of the script though, I base on what information that I can get from the client at the initial consultation.

I find that for people who like holidays, tropical island and beach style scripts work well as they can imagine a beach that they know or enjoy. Walkers or ramblers may like to picture green hills and meandering paths, leading down a valley. Climbing down stairs is a classic, but I did have a lady who found her imagination didn’t picture a lovely stately home, but a grim old castle that made her feel cold and nervous, the next session we changed to stairs leading down to a beautiful beach, which she enjoyed so much more. Gardeners enjoy gardens, the closer you can make the induction to something the client can picture, the more effective the trance.

Avoiding any reference to the phobia of the client is wise, if the client is afraid of heights, stairs could be avoided, people with a fear of water or large sea birds, would not be as comfortable walking along a beach.

I use eye fixation for children as this encourages eye closure and then can lead to a progressive relaxation without them opening their eyes.

Common sense and listening to the client at the IC will help in selecting the best induction, to allow our clients to access their subconscious minds.

www.bestmindtherapy.co.uk

The Solution Focused Hypnotherapy model does not necessarily assign tasks between sessions, the clients may suggest that they will do something in between sessions based on something we may have said, for instance we may suggest that some of our clients keep a record of things that they found positive each day or record things that they are thankful for. If they choose to do this, we would not ask them of their progress as if they have failed to complete it, it may put them in a negative frame of mind.

We do though, suggest that they listen to our MP3 recording each evening before they go to sleep, as this will assist the work that we are doing together, this is mentioned in the initial consultation and revisited when we recap on the workings of the mind at the next session. If we are to encourage any task or homework, the recording is the one, as it keeps up the therapeutic benefits of using the left prefrontal cortex and emulates REM sleep, which helps anxiety levels and aids problem solving.

As the structure of our sessions contains scaling and the miracle question, we rely on the client to subconsciously work towards their goals between sessions, based on the small steps that they stated could be done to move themselves up the scales.

The Swish technique is one we can teach and encourage the client to use, I have utilised this with sports performance coaching where clients have a high level of anxiety prior to making a move, for instance weightlifting, where the pre lift is the moment of anxiety and achieving the lift is the moment of success.

Positive thinking, Positive Interactions and Positive activity can be encouraged, if we have described the benefits correctly during the workings of the brain presentation, we would hope subconsciously the client will be working towards this.

Whilst saying goodbye, we can of course ask the client to “keep up the good work” a task in itself!! 

www.bestmindtherapy.co.uk

A Hypnotic induction is used to induce a state of trance in a client. There are many methods to do this.

In the main, for Solution focused Hypnotherapy we only need a light relaxing trance to help us with our work, so a relaxing progressive relaxation induction can be used for most people. A walk down some stairs in an old stately home to a room or maybe a walk down from a green hill to a beach, just listening to the story and the client imagining that they are the one walking is enough for them to drift off into a lovely place.

Other methods, but not an exhaustive list, are

Pattern Interruption, where a handshake is adapted by the therapist to confuse the client into trance.

Metaphorical Inductions, where we tell a story or a fairy tale, with hidden suggestions inside.

Confusion inductions, which use a play on language to confuse the mind into trance.

Arm levitation, where clients are encouraged to notice different feeling in their arms

Eye fixation, where a client stares at something until their eyes are so heavy, they have to close.

Fractionalisation is where you get the client to come in and out of trance to gradually go deeper.

Any change in a client’s emotion can be used to encourage trance, if they laugh or cry or a loud noise makes them jump, a skilled Hypnotherapist can use these emotion changes to induce a trance like state.

Each client is individual and not everything works on everyone and it may take a little practice to find the most appropriate method.

www.bestmindtherapy.co.uk