In the main, anxiety reduction is the main focus of a Solution focused Hypnotherapist, if the clients “stress bucket” has capacity inside it, the client is able to deal with day to day life a lot easier and work from their intellectual mind, rather than the much quicker and negative Primitive mind. The client leads us and we follow asking questions and focusing in on solutions to what may be causing the anxiety. For this we use Scaling and the Miracle question to guide conversations on how we could make some small changes in the client’s life that will move them up the Happiness or Confidence scales.

There may be times when, in addition to the above, we use additional techniques. NLP methods such as the Rewind technique are very successful in assisting with PTSD and Phobia. Clients are relaxed and taken to an imaginary place with a TV or a Cinema where they can watch themselves, watching old movies in black and white of the trauma or phobia that they have experienced.  Watching them forwards and in reverse until the emotional spike is reduced or has gone. Them we can “reframe” the situation to a more positive outcome.

Another technique is the “swish” technique. This could be used for a variety of complaints. For weight loss, we get the client to picture themselves at how they look now and replace that with their preferred image of themselves and teach them to “swish” the images back and forth in their minds to allow the brain to train itself for positive outcomes. Also in sports, we could have a picture of the moment of anxiety, for instance before lifting a weight and the moment of success, when the weight is safely been lifted. 

We use inductions to relax the clients into Trance and get them deeper into relaxation by utilising deepener scripts. When they are comfortably in trance, we tell stories or metaphors to allow their brains to think and process to solve the riddles contained within them. Suggestions, whether indirect or direct can be used in trance to solidify the conversations that we had with the client during our session.

Each client is individual and we should always use what we feel is the best course of action to help with their issues. Reducing anxiety, I feel, is the priority initially, as with a low anxiety level, other techniques are far more effective.

The therapeutic relationship is the relationship developed between the therapist and client over time. Without a therapeutic relationship, therapy is less meaningful. A strong bond is extremely helpful in the success of therapy.

The therapeutic relationship has many components and varies between each individual relationship. However, there are some common characteristics.

We need to be genuine; we need the client to think we are a real human being and they can be themselves when they are with us and feel able to speak freely.

We need to be Empathetic and be able to recognise, identify and understand the situation that the client is experiencing and to understand their feelings, ideas and motivations. This is the basis and foundation for a therapeutic relationship because it establishes a personal connection between the therapist and client, allowing the client to see their therapist hears them, values and understands their needs.

We need to be trusted and be non-judgemental. For clients who find it difficult to open up or explore their feelings due to worrying that it is not safe for them to do so, it matters greatly that they can feel confident that their therapist will not judge them.

We need to be warm and show we care from the moment we first meet our clients.

Without a therapeutic relationship, therapy will be less effective. We know that this is a crucial part of therapy, in some ways the clients feels that the relationship with the therapist is the therapy. The relationship will hopefully allow the client to move towards achieving their goals

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Clients will come to see us as there is something in their life that they would like help with. Usually, the client knows what they don’t want, for example, “I don’t want to feel stressed all the time” or I don’t want to be afraid of spiders anymore” very small interventions can help with both, but are these the actual goals of the client?? We have to be careful not to dismiss these goals, but we also have to find out what the client actually wants, not what they don’t want. Using the Initial consultation format we can carefully question to find out what would make the clients life better and turn “I don’t want to feel stressed anymore” to “I want to be able to enjoy my evenings with my family” or “I don’t want to be afraid of spiders anymore” to “I would like to deal with a spider if I see one” we look for what the clients wants instead of what they don’t.

We let our clients know roughly how many sessions it could take for them to achieve their goals, we discuss at what point would they be happy to stop therapy, this could be in conjunction to the miracle question and scale, “when they reach an 8, its good enough” or it could be when they decide that they just feel better. They are in control of when they stop, but if the therapist feels that it is too soon, they should bring this up, we always take a full course of Anti-Biotics as this is what the doctor tells us is best, if a therapist thinks stopping therapy too soon would hinder, the client’s recovery, they have a duty of care to say so. Stating that it could take between 9-12 sessions, maybe more, for the client’s complaints to ease sufficiently, sets the stall out early and suggests things are not an instant win, so the speed of recovery is not over estimated, if it happens sooner, that’s great!! If for a phobia the therapists estimates 5 sessions, they could suggest that “most “clients have this many sessions, but some a few more, again, allowing the client to expect an improvement gradually.

Asking a client what his goal is for this session is valuable also, as sometimes different situations crop up in our clients lives that throw them a curveball and we may need to focus on something else, what ever it is, whatever the goal, we need to acknowledge it, record it and find small steps forward in achieving it.

We would never want to be in a position of promising to wave a magic wand within a number of sessions, as this would subconsciously put pressure on the client to achieve their goal in this time and maybe for some reason, change is not possible in this time frame. We could also be accused of misleading the client.

Goals are so important, but we must remember that a football player doesn’t need to score a goal to win, just playing the game is sometimes good enough.

When we first see our clients for an initial consultation, we gather information using our Information gathering form and then we proceed to give a presentation of the workings of the mind, this is always customised with information taken from the client to make it relevant and specific to their needs.

During this presentation, questions are encouraged at every opportunity. I prefer to break this presentation down into sections,

The Brain

Polar Bears

Ancestors

Anxiety

Stress bucket

Sleep

The 3 P`s

Physiology

Trance

At the end of each section, I check the clients (and Companions) understanding of what has just been shared, this allows for any clarification needed to be given before we move onto the next section. We can then, at the end, discuss any further questions or queries that the client may have. In the main, the more detailed an explanation, the less questions there are. We review this presentation at every future session to further reinforce understanding.

We must ensure that the client knows what to expect from us going forward, we can discuss the format of future sessions, how many sessions we feel the client would benefit from and any other administration that we feel is needed. I always encourage clients to contact me by email with any questions they may have after the sessions and I always call them back with the answers, phone is the preferred option for contact as its more personal and allows for the clients understanding to be checked.

Putting the clients mind at ease, allowing them to see our trust in the process, will start the positive change of mindset needed immediately and give the client hope.

During the initial consultation and the workings of the mind presentation, we discuss why the clients may be feeling as they do. We discuss how our minds produce chemicals or neurotransmitters depending on the situation we are in or our thoughts at the time. Our ancestors are used as a metaphor to describe what we have to do to produce the “happy” chemicals that we need a constant flow of, to lead a more intellectually controlled life.

Solution Focused Hypnotherapists do not tell the client what they should be doing, but we can question in a way that may encourage the clients to do what they need to do, or of course suggest that our other clients find certain things beneficial. In the same way we would encourage the listening of our MP3 each night before bed, as “most of my clients feel this is beneficial and speeds up the therapy process” 

We have to ensure, that right from the start, we tell the client that they will be the ones solving their own problems and they have to do all the hard work outside of the therapy sessions. The work that the client puts in between the sessions is what will help their situation the most and if they act on the advice from our ancestors, their progress will be far more effective. If we develop a good working relationship, the therapy will also be far more beneficial as we can be far more honest with clients and we should ask them, if at times they are resisting therapy by not putting in the effort needed between sessions.

As we do not normally set homework, with the exception of suggesting that the MP3 is listened to, it is difficult to set a task that we may feel is beneficial. But we can listen for the client to suggest something that we may feel is beneficial and proceed to question it until the client then thinks it’s a good idea, at this stage we could gain commitment and invite the client into trance, to process what they have just committed to. Active listening and seeing great opportunities is the key.   

Our practice rooms, should be fit for purpose. We spend time in conversation and time where we are encouraging our clients into a relaxing trance, having a good environment to do this in is very important. We need to try to eliminate anything that will cause a distraction to our sessions, although sometimes things will be outside of our control, for example if a fire alarm activates or if we have a power cut or other emergencies.

But the things we can control, we must make sure we do so with our client’s comfort and wellbeing in mind. Noisy environments, are best avoided, constant chatter and voices from outside of the therapy room can be off putting to the client and therapist, passing traffic strangely can sound reassuring and isn’t quite such an issue. Cramped rooms can feel like we are invading a client’s personal space and rooms that are too large feel, cold and clinical, we need cosy, but enough room to feel relaxed and to be able to sit comfortably at an appropriate distance to the client. Too hot or too cold, heating must be set at a nice ambient temperature, we really don’t want clients shivering or feeling too hot.

Clients need to feel that our sessions are private, we need a practice room that gives this feeling, free talk is always encouraged and if a client thinks they may be over heard, this will be a difficult thing to achieve. I also believe that the entrance needs to be discreet, no big bold signs stating the nature of the business inside, clients may feel that passers by will know why they are entering the building and this may put them immediately off guard.

Common sense is the key, we should question, whether we as therapists would be comfortable to receive therapy in the room we are proposing our clients will use, if not, we change it, if so, we use it. 

During the Initial Consultation we describe what Hypnosis is, we say it is a tool that we use as Hypnotherapists, but we call it Trance, which can take away the stigma that some people have regarding the word Hypnosis. Of course, this may not be necessary as they have already come to see us for help and may be comfortable with the wording.

Trance is very ordinary in many ways. All of us go into trance many times a day, when we are concentrating on something, watching Television, at the gym or running, even when we are driving a regular route. We do it all the time.Trance is when the two mind, the conscious and the subconscious, come together in focus. You are then able to access the subconscious mind and that vast intellectual resource, enabling you to get the very best out of yourself

I often say, that our goal with trance is to guide us into a state of relaxation, where we can allow our brain to work hard on finding solutions, whist we enjoy moments of complete relaxation. I also compare trance to REM sleep, or maybe day dreaming, when the body allows the mind to process our thoughts and allow us to plan for the future, it really does depend on the client.

The main goal of any discussion around Hypnotherapy is to educate the client to the reason we do trance at the end of a Solution Focused Therapy session. We need the client to be working from the Intellectual mind, to allow them to absorb what we have been talking about and allow the prefrontal cortex to access the vast database of information that is the cerebral cortex to make their future brighter.

We also use repetition, which builds stronger learning pathways in the brain, which allows us to give positive suggestions that the brain will act on, not something the client can do if they are using their Primitive, emotional brain.

It also allows the client to leave the session feeling good, relaxed and with a reduced anxiety level. No matter how hard you try, you can’t seem to feel anxious and relaxed at the same time. Feeling happy and angry at the same times doesn’t seem to work either!!!   

We have also to remind the client that stage Hypnosis is not Hypnotherapy, our aims are for the client to have a better life and not be the star of the show.

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It is far too easy to assume that clients understand what we are saying, regular checks should be made to make sure that the language we are using is easy to understand and what we are saying is relevant. We should ask questions, for example “does that make sense” or “does that sound familiar to you” we should look out for body language, the client may nod, smile or show emotion at a particular section of the Initial consultation, they may even offer suggestions to the similarity to themselves during the presentation.

Reviewing “how the mind works” from the Initial Consultation, on sessions 1 onwards, helps to ascertain if the client has remembered the previous presentations and is a measure of their understanding.

I encourage questions at all times and suggest that if there is something that the client doesn’t understand, then it is my lack of care in explaining it correctly that has caused them to not understand.

The more the client understands, the more tools they have to find solutions!