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Why I became a Solution Focused Hypnotherapist 29/11/24

My working life has taken a few different paths, initially a musician working in community/education settings and also as a freelance musician which gave me the opportunity to tour in Europe and as far as New Zealand. However, feeling the need for a more stable and regular income, I trained to become a teacher. At first, I taught Music Technology to 16 to 18-year-olds which I thoroughly enjoyed. Later, I chose to work as a teacher at a special needs school, teaching students who had a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Condition; no longer teaching music but teaching all subjects, like you would as a primary school teacher. Teaching those young people was a privilege as was getting to know their families and carers.

Many of you will be aware though, that teaching is a demanding role and as I have had chronic fatigue syndrome for the last twenty years, it became harder to manage the workload. I was lucky in that the special school I worked at had a brilliant head who strove to do all that she could to support teachers. This was true, in fact, of all the senior leadership team. Even so, spending most evenings and a significant part of the weekend planning and assessing was becoming too relentless.

After many years of managing my chronic fatigue syndrome as best I could, I got an appointment with the CFS clinic in Birmingham. I have to say that they were brilliant and the consultant I saw was excellent but unfortunately, I had a very bad reaction to the drug they prescribed me and found myself very ill and unable to work for some time. This was the point at which I felt I had to reassess my working life. I knew that teaching was no longer an option but I still wanted to do something where I could work with people and support them to achieve the things they wanted to and to be able to flourish.

I did a lot of thinking without any great inspiration but then, at some point, I found myself remembering the hypnotherapy I’d had several years before to help me stop smoking …… and stop I did! So I knew first hand that hypnotherapy worked and so I began to look into how one could train to become a hypnotherapist. The more I read about hypnotherapy, the more fascinated I became and when I saw a course that was highly recommended and was local to me, I decided to find out more and contacted the organisation.

The reason Solution Focused Hypnotherapy appealed to me so much is twofold. Firstly, it is based on Neuroscience i.e. what research into the human brain tells us about the way it works. Many of us are not that familiar with how the brain works but when we teach clients about this, it’s often a revelation because they begin to understand their behaviours, their problems or challenges and importantly, they understand the brain’s amazing capacity for change. Secondly, we are solution focused because we don’t dwell on the past or re-examine traumas, we focus on what the client wants to achieve and support them to get there. This means that it’s a very positive, gentle and yet powerful way to transform your life.

For me personally, I love working with clients and seeing the progress they make. I have learnt a lot about myself and my outlook on life is so much more positive than it used to be.

Is it helpful to revisit traumatic or painful experiences? 17/12/24

As is often the case, there isn’t a straight forward or unambiguous answer to this question but stay with me and I’ll do my best to explain.

In solution focussed hypnotherapy, as a general rule we don’t revisit past traumas or upsetting experiences and the reason for this is based on what we know about our brains through research in Neuroscience. The brain is a complex organ and whilst neuroscience has given a great understanding of its functions and capabilities, there is still much we have yet to understand. It’s useful then, to think about the brain quite simplistically as being made up of two essential parts; the intellectual brain and the primitive brain. The primitive brain is primarily concerned with our survival, it scans our environment for potential threats and when it recognises a threat, it activates the fight, flight or freeze response, sending adrenaline and cortisol into our bloodstream. In our 21st century lives, what our primitive brains have learnt to see as threats can be everywhere; someone driving aggressively, a text message that implies someone is upset with you, an unexpectedly high electricity bill that you might struggle to pay. All of these things and many, many more can activate the fight/flight/freeze response causing us to feel anxious or stressed and when we are experiencing this, the primitive brain is dominant and we are effectively locked out of the intellectual brain.

The intellectual brain is very different. It’s an amazing resource that is capable of working things out logically and rationally, finding solutions to problems or challenges and creative thinking. In contrast to the primitive brain, the intellectual brain can be described as having a fundamentally positive orientation.

In hypnotherapy, it’s the intellectual brain that we want to engage because in doing so, clients are more able to see their problems or challenges in a more rational way and be better able to work out how those problems could be resolved….to find their own solutions.

If we encourage clients to talk about past traumas or upsetting experiences, then the very act of remembering and talking about it will engage the primitive brain, their bodies will start to respond by producing stress hormones as if the threat is present, and they will be unable to make use of the intellectual brain.

However, solution focused hypnotherapy is one form of therapy among many and I would not for one moment wish to suggest that other therapies are not valuable and effective. It’s a question of what is right for the individual. For example, I saw a client who had suffered trauma from an abusive relationship and they had found great benefit in seeing a therapist who encouraged them to talk about those experiences because, with the skilled interventions of the therapist, they came to understand that their own feelings of guilt and shame were completely misplaced and actually gave them a greater sense of their own value.

Returning to solution focused hypnotherapy, there a couple of exemptions to the rule of not revisiting past trauma. Firstly, in our initial consultation, in order to be able to help the client, we necessarily have to know how they wish to be helped and this usually (although not always) involves the client explaining what it is they want to address and move forward from. Secondly, there is a technique we sometimes use in the treatment of phobias called the Rewind technique and this does involve recalling and ‘replaying’ particular events although this is done in a unique (and extremely effective) way.

You, as the client, will know what’s right for you and if you are wondering whether solution focused hypnotherapy is right for you, I would encourage you to take advantage of the initial consultation which I offer free of charge. This is a great opportunity to learn about the brain and understand why you are feeling as you are and importantly, how the brain’s amazing capacity for change can enable you to achieve the things you want to achieve and live the life you want to live. It’s also a great opportunity for us to meet and develop the rapport that is so vital for any successful therapeutic outcomes.

If you’re reading this and are interested but don’t live anywhere near Birmingham, then please be reassured that hypnotherapy is as effective online as it is in face-to-face sessions, so please don’t hesitate to get in touch.