We’re all on life’s journey. Sometimes we just need a hand.
What is Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy (HypnoCBT)?
Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy (HypnoCBT) is a combination of two effective evidence-based techniques to treat a range of mental health conditions including depression, phobias, anxiety and stress-related conditions.
Clinical Hypnotherapy has been used for thousands of years to assist people to alter their patterns of thinking and behaviour, while 
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) concentrates on building healthy mental processes based on understanding how we think and feel.
Through the pairing of CBT with Clinical Hypnotherapy, the power behind HypnoCBT is released, creating an environment where change can be achieved quickly and effectively in a short amount of time.
The process is driven by a complex interaction between our thoughts, feelings and behaviours, which over time tend to reinforce our core beliefs, sometimes in unhelpful ways.
CBH involves becoming aware of thoughts, feelings and behaviours and the way they interact to create our experience.
My Approach to CBH
For over fifty years, I’ve been listening to people tell me about their joys and struggles, fears and insecurities, insights, hopes, and wishes. First, as a friend and sister, later, as a wife, mother, teacher, and psychotherapist.
These conversations sent me down a path of discovery to find the key thing that differentiated the happy, secure, confident people I met, whose stories seemed to have an underlying theme of hope and positive expectation, to the unhappy, anxious ones whose stories were laced with fear, doubt and defeatism. I, myself, fell firmly into the latter category.
I accepted that genetics had a part to play, but I instinctively felt that there was more to it than that. Was it the actual stories that was creating the reality or was it the reality that was informing the stories?
What I discovered after many years of searching was that the key lay in the stories and the narratives that people attach to their experiences, so our perception of reality is determined by the narrative we create about an experience rather than the actual experience itself.
Our minds are hardwired to protect us, we retained a negativity bias from our Stone Age ancestors, designed to increase our chances of staying alive. This explains why we feel the sting of a rebuke more strongly than we feel the joy of praise. It also explains why we store this negative memory to protect us should we ever encounter something similar in the future.
You Were Born To Thrive
What you think, feel, and do doesn't mean anything about who you are. The habitual, insecure, critical, fearful thoughts that run through your mind all day, every day, are not “you,” and they are not “yours.”
They are the output of a typical human mind, doing the best it can to keep you safe. These thoughts come and go, just like waves crashing on the shore. They come up, they hit a peak, and they fall away, all on their own.
The feelings those thoughts bring aren't you or yours either. The dread and fear are the felt part of thought. We feel thought. So, like thought, those feelings come and go too. They are not lasting statements about who you are.
Your behavior follows from what you think and feel. Things like insecurity, fear, doubt, and anxiety are things that you do not things that you are. Likewise, physical health conditions are things you have, not things you are. They are labels that may characterize what you are experiencing at this moment, but they don't say a thing about who you are.
When you listen and identify with your thoughts, these stories your mind is making up, you’re adding a huge weight to the system, but when you stop you experience the freedom of dropping the yoke from your shoulders.
You stop asking the question, “How can I protect myself from what my mind is telling me could be dangerous?” and start asking, “How can I find a new way to understand this experience?”
You might not believe this yet, but there's nothing wrong with you, no exceptions. You are not lacking or broken. You may have had, or currently have some awful experience, but if you can let go of your reaction to those experiences, that is what will set you free.
Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions or would like to discuss further how I may be able to support you on your journey.