Overview

As a Clinical Hypnotherapist and Hypnobirthing practitioner, I meet with all new clients to ensure that together we can tailor the best approach to achieve the most successful outcome. There is no payment for this first session.......
With over 25 years experience of direct client work, group work and training provision in support of people dealing with all manner of life issues, including trauma, injury, loss, phobias as well as low self esteem, feelings of self doubt or vulnerability, I am able to draw on an eclectic range of therapeutic approaches such as NLP techniques, Confidence Coaching, Mentoring, Counselling and Transactional Analysis therapy. In addition I spent 15 years running a range of birthing and parenting classes after qualifying with the National Childbirth Trust. All of this experience compliments and enhances the range and scope of my classical hypnotherapy practice and Hypnobirthing training.
A little about Hypnotherapy...............
A hypnotherapy session will usually include at some point, a process of progressive relaxation. The client will be gently talked through a process of becoming both physically as well as mentally deeply relaxed. In this relaxed state, mental stress and physical tensions will reduce as the conscious mind relaxes and slightly disengages. At the same time the subconscious mind comes into play a little, not completely as when we are asleep, but more like when we day dream. To give an example; standing in the supermarket queue, you might forget where you are just for a moment... as you recall the joys of last years holiday.....? or maybe plan for next years. Is that a familiar sensation? This process is the key to hypnotherapy.

So why is this induced 'day dreaming' helpful? Because often when we want to change a habit that is held fast in our subconscious, our conscious mind gets in the way. So maybe no matter how many times we make the Conscious decision to change this unwanted habit, it doesn't fix, the habit is still there.
In order to make real change, we have to work with the feelings and beliefs held in the Subconscious part of our mind to remove the source of the behaviour and allow a new and more helpful belief to take its place.

Unconsciously held beliefs can quite often negatively influence our thoughts and feelings, how we work with our bodies, and how we live our lives, inhibiting the natural functioning of our bodies.
Examples:
Fear and anxiety that belongs to a past trauma can sometime continue to intrude inappropriately into everyday life, causing and mind the body to malfunction, causing hyperventilating and emotional panic. This is clearly seen as a physical affect. After an injury the necessary act of accommodating what should be a short term change in posture while healing takes place, can remain fixed in the subconscious, creating ongoing dysfunctional physical habits such as limping.
This same process can affect our emotional being. Mental images held in the subconscious mind can create a distorted expectation of body shape, causing emotional distress and or a physical eating disorder.

We can change outdated or inappropriate deeply held beliefs - held in the workings of the subconscious. We can rewrite the subconscious 'programming' and change the conscious 'operating system'.

So....Do you have an issue that you are struggling with? A programme that needs rewriting?
Performance at interviews?
Driving test coming up?
Stress and anxiety disorders and issues?
Phobias and fears including fear of flying ?
Exam nerves?
Goal Setting?
Once you have made the decision to take action you have taken the first (and often the most difficult) step.

Hypnotherapy sessions - One to one sessions last 50 minutes and the first meeting is an informal discussion and information exchange for which there is no charge.

Hypnobirthing
After 15 years experience as a birthing teacher, having trained with the National Childbirth Trust and London Birth Centre, I recently completed Hypnobirthing training with Katherine Graves and I also follow the methodology of Paola Bagnal.

A little about Hypnobirthing
Our body is superbly designed to deal with all the natural but immensely complex functions of day to day living: breathing - walking – nourishing the body by eating and drinking - making babies .....and giving birth.
In most of those functions we need little practical guidance what we need to learn we do gradually over time. When it comes to birthing its different. If we were able to leave our physical bodies to get on with it, without the interference of our conscious minds and creative emotions, that process would be all be quite simple too. But we are hampered by a couple of things; the first,being human we all have conscious minds which access and act upon the thoughts and feelings, creating memories and habits and imaginings held in our subconscious, which can very often get the way of the natural healthy processes of the body. Secondly, we don't get a change to practice giving birth in advance and don't do it often in order to build up the skills. So we go live the very first time.
So Hypnobirthing sessions contain two key themes . The first is about getting to know and trust your body and the biology of birthing, so building up your mind/body connectedness and your body's readiness for birthing through increased body awareness using imagery, and practicing physical exercises in breathing and posture;
The second theme, complementing the first are learned and practiced techniques in (waking) self hypnosis. Parents learn to develop a range of enabling strategies so that the intuitive and instinctive responses held in the subconscious mind can be more readily accessed during the birth process, without the interference from the conscious mind.
Ideally - Hypnobirthing preparation begins early on in pregnancy in order to embed the practice and the new thought pathways. It works well if a birthing can partner share in all the sessions and so act as birthing coach.

Hypnobirthing - Sessions last 60 minutes and are in blocks of 4 to 6 sessions.

In addition, from time to time I run 'specific topic' small group workshops.

Specialisms

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