PSYCHOTHERAPY, HYPNOTHERAPY & COUNSELLING SERVICES IN LONDON

PSYCHOTHERAPY

Psychotherapy is a personal process which allows us to learn more about ourselves and the relationships we have with others. It gives us the opportunity for greater awareness and teaches us the skills to bring more meaningful experiences in to our daily lives.

The functions of personal development is to acknowledge the areas that work for us and to identify the areas that are not working for us so that we can see them more clearly, develop new skills in dealing with them or find alternative behaviour that produces the results we want. All of us have parts of ourselves that function to our satisfaction and parts that do not, our difficulty may lie in one or a number of areas.

Therapy provides an opportunity for us to work towards living in a more satisfying and resourceful way, with emphasis on the integration of people's therapeutic experience in to their everyday lives.

The process is concerned with addressing and resolving specific problems, decision making, crisis, developing personal awareness and knowledge, working though feelings of inner conflict or improving our relationships.

People of all ages have changed expectations of relationships. Today there is a greater demand for shared power and understanding of one another.

Humanistic psychotherapists concentrate on the person's experience of themselves and the situation. They use a wide range of techniques and diagnostic models from both traditional and modern psychotherapeutic disciplines. No single approach can encompass all the needs of an individual so an open system of working using tools that are most appropriate to the persons needs is used.

The functions and goals of group work and individual work are similar, the experience is different.

PSYCHOTHERAPY FOR INDIVIDUALS

Individual work emphasises and focuses on exploring my relationship to myself and offers guaranteed time and attention. Through one-to-one contact we can learn about how we organise ourselves in a relationship and can reflect on how we have handled other one-to-one relationships in the past. The experience of having somebody there for us over time and on a regular basis has a positive influence on our level of self-esteem and confidence.

The combination of participating in group work as well as working individually often provides material that can be worked on in one-to-one therapy.

PSYCHOTHERAPY FOR COUPLES OR GROUPS

Group work emphasises and focuses on exploring my relationship with others and the group relationship. This includes family and couple therapy. Each participant can take the opportunity to share and compare their experience with the experience of others. Groups also provide an excellent chance to get feedback and information about our behaviour, how we are seen and perceived by others as well as how we see and perceive others.

HYPNOTHERAPY

Hypnotherapy is the therapeutic process worked through within the state of hypnosis. It can also be used as a self healing treatment for those distressing conditions of life that are not primarily caused by physical disease, this is sometimes referred to as hypnohealing.

Hypnosis is a natural state of mind. Many experience it as a relaxed dreamy state, this allows the subconscious mind to come foreground while the conscious mind moves background and remains aware. Our awareness and experience become more focused, this state of mind is often referred to as trance. Working with the subconscious in a more direct way is effective in gaining immediate access to the roots of the presenting problem and gives us the opportunity to transform our energy where there is a readiness for change.

Our subconscious mind knows everything there is to know about us. Consciously we make choices, subconsciously we have preferences. By addressing the subconscious directly, through hypnosis, it is possible to discover our own resources to meet our needs. It is only limited by our imagination.

Common activities that are repetitive or require concentration, including sport, reading, studying, listening to music, singing, playing musical instruments, love making, walking, driving and watching films or television are trance inducing. A number of complementary therapies, like acupuncture, massage, osteopathy, reflexology, aromatherapy, art and music therapies are trance inducing.

It is possible that much of the beneficial effects of these therapies is due to the caring attention and suggestions that we give ourselves and are made by the practitioner during a treatment. In such circumstances the practitioner and the client need not be aware of the trance element for the therapy to work as we are using our own resources that come naturally to us.

That this happens is not so surprising because, although we like to think the main activity of the brain is to do with conscious thoughts, recall memory, decisions and so on, research shows that its prime function is self preservation. To act as our own private health care system. We take care of our needs through immunity, monitoring bodily needs, regulating pain and constantly replacing cells. We keep ourselves healthy when we are well and make ourselves well again when we are sick. This continuous, subconscious activity is directly connected to and affected by our life style and belief system, whether it is one we bought in to through childhood or organised for ourselves.

Everybody can and does go in to hypnosis easily and regularly all that is needed is willingness, belief is not required. It is important to emphasise that a person in hypnosis will not take on anything they disagree with, nor will they do things that violate their morals.

The use of hypnosis is perhaps best known as being an effective way to stop smoking or control weight. Hypnotherapy can be effective with addressing and resolving any specific problem, maximising our natural healing process and pain control.

If in doubt about using hypnotherapy as a resource for healing, discuss it with your GP first.

In the case of pain control you would need to ascertain with your GP that the source of pain is not a condition requiring medical intervention. Working with people who are under the influence of neuroleptic, anti depressant or tranquillising drugs, which are often prescribed by doctors and psychiatrists, inhibits the process. This is because these drugs disrupt some functions, often by blunting sensibilities rather than resolving the cause. Hypnotherapy, on the other hand, is non addictive and has none of the drug induced side effects (people do report their dreams improving in some way or that they find it easier to relax).

Working with a hypnotherapist can also show us how to induce this state of deep relaxation for ourselves so we can continue to use hypnosis for well being, medication or self development.