Many of my clients who come to see me for the first time have never sought help from a hypnotherapist before. They  have made an appointment with me because someone they know recommended me. They were able to see that  hypnotherapy works for their friend or family member who are no longer held back by lack of confidence, by a bad  habit or by their anxieties. 

Even though the new client has seen that hypnotherapy worked on the person who referred them, there are still often  misunderstandings about what hypnosis is. Many people expect it to be a weird experience where they give over  control to the hypnotherapist which is not a happy thought if you are already feeling unconfident and have a problem  with anxiety! Losing control is the last thing you want to experience in a hypnotherapy session. 

The good news is that hypnosis is actually a fairly ordinary experience. Hypnosis is what happens when you sit in your  lounge, slouching on the sofa and staring into space while thinking about what to get at the supermarket for dinner.  Hypnosis is also what happens when you are sitting on a train, looking out of the window onto the landscape that is  passing by, going over something that happened at the office today. Hypnosis is also what happens when you are lying in bed, staring at a page of your book without reading, thinking about how you will deal with a problem with one of  your kids. You would not dream of saying in any of these situations that you were ‘in a trance’, because you know from experience that if anything needs your attention, you’ll immediately snap out of this state.  So if you are not in a trance, what would you call this state? You’d probably just say that you were ‘thinking about something’. 

When you are ‘thinking about something’ in this way, you usually sit quite still and often stare at a point in your  environment without seeing it. This stareing helps you focus your thoughts and allows you to ‘see’ all the options for a  potential solution. And that’s all hypnosis is – sitting still, relaxing a little and focussing your attention. An everyday  event. Simples!