Beyond The Swinging Watch - Hypnosis and Psychology in Everyday Life

  How many times have you heard the advice: ’Just think positive’? It’s the ‘just’ part that bothers me the most. If changing negative thinking was a simple as just thinking positively, wouldn’t everyone do that? The act of challenging negative thinking is tough because it requires an individual to reappraise how they believe things are. It means having to change position in the our mental argument. We become fixed on a way of thinking and it shapes our expectations. Giving up what we have spent time mentally building and then admitting acknowledging there are more useful ways to think about things, is not easy. Take one look at a social media post about politics and you will get all the evidence you need to support just how difficult it is for people to consider a different point of view! Positivity has to be grounded in reality if it is to begin to change negative thinking. No amount of me thinking positively is going help someone run a marathon this afternoon, but using it to su...

  All through our life we amass different experiences; some pleasant and others we would rather forget, and occasionally we can struggle to let something go.  An unpleasant incident from our past can creep back into our thoughts at the most unhelpful moments and sometimes stop us in our tracks.  Most of the time we can rationalise these instances and accept them for what they were, but what happens when making it rational doesn’t seem to help? Consider someone experiencing a serious car accident, a broken relationship or the loss of someone close to them. Our way of coping is to rationalise them and make sense of the experience, which is usually achieved through social support . We talk about it with our friends and families, and this process of sharing the problem helps to halve it! We think about it, talk about it and make sense of it. Most of the time this is all that is needed. Slowly we overcome the feelings associated with the experience and get back on with the bu...

  “I know what happened and yet I still can’t get past it!” This one comment describes the purpose of analytical therapy and why it's important to address the emotional impact of trauma. True recovery from trauma, and the symptoms it creates, is only really achieved when two distinct types of understanding are achieved: Intellectual Understanding  Emotional Understanding  Intellectual Understanding refers to the knowledge of what happened and/or the events that led up to and are contained within the trauma. They are the facts of situation. what actually happened. The events are often describe in a narrative form. The events may be recent or from many years previously, but they are recounted as a description of what happened. Emotional Understanding refers to knowledge of what emotions the traumatic events created at the time. It includes the interpretations we gave to circumstances at the time. The emotion response to the events may be very different than compared to...

  With our increasingly busy lives, relaxation can often feel like a luxury. It becomes something that we aim to do when we have more time, but ironically it is the very thing that we should be planning for and including as a regular part of our everyday lives. Learning relaxation techniques and using them frequently can be effective in taking charge of many common stresses and worries we experience in everyday life. The more stressed we are the less able we are to cope and think positively. This can lead to being stuck in a cycle of negative thinking which prevents a person being able to achieve the things they would like. Hypnosis is an ideal way of benefiting from relaxation and encouraging a more positive attitude. Hypnosis is best described as focused relaxation. The deep relaxation, allows a person to be able to suggest a more positive way of thinking, encouraging a positive effect on their behaviour. Suggestion Therapy using Hypnosis is a way to re-programme the way we cope ...

  An individual’s mental health is experienced in the present but is influenced by the past, and informs future behaviour. Analytical approaches to Hypnotherapy view the symptoms as an outward expression of past behaviour. The symptoms are what is happening in the present, but are reflections of past experiences and the effect they had on the individual. When we approach understanding mental health in this way, we accept that symptoms are not the root cause of the problem. They are a response to difficulties that mirror their experience. The person who experienced disrupted early years may not have had the opportunity to learn what stable and consistent care/love looks and feels like. In later life, they may find it difficult to form long-lasting and meaningful relationships or develop anxiety in social settings. These symptoms are a reaction to those early years. Alternatively, if a child's formative years were carefully managed to prevent distress. They were shielded them from th...

  Anxiety is a common experience that affects millions of people worldwide. While it can serve a useful purpose by alerting us to potential dangers, chronic anxiety can lead to a range of long-term impacts that significantly affect an individual’s mental, emotional, and physical well-being. As a Hypnotherapist, I often work with clients struggling with anxiety. Mental Health Challenges Living with chronic anxiety can increase the risk of developing other mental health disorders. Anxiety often coexists with conditions such as depression, panic disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The persistent worry and fear can lead to feelings of hopelessness, isolation, and sadness. Over time, this can result in a downward spiral of mental health, making it more challenging to manage anxiety and contributing to a complex interplay of symptoms that can be overwhelming. Physical Health Consequences The long-term effects of anxiety aren’t limited to mental health; they can also manif...