Written by Silvia Boric Oakes-Wilson

Why do people get trapped in a vicious circle of endeavouring to achieve and failing? Why does it happen that even when we lose weight, shine at our presentation, or get that job, we so often gain the weight back or still feel incompetent? Why does it often result in us losing what we have worked so hard to achieve?

Whether we talk about weight management, low self-esteem or getting the job we desire, the key to attaining that goal is first assuring that we have the right mind-set and beliefs. Self-belief is one of the key ingredients of success. However, even when we work hard towards change and invest effort and self-discipline, we may still stumble and fall. Why is this the case?

We know consciously what we want but we still can’t help imagining worst-case scenarios. When logic and imagination are in conflict, our imagination will almost always prevail! Our imagination can work for us in a positive way. However, it can also become an impediment to our success if the thoughts we have are negative despite our willpower.

Our thoughts are what we actually tell ourselves. Unfortunately, some people were not brought up in happy, strong and supportive families. They did not have that special someone to tell them they are smart, beautiful and worthy, or to praise them and encourage them when they were doing well. Sometimes, they would be noticed only when they were mischievous and not ‘performing’ the way they were expected to.

When we were children, we did not have a critical faculty to be able to discern the harmful ideas. So we believed what we were told and our subconscious mind recorded everything. Once the subconscious mind is convinced, it causes the individual to act upon that conviction.

Now, when we are older, we may logically know what thoughts and habits are good for us and what we need to do, but change still seems to be so hard to achieve. Our subconscious mind resists change. Once it establishes a habit, every change is perceived as a threat. We may buy self-help books, throw away all the cigarettes within our reach or try yet another diet, telling ourselves that this time we will be even more determined. Unfortunately, the subconscious mind will resist even more.

This is where hypnotherapy works best. It’s a gentle yet powerful technique that uses suggestions and guided imagery to reach the subconscious mind and change negative thought patterns. The mind cannot tell the difference between imagination and reality so the mental images that are formed during hypnotherapy become positive templates for future use. Consequently, the subconscious mind will refer to them as though as they are real, and as such facilitate a sustainable and long-lasting change that impacts both the body and the mind.

Silvia Boric Oakes-Wilson
Oakes-Wilson Hypnotherapy
30 Alma Vale Road
Bristol
BS8 2HY
07827 061637
www.oakeswilsonhypnotherapy.com

Written by Geraldine Joaquim

We live in a fast-paced modern world with a huge amount of distractions and pressures on our every day lives. It’s easy to dismiss our ‘first world problems’ as rather self-indulgent, and to some degree they are. The majority of us (the lucky ones) don’t have to worry about a roof over our heads or where the next meal will come from or physical threats to our existence.

But we still have the same physiological makeup as our caveman ancestors. We still utilise the freeze-flight-fight mechanism irrespective of the cause, be it a life-threatening incident or simply being late for a meeting.

Within our original Primitive Brain, the Amygdala (the fight/flight centre) kicks into gear and sends messages to the Hypothalamus which gets the body ready to act. The Hypothalamus floods the system with stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, this makes your heart beat faster, palms go sweaty, churning stomach, increases your breathing rate – all symptoms of your body being under stress. Eventually your issue resolves – you get to your meetings or find that parking space – and the more we use this system, the more efficient it becomes. And this is how we can spiral into panic attacks, road rage, tearfulness, etc. All in all, not being quite ‘us’.

So how can we reign this back, how can we live with our stresses but not give in to our inner caveman?

The good news is you can, with a little practise, train yourself to cope. It’s all about creating spare capacity to deal with whatever life throws your way. Imagine in your brain you have a space where all your stresses, negative thoughts, worries, fears, etc are stored – we call this the Stress Bucket. Every time you encounter a situation that your brain perceives as a threat or barrier, or you worry about something that’s going to happen (imagined or real), or dwell on past regrets, losses or sadness your bucket gets filled a little bit more.

The problems arise when all these seemingly small things pile on top of each other until your bucket fills to the brim and you just can’t fit any more in. This wipes out any spare capacity you might have for dealing with new issues – and it’s when we flip out over a seemingly small incident such as not being able to find a parking space or going into road rage mode because someone didn’t wave a thank you when you let them in, or losing your temper at the children. Literally the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

We very quickly become adept at focusing on all the negative aspects in our lives and forget to appreciate the good – in fact it’s hardwired into our DNA to be negative and to worry, it’s what kept our ancestors alive and why we’re sitting here today but it’s not helpful in our modern daily lives.

So, in order to counter-balance this natural propensity towards negativity, the pessimist in us, we need to focus on the positives in our lives. And it’s not the firework moments, rather all the little things that we take for granted and don’t ‘see’ anymore: a bright sunny morning, birds singing, a hug from a loved one, a smile from a stranger, being let into traffic… these are the things that make up our daily lives and the firework moments (birthdays, parties, reunions, holidays) enhance our already enjoyable lives. This stops us piling things into our bucket and ensures we have plenty of spare capacity to cope when we need to, in times of real pressure.

And in order to empty our stress bucket, we need to get good quality sleep – not necessarily longer but better. During our sleep we go through stages of deep sleep into REM (rapid eye movement) into light sleep, and we do this four or five times throughout the night.

During the REM phase we re-run the events of the day and move it from our emotional Primitive Brain to our Intellectual Brain, so out of our stress bucket and into the memory bank. Slowly, any arguments or unpleasantness, losses, sadness, worries, anxieties, etc are released. They are of no further use to us and whilst we know these things have happened we don’t need to hold on to them anymore.

When we don’t have good quality sleep we feel it physically and mentally: reaching for sugary foods to boost energy levels, slipping quickly into anger responses, or panic, wanting to pull the duvet over our heads and not have to face the day, being tearful… these are all signs of an over-full bucket.

The hypnotic trance also replicates the REM state and helps with bucket emptying, and using hypnosis at the point of sleep can turbo-charge that essential REM making it super-efficient!

This two-pronged attack (not filling and emptying your stress bucket) can help you regain control on the here and now.

It really helps when we understand why we react in a particular way to certain stimuli, we get an insight into what is going on physiologically which can help us break that reactionary cycle. So, next time you feel the pressure rising, think about that stress bucket and gaining control over your actions instead of allowing your emotions to rule you.

Geraldine Joaquim
QUEST HYPNOTHERAPY LTD
London Road, Petworth, West Sussex
01798 344 879
geraldine@questhypnotherapy.co.uk
www.questhypnotherapy.co.uk

Written by Trevor Eddolls

In the 2000s, hypnotherapists began to combine the best of Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) with Ericksonian hypnotherapy to produce therapy that was goal focused (what the client wanted to achieve) rather than the more traditional problem focused approach (spending time discussing the issues that brought the client to seek help). A solution-focused hypnotherapy session may well also include techniques from NLP. But what is SFBT?

Early in the 20th century, following the work of people like Freud, a client could be in therapy for a very long time. The thinking was that until you could understand the cause of a problem, there was no way that it could be resolved. It was very problem-focused. As the 20th century moved into its second half, people were beginning to wonder whether this approach was the best one to use.

Milton Erickson is one of the originators of brief therapy. Erickson used the analogy of a person who wants to change the course of a river – if he opposes the river by trying to block it, the river will merely go over and around him. But if he accepts the force of the river and diverts it in a new direction, the force of the river will cut a new channel. Erickson also introduced a forerunner to the Miracle Question in which he would ask his client to look into the future and see themselves as they wanted to be, problems solved, and then to explain what had happened to cause this change to come about. A second technique he used was to ask them to think of a date in the future, then work backwards, asking them what had happened at various points on the way.

Similarly, Bill O’Hanlon (who worked closely with Erickson) came up with other ways of getting a client to look to a future without their problem, eg a time machine, crystal ball, rainbow bridge, and a letter from a future self. In one version he would say, “let’s say that a few weeks or months of time have elapsed, and your problem has been resolved. If you and I were to watch a videotape of your life in the future, what would you be doing on the tape that would show that things were better?” O’Hanlon called his less structured approach Solution-Oriented Therapy and Possibility Therapy.
There was also the Mental Research Institute (MRI) in Palo Alto, California, which used a form of brief therapy that was based on ‘the interactional view’. With this approach, problems were thought to happen ‘between’ rather than ‘within’ people. Problems would appear when people responded to everyday difficulties in ways that made them worse. The way that a therapist worked was to identify what the ‘attempted solutions’ were that had caused rather than solved the problems, and then help their clients to do something else instead.

And then, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, at the Brief Family Therapy Center in Milwaukee, Steve de Shazer, Insoo Kim Berg, and their colleagues created the radical new approach of Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT). In addition to the people already mentioned, their ideas built on the work of people such as Gregory Bateson, Don Jackson, Paul Watzlawick, John Weakland, Virginia Satir, Jay Haley, and others. Their core idea was that whatever problem a client had come to therapy with, there always seemed to be an exception to the problem, a time when it didn’t happen, or happened less or with less intensity. And this led them to believe that the client already had the seeds of a solution and didn’t need the therapist to get them to do something different – all they needed was to do more of what they were doing during these exceptional times. The therapist’s job was simply to find out what people were doing that was working, then help them to do more of it.

So, let’s look in more detail at SFBT’s key assumptions:

·        Understanding the cause of the problem is not necessary to resolve it. Attempting to do so may, unwittingly, lengthen or complicate therapy.

·        The client’s attempted solution (eg avoidance in the case of anxiety) eventually becomes part of the problem. Therefore, changing patterns of response – doing something different – is fundamental to the approach.

·        Change happens anyway. However severe the problem, there are times when it is absent, less severe or intense. The therapist must help identify and amplify this change.

·        Clients have resources and strengths that can be brought to bear in resolving the complaint. These are often overlooked in problem-focused approaches.

·        Clear, salient, and realistic goals are a vital factor in eliciting successful outcomes.

·        Poorly-defined or absent goals can prolong or complicate therapy.

·        A small change is all that is necessary. Clients are frequently able to manage alone if the therapist can ‘start the ball rolling’.

·        The client defines the goals and decides when therapy should end.

·        Rapid change is possible, even where there is a history of persistent symptoms.

·        The relationship between therapist and client is critical; collaboration and a ‘robust’ working relationship are more important than theory and expertise.

·        Each client is unique in their skills, resources, and the way they view their problem. There is therefore no ‘one size fits all’ solution.

·        The focus is on the present and the future, on where the client wants to go rather than where they have come from.

·        SFBT sees ‘resistance’ or hostility as a function of the relationship rather than the permanent disposition of the client.

In the UK, Solution-Focused Therapy was pioneered by Harvey Ratner, Evan George, and Chris Iveson. They established the Brief Therapy Practice, which later became BRIEF. In 2003 this group established the United Kingdom Association for Solution Focused Practice (UKASFP).

The Association for Solution Focused Hypnotherapy (AFSFH) adds hypnotherapy to this approach to help speed up the process of positive change with clients.

An SFBT session starts with the client being asked for their best hopes for the session. That way the client decides what they want to get out of the session.

Problem-free talk allows clients to talk about what is going well, what areas of their life are problem-free. It can be useful for uncovering hidden resources, and often uncovers client values, beliefs, and strengths. From this, a strength from one part of their life can be transferred-generalized to another area where a new behaviour is required.

SFBT principally uses questions and compliments to identify a client’s goals, and help the client create a detailed description of what life will be like when the goal is accomplished and the problem is either gone or coped with satisfactorily. By identifying ‘exceptions’, (ie times when some aspect of the client’s goal was already happening to some degree), the therapist can help the client come up with appropriate and effective solutions.

SFBT identifies client competencies, ie any behaviours by the client that contribute to moving in the direction of the client’s goal. How did they manage to achieve or maintain their current level of progress, are there any recent positive changes, and how did the client develop new and existing strengths, resources, and positive traits?

SFBT uses the acronym MECSTAT, which stands for Miracle questions, Exception questions, Coping questions, Scaling questions, Time-out, Accolades, and Task. The miracle question asks the client to imagine waking up in the morning and the issue that brought them to the clinic has gone. It then asks them to visualize what he would be doing, how they would be feeling, and who would notice. Exception questions look for times when the problem doesn’t occur or is less prevalent. Coping questions identify strengths that a person has to help them cope with their problems.

SFBT uses a time-out to reflect on the developments of the current session. It’s preceded by the therapist asking the client if there is anything that the therapist has not asked that the client feels would be important for the therapist to know.
During this break, the client is complimented for their efforts during the session (ie accolades).

The task comes from a brainstorming session where the client suggests behaviours that will help them move towards their goal. The therapist can then ask the client to try this new behaviour – that’s their task (what we might call their homework).

Solution-focused hypnotherapists use all these proven techniques and add the power of trance work to enable clients to make positive changes to their lives quickly.

Trevor Eddolls
iTech-Ed Hypnotherapy
Chippenham
Wilts SN14 0TL
01249 443256
trevor@ihypno.biz
www.ihypno.biz
@ihypno2004

Written by Elizabeth Newton

So many times, we are told that sleep is SO important for us, and those old mantras ‘It’ll be alright in the morning’ or ‘Sleep on it!’ are all too familiar. But what IS actually going on during this mysterious phase of our day, which requires us to place so much emphasis on a ‘good nights’ sleep?’

As a Hypnotherapist, an important part of my role in helping clients get a handle on their lives or achieve their goals is normalising their sleep patterns. In therapy, for many people, this is often the first place I start. If I can get you back to sleeping properly: falling asleep relatively quickly, staying asleep throughout the night, and enabling you to get up at the desired time the next day, then one of my most important tasks is done. But why? Why is it so important that we sleep well from a mental wellbeing perspective?

We know more about the brain than ever before and advances in Neuroscience and brain scanning devices have enabled us to open up the black box of sleep and decipher what is actually happening. Sleep, as we know, is a circadian rhythm, part of our internal body clock. It is controlled by the Suprachiasmatic Nucleus in a region of our ‘primitive’ brain called the Hypothalamus. Changes in light levels and environmental cues stimulate the release of certain brain chemicals known as neurotransmitters which facilitate sleepiness.

But like our waking physiological state, sleep has rhythms and cycles too. Over the course of a night, our brain fluctuates from periods of relative inactivity to working with almost a ‘turbo charged energy’. But what is going on in the ‘turbo phase’? Let’s first understand the stages of sleep before we understand the importance of this one, highly crucial stage for mental health:

The brain cycles through four distinct phases during sleep: stages 1, 2, 3, (non-rapid eye movement), and 4, rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. REM sleep makes up about 25% of your sleep cycle and first occurs about 70 to 90 minutes after you fall asleep. Because your sleep cycle repeats, you enter REM sleep several times during the night. REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep has been called ‘Paradoxical Sleep’ by some because the body is virtually paralysed, but the brain is incredibly active. During this stage, the brain is operating at almost a ‘wakeful’ state of arousal suggesting this phase of sleep has a specific function. This is especially likely, given that REM is essentially ‘rationed’, limited to only around 20% of our total nightly sleep.

It is thought that each REM cycle becomes progressively longer, up to 90-120 minutes. It is for this reason that we need long, uninterrupted periods of sleep.

But what do we think is happening during REM? Brain waves become rapid and it is now widely understood that we replay and process the mental ‘baggage’ from the day in either a clear or a metaphorical way, giving rise, of course, to dreams. Essentially it is thought that we move stressful memories from our limbic system (Amygdala, Hippocampus, Hypothalamus) into the intellectual mainframe of our brain. In effect, extracting memories, rationalising, and resolving decisions. This allows us to wake the next day with a sense of resolution to that ‘troublesome’ issue the day before. If we have insufficient sleep, therefore, we have limited capacity for REM and reduced ability to resolve and rectify any stresses and strains from the previous day, or come up with creative new solutions to move forward. In the short term, severe sleep deprivation can result in hallucination and paranoia. Over a sustained period, sleep deprivation has been linked to higher rates of depression, anxiety, risk-taking behaviour, and suicide.

Additionally, we understand that sleep deprivation leads to reduction in decision making ability, learning, memory, problem solving, and emotional control. It’s no surprise then that children spend a much greater proportion of their time in REM sleep with babies, interestingly, spending up to 50% in REM – suggesting brain growth and learning with new neuronal connections being formed. This is evidenced again by research demonstrating we spend more time in REM after days learning new skills.

Hypnosis has been referred to as the creation of an artificially induced REM state allowing new patterns of thought to be rehearsed without the interruption from the Conscious Critical Faculty. Perhaps it is no surprise then that many of my clients come round from trance reporting they feel much brighter, clearer, and able to think straight.

If you’re wanting to understand how you can improve your own sleep without Hypnotherapy you may find the following links useful:

https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/publications/how-sleep-better

http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/insomnia/Pages/bedtimeritual.aspx

 

Some References:

·        Griffin and Tyrell

·        https://academic.oup.com/sleep/search-results?page=1&q=suicide&SearchSourceType=1

·        National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. (2007). How much sleep do we need? In Brain Basics: Understanding Sleep. Retrieved May 29, 2012 from http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/brain_basics/understanding_sleep.htm#how_much [top]

·        National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. (2009). At-a-glance: Healthy sleep. Retrieved May 30, 2012, from http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/sleep/healthy_sleep_atglance.pdf (PDF – 1.81 MB) [top]

·        Talbot, L. S., McGlinchey, E. L. , Kaplan, K. A., Dahl, R. E., &  Harvey, A. G. (2010). Sleep deprivation in adolescents and adults: Changes in affect. Emotion, 10, 831-841. [top]

·        Taheri, S., Lin, L., Austin, D., Young, T., & Mignot, E. (2004). Short sleep duration is associated with reduced leptin, elevated ghrelin, and increased body mass index. PLoS Medicine, 1(3), 210-217. [top]

·        Gangwisch, J. E., Malaspina, D., Boden-Albala, B., & Heymsfield, S. B. (2005). Inadequate sleep as a risk factor for obesity: Analyses of the NHANES I. Sleep, 28, 1289-1296. [top]

·        Spiegel, K., Knutson, K., Leproult, R., Tasali, E., & Van Cauter, E. (2005). Sleep loss: A novel risk factor for insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Journal of Applied Physiology, 99, 2008-2019. [top]

·        Williamson, A. M., & Feyer, A. M. (2000). Moderate sleep deprivation produces impairments in cognitive and motor performance equivalent to legally prescribed levels of alcohol intoxication. Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 57(10), 649-655. [top]

·        Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2013, March 4). Insufficient sleep is a public health epidemic. Retrieved March 21, 2013, from http://www.cdc.gov/features/dssleep/ [top]

 

Elizabeth Newton – Clinical Hypnotherapist
HPD, DSFH, AfSFH (Reg)
Stansted Mountfitchet, Essex CM24 8AA
07951776608
Elizabeth@freshleafhypnotherapy.co.uk
www.freshleafhypnotherapy.co.uk
twitter @freshleafhypno

Written by Trevor Eddolls

Anxiety can be defined as feelings of unease, worry, and fear that can be mild or severe. Anxiety refers to both the emotions and the physical sensations a person might experience when they are worried or nervous about something.

The first thing to understand is that anxiety is created in two different parts of the brain. There’s the amygdala type of anxiety, where you’re staying alert and jumping at any dark shadow. And there’s the prefrontal cortex type of anxiety, where you start to worry about whether you left the hob on, or you left the cat in/out, or whether you locked the back door before you left by the front door.

Distressing thoughts are more likely to come from the left hemisphere because logical reasoning occurs in the left hemisphere. Rumination or brooding is where a person repetitively mulls over an idea. Rather than coming up with an answer to the problem, this continued dwelling on a problem strengthens the circuitry leading to anxiety (neurons that fire together, wire together – Donald Hebb.) The right hemisphere creates anxiety based on imagination and visualization. The amygdala can become highly activated when the right hemisphere creates frightening images. Vigilance – a general state of alertness – is also based in the right hemisphere. Your cortex may see something – an event – like ambulances dashing down the road. It will then interpret that event, eg someone at my house has been taken ill – and this will lead to the emotion of anxiety in the amygdala. It’s the cortex’s ability to predict future events that gives us this ability to feel anxious.

The left prefrontal cortex is where a person plans and executes actions. We can anticipate events positively or negatively. The left prefrontal cortex is where anxious apprehension comes from. If a person finds themselves picturing frightening scenarios, those scenarios are being produced by the right prefrontal cortex.

Your amygdala is stimulated to be anxious when messages arrive from the thalamus indicating that there may be some danger. It will then kick off the HPA (hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenal) axis – taking the body into fight or flight mode. And if it can’t do that, it may use the vagus nerve to produce the more primitive freeze response. Usually, the same messages reach the cortex, which then decides that the threat is no more than a plastic bag (or some other non-threatening item). It then tells to amygdala to stand down.

The amygdala is also stimulated by the anxiety messages coming from the cortex. These anxiety messages have been created by the cortex. The amygdala will then also initiate the HPA axis and a person will find themselves feeling very anxious without there being a definite cause, and nothing to fight against or runaway from.
A stress response looks like:

·        Pounding heart

·        Rapid breathing/hyperventilation

·        Stomach distress/nausea

·        Diarrhoea

·        Muscle tension

·        Wanting to run away

·        Perspiration/sweating

·        Difficulty focusing

·        Immobilization

·        Trembling/shaking

·        Chills or hot flushes.

There are ways to overcome feelings of panic. If it’s coming from the amygdala: try deep breathing, muscle relaxation, and exercise. If it’s coming from the cortex: remember it’s only a feeling, don’t focus on the panic attack, try to distract yourself, and don’t worry what other people think.

Being relaxed can reduce feelings of anxiety. Good ways to relax include:

·        Slow deep breathing – inhale slowly, deeply, and exhale fully.

·        Diaphragmatic breathing (abdominal breathing) – this is thought to massage the internal organs. Place one hand on your chest and the other on your stomach. Take a deep breath. Your stomach should expand.

·        Progressive muscle relaxation – this involves tensing and then relaxing one muscle group after another. Start with your hands then up your arms. Next tense and relax your feet, and work your way up your legs. Finally, start at the top of your head and work down your face, into your neck, your shoulders, and stomach.

·        Visualizations – we probably know quite a few of these.

·        Meditation – you simply concentrate on your breathing. Every time your thoughts move away from your breathing, you bring your focus back to your breath.

·        Exercise – this affects the levels of noradrenalin and serotonin levels of the amygdala, making the receptors less active. It also stimulates the left pre-frontal cortex more than the right. This has been associated with a more positive mood (and that helps to reduce anxiety).

·        Sleep – getting the right amount of sleep helps people to concentrate and helps them remember things. It also makes the amygdala less reactive.

·        Avoid catastrophizing (thinking that everything is currently awful or everything is going to be awful).

·        Cognitive defusion – this technique originated with Steven Hayes. Basically a person acknowledges a thought exists without accepting it, eg saying: “ah, once again I’m having a thought about failing my driving test”. It’s a dissociative technique and allows a person to observe their cortex working.

·        Cognitive restructuring – this technique gives you a way to change your cortex. The key is to be sceptical of anxious thoughts and challenge them with evidence, ignore them, or replace them with new coping thoughts.

·        Plan rather than worry – if you’re anticipating something bad happening, don’t worry about the event happening, plan some solutions. So, if the event does occur, you can execute your plan.

·        Engage the left hemisphere – events such as watching comedy programmes, reading articles, playing games, or exercise reduce the dominance of the right hemisphere.

·        Engage the right hemisphere – listening to music or singing engages the right hemisphere, so it can’t be negative.

·        Mindfulness – this results in the cortex responding to anxiety in a different way. It activates the ventral medial pre-frontal cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex, which are the parts that have a direct connection to the amygdala.

Other useful information about anxiety includes:

·        A trigger is any stimulus (sensation, object, or event) that becomes associated with an emotional memory of a negative event. Whenever something triggers a response, the amygdala produces a fear reaction and a learned behaviour is initiated. This gets stronger the more times the trigger occurs. The lateral amygdala doesn’t look for cause and effect, only association between two events.

·        Cognitive fusion is where we assume that what we think is real actually is real. A common example is believing that a situation is dangerous because of a feeling that it’s dangerous rather than there being any evidence that there’s a threat.

·        New learning in the amygdala occurs in the lateral nucleus. This is where you can train your amygdala to respond differently.

·        Optimism is more associated with left pre-frontal cortex activation and pessimism is associated with right pre-frontal cortex activation.

·        The right hemisphere has a tendency to focus on negative visual or auditory information.

·        The more activity there is in the nucleus accumbens (found in the frontal lobes) – an area associated with hope, optimism, and anticipation of rewards and where dopamine is released – the more dopamine that gets released and the more optimistic a person is. Optimistic people are less anxious.

·        Worry arises in the orbitofrontal cortex. This is an area of the brain that allows us to make plans and exhibit self-control. If we focus mainly on negative outcomes, this becomes worry.

·        The anterior cingulate cortex can get stuck on certain ideas or images, and this contributes to worry.

 

Reference:
Catherine M Pittman and Elizabeth M Karle. Rewire your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic and Worry. New Harbinger, ISBN-13: 978-1626251137

Trevor Eddolls
iTech-Ed Hypnotherapy
Chippenham
Wilts SN14 0TL
01249 443256
www.ihypno.biz

Written by Trevor Eddolls

IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) is a common, long-term problem. Different people show different symptoms and some people are affected more severely than others. The symptoms may last for a few days or for a few months and may be associated with eating certain foods or periods of stress. Estimates suggest that one in five people may experience IBS, which usually develops when people are in their twenties. Estimates suggest that twice as many women are affected as men.

There is no cure for IBS. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommends hypnotherapy as a treatment.

NICE recommend that people living with IBS who do not respond to pharmacological treatments after 12 months, consider a referral for psychological interventions, such as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), hypnotherapy, and/or psychological therapy.

The most common symptoms of IBS (according to http://www.nhs.uk) are:

·        abdominal (stomach) pain and cramping, which may be relieved going to the toilet

·        a change in your bowel habits – such as diarrhoea, constipation, or sometimes both

·        bloating and swelling of your stomach

·        excessive wind (flatulence)

·        occasionally experiencing an urgent need to go to the toilet

·        a feeling that you have not fully emptied your bowels after going to the toilet

·        passing mucus from your bottom.

Some IBS sufferers also experience:

·        lethargy

·        feeling sick

·        backache

·        bladder problems (such as needing to wake up to urinate at night, experiencing an urgent need to urinate, and difficulty fully emptying the bladder)

·        pain during sex (dyspareunia)

·        incontinence.

Because of the impact IBS has on a person, they may also have feelings of depression and anxiety.

The cause of IBS is unknown, although there are suggestions that it’s related to problems with digestion and increased sensitivity of the gut. There are suggestions that food passes through the GI tract too quickly, causing diarrhoea. Or it passes through too slowly, causing constipation. Or that it doesn’t pass through at all. Or it may be that the brain becomes oversensitive to messages from the gut, so mild indigestion feels like severe abdominal pain. And often a period of IBS can start after a stressful event. Other triggers for IBS include: alcohol, fizzy drinks, chocolate, caffeine-containing drinks, processed snacks (crisps and biscuits), and fatty or fried food

Diagnosing IBS is difficult because there is no specific test. Often their doctor will exclude other causes first such as IBDs (Inflammatory Bowel Disease) like Crohn’s or ulcerative colitis, which leave inflammatory markers in their blood tests.

Cochrane looked at the research evidence and found that the studies provide some evidence that suggest that hypnotherapy might be effective in treating IBS symptoms including abdominal pain. However the results of these studies should be interpreted with caution due to poor study quality and small size.

As well as hypnotherapy, people with IBS may try keeping a food diary to identify any foods that seem to trigger an episode. People with diarrhoea may try cutting down on the insoluble fibre (wholegrain bread, bran, cereals, and nuts and seeds). If they have constipation, they might try increasing the amount of soluble fibre they eat and the amount of water they drink. If a person has persistent or frequent bloating, they might try a low FODMAP (Fermentable Oligosaccharides, Disaccharides, Monosaccharides And Polyol) diet. FODMAP carbohydrates (fruits and vegetables, animal milk, wheat products, and beans) aren’t easily broken down and absorbed by the gut. As a result, they start to ferment in the gut relatively quickly, and the gases released can lead to bloating. Many people say that exercise helps to relieve their symptoms of IBS. The exercise needs to be strenuous enough to increase a person’s heart and breathing rates. Some IBS sufferers take anti-spasmodic drugs, some are on laxatives, others are prescribed antimotility medicines (for diarrhoea), and others may be using peppermint oil. Some people find taking probiotics regularly helps to relieve their symptoms of IBS. And some people will be taking antidepressants.

One of the main benefits of hypnotherapy for IBS is that it can help a client to relax, which, in turn, can help them to manage stress – to empty their stress bucket. It can also be used to help the client to visualize themselves coping and decreasing their sensitivity to messages from their gut. Hypnosis can also improve a client’s general mental well-being, and provide psychological coping strategies for dealing with distressing symptoms, as well as help suppress thoughts and behaviours that increase the symptoms of IBS.

References:
http://www.cochrane.org/CD005110/IBD_hypnotherapy-treatment-by-hypnosis-for-the-treatment-of-irritable-bowel-syndrome
http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Irritable-bowel-syndrome/Pages/Introduction.aspx

Trevor Eddolls
iTech-Ed Hypnotherapy
Chippenham
Wilts SN14 0TL
01249 443256
www.ihypno.biz

Written by David Newton

I am often asked the question ‘What is Solution Focused Hypnotherapy?’

Well, Solution Focused Hypnotherapy (SFH) is a model of excellence that uses interventions that are effective. It will use the very best procedures that science and research prescribe. In reality though its core philosophy is very much based on the work of Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg and the basic tenets of SFBT.

Hypnotherapy, and SFH is no exception, has a history of being associated with many forms of therapeutic practice. Often, but not always, this can be a force for good. What follows could be described as the foundation philosophies on which SFH is built. Dr James Braid (1795-1860), who could be thought of as the inventor of modern hypnotism, successfully created a blueprint that could be described as the original hypnotherapy model.

“He was best known in the medical world from his theory and practice of hypnotism, as distinguished from Mesmerism, a system of treatment he applied in certain diseases with great effect.” (Obituary. The Lancet 1860)

Braid’s influence and success was very much a result of his empirical and scientific approach. In effect he said that the clinical progress should be verified by research and related to the latest understanding of psychology. He attributed the success of trance to ordinary psychological or physiological factors such as focused attention, expectation, motivation and endeavour. SFH is very much based on Braid’s basic premise that mental focus on imagery and language mediates the physical and psychological effects of dominant ideas.

It would have appeared sensible to consolidate the work done by Braid and to capitalise on what worked. This was not to be the case. In late Victorian and post Victorian times ‘wackiness’ once more sabotaged the credible scientific clinical practice. Even worse, in the late 19th and most of the 20th Century the pseudo-scientific ‘hi-jacked’ hypnotherapy and kept it in a state, often a delusional state of stagnation.

Fortunately, as Robertson says in the ‘Complete Writings of James Braid “The Father of Hypnotherapy in the 21st Century”, “Braid’s ‘Common Sense’ and empirical orientation have become fashionable once again”‘.

Hypnotherapy was partially rescued from post-Victorian ‘quackery’ and later from Freudian ‘analytical’ theory by psychiatrist, Milton H Erickson. He practised as a hypnotherapist from the 1940’s until his death in the early 1980’s. Erickson’s ideas reached far beyond hypnotic technique. He posed radical ideas regarding the role of therapist and the competency of clients. Milton Erickson was convinced that everyone has a reservoir of wisdom and competency and emphasised the importance of accessing client’s resources and strengths. Major interest in his work gathered momentum in the 1970’s and early 1980’s. Erickson’s success and creativity spawned a variety of approaches. There was in particular great interest in one of his primary approaches entailing first learning the problem pattern and then prescribing a small change in the pattern.

Steve de Shazer’s first contact with psychotherapy happened when he read ‘Strategies of Psychotherapy’, the ideas and work of Erickson by Jay Haley. It has been said that this book coupled with the work of the Mental Research Institute (MRI) in Paolo Alto, formed the foundations for what would later be called Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT).

The basic tenets of SFBT are well known and are different in many ways from traditional forms of treatment. It is a competency based model and the focus is on the clients’ desired future rather than on past problems or current conflicts. It assumes that no problems happen all the time, there are exceptions and that small changes can lead to large increments of change. The setting of specific, concrete and realistic goals is an important component. In SFBT it is the client that sets the goals. Once formulated the therapist will use a number of specific responding and questioning techniques to assist the client construct the steps that may be required to reach the ‘preferred future’. Solution Focused Hypnotherapists note Steve de Shazer’s often repeated assertion that solution work is “the same whatever problem the client brings”.

In the 1990’s modern technology led to what some have referred to as a sequel of the Copernican revolution. MRI, PET and CAT scans can photograph the brain. Electronic microscopes, the nuclear tagging of living human molecules and other biochemical investigative techniques, enable scientists to have an ever increasing understanding of how the brain works. With at least 500 therapeutic methods, all proffering special theories, techniques and philosophies, psychotherapy could be described as bordering on dysfunctional. The neuroscientific revolution beginning in the 1990’s and progressing with ever increasing vigour into the 21st Century has begun to give the field uncharacteristic coherence. Certainly the days when therapists could make things up have gone.

“For future generations of therapists training will certainly change” says Mary Sykes Wylie and Richard Simon, (Discoveries from Black Box 2002), “Curricula will have to face the accumulation of knowledge coming from neuroscientists… having an understanding of such clinical relevant areas of knowledge as neural networks and brain structures”.