20 November 2025
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
― C.G. Jung
Our conscious thoughts are often likened to the tip of an iceberg. They are the thoughts we are aware of, the ones we believe are guiding our choices, our world-view and the view we hold of ourselves. However, as with an iceberg, the significant or largest part of our thinking comes from our subconscious. The part below the surface, the part we are not usually aware of. Talking to a skilled and trusted therapist can be so helpful as they can gently challenge our conscious and sometimes subconscious thoughts. These subconscious thoughts are the ones truly guiding our world-view and life choices.
This is why solution-focused hypnotherapy can be so powerful and yet feel quite subtle. By enabling us to go into a nicely relaxed state, we are able to access the subconscious in a non-threatening way. That is where we want to get to if we want to make significant, lasting change. We liken hypnotherapy to the trance like state. Like daydreaming – we are nicely relaxed but still awake. We are in control and yet hypnotherapy allows the conscious and subconscious to come together and focus on the same thing. That’s when real change can happen.
By the time clients have come to see me, they have usually already tried making changes through conscious thought and will-power. This can work for some problems, however, on challenges where we are somehow not able to break through, we often need change at a deeper level; the subconscious level. The part of the iceberg we cannot see. This may involve questioning the way we see ourselves. It may involve setting clear and powerful goals, gaining clarity. It is usually a relaxing and interesting way to make changes or reach goals.
There is no analysis in solution-focused hypnotherapy. We do not try to find out why you are the way you are, we focus on how you want to be.
How would you like to direct your life? Who would you like to be?
22 October 2025
Mental health is like physical health in that the sooner you can catch a problem or potential problem, the easier it is to deal with.
We talk about a stress bucket in hypnotherapy. Clients picture a kind of bucket in their minds, which fills up with all the negative things going on in their lives. This could be negative or worrying thoughts or events or situations that they don’t want and are reacting negatively to.
Our brains are incredible, and every night during Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep we re-run the events of the day and empty this stress bucket. The brain can literally drain a negative emotion from a remark that someone made about you and send that memory to a different part of your brain where you have more control over it.
That is why we can feel so great after a really good night’s sleep. Unfortunately this process can go wrong. If we have too much in our bucket it can disrupt our sleep and we end up in a negative cycle where our bucket is not getting emptied sufficiently.
If you have ever lost your temper at the wrong person at the wrong time then chances are your stress bucket was full.
Hypnotherapy can help. It is very similar to REM sleep and can help us empty our stress bucket. In addition, during the talking part of the therapy we focus on the positives, thereby helping to break the negative cycle, build confidence and create a self-perpetuating positive cycle. Investing in our mental health can produce change that is sometimes subtle, sometimes dramatic and often priceless.
27/07/2025
Do you feel you’ve inherited bad habits or phobias from your predecessors?
Quite a few times I have heard a client say, ‘My mother was terrified of spiders, that’s why I can’t be in the same room as one.’ (Or something similar).
However, the good news is that with solution focused hypnotherapy, you do not need to analyse why you are the way you are. You simply focus on how you want to be. How would you like to be around spiders?
This is the same for any problem or challenge you might be facing. The analysts say that if you had a particularly depressed, angry or anxious parent, you are likely to struggle with those issues yourself, however, this does not have to be the case. Research is showing us how our brains can be ‘re-wired’ to create new neural pathways, helping us to develop more productive, better habits for ourselves if we want to.
Our fight, flight or freeze response (we call it the ‘primitive’ brain) will always respond with either anxiety, depression or anger, or a combination of these, however, in the therapy room we look at ways to move out of this primitive brain and into the more resourceful ‘intellectual’ part of our brain that we all have. No one will ever be completely free of anxiety as we will always have our primitive brain, and we would need it if in physical danger. However, we can reduce the number of times we go into it throughout the day or week. It may take some time and hypnotherapy is not a magic wand, but the good news is, it can be done.
01/12/2024
‘Enlightenment is always preceded by confusion’, Milton Erickson (1901 – 1980).
Are you feeling confused? You are in good company. Many people who seek therapy are often confused and searching for clarity.
Milton Erickson, essentially pioneered the brief, solution-focused hypnotherapy that we use today. He believed that real functional change over insight and analysis was key to the client’s ability to flourish.
We may all at times have conflicting desires, wants and needs. There are many demands on our time and mixed messages coming from the things we read, watch or the people we listen to.
Some people are confused as to why they are repeatedly engaging in self-destructive behaviours when they know they are harmful. Others are confused as to what they really want out of life or what kind of person they want to be.
Hypnotherapy offers hope. Hope that things can change, behaviours can be modified, clarity gained and action taken.
A little confusion may be a good thing, it may mean you are on the path to enlightenment.
24/11/2023
I love teaching at the Bristol Folk House, we always have such interesting discussions.
A few years ago, one of the students, who was from France, said how happy everyone seemed in Bristol. I must admit, I was slightly surprised by the comment, as was the rest of the class. When we asked her to expand on her comment, she said, ‘for example, people let you go first on the bus, they are polite.’ It did make me feel rather proud of the people of Bristol, God bless them.
Sometimes, having a fresh perspective from another person can be really helpful. We tend to fall back on our usual patterns of thinking, especially about a problem or something that may be troubling us. To be challenged in our usual thinking patterns can be very helpful. That is the advantage of talking to a therapist or trusted friend. Once we have articulated something out loud to someone else, we can gain clarity and perspective. If we are brave and let them gently examine or challenge our thoughts, we might be surprised by how seeing something in a new light can really make a difference. It can help us feel more positive and thereby more resourceful in tackling whatever that situation or challenge may be.
13/11/2023
Locus of Control.
There is a theory in Psychology, put forward by Julian Rutter, called the ‘Locus of Control’. This is a measure of the extent to which we feel we have control over our lives. It is about how we feel regarding personal responsibility. The theory states that some people have a strong internal focus (they will use ‘I’ statements) and others have a strong external focus.
Those with an external focus will believe in fate and generally consider that they have little or no control over events in their lives. Many of us will be somewhere in the middle on this spectrum.
The events of the last few years, such as lockdown and Covid, will have shaken a lot of people, as the control we thought we had was taken away. This will have made us re-assess just how much we felt we were able to control in our lives. It is not surprising that there is now a significant increase in anxiety and other mental health problems.
For any type of therapy to work, the client must believe they have some control over the events of their lives or at least their responses to them, otherwise there wouldn’t be much point in having therapy. They would be able to change nothing.
There are some events, which we have no control over but there are many others where we can choose to make a difference. Sometimes, after a few therapy sessions, people are surprised by just how much they can influence and perhaps control, especially regarding their own emotional responses.
The therapy room can be a great place to explore where you think you might be able to change something in your life that is no longer serving you. How much control over it do you have? That can be discussed.
22/09/2023
The brain is a pattern-matching organism. If something bad happens to us, we might find we search for reasons why. ‘What did I do to make that person act that way towards me?’ for example. This can sometimes be helpful if we then spot a pattern that is no longer serving us and we go on to make changes. However, sometimes bad, random things just happen and there is nothing we could have done about it.
We may now find ourselves in a nightmare that was not of our making, but that we have to deal with. To deal with it in a constructive way and to find a way through the nightmare, we have to accept that it has happened. Much as I would love a time machine to take me back to the day before my most difficult moments/events, where I could have just stayed in bed, no one I know has one. Unfortunately life does not work that way.
Acceptance is a key part of healing and moving on. Acceptance of what has happened will enable us to then deal with the ongoing problems in the best way we can. This is not to say it is easy. Anxiety around the event can hold us back and keep us from making the best decisions for us.
A relaxing hypnotherapy session can calm our heightened emotions and lessen the anxiety around the event, thus enabling us to go into the more creative part of our brain that has our best interests at heart and is good at problem solving.
If you would like to know how hypnotherapy can help you, please do get in touch.
22 March 2022
‘I Get So Emotional Baby’
Have you ever noticed how easy it is to solve other people’s problems? Why doesn’t he just stop drinking/leave her/find a job, we wonder. It seems so simple when it’s not our problem. That is because we are not emotionally attached to the issue. When it’s our challenge, well that’s a different story. We have all these conflicting emotions going on and we struggle.
Often if we are not reaching a goal, it is because we have not been clear enough in our intentions. We might want to lose weight but we still want to eat take away food four times a week. We may want to leave that destructive relationship, but we don’t want to feel lonely.
Research has shown that emotions often play a key role in our decision-making process. This can be helpful, however, it can also hold us back. Have you felt like going for a run when it’s cold and wet outside? Sometimes, we need to over-ride the dominant emotion; ‘I would like to stay warm, dry and comfortable watching TV from the sofa.’ Another powerful emotion that can hold us back is the fear of rejection; ‘I’ve applied for 15 jobs already and I am fed up of feeling rejected. I can’t apply for job number 16 as failure to get it would hurt too much.’
Hypnotherapy is very useful in helping to dial down the emotional intensity around our problems. This can be a very powerful tool when decision-making and wanting to feel less stressed. When we are anxious we are in a more ‘primitive’ part of our brain and that is not the part of the brain we want to make our decisions from. The ‘primitive’ brain is involved in our fight, flight or freeze response and is really meant for those situations involving physical danger.
During a hypnotherapy session, we may talk through a problem, (or we may not), but we also focus on building confidence and on the positive things that can be done. We use guided meditation or relaxation so clients can access their resourceful ‘intellectual brain’. Sometimes it surprises people just how resourceful that brain is. Solutions can be unexpected, but solutions are what the brain is good at. It is a natural human trait to want to solve other people’s problems or even the world’s problems from the comfort of our armchairs, as the brain is a problem-solving organism. We are here because our ancestors were good at solving the problems of their day. If you want to take some of the emotional intensity out of your own problems, then hypnotherapy may be worth a try.
12 July 2021
The word ‘depression’ derives from the Latin verb ‘deprimo’ meaning, ‘to press down (or under)’. It may be that someone with depression is feeling so overwhelmed that they feel they’ve given up and life holds no joy anymore.
Hypnotherapy can be very powerful in treating depression. The brain is typically nervous of change and can feel threatened by it. Certainly the ‘primitive’ part of our brain will be anxious about it. One of the reasons hypnotherapy is so successful is because the changes people make can feel quite subtle. Small changes will generally be made over the weeks, but it’s amazing what happens when these small changes add up and the client looks back at how far they’ve come.
We generally say that for treating anxiety and depression, you may need 10 to 12 sessions, however everyone is different and everyone will make changes in their own time.
17 June 2021
Did you know that exercise can actually make the brain bigger and depression can shrink it slightly? Our brains can continue to change size even in adulthood. This is exciting news, as we don’t have to be stuck with old ways of thinking and behaving that no longer serve us. Your therapist will be quietly rejoicing when you say you’ve gone back to running or had a dance around the living room yesterday because they know that these activities can make a big difference to your mental and physical shape. They won’t solve all your problems, but they will certainly help (unless you are doing them obsessively – that’s a different story).
Dr John Ratey explains this in his book ‘Spark’. The power of movement is greatly underappreciated in our modern society. Worth a read if you are interested in the science behind it all.
‘The effect on protecting the brain against cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease is greater in women because they are more prone to that as they enter menopause. Exercise helps prevent that cognitive decline. Also, women tend to get more depression than men, and exercise will help avoid that as well as treat it.’ (Dr. John Ratey, Kinesophy.com)
15 June 2021
It has been shown that when we are hypnotized or in a deep state of relaxation, our brainwaves change from Beta (12 to 30Hz), the usual state, to Alpha (8 to 12 Hz) or Theta (4 to 8 Hz). These are more suggestible and relaxed states allowing the subconscious to go to work. This is why so many people use guided visualization or hypnotherapy to achieve their goals or leave behind an unwanted habit or feeling. Most people find it a relaxing and subtle way to make lasting changes. If you would like to give it a try, please do get in touch.
19 May 2021
Einstein said ‘Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.’
When we are stuck with a problem that we can’t solve, it can be really beneficial to let the creative subconscious mind go to work for us. Sometimes just articulating the problem out loud to a friend or a therapist can help, as they can talk it through with you, but ultimately our brains are our biggest resource and they can surprise us with just how resourceful we can be.
If you are feeling stuck, you may find it very helpful to have hypnotherapy, which will help you access the creative, resourceful part of your brain. Clients tell me they enjoy the process as well as it is very relaxing. It’s not to say we don’t have to put in some work, maybe do some research for example, but the idea behind solution focused hypnotherapy is that each one of us has the resources to deal with whatever life throws at us. It is just that we don’t always know consciously how to do this, especially if we are feeling negative emotions such as anxiety, which can cloud our judgment.
If you are struggling with something, please do get in touch. It would be lovely to help you.
20 April 2021
Up until the 1950s it was thought that when we went to sleep, we shut ourselves down completely. Only resurfacing on waking. Recent research has shown this to be completely inaccurate. There is so much going on when we sleep. REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep in particular is very important for our mental health. During this time we re-run the events of the day and drain the emotion out of them. For example, if someone said something rude to you at work and it upset you, your brain would deal with that for you during REM sleep. It drains any anxiety, frustration, anger and so on, out of your response to the remark so you are able to simply move on. You may have forgotten about it in the morning but you would no longer be upset about it.
The trouble is, when we have had a lot of difficulties going on in our lives our sleep can get disrupted and this process can go wrong for us, so we stay upset and these negative emotions can build up. You may find yourself at the stage of feeling that an upset is ‘the straw that broke the camel’s back’ where something really insignificant upsets you, and then all sorts of problems start to occur. The amazing thing about hypnotherapy is that it is very similar to REM sleep. Although you would not be asleep during hypnotherapy, you would be deeply relaxed so your brain will deal with the emotional events from your day through hypnotherapy. It is a little like a ‘reboot’ on a computer. You can come out of the ‘trance’ feeling refreshed and ready to take on life’s challenges. It generally doesn’t happen in one session, as problems that have built up, need some time to dissipate, but it is wonderful to see clients emerge ‘lighter’ from our time together.
1 January 2021
We can often take our minds and our mental health for granted. Not really thinking about our minds much until something goes wrong. However, a little investment in our mental health can reap huge rewards and significantly contribute to our quality and enjoyment of life. The huge advantage humans have over the other animals that we share this planet with, is that we are creative creatures. Our curiosity, problem solving and creative abilities gives humans genius like qualities. It takes discipline and skill to make the most of these abilities we possess, but it is worth the time and energy investing in them.
A coach or a hypnotherapist can help you unlock this potential. Often with our own problems, we ‘can’t see the wood for the trees’. Sometimes even just talking about them brings us clarity and starts us on the road we need to walk down.
Happy new year! May 2021 bring you good mental health.
May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,
may God hold you in the palm of His hand.
(Traditional Irish blessing)
12 December 2020
Did you know, there is a special technique that hypnotherapists use to help people recover from PTSD? We call it the Rewind technique and we use it for all sorts of trauma recovery or phobias.
For example, if someone has been in a car crash and is now scared to travel in a car we would ‘rewind’ that particular memory (and perhaps a second memory that was unpleasant that involved car travel). Essentially with the rewind technique we are draining the emotion out of that event and turning it from being a ‘nightmare’ (something that makes us very anxious), into just a memory (something that is part of our history but no longer holds us back). We don’t forget the memory altogether, we have just dialed down the emotional intensity that accompanied it.
We get the client to picture this memory and rewind, fast forward it so many times that it becomes boring and loses its emotional intensity. It sounds a little odd but I’ve witnessed it work many times.
This technique ideally also needs to be accompanied by an emptying of the ‘stress bucket’. The stress bucket is an accumulation of our stresses and emotional upsets that can build up within us. This would ideally happen over the course of several weeks, if the client has had a particularly stressful time recently. There may be quite a lot to empty. If you think you might be suffering from PTSD or just feel very emotional generally, you might be amazed at how these techniques can help you and make you feel yourself again.
Inspire Me Hypnotherapy 