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Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy (CBH)
Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy (CBH) is an evidence-based approach that combines Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), hypnosis, and mindfulness to help you manage and overcome challenges such as anxiety, phobias, depression, and unhelpful habits. This integrated approach builds on the strengths of traditional CBT by incorporating the power of hypnosis and the calming effects of mindfulness, giving you practical tools to reshape your thoughts, behaviours, and emotions.
CBH works by helping you understand the connections between your thoughts, emotions, and behaviours. It empowers you to take control of your mental patterns, replacing unhelpful cycles with more constructive ways of thinking and acting. This process leads to lasting changes in how you respond to challenges, helping you build emotional resilience, improve coping strategies, and develop healthier habits.
CBH, being grounded in CBT, focuses on addressing current challenges and practical solutions. Both CBT and CBH emphasise that our responses are shaped by our present interpretations, which are influenced by our beliefs and assumptions. While CBT helps identify and shift these unhelpful thoughts, CBH takes it a step further by working to “de-hypnotize” negative thinking patterns. It replaces harmful auto-suggestions with positive alternatives, creating lasting change by taking conscious control of automatic patterns.
Hypnosis plays a key role in enhancing this process. By inducing a deeply focused state, hypnosis helps reshape deeply rooted thought patterns, making it easier to engrave new learning and practice coping strategies more effectively. This added depth makes lasting change more achievable, as the brain becomes more open to new ways of thinking and responding. Hypnosis not only rewires both conscious and subconscious responses but also allows you to explore different scenarios and reframe difficult situations in a way that feels more manageable.
On the other hand, mindfulness encourages a non-judgmental awareness of your thoughts and feelings. This helps prevent overwhelm by giving you more control over how you respond to triggers, rather than reacting automatically. Both hypnosis and mindfulness promote relaxation, but each has its unique focus: hypnosis helps facilitate mental rewiring and the transformation of old patterns at a deep level, while mindfulness helps maintain emotional balance through awareness of the present moment, grounding you in your experiences without being overwhelmed by them.
So what exactly, is Hypnosis?
"Hypnosis is not a sleep state, but rather a state of focused attention, heightened suggestibility, and deep relaxation." — David Spiegel
Hypnosis is simply a state of deep relaxation and focused attention.
During this state, you’re fully awake and in control. While relaxed, you become more open to helpful suggestions, making it easier to address deeper issues and start thinking or behaving in ways that feel better for you.
How Vivid Imagination and Focused Attention Make Therapy More Effective
In therapy, vivid imagination and focused attention are powerful tools for creating lasting change. By replaying past situations in your mind, you can process emotions, gain new perspectives, and understand your reactions more clearly.
This helps you make sense of past events, promote healing, and develop insight. Rehearsing healthier responses helps strengthen new neural connections—the pathways in your brain that allow for communication between different areas. The more you mentally practice, the more natural these new responses become, making it easier to apply positive coping skills and behaviours when challenges arise.
Hypnosis enhances this process by guiding you into a relaxed, focused state, where your mind is more open to change.
In this state, you can access deeper beliefs, release limiting thoughts, and replace them with healthier patterns. This process helps rewire your nervous system, making it easier to respond differently to situations and reducing emotional and physical reactions that might typically hold you back.
By combining replaying past experiences, rehearsing new responses, and using hypnosis, you’re effectively reprogramming your brain to think and act in ways that align with your goals. Over time, these new patterns become automatic, allowing you to integrate healthier coping strategies and more positive thinking into your everyday life, giving you greater control over your thoughts, emotions, and actions.
Why Combine CBT, Mindfulness, and Hypnosis?
When you combine Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Mindfulness, and hypnosis, you get a really powerful approach that works on both the mind and body. These methods complement each other in a way that makes it easier to create real, lasting change.
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CBT helps you break free from negative thought patterns that keep you feeling stuck. It gives you practical tools to recognize and change unhelpful ways of thinking, so you can start feeling better and handling life's challenges more effectively. It's also the most well-researched therapy for anxiety and depression, with proven strategies that make a real difference in how you think, feel, and respond to situations.
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Mindfulness helps you become more aware of your thoughts and emotions in the present moment. It teaches you to notice and accept them without judgment, so they don’t have the same hold over you. This builds emotional resilience and helps you stay calm and focused, no matter what comes up.
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Hypnosis helps you become more aware of how your thoughts, emotions, and behaviours are connected, and how negative auto-hypnosis can form from repeating limiting thoughts. By tapping into both your conscious and subconscious mind, hypnosis allows you to recognize these patterns and replace them with positive, empowering beliefs. With focused attention, your mind becomes more open to helpful suggestions, such as feeling calm in anxiety-provoking situations. It also teaches you how to relax, calming your nervous system and making it easier to respond to challenges with confidence and control. As you rehearse new responses, you rewire your brain, creating lasting change in how you respond to life.
When you combine all three, you're not just addressing the surface-level issues — you’re rewiring your brain for long-term change.
It’s a holistic approach that helps you break free from old habits, build new, healthier ones, and feel more confident in handling life’s ups and downs. Together, they create a powerful process growth, healing and personal dee.
How CBH Can Help You
CBH helps you recognize and shift unhelpful thinking patterns, leading to real changes in how you feel and act. Whether you’re facing anxiety, stress, phobias, or other challenges, this approach offers effective tools to ease your symptoms.
You’ll also gain a better understanding of your mind, empowering you to handle future challenges with greater confidence and resilience—working toward a more balanced, fulfilling life.
What Can You Expect?
When we begin our journey together, we’ll first have a free phone call to determine if this approach feels right for you. If we move forward, our first session will be an assessment, where we’ll explore your challenges and how CBH can help. We’ll look at the connection between your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, and identify the situations that trigger difficult emotions. Together, we’ll uncover the beliefs and behaviours tied to these triggers.
After this, we’ll develop a tailored treatment plan, creating practical solutions using a blend of hypnosis and CBT techniques, including self-hypnosis. This approach will help us address your unique needs and work towards lasting change.
How Long Does CBH Take?
CBH is typically a short-term treatment, lasting between 4-20 sessions, though this can vary based on your needs and we can extend these and have as many as you require.
After a few sessions, we’ll review your progress and determine if more sessions might be helpful.
Each session is tailored to you, drawing on evidence-based techniques like mindfulness, relaxation, and stress management, to name a few.
Contact Me
I offer a free 15-minute consultation to explore your challenges and goals. This is also a great opportunity for you to ask any questions and determine if we're a good fit to work together.
To get in touch via email or use the online form, and I'll respond as soon as possible.