The Fuller Life Centre’s emotional health clinic specialises in the scientifically proven practice of hypnotherapy. In the hands of an experienced therapist, hypnotherapy will quickly alleviate your condition and make life more rich and joyful.
On this page you can find out more about what hypnotherapy is, how hypnotherapy works, the scientific evidence for its effectiveness and whether hypnotherapy is right for you.
What is hypnosis
Hypnosis is a natural state of mind, just like sleeping or dreaming. It has been used to heal mental ailments since ancient Egypt. This state was then rediscovered in 19th century Europe to offer modern man a method for dealing effectively and safely with the subconscious.
Hypnosis is a state of highly focused attention. In such a state, critical thinking, which normally analyses information and makes decisions, recedes into the background and temporarily ceases to fulfil its function.
Hypnotherapy is completely safe. It has nothing to do with myths about subjecting people to a hypnotist’s will or performances on variety shows. Moreover, the hypnotherapist works within strict ethical and professional rules and regulations.
When you are in hypnosis:
Hypnosis is as natural as a person’s ability to dream, think or sleep.
You feel ‘normal’, just purposefully directed toand focused on something.
You are aware and understand everything that is happening to you
You are in control of what is happening and you choose how to react to it
You can remember what happened in the session when it is over
Facts about hypnosis
Adopted for use by the British Medical Association in 1955
Used for anaesthesia in dentistry, surgery and even childbirth
Part of the recommended treatment for obesity, smoking and irritable bowel syndrome onthe NHS
Facts about hypnosis
Adopted for use by the British Medical Association in 1955
Used for anaesthesia in dentistry, surgery and even childbirth
Part of the recommended treatment for obesity, smoking and irritable bowel syndrome onthe NHS
There is a detailed question and answer section on hypnosis at the end of the page
How hypnotherapy works
1
Hypnotherapy, as a treatment method, is based on easing a person into a hypnotic trance. It is very simple and easy to do – you just have to follow the therapist’s instructions, such as ‘close your eyes’ or ‘feel your hand’.
2
The state of hypnosis helps psychological transformation, but it does not produce a result on its own. It is similar to anaesthesia in surgery – only creating the conditions for work (relief of pain and unnecessary suffering), while the success of the surgery depends on the surgeon.
3
So here also, the success of the therapy depends on how the specialist conducts the hypnosis and what techniques they use. A good hypnotherapist is able to help you even in the most difficult cases.
Scientific evidence for the effectiveness and safety of hypnotherapy
Hypnosis and hypnotherapy are now well-researched methods of psychological care.
Until the 1970s, only standardised, easily repeatable methods, such as CBT, had an evidence base.
With the advent of fMRI, MRI, CT scans and other ways of studying the human brain, and as the clinical evidence accumulated, hypnosis gradually became free of the mystical overlay. This process took nearly 50 years, from acceptance by official medicine in the late 1950s to rigorous research, including meta-analyses, from the 2000s onward.
Like any therapeutic method, hypnosis has a number of contraindications and limitations in its use, and therefore must be applied by a qualified professional with theoretical and practical training in psychology.
One early study shows the effectiveness of hypnotherapy compared to other methods:
Psychoanalysis
CBT (Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy)
Hypnotherapy
38%
72%
93%
600+
22
6
Source: Alfred A. Barrios, PhD. “Toward Understanding the Effectiveness of Hypnotherapy: A Combined Clinical, Theoretical, and Experimental Approach”
There are a number of scientific publications devoted to the clinical application of hypnosis and hypnotherapy, and articles on the effectiveness of hypnosis appear in leading medical and psychology journals and portals, such as The Lancet or PubMed, among others
Stanford University’s Center on Stress and Health has been specifically studying the effectiveness of hypnosis in combating a wide range of conditions and illnesses from stress to cancer for the past twenty years.
Be careful: promises of a complete cure in one or two sessions, references to “energies” or “quantum processes” have nothing to do with the clinical practice of hypnotherapy and may suggest that something else is being offered to you under the guise of a method with proven efficacy.
At Fuller Life Centre, we use evidence-based, successful methods and our practitioners are members of recognised professional bodies. This ensures you are safe to work with and that the methods used are proven.
Types of hypnotherapy
Hypnotherapy can work with both the symptoms and the cause of the problem.
Working with the symptoms
- Provides quick but temporary relief
- The question “how long will the effect last?” remains relevant because the cause remains intact
- New stress increases the likelihood of the problem returning
By working with the cause, we
- Find and remove negative attitudes and emotions from your mind that caused the problem
- Replace them with helpful attitudes and positive emotions
- Solve even the most stubborn and persistent problems that you have been trying to solve for as long as you can remember.
When you focus your efforts on working with the cause, you are able to solve problems where most other methods are powerless: when the cause goes away, the consequences go away as well.
The specialists in our clinic always focus on working with the cause. We don’t mesmerise the client, we hypnotise their problems away!
Hypnotherapy methods
You don’t have to choose a specific approach in hypnotherapy – the therapist will do it for you. But if you want to know a little more, here’s how the main approaches differ
Classical, suggestive or directive
The client is in a trance, and the hypnotherapist makes or forbids him or her to do something. For example, he forms an aversion to alcohol by ‘coding’ it. In this case, the therapist works with the consequences and not with the cause of the problem. If alcohol was a way to relieve stress, then banning alcohol is unlikely to help the person learn to cope otherwise, making the problem worse.
Eriksonian hypnotherapy, or Eriksonian hypnosis
The technique is named after its creator Milton Erickson. He believed that the subconscious mind communicates with humans in images and symbols, being inherently passive. Therefore, through the manipulation of symbols or words, a good hypnotherapist can indoctrinate the patient with anything.
The main thing is for there to be complete trust between them. In this case, the therapist is also working with the effects and symptoms of the problem, and any severe stress can destroy this suggestion.
Hypnoanalysis
Hypnoanalysis is the only technique within hypnotherapy that works with the cause of the illness. With the help of analysis the therapist finds the beliefs and emotions related to the problem and removes their negative influence. After the negative emotions have been removed, all that is left is the knowledge of how it felt. Hypnoanalysis can be both cognitive and affective.
Cognitive Hypnoanalysis helps to find traumatic beliefs and solutions and affective Hypnoanalysis traces the emotions. Because the work is done with traumatic events, only a highly qualified person can apply this technique.
Regressive hypnotherapy
Regressive hypnotherapy is a therapy based on the idea that under certain conditions, for example because of a traumatic event in the past, one suppresses and displaces one’s emotions, which later leads to a problem.
Regressive hypnotherapy sessions aim at finding the repressed emotions and their cause by ‘travelling back in time’, for example to childhood. Sometimes regression is mistakenly referred to as anything related to so-called “past lives”, but in fact, regression applies to any period of a person’s life. This method is inherently very close to hypnoanalysis, and should only be used by a qualified professional.
In our clinic we practise analytical methods and work with the root cause of the problem.
Is hypnotherapy suitable for you?
There is a good chance that it is:
Is online hypnotherapy effective?
Online hypnotherapy is just as effective as face-to-face work, as our clinic’s results and client feedback confirm.
This is not surprising, since the therapeutic effect is done with words, so there is no difference between a face-to-face and a video connection.
Access to qualified hypnotherapists who specialise in your problem and speak your language has therefore been made easier by working online.
The clinic has extensive facilities, so if you choose face-to-face sessions in London, all you need to do is arrive at your appointment time. The rest is taken care of by our specialists;
If you prefer not to waste time travelling and choose hypnotherapy online, you will have a checklist to help you prepare for your session. We will also check everything in the first session to keep the chance of failure at a minimum.
Hypnotherapy is a modern and reliable tool in the hands of an experienced professional. It is important to realise that there are now many methods of influencing the subconscious mind, but only a qualified professional will be able to use them correctly and choose the one that will help you.
You can ask for help by signing up for a diagnostic consultation on the website.
Frequently Asked Questions
Stage hypnosis is, above all, a show. It’s specially designed to entertain and amuse people. For maximum effect the hypnotist needs to find high suggestible people in the audience. Such people do exist, but they make 1-2% of total population. That’s why hypnotic shows require big audience – so that there is choice. You won’t see a show for a small audience. To start with, the hypnotist checks the suggestibility levels, and only invites those on stage who are most suggestible and wants to participate (i.e. they already are prepared to follow instructions). Then during the show the hypnotist continues filtering participants, to the point when he only has 1 or 2 most suggestible ones. And those are the people who make the show for him. You can watch this TED talk called “Is Hypnosis Fake?” to see what I mean https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RA2Zy_IZfQ The good news is that for successful hypnotherapy you don’t need to have such high suggestibility, just an average is more than enough. How do you know it? well, if you’ve ever been able to close your eyes and day dream, you know you’ve got it! You are suggestible enough to successfully participate in your hypnotherapy.
Anyone can be hypnotised, if they want it and can follow some simple instructions (like ‘Close your eyes’, ‘Relax your muscles’, etc.). Have you ever day dreamt? Then you can go into hypnosis, it’s that similar (and simple!). The main reason why people are not ready to go into hypnosis is their fears. That’s why I spend so much time and effort to explain everything here, answer all the questions and de-bust all the myths, so you would feel confident and comfortable. The only people that can’t go into hypnosis are people with some mental health issues, as their concentration of attention is low. But hypnosis is contra-indicated for such people, any way.
That’s just another name for hypnotherapy. It’s used to stress the differences from stage hypnosis which is done purely for entertainment purposes. You may comes across a term ‘clinical hypnotherapy’. This is simply a marketing trick – there is no method of hypnotherapy that would be classed as ‘clinical’ and wouldn’t be used by ‘normal’ hypnotherapy. This is just an attempt to add some medical image to something that is not — and doesn’t need to be — medicine, and as such is a pure manipulation.
Hypnosis is contra-indicated for any mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, psychosis, bi-polar disorder, and some others. Hypnosis is allowed for use with mentally healthy people, but your therapist needs to be aware of any medical diagnoses that you may have (of any kind) — so they could adjust the session accordingly, in particular going into and out of hypnosis.
Practitioners
Katerina Furman
Valerie Robins
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