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How does it work?
Hypnotherapy is a brief and highly effective systemic therapy used to ease a large variety of emotional, behavioral, and somatic issues.
Not only does hypnotherapy work, but it is so effective that it is known to be one of the most powerful tools for positive life changes. The good results in Somatic Hypnotherapy are mainly due to the ability of neuro-linguistic modulation to shape not only perception and behavior, but also various phenomena at the somatic and physiological levels.
Whether or not you end up understanding how Somatic Hypnotherapy works may eventually affect your degree of awareness of having experienced the promised change, but it won't impact your results per se. However, if you sincerely want to understand how such a spectacular change is possible, you must first understand that behavioral science is not an exact science. Moreover, it is good to know that cognitive theories, which are based on the belief that thoughts are the primary determinants of emotions and behavior, are only three of the 82 scientifically validated models of behavior.
What most often cause people to seek help with hypnotherapy are various unpleasant or painful emotional feelings, as well as the associated intrusive thoughts or unwanted behaviors. Several approaches - inspired by various behavioral theories specific to the field of personal psychology - aim to help you control the thought patterns that would eventually arouse unwanted feelings. This makes sense because if you could stop thinking about what is bothering you, there would be no more negative thoughts to arouse associated unwanted feelings, the unwanted behaviors induced by unpleasant feelings would go away, and your problem would be solved.
Now imagine how wonderful it would be if you could think about anything you wanted about your unpleasant past experiences or future projections, and your thoughts would no longer arouse any of your once unpleasant or painful feelings. Because this is what Somatic Hypnotherapy can help you accomplish! At the end of your therapy, you will feel as if your heart has relieved or completely forgotten the stressful, anxious, traumatic, or painful component of unpleasant events of your past that we worked on, while your cognitive memory keeps intact the associated images and factual details. The mechanism by which this approach makes it possible to experience such amazing changes is explained below.
Life is a succession of various events; some with, some others without emotional significance. Throughout your life, your mind learns and memorizes your emotional and behavioral responses to each new situation you experience. Whenever something similar happens, your previously learned emotional reactions, as well as the behavioral pattern associated with that situation, are repeated and thereby reinforced with each repetition. Thus, you develop your habits which are behavioral programs stored in your subconscious mind. This is why bad habits are very difficult to reprogram by the conscious mind - whether through a better understanding of their causes or rational will alone.
Your emotions are not only the most important aspect of the quality and meaning of life, they are the most undeniable proof that you are a human being in search of happiness. What makes the difference between a happy and fulfilled life and an unhappy life is your predominant state of mind resulting from the balance between the good and bad feelings that you have experienced throughout your life, which persist in your emotional memory, and are unwittingly projected into the background of your current reality. Although you can't change the past, you can still control the emotional memory reading of your past experiences. Surprisingly, what has the potential to have a strong impact on all aspects of your daily life is the emotional memory reading created by the perception of past events - not the events themselves.”
When they occur, emotions cause a measurable change in the state of your brain, your physiology, and your body. Moreover, according to contemporary scientific models, emotions are complex experiences leading to coordinated changes across mental, somatic (physical), physiological (neuroendocrine), and behavioral response systems. Thus, an emotional response pattern always has a cognitive component (the meaning the mind makes out of emotional feelings), a chemical (neuroendocrine) component, and a bodily feeling called a somatic component. Since these manifestations are coherent, you can control your emotions by controlling either the physiology (chemistry) of your brain, the thoughts that have triggered the emotion, or by controlling the emotional feelings.
While cognitive approaches are focused on the mental experience of emotions (the thoughts that have triggered the emotion), the Somatic Hypnotherapy approach is focused on emotional feelings. An emotional response pattern always has a bodily feeling called a somatic component, a chemical (hormonal) component, and a mental component, which is the meaning your mind makes of your emotional feelings. The somatic components of your emotions (your emotional feelings) are sort of a physical presence in your body. You feel them as physical sensations, including butterflies, heart palpitations, sweating, dizziness, shortness of breath, knots in your stomach, chest pressure, body tightness, body pains, smothering sensations, restlessness, or a sense of impending doom.
Like it or not, your feelings will always have a strong hold on your thoughts, your decision-making processes, and your daily life. Since your feelings are the outcome of your subconsciously driven emotional responses, the quickest and most effective way to control unwanted feelings is to control the patterns of your emotional responses to life events. Because, if not addressed in time, your negative feelings will gradually detach from the causal root and will become persistent and part of your daily life. You will work, sleep and live with these feelings daily. And, I wouldn't bet that you will be able to ease or get rid of your unpleasant emotions, or the intrusive thoughts that aroused them, unless you alleviate or eliminate the unpleasant bodily feelings associated with them.
For, by altering or suppressing the emotional feelings (the somatic component) associated with an unpleasant emotion, one breaks the coherence of the emotional experience and thus, the cognitive reading and the negative behavior associated with it, will instantly change. For example, an arachnophobic - defined as someone who overreacts upon seeing spiders, not because he mistakenly assumes that spiders are very dangerous creatures, but because he feels terrified upon seeing a spider - as soon he will not experience the feeling of being terrified of spiders anymore, he will instantly stop overreacting.
Contrary to a popular misconception, hypnotherapy is not a magic spell and it does not control your mind. A hypnotherapist will use his talent and insight into the workings of the human mind to change the mind's perception of the emotional content of past events. It's like a magician who uses his talent and advanced knowledge of how the human vision works to change not the factual reality or the functioning of your vision, but only the perception of reality. Because they are both based on science, knowledge, and talent, magic tricks and somatic hypnotherapy sessions are always reproducible experiences with predictable results.
Once you've seen with your eyes the magician pulling the rabbit out of his hat, no matter how many times you replay that image in your mind, you will always see the same thing, because the magician has convinced your mind that it has happened. By analogy, once the hypnotherapist has convinced your subconscious mind of a new emotional reading of an uncomfortable situation, no matter how many times your conscious mind replays this situation, the associated emotional content would be changed, although the factual content is unchanged. This is how once your subconscious learns that there are no more painful feelings related to your last separation, your conscious mind permanently accepts this new reality, and you feel, think, and behave accordingly.
A somatic hypnosis therapist guides you in remembering the event that led to the unhealthy reaction, separating the factual memory from the learned negative emotional response, and winnowing away the negative emotional response. With somatic hypnotherapy, you won't "undergo" a passive script therapy; instead, you’ll be involved in the process, overseeing your therapy. Essentially, my role is to induce and maintain your therapeutic hypnotic state of mind and to assist and guide you throughout your therapy journey. Your induced hypnosis will provide the access needed to perceive your pains and your negative feelings.
Thus, you will identify and evaluate your unpleasant feelings, your pains, and your traumas, as you perceive them. Once you identify them, I’ll guide you through easing and clearing them. And you can't go wrong, as your body and your soul know how to use their resources to heal themselves. You'll always be in control of the situation, the master of your state of mind, and you'll retain vivid memories about the entire process. All this time, I will be beside you and at your disposal to help and guide you throughout your process of change.
From an academic perspective, by releasing stress, anxiety, traumas, and other unhealthy fears, the physical body creates a loop of positive feedback through the autonomic nervous system, feedback that can lead to significant improvements in the state of mind and symptoms of various medical conditions. From a spiritual perspective, since "Love comes from the Lord" – John 4:7-12, and "There is no fear in love" - John 4:18, healing is nothing but a self-healing process that we experience when we are freed from our fears.
Have no doubts! My know-how and my experience as a master practitioner in Somatic Hypnotherapy will allow you to eliminate the emotional or painful feelings that you no longer want in your life. With the right therapeutic approach, good results always appear immediately. Like when treating a poisonous snake bite. If the antivenom is the right one, the improvement is immediate!
The Somatic Hypnotherapy approach aims to solve the problem rather than to help you understand the possible causal mechanism of the problem. Thus, the details of what happened in your past are not of great interest to a somatic hypnotherapist, as they are not essential to help you solve your problem.
Your subconscious knows the precise reason for each of your problems and can implement sustainable solutions adapted to your own needs and resources.
Whatever your problems or your sufferings, don't allow them to cripple your life.
The principles of the "No result - no pay" guarantee apply to all my therapies.
Contact me and book your appointment today! Let this be the most exciting experience of your life, and I will be happy to help you on your journey.
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Disclaimer: The above article may contain statements that reflect the opinion of the author. It is intended for general informational purposes and does not constitute psychological or medical professional advice. I don't diagnose medical conditions, nor do I interfere with any treatments given by your medical professional.
If you already are under the care of a doctor or under medical treatment, follow the advice and treatment recommended by your doctor. For any medical emergency, call the Info-Santé service by dialing 8-1-1
*The results may vary from person to person.
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