The healing

        Healing is an innate process that brings positive change: repair of damage, remission of symptoms, restoration of energy, return to serenity, joy, and a renewed sense of meaning. 

One of the core premises of Somatic Hypnotherapy is that the body and mind already know how to heal themself. Your body knows how to rebuild bones, heal wounds, restore physiological processes, and fight infection. Your subconscious mind knows how to release emotional wounds, restore inner balance, and make room for emotional serenity and mental clarity. It is worth noting that neither allopathic medicine nor personal psychology defines or uses the concepts of "healing" or "subconscious mind."

The only hitch is that those self-healing mechanisms are energy-intensive. They cannot unfold while you are so emotionally drained that you can barely survive. Chronic stress, anxiety, trauma, pain, anger, grief, shame, and other unresolved feelings* keep the HPA axis in low-grade alert and lock the system in distress. When those feelings are released at their somatic source, the energy drain stops. Physiology calms, the autonomic nervous system rebalances — and with it, improvements unfold not only in state of mind, but often in various stress-related conditions that had been feeding on that negative emotional load. 

This is why what people notice after a Somatic Hypnotherapy session is often wider than the healing of the main issue that brought them there. The work does not treat symptom by symptom. It releases the accumulated bodily feelings that silently consume the energy your innate maintenance and repair systems need to work properly.

For more than a century, dominant therapeutic models have assumed that changing one’s thoughts will naturally lead to different feelings. That cognition-first paradigm — most visibly expressed in cognitive and behavioural therapies — treats thoughts, attitudes, expectations and interpretations as the primary route to emotional change. Somatic Hypnotherapy reverses that order.  In this approach, emotions are not causes; they are constructed meanings that emerge from the mental mirroring of bodily feelings. Thoughts and behaviour follow the inner state - whether you call it state of mind, subconsciousness, or peripheral nervous system. The working principle is therefore that feeling differently leads to thinking and reacting differently.

Somatic Hypnotherapy is an ablative approach. It does not overlay new suggested states on top of what already hurts. It does not reprogram the mind, reframe the story, or install a better understanding. It locates the unwanted response patterns where they are stored as bodily feelings — and eases or releases them there. Regardless of their nature, the degree of available improvement is given — and limited — by the intensity of the bothersome somatic or emotional feeling. What is faint can only be lightened a little - until it disappears. What is overwhelming can shift in a way that feels unmistakable. An ablative process cannot create a change larger than the burden to be healed.

The harsh emotional reality many people experience is most often an involuntary projection of accumulated emotional buildup into daily life — like hurting your feet by walking, year after year, with stones in your shoes. Therefore, what has to change first is what you feel within. When the felt emotional charge of a memory dissipates, the rest of the system reorganizes effortlessly: physiology calms, thoughts reorganize spontaneously, behaviours adapt, and the emotional meaning of the past shifts. Healing is neither imposed nor endured against one's will. It unfolds as an inborn capacity for self-healing, once "the stones are removed".

Even though healing is a self-healing process triggered by releasing the causes of the problem, it cannot go against your will or your beliefs. Actually, no therapy can push your emotional healing beyond the limits of what you believe about the nature of emotions and about how trauma, stress, anxiety, and other unpleasant feelings can determine your state of mind, thoughts, behaviour, and overall health.

Beliefs themselves have two coherent components: a cognitive component you can argue about, and a somatic component you feel. Deeply rooted beliefs are body-engraved. They do not yield to better explanations or understanding. They yield when the somatic interoceptive fuel that keeps them resonant is released. That is why people can intellectually understand that a past event already happened, and that there is nothing that can be done to change how it ended — and still withhold and relive its emotional state. The session addresses that state, not the facts per se.

If you already understand the spiritual dimension of healing — or if you trust that extraordinary changes are possible, and have already undergone your Somatic Hypnotherapy session — you do not necessarily need to read further. At that stage, the best practices are simple: keep busy living your life the best you can, avoid denial and disbelief of your out-of-the-ordinary experience, express gratitude for what has already shifted, and learn to listen to your feelings. That is how the process is nourished.

If you do not believe in “miracles” and still want to protect your change, you will need to feed the rational mind with a clear picture of what is happening. A broken bone does not heal because you understand orthopedics. It heals because the fragments are aligned, casted, and left to heal. Wanting to heal and avoiding straining the limb while it heals are your responsibilities. Emotional wounds follow a similar logic, with one important difference: unlike a fracture, there is no single approach to emotional issues that suits everyone. There are at least 82 known scientific models of behaviour and behaviour change. 

During your first session, I'll help you identify and uproot the most distressing persistent feelings triggered by recalling the worst events of your life. Near the end of that meeting, we verify that the disturbing feelings associated with those experiences have eased or outright disappeared. Right afterward, when you mentally review the once traumatic, stressful, or anxious events we worked on, you will most likely feel serene, as if your emotional reality has already shifted.

You can still think whatever you want about those experiences. Cognitive memory — the images, the dates, the story — remains intact. No narrative reconstruction is required, and none is performed. What is gone, or greatly diminished, is the power of those memories to stir the once disturbing feelings. The memory becomes linear, as if you were watching it from the outside. What felt like an open wound begins to feel like a distant, ordinary recollection. The reliable sign of progress in this work is not a new interpretation of the past. It is how you feel when you recall it.

The magnitude of this perceived change will be proportional to the initial extent and intensity of the feeling to be relieved. Unbearable pain, life-wrecking tension or jerks, or an emotional charge that made you cry, yell, run, or hide usually shifts in a way you cannot miss. A light facial tension, a faint spasm, a bothersome but not overwhelming inner feeling, or a gut feeling so discreet you could almost ignore will ease more quietly. That quieter result is not a lesser session. It is the honest limit of an ablative process: only what was there can be taken away.

A few days later, the unpleasant feelings of the past have subsided so much that you might begin to doubt that the events we worked on were the source of your most painful memories — even though you reviewed them several times to confirm they were. That doubt is often a sign that the charge has already dropped far enough for the old intensity to feel implausible. Related or even apparently unrelated feelings may quietly dissolve at the same time, leaving room for fond memories you thought were long forgotten.

People often notice a sudden feeling of lightness, better posture, clearer thinking, a voice that no longer trembles, a throat that no longer tightens, deeper sleep, and a marked boost of energy. Tension, spasms, tics, lumps in the throat, knots in the stomach, and the hum of vigilance ease because those signs were never separate from the events that induced them. Wider shifts — digestion, skin, breathing, patience, self-worth, the way you interact with other people — can follow. They are not promised as medical treatment of any named disease. They are what happens when a chronic burden is lifted from a system designed to repair itself.

Even so, you are still in the early stages of your healing journey. Removing the stones from your shoes has already changed the way you walk. However, this does not yet mean you are completely "out of the woods". This work can reset the emotional reading of the past. However, it is not a spell that protects you from future difficulties, and it is definitely not meant to make you invincible or to shield you from future suffering. Living your life remains your responsibility.

Follow-up messages and client references describe a consistent cluster of changes after a first session, always in proportion to the intensity of what was actually released: less weight on the memories addressed; the ability to recall them without the old surge, while the factual memory stays complete; a calmer body; a boost in energy, and self-worth; improved sleep pattern; memories related to once bothersome events are fading, and warmer ones are returning; and behaviour changes — not because a new behaviour was suggested or rehearsed, but because you no longer feel like repeating the old patterns.

These results are the norm when the issue falls within my area of expertise, and the client is not alexithymic, in psychosis, or in severe cognitive decline. In most cases, after a first session, people do not need to return for years. In some cases of prolonged suffering or after many unsuccessful attempts to resolve a problem, some clients require a second, or even a third, session to explore additional layers of disturbing feelings.

Following your therapy in Somatic Hypnotherapy, your personality is not altered. Instincts, intelligence, values, and autobiographical memory remain yours. What changes is the negative emotional weight you have been carrying, which is no longer there.

Think of your life as a garden so overgrown you could barely see the flowers that were always there. The session helps uproot the worst of the weeds. They are gone! What remains is your responsibility: to notice the garden again, to cherish what was hidden under the overgrowth, and to live in a way that does not replant the same weeds out of habit, neglect, or disbelief.

If you already live from the understanding that what fulfills or jeopardizes a life is, above all, what you feel within, the path is straightforward. Keep busy with living, in peace and integrity. Avoid disbelief or denial of your out-of-the-ordinary experience. Express gratitude for the shift that has already occurred. Learn to listen to your feelings.

If you do not believe there is magic in life, you will still have to notice that your state of mind has changed. You may search the old memories related to the bothersome feelings that used to be there and find that the emotional charge is gone. You are no longer the same. 

If, instead of protecting the change, you feed doubt, a further layer of bothersome memories may surface. That is not failure. Request a follow-up, and we will continue — layer by layer — emptying the shoes of smaller stones. Complete remission of complex issues sometimes requires more than one session. 

This approach is not a self-help method. It is a guided ritual healing under hypnosis. You came to experience a change — not necessarily to understand how it was done. After your session, don't waste time or energy wondering how it was possible. Trust the process and welcome its benefits!

Your healing journey does not end when you leave the office. Your follow-up email is part of the healing process. Please write it within a few days, no more than a week after your session. Delaying that message is often a sign of doubt, disbelief, or denial, which can hinder your ongoing healing process, while expressing gratitude fuels and protects it.

To assess your results, mentally walk through the once disturbing memories we worked on. Notice how you feel as you review them — including the quieter bodily signs: a leftover twitch, a faint tightness, a gut signal that has eased. Notice how close the session has brought you to what you came for. Keep your follow-up message on how you feel with regard to the events we addressed and the daily-life benefits of your session. Please keep in mind that living your life after the session is your job.

If other troubling memories have emerged from the shadow of those we already released, or if your objectives of change have not yet been reached, provide me with your best available times, and we'll schedule a follow-up session and continue working on your objectives. If things have gone so well that you do not need to return for years — which is the most common outcome — say it so. That message, too, is part of the healing.

The No Results – No Pay principle guarantees my integrity and applies to all my therapies. If, at the end of your session, you see no improvement in the issues we addressed, I will not accept your money.

You can reach me by filling out the contact form on my "Contact & Fees" web page.

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For any medical emergency, call the Info-Santé service by dialing 811.

* In Somatic Hypnotherapy, the terms "feelings" and "emotional feelings" refer to sensory experiences perceived on or "within" the body, from which the rational mind constructs "emotions," through a well-documented process called interoception – which is consistent with their traditional, biological and medical meanings. This differs considerably from cognitive psychology, where the terms "feelings" and "emotions" are often used interchangeably. In certain contexts, "feeling(s)" may refer to their somatic (physical) component alone — see: Thoughts, Feelings, Emotions.pdf

**The results may vary from person to person.

***In other words, if at the end of your session you don't see any improvement in the issues addressed in therapy, I won't accept your money!

Disclaimer: The content of this page reflects the opinion of its author, is provided for educational and general informational purposes only, and does not constitute medical, psychological, or professional advice. I do not make any diagnoses according to recognized classifications (DSM-5, ICD-10) and I do not interfere in any way with ongoing treatments.

If you are already under medical care or treatment, follow their advice and treatment. I am not a doctor or licensed psychologist in Quebec; therefore, I cannot establish or continue a treatment based on your diagnosis. If you decide to consult me, be prepared to tell me what is bothering you and how you feel about it.

Somatic Hypnotherapy is an emotional health and wellness practice rooted in ancestral traditions and modern neuroscience insights. It does not constitute psychotherapy, medical treatment, diagnosis, or management of mental disorders, and is not intended to replace professional psychological or medical care.

On this website, the use of the masculine to designate people aims to ensure the fluidity of the reading and has no discriminatory intent.

Somatic Hypnotherapy - 186 Sutton Place, Suite 104, Beaconsfield, Quebec H9W 5S3, Montreal.