Frequently Asked Questions
Hypnotherapy, Hypnosis and Sense-Ability Therapies
Solution Focused Hypnotherapy & Coaching, UK
Jane Pendry
DSFH, HPD; Reg CNHC, AfSFH, MNCH, ABNLP, ABH, IARTT; BA Hons (London), PGCE (Cantab)
About Sense-Ability Therapies
Questions about Sense-Ability Hypnotherapy & Coaching therapies are answered on the:
Sense-Ability Home Page and the Sense-Ability Therapies page including:
What is Sense-Ability?
What is Solution Focused Hypnotherapy?
What is Solution Focused Brief Therapy?
What is Rewind Trauma Therapy?
What is Time Line (TM) Therapy?
Answers to questions about Sense-Ability Coaching & Neuro-Linguistic Programming are at Sense-Ability Hypno-Coaching - For a Better Future.
What is Hypnotherapy? What is Hypnosis?
Hypnotherapy uses a process that induces a safe, relaxed and natural gently shifting state of deep relaxation or alpha-to-theta brain-wave state known as hypnotic trance.
Hypnosis can be used by almost anyone – preachers, advertisers, storytellers, musicians, computer game designers and of course, politicians! Donald Trump, Barack Obama and Volodymyr Zelensky all use recognisable and natural hypnotic language patterns to influence, inspire or alter your emotional state.
Hypnotherapy, however, is a recognised therapeutic process for helping people improve their mental wellbeing that utilises the therapeutic benefits of hypnosis and is guided by strict ethics.
Hypnotherapy use hypnosis as a tool to help people learn to control their own mind, build resilience and become more emotional stable.
What is hypnotherapy - the official description from the CNCH
“Hypnotherapy is a skilled communication aimed at directing a person’s imagination in a way that helps elicit changes in some perceptions, sensations, feelings, thoughts and behaviours.
“In a typical hypnotherapy session the hypnotherapist and client will discuss the intended alterations or therapeutic goals desired. The hypnotherapist will ask questions about previous medical history, general health and lifestyle to decide on the best approach for the individual.
“Hypnotherapy may be found to be helpful for those seeking relief from a range of problems and is used alongside a person’s own willpower and motivation to seek a desired goal. It is often used to help relieve anxiety, aid sleeping, help to address bedwetting, address attitudes to weight, and help clients achieve behavioural change to stop smoking. It may also help with minor skin conditions that are exacerbated by stress and confidence issues, and may also be used to enhance performance in areas such as sport and public speaking. Hypnotherapy may help people to cope with and manage the relief of perceived pain.
“Hypnotherapy has also been used with both adults and children to help manage the pain associated with irritable bowel. There is evidence to support its use in this condition for both adults and children and the National Institute for Health and Clinical Guidance (NICE) recommends the NHS should consider referring patients for hypnotherapy if their irritable bowel is persistent and has failed to respond to simple prescribed medicine.”
The CNCH is the Complementary & Natural Healthcare Council, the gold stand accrediting body for complementary therapies. I am a member registered to deliver hypnotherapy. The CNCH definitions of therapies reflect the available clinical trial evidence for hypnotherapy.
What is Hypnotic trance?
Hypnotic trance happens to all of us every day quite naturallly, for example when driving on a motorway or watching an engrossing film. Trance is a deeply relaxed state when you are awake and aware while also drifting and dreaming. Trance can be naturally induced when listening to music, dancing, drumming and singing; we may also be induced into trance by clever advertising, powerful preaching and persuasive orators. We know we can come to full attention quickly and easily if we need to.
Solution Focused Hypnotherapists induce this natural trance state specifically to support the change and outcomes defined by their clients’ understanding and to promote healing.
What can Hypnotherapy help with?
Over the years, Hypnotherapy has repeatedly and consistently helped patients with anxiety, depression, PTSD, weight management, bad habits, obsessive behaviours, OCD and other issues. When integrated with the key elements of the Solution Focused Brief Therapy, progress can be rapid and dramatic, or healing may take a little longer. The client is in control of the process and the pace at which they resolve issues and create their preferred future.
The reason hypnotherapy is helpful is that all anxiety related issues are rooted in the primitive mind and can be helped by calming the central nervous system, toning the vagus nerve and creating new more helpful neural connections. Read the Sense-Ability A to Z of issues that can be helped by hypnotherapy.
Find all the issues Jane at Sense-Ability can help with using hypnotherapy (and Rewind Trauma Therapy) on the Home page.
What evidence shows Hypnosis is effective?
Time Magazine, 28th April 2032, reported. “…hypnosis has a surprisingly robust scientific framework. Clinical research has shown that it can help relieve pain and anxiety and aid smoking cessation, weight loss, and sleepy. It can help children and adolescents better regulate their feelings and behaviors. Some people can even use “self-hypnosis” to manage stress, cope with life’s challenges, and improve their physical and emotional health.”
Hypnotherapy is challenging to research. Much of its effect depends on the relationship between therapist and client, the tone of a person’s voice, the quality of scripts, the hypnotic techniques used, and the ‘hypnotizability’ of the client used. Nevertheless, if you search online you’ll find plenty of strong, compelling scientific evidence that hypnotherapy works for pain management, anxiety related conditions, low mood, OCD, and psycho-biological conditions like IBS.,
Can a Hypnotherapist control my mind?
Stage hypnotists use a variety of tricks and often have teams of people working with them to identify handfuls of extrovert, willing participants who are happy to allow themselves to be manipulated in public!
Stage hypnotists using a combination of physiological and psychological tricks to shift their highly hypnotisable volunteers into a much deeper level of trance than is typical. They preselect volunteers whom they have already identified as highly suggestible. The degree of the participant’s suggestibility is the key to the hypnotist’s success. If the participant believes that they are under the control of the hypnotist, they are more likely to comply with the hypnotist's suggestions, even if they are out of character. If participants are skeptical and resistant, they won’t be controlled.
We must also remember it’s a stage show. Stage hypnotists often have teams of people supporting them to identify the most suggestible audience members.
How do Hypnotherapists keep their clients safe?
No trained or accredited hypnotherapist will try to control their client in any way. It’s why many hypnotherapists primarily use Ericksonian suggestion-based hypnosis rather than direct commands; with some exceptions with the client’s consent eg for stop smoking, gut directed hypnotherapy, or specific issues like confidence when presenting.
The way qualified hypnotherapists work means that they cannot influence or control anyone, nor get others to do anything that goes against their core values and beliefs.
If a qualified hypnotherapist inadvertently suggests something that is not aligned with your beliefs or values, your brain simply dismisses it.
Reputable hypnotherapists are trained, accredited, insured and governed by strict ethics. The methods they use do not involve mind control techniques and the level of trance induced is a very natural and commonplace light to medium trance state.
Hypnotherapists use tried and tested techniques within strict boundaries so you remain safe and in control throughout. However it is important to check that your chosen therapist has been trained by a reputable training body, is accredited and insured. My accreditations are at the bottom of every page of my website.
You can’t get ‘stuck’ in trance with a trained hypnotherapist. You will gently come back to full attention easily and naturally as you would with everyday trance states and your hypnotherapist eases you back to full alert consciousness at the end of your session.
Will I lose control when I am Hypnotised?
No. Hypnosis with a trained and accredited hypnotherapist is nothing but a state of relaxed deep focus and a perfectly natural alpha brainwave trance state you might fall in to regularly in your day to day life - reading a book, watching TV, driving along a motorway or walking in nature. You can hear what I am saying, although you may drift in and out as your mind wanders to images and phrases you are creating for yourself.
How is Hypnotic trance induced?
The hypnotic trance is induced through a form of storytelling. By listening to a carefully constructed script with visualisations, you are lulled in to a deeply relaxed alpha brain-wave trance state. It’s important to understand that all hypnosis is self-hypnosis. When you work with a trained hypnotherapist you are choosing to take part and to go with the process.
The hypnotic trance is gentle and you can come out of trance at any time. You are always in control, although you may fall asleep!
Can everyone be Hypnotised?
Not everyone can be hypnotised but everyone can experience trance! What do I mean by that?
Firstly, people do not always recognise experiencing the trance state or do not access it easily.
Some highly analytical, or indeed stressed, people are resistant to this kind of relaxation. However, even the most logical and resistant still benefit as they learn to move out of their intellectual mind and develop a deeper understanding of the power of their subconscious. Only if they are willing and it may take more time.
Some people are determined and resistant and will never go into trance with a hypnotherapist because they don’t want to, proving that you can’t force someone to be hypnotised. The client chooses to cooperate or not.
Nevertheless, even resistant people will go into trance daily as it’s a natural state: on the Tube, driving on the motorway, walking the dog, listening to music - they find themselves drifting into a relaxing alpha brainwave state.
How does Hypnotherapy actually work?
The deep state of relaxation we call hypnotic trance allows you to access your subconscious and primitive mind in order to create new patterns of thinking and acting and by forging and re-enforcing new neural pathways. The process calms the central nervous system, tones the vagus nerve and allows the client to weaken and break neural connections linked to unhelpful thinking, while forging new neural connections to reinforce more helpful patterns of thinking and reacting.
Old negative habits and behaviours can be permanently changed, stress reduced and low mood lifted. Through the process, you can also imagine and rehearse the life you want, creating a positive cycle of thinking, action, reaction and interaction.
How long has Hypnosis been practised?
Hypnosis is one of the oldest practices in the world. Ancient hieroglyphics evidence that Egyptians were using hypnosis as early as 3,000 B.C. For thousands of years, societies all across the world have used hypnosis in spiritual rituals and for healing.
What medical evidence is there that Hypnotherapy is effective?
In recent decades, neuroscientists have discovered what happens in the brain during hypnosis. Now we understand exactly why and how hypnosis works and this is detailed in my article about How the Brain Works.
The British Medical Association verified the efficacy of hypnosis in 1892. In 2001, the British Psychological Society reported: “Enough studies have now accumulated to suggest that the inclusion of hypnotic procedures may be beneficial in the management and treatment of a wide range of conditions and problems encountered in the practice of medicine, psychiatry and psychotherapy.” You can find many more research papers and evidence for the efficacy of hypnotherapy online.
Other Therapy Questions
What is Neuro-Linguistic Programming?
Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is a psychological approach to changing the way we think, behave and react.
NLP utilises language patterns and the way the human brain responds to language to help release stuck or negative patterns of behaviour such as self-limiting beliefs (I am not good enough), phobias and irrational fears (fear of public speaking) and creates more helpful strategies to help people move forward and achieve their goals. I am a qualified NLP Practitioner. I use the techniques to help people with studying and exams, business goals, communications and specific goals; usually alongside Hypno-Coaching.
When is Rewind Trauma Therapy useful?
Rewind Trauma Therapy is useful for Phobias linked to traumatic events, complex phobias like emetophobia (fear of being sick), single event traumas or complex traumas resulting from many separate but connected events (childhood traumas such as neglect, shaming or bullying, for example). Read “Can I Recover From Trauma?”
You can read about Rewind Trauma Therapy on the Sense-Ability Hypnotherapy & Coaching Home page.
Questions about Solution Focused Approaches
What does Solution Focused mean?
The Solution Focused approach to therapy is: “a future-focused, goal-directed approach to therapy that highlights the importance of searching for solutions rather than focusing on problems.” Trepper, Dolan, McCollum, & Nelson, 2006; Proudlock & Wellman, 2011
What is Solution Focused Brief Therapy?
Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) or Solution Focused Therapy (SFT) is a short-term, goal-focused, evidence-based therapeutic approach that helps clients change by constructing solutions rather than focusing on problems. SFBT is about hope, positive emotion, seeking what’s good and better, creating a better future and creating sustained behavioural change.
SFBT was developed by Steve de Shazer (1940-2005) and Insoo Kim Berg (1934-2007) in collaboration with their colleagues at the Milwaukee Brief Family Therapy Center.
It is not toxic positivity. We work only with the change the client wants at the pace determined but them.
How is Solution Focused Hypnotherapy different from talking therapy?
The core difference between hypnotherapy and other traditional talking therapies is the speed with which change can take place, and depth of that change.
While traditional therapies can result in understanding, they don’t always effect the change we hoped for. When we feel ‘talked out’, haven’t moved forward or don’t want to dwell on the past, Solution Focused Hypnotherapy is ideal.
Traditional methods can take weeks, months, or years to uncover subconscious reasons behind issues. With hypnotherapy, either the client discovers the reasons themselves, or resolves issue without needing to identify, explore and analyse the reasons.
For clients with with diagnosed mental health conditions
What is an abreaction and how do you deal with It?
An abreaction is an intense emotional, unconscious reaction as a result of a stimulus that brings back a painful or overwhelming situation you have experienced before. With Solution Focused Hypnotherapy and Rewind Trauma Therapy abreactions are very rare; we are not delving in to the past, which can trigger a reaction, but rather gently removing the triggers that cause the overwhelming reaction.
It is possible to have a strong emotional reaction when triggers are removed and buried feelings released. Where this is a possibility – usually where there has been a degree of profound trauma – we take certain precautions including making sure someone is in the house during therapy and taking care never to try to resolve a trauma until the client expresses a wish to do so and feels ready to do. We may start by releasing small specific traumas before resolving considering complex traumas to learn the technique and reduce stress.
What if I am under the care of a psychiatrist or clinical psychologist?
During our initial consultation, we discuss whether you are under the care of a psychiatrist or psychologist for any serious psychiatric disorder or other diagnosis. In this case, I write to your psychiatrist, with your permission, to ensure any therapy is not contra-indicated before we start working together. If we can work together, I liaise with your CPN or psychiatrist to ensure treatment continues to be helpful and relevant. For example, I may deliver guided relaxations to relax and create a sense of safety, but not include hypnotic suggestions.
Why is Hypnotherapy contraindicated for people who have experienced psychosis?
As humans, we rely on sensory information to locate us to where we are now, and what’s happening around us. During psychosis, our ability to rely on our sensory information can be affected and we lose touch with reality.
We might, for example, hear or see things that aren’t there and become dissociated. Guided imagery where we say ‘you can feel the warmth of the sun or see a cloud scudding towards you…’ when the person is actually located inside a room, potentially replicates possible aspects of psychosis.
Medical professionals usually consider hypnosis to be contraindicated unless they have assessed their patients. The professional can decide whether guided meditations or hypnosis are contraindicated or not. That’s why if you have had bipolar or psychosis in the past, I need to write to your psychiatrist or doctor. I don’t need your full diagnosis; just guidance in what is safe for you.
Progressive Muscle Relaxations and practices that root you in your body in the here and now, like breathing exercises, however, can be helpful for these groups of clients.
Can I listen to guided meditatons if I have a diagnosed psychiatric condition?
If you suffer or have suffered from a diagnosed mental health condition, or are under the care of a psychiatrist, please check with them before listening to a Guided Meditation.
Once you feel comfortable to listen, and your medical professional has indicated this is okay, do make sure someone is in the house with you for the first few times of listening in case of an abreaction (a strong emotional response). This is very rare but sometimes an image, a word or an idea can trigger a negative response, just as they can in your conscious life. I am happy to talk this through with you. Do get in touch.
If there is any doubt about safety I may decline to work with a client and will signpost them back to reputable or NHS services that are more suitable.
Questions about me, Jane Pendry at Sense-Ability
Are you accredited?
I am accredited by the following bodies:
Association for Solution Focused Hypnotherapy; AFSFH;
The National Council for Hypnotherapy;
The American Board of Hypnotherapy and The American Board of Neuro-Linguistic Programming; ABH, ABNLP and ABNLP Coach;
The Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council, CNHC;
The International Association for Rewind Trauma Therapy, IARTT
CNHC registration is the Gold Standard accreditation, recognised for reimbursement with a number of private health insurers meaning clients who are members of relevant plans can claim for the cost of the treatments when they visit CNHC registered complementary therapists. Doctors are also able to refer patients to practitioners registered with CNHC.
Are you a fully trained clinical hypnotherapist?
Yes. I have a Diploma in Solution Focused Hypnotherapy, and a Hypnotherapy in Practice Diploma (HPD) with Clifton Practice Hypnotherapy Training, a UK and international hypnotherapy training body. My qualifying body is fully accredited to deliver high quality training in hypnotherapy.
The Director and Senior Course Lecturer of CPHT is David Newton, Clinical Hypnotherapist and Psychotherapist (see cphtdavidnewton.co.uk).
I am therefore a qualified Solution Focused Hypnotherapist, Clinical Hypnotherapist and complementary Psychotherapist. I have additional training in Solution Focused Brief Therapy for trauma. I am trained by Dr Muss in Dr Muss Rewind Trauma Therapy.
Are you insured?
Yes. I have full liability insurance with Holistic Insurance.
Are you DBS checked to work with children and vulnerable adults.
Yes. My accrediting bodies, the CNCH and the AfSFH, check that all listed practitioners are fully DBS checked.
For details about me and my training can be found on the About Jane page.
If you have any other questions, or would like an informal initial consultation, please email or text me.
Jane Pendry
Solution Focused Clinical Hypnotherapist & Coach
Sense-Ability Hypnotherapy & Coaching
Farm Close Road
Oxford
England
OX33 1XJ
jane@sense-ability.co.uk
07843 813 883