Mindfulness Based Hypnotherapy
Our approach to hypnotherapy at Aspire Therapy Manchester places an emphasis on mindfulness.
Like hypnosis, mindfulness helps you to access an inner sense of calm, allowing you to find a still centre from which you can deal with stress and anxiety with more equanimity.
By allowing you to gain perspective on the problems of life it helps you to conserve emotional resources and feel better both mentally and physically.
The Origins of Mindfulness
A recognition of the therapeutic power of mindfulness in dealing with stress, anxiety and depression has been growing across a range of different schools of therapy in recent years and there is now a plethora of literature about this approach.
Mindfulness has a very ancient heritage, rooted in Eastern religion and philosophy and associated in particular with Buddhism.
Used within therapeutic contexts, the approach has no religious aspect to it, but is about cultivating a state of mind which can help you to deal calmly with the stresses and strains of modern living.
Mindfulness based hypnotherapy can help you access the inner sense of calm you need to deal with disruptive thoughts, feelings and emotions.
Hypnosis and Meditation
Mindfulness is traditionally developed through the practice of meditation, which has close similarities to the types of relaxation associated with hypnosis.
Guided relaxation or visualisation is used in many different settings and situations. Depending on the context it may be presented as a meditation exercise, a physical health routine, hypnosis or simply a form of relaxation.
The primary way in which traditional hypnotherapy differs from mediation is that you are guided through the process by the therapist who gives you suggestions for relaxation and mental change.
Once in a relaxed state you will then be given beneficial or therapeutic suggestions which will help to change the ways you are thinking and feeling.
Mindfulness at Aspire Therapy
At Aspire Therapy Manchester we use the principles of ‘mindfulness’ to guide the forms of relaxation which govern the hypnotic experience and the suggestions for change which are given during hypnosis.
A mindful attitude can be encouraged in hypnotherapy by the beneficial suggestions given during the relaxation process, helping you to overcome feelings of stress and anxiety and to deal more effectively with everyday problems.
Ironically it is cognitive based approaches to therapy which have embraced mindfulness most fully, perhaps in recognition of the need for the kind of holistic approach to problems which has always been a part of hypnotherapy.
Hypnotherapy has always been holistic in its approach, taking account of both the mind and the body, the conscious and the unconscious mind, the left brain skills of logic and rational thought and the right brain skills of insight and intuition.
Long-Term Benefits of Mindfulness
Mindfulness though puts you more in control and gives you the self-sufficiency to move forward confidently with your life in ways which can be rewarding and long-lasting.
Hard evidence for the beneficial long-term effects of mindfulness is gaining support from the new brain scanning techniques which are leading to major steps forward in the ways scientists understand the brain.
Neuroscientific studies are suggesting that the long-term practice of mindfulness brings about a permanent change in the way the physical brain functions.
This means that by changing our habits of thinking we can actually bring about physical changes in the brain which can after time make that change a permanent one, emphasising more than ever the benefits of getting into good habits of thinking and feeling.
These are the habits which can be encouraged by the beneficial ideas and suggestions given to clients in hypnotherapy, and subsequently though the development of self-hypnosis or meditation techniques.
For more information about hypnotherapy for mindfulness phone or email us at Aspire Therapy Manchester.
