The modern world is full of pressure. As we seek to lead happy, fulfilled lives, we run up against frustration and stress.

There don’t seem to be enough hours in the day to do all the things we wish we could. We lead stressful lives and with our busy schedules, have little time to address our inner lives. Many of us never manage to reach our full potential, either because we don’t have the time to do so, or because we’re too busy to notice the opportunities that present us with the hope of personal growth. The world is full of promises about increasing our memory and intellectual power and reducing stress, but many of these are ineffective, or only temporarily helpful. Leaving problems like stress, lack of concentration and motivation unattended can affect our performance, as well as our physical strength and immunity, in the long run. One of the most underrated types of treatment for stress, memory failure and reduced concentration is hypnotherapy. Hypnotherapy (hypnotism) has many benefits. It is widely used in several fields like medicine, the military and of course, psychological therapy. It is a type of auto suggestive science with which we can maximize our concentration and focus. Over the years, the understanding of hypnotism as a therapeutic tool has evolved, and people are now much more open to using it as a treatment. For a long time, people believed that hypnotism was an abstract concept that didn’t work. Over time, though, these attitudes are being challenged, as our understanding of the subconscious and its role in governing our behaviors is enhanced. In essence, the history of hypnosis is a history of our ability to perceive the truth about how our minds work and to work from those perceptions. As our perception and scientific understanding have grown, so has our ability to utilize the gifts of the hypnotic process. There is some skepticism in the medical community and also a number of provisos that should be heeded with regard to the use of hypnosis. Some of these include side effects like undue sleepiness following therapy, additional anxiety, headaches and even the generation of false memories. The last side effect may be particularly true of those undergoing regressive therapy for the treatment of damage caused by childhood abuse. As with any
course of psychotherapy or medical treatment, choosing the right practitioner is paramount and care should be taken to ensure that you’re working with a trained, licensed professional. If attempting self-hypnosis, it’s always advisable to seek consultation prior, to ensure that your methodology is sound and effective. Hypnosis can help you transform your life and reach your fullest life potential.
It can also help you address old wounds and ongoing behaviors which are holding you back in life. In this book we’ll delve deeply into the science of hypnotism. Each chapter is written in a structured manner to guide you through the nuances of hypnosis. In this book, you will discover the benefits of hypnosis, as well as its various types, applications and methods. The history of hypnosis and the modern practice of hypnotherapy is diverse and incredibly rich. I hope to offer you a look into this history and the many applications for its benefits. You’ll meet historical figures like the improbable Abbe Faria and the brilliant Milton Erickson. Combat veterans and psychologists. Hucksters and geniuses. I believe you’ll find the study of hypnosis to be a rich field of promise and hope for many challenges and modern ailments, as well as highly entertaining. Read on and discover how hypnosis can help you move a step closer to your goals. I want to thank you for purchasing this book and hope you find it helpful.

Hypnosis is NOT Sleep

When someone is in hypnosis, their mind does not disappear, and they do not typically feel like they are asleep. It is important to make people aware of this, because they may think that since they are totally aware of everything, that they must not be in hypnosis, and they will pop themselves out of trance.
You will not be asleep.

You will hear everything I say. ln fact, in many respects you will be more aware in hypnosis than you've ever been before in your life. You might be aware of things like the ticking of the clock in the background, or the sounds of the street on the outside.

You Will NOT Forget (Everything)

One of the earliest experiments in hypnosis discovered that when people came out of trance, they were spontaneously forgetting the events that occurred inside. Now you've got to remember a couple of things. First of all these were different times. ln other words, the kind of hypnotic trances that we're doing and the induction process that we're using are different now. An "old school trance" would typically take many hours just for the induction.
The hypnotist would wave his hands over the subject's body monotonously - sometimes for hours. If nothing else, they could be inducing trance out of sheer boredom! So in modern hypnosis (and a lot of the trances that we use, particularly for therapy or stage
hypnosis) most people know exactly what's going on almost all of the time. It's just they're not bothered by it. They kind of enjoy drifting with the experience. They are in a free-flowing state of mind, where it's easy to go along with the suggestions. You will remember everything that's happened at the end of the session. Occasionally t may suggest that you forget a few things. This is just so that your unconscious mind has the freedom to deal with those things outside of your awareness, without any interference. But it's a rare occasion when that sort of thing happens.

You Will NOT Lose Control

The hypnotist's role is to guide someone through the experience. The subjects role is to listen to suggestions and realize that any suggestions that are negative or in some way are contrary to their moral code, their moral values, will be rejected.
ln fact, if a hypnotist ever tried to get their subject to do something immoral, what's more likely to happen is that the subject comes out of trance and gives the hypnotist a stern talking to! Your unconscious mind is there to protect you, to look after you. Why would it make you break your moral code? ln the same way you won't tell me anything that you don't want to be telling me.

You Will NOT Reveal Your Darkest Secrets

Everyone has skeletons in the closet. Everyone has things in their past that they don't want to talk about or might be a little bit ashamed of. For the most part, the irony is that these things that we don't want to talk about or tell people about, are things that are so minor that if they came out people would go, " That's what you were worried about? That's not a big deal." The point is, though, some people are afraid that these secrets, as they were, may come out, and that someone else will know their big secret. Again, this is not the case and you'll need to reassure people that their secrets will remain their secrets. ln this way, their attention is free to follow your suggestions, rather than being eaten up inside hoping and wondering and being afraid that you might discover something that you really don't
even care about that much. Your secrets will remain your secrets. After all, your unconscious mind is there to took after You, not to look after me So why would it reveal secrets that you don't want other people to know if it's looking after you?

You Are NOT Gullible or Stupid

Some people think that in order to be suggestible you've got to be gullible. There is a big difference between gullibility and suggestibility. People who are gullible aren't necessarily great hypnotic subjects. One of the reasons for this is that if they're going to believe everything anyone tells them anyway, then the minute someone comes in and tells them a contrary suggestion to the ones that you've made in hypnosis, they'll go down the wrong path again. So their mind is filled with conflicting suggestions. Intelligence, on the other hand, requires the ability to try out new ideas and ways of being so you can choose the best one - something that hypnotic suggestion is designed to facilitate. So intelligent people are already used to using "hypnotic realities" to gel better results! Of course, their defence mechanisms are still there to shield them from negative suggestions! There is evidence to suggest that there is a correlation between intelligence levels and suggestibility. ln other words, the smarter you are, the more suggestible you tend to be. Part of what defines intelligence, although it's a tricky thing to define, is your ability to have many different experiences and understand them and immerse yourself in them. That's what suggestions are designed to do, to give you a different set of experiences. The other thing about intelligence is it allows you to put on hold one model of the world, one way of thinking, and try on different models until you find the best one for your needs. That's how people evolve or grow; become more intelligent or find better solutions to things.

You Will NOT Get Stuck in Hypnosis

They will always wake up out of hypnosis. Occasionally, and very occasionally, when you try and end the trance session someone won't respond. They will choose to stay in hypnosis because it's very pleasant. Now that is a very different thing.
This is them choosing to remain in a very pleasant state. Have a look at the Troubleshooting section for how to deal with this. You will always wake up from hypnosis. The very worst thing that could ever happen, even if I died on the spot in the middle of our hypnosis session, is that you'd just drift off into a wonderful sleep. You'd wake up half an hour or an hour later, feeling refreshed and wondering how you got there. And that is it.

Hypnosis itself is not a therapeutic process. Hypnotherapy, is a therapeutic process built upon a foundation of helping, of empathy, and of sincerely desiring to help people make changes, feel positive, and accomplish their goals in life. Hypnosis is a state of natural phenomena, and a vehicle or tool for providing hypnotherapy. Hypnotherapy is the process of bringing about that hypnotic trance state, and the hypnotist is simply the person who is helping another person to experience an induced highlight of the natural trance-phenomena we all experience every day.I have many friends who are stage hypnotists in London, and I have actually done some stage performances myself. Stage hypnosis performance does not require a background in clinical psychology; people from all different career backgrounds can become a stage hypnotist. Stage hypnosis does require learning how to manage a crowd, the basic strategies of induction and putting together a couple of simple, silly scripts, but that's about it. Whether or not they are a good stage performer and use their skills responsibly, ethically and effectively is an entirely different matter, but truly, performing hypnosis is not something that requires empathy, respect or even care of another individual. Now, I hope that they do have all of those things, because if not, I believe they would be using hypnosis irresponsibly, and it is these human qualities and personal elements that make for a good hypnotist and stage hypnosis show. I am often asked if a person, who is in trance state, can interact - can they talk? And the answer is yes, they most certainly can. If you have ever seen hypnotized subjects interacting and completing assigned tasks at a stage show, there should be no question that they can engage in conversation in the office. During the course of hypnotherapy we want to find out information about our clients in order to be a more effective helper. We will listen to their needs and ask questions during the hypnotherapy session. Clinical hypnosis practice involves interviewing and assessing clients, teaching specific skills, meeting them at their particular point of need, allowing them to verbalize what those needs are and establishing where they are making progress. By doing such it should become clear that clinical hypnosis is not necessarily a one sided endeavor; it is a highly interactive process. Hypnotherapy is a modality of treatment that can incorporate elements not usually categorized as hypnosis. Hypnosis, in and of itself, is not inherently therapeutic; it can be used for entertainment, incorporated into sales, used to enhance persuasion or self-development, and is often experienced accidentally, as mentioned earlier, while driving or going about mundane tasks. Hypnotherapy, on the other hand, is the structured use of hypnosis in a professional environment, with the intention of creating specific remedial or generative changes.

Why use hypnosis? Why use hypnotherapy?

Aren’t there other methods of helping people solve problems – addiction, anxiety, depression, sexual dysfunction, confidence and self-esteem, focus and concentration, headaches, insomnia, weight gain, etc - that are effective? Certainly there are, and I’m not going to knock any other methods.But every individual has different needs, so as a hypnotherapist in London, when someone comes to me with an alcohol or drug addiction problem, I assess which are the best interventions I can provide to help the individual experience relief from their problems, be it via hypnosis, CBT,MBL, or any other strategy designed to help resolve their specific issues.The important concept here is that as healers, we find out what works, what is effective, and we use it.

Let us consider a contrary example from a typical psychiatrist's office: A client comes in and claims to be suffering from depression. The psychiatrist, being a medical doctor and therefore oriented towards medications, as a first line of intervention, would tell the depressed person that they should take an antidepressant pill. But research shows us that if a person engages in cardiovascular exercise for 40 minutes a day, 3 or 4 times a week, for six weeks or longer, they are exponentially more likely to experience a decrease in the symptoms associated with major depression than if they take antidepressant medications.I am not opposed to antidepressant medications, and I have met a lot of people who, particularly during times of catastrophic depression, have been stabilized on medications. However, when someone comes to me and says, “Hey, I’m depressed and I need a resolution for my depression,” one of the first interventions I will prescribe is that they engage in exercise on a regular basis for a period of six weeks or longer, because I know that they will feel better as a result. Then I will most likely include hypnosis in my repertoire of intervention strategies.

As a Hypnotherapist in London I can assure to help you with all listed problems on my website. My knowledge and experience as a Hypnotherapist, NLP, CBT, MBL practitioner are enough to eliminate unwanted disorders.

Like the unconscious act of breathing, the hypnotic state has always been part of the human experience. The thing is, we haven’t always known how to induce it, maintain it, or use it to heal, help and enhance our lives. In fact, it’s really only since the 19th Century that hypnosis has been pursued as a science and a therapeutic tool for the treatment of mental health challenges, as well as physical ailments. Forms of hypnotism can be seen dotting the pages of recorded history, but their presence is generally in the form of divine intervention, practiced with the aid of an intermediary. Shamans and priestesses, ritual and magic, checker the past of hypnosis, from the pages of the ancient Vedic texts to the papyri of pharaonic Egypt. Even today, the modern attitude toward hypnosis tends to be that of “hocus pocus”; a contemporary reflection of long ago practices which were not scientifically or empirically-based, but firmly rooted in the world of mysticism. In ancient India, the first recorded instance of hypnosis dates back 3,000 years. Sleep temples were dedicated to the extraction of dreams, said to be sent to believers by the gods. Temple clergy were engaged in ritual practices which were believed to induce a state in which believers could receive divine messages and directives. But these rituals didn’t make any distinction between the trance state and actual sleep. That didn’t happen until 1017 CE, with the publication of
The Book of Healing, by Persian physician Avicenna Ibn Sina. Ibn Sina referred to the induced trance state (hypnosis) as “al wahm al-amil”, meaning the ability of a subject of hypnosis being able to willingly accept induction (“going under”). Over the ages, hypnosis has appeared in a variety of incarnations, as people sought to understand the apparent connection between hypnosis and the healing process. From Paracelsus (who believed that magnets or “lodestones” passed over the body were the key), to Father Maximilian Hell (who added steel plates to Paracelsus’s equation), a wide array of practitioners sought in vain. That’s until a student of Father Hell’s, a certain Franz Anton Mesmer, began asking the right questions.

Stage hypnosis, as practiced in the 18th and 19th centuries (and even today, in some entertainment settings) is probably the root of many peoples’ suspicion of the hypnosis. Stage hypnosis, as practiced in the 18th and 19th centuries (and even today, in some entertainment settings) is probably the root of many peoples’ suspicion of the hypnosis. While some practitioners (LaFontaine, for example, mentioned below), believed their stage acts were contributing to the clinical development of hypnosis as a medical treatment, others believed that “the show was the thing”, As Shakespeare wrote. As an entertainment, stage hypnosis was extraordinarily popular and continues to be, with varying levels of rigor applied by stage hypnotists. Some of these have been known to place “ringers” in their audiences, who stand in for
legitimate audience members, performing pre-arranged “tricks” for the sake of entertainment and to enhance the performer’s reputation. Ringers and stooges (discussed below) also serve the purpose of establishing legitimacy, thus increasing suggestibility in audience members. Performers like these depended on three key ingredients in order to hoodwink their fans (who perhaps were completely fine with being hoodwinked, for a good night out). The first of these was social pressure. In a group setting, people tend to be much more willing to “go along to get along”. Nobody wants to be the spoilsport who lets on that he or she hasn’t actually been hypnotized. So audience participants in public hypnosis events tend to feign a trance state in order not to spoil the fun. The same effect can be found in numerous settings in which people are willing to safeguard secrecy to prevent inciting the anger of those who believe what they’re hearing/seeing. The second ingredient was the careful selection of audience members to be called to stage to be hypnotized. By asking the audience to follow a suggestion, hypnotists, in concert with assistants observing the audience, could identify those most prone to suggestion and also the most extroverted (and thus entertaining) people present. Finally, deception played an important part in the spectacle of hypnosis as entertainment, with many performers employing drama and simple magic tricks to dazzle their audiences. Often, deception would involve the performer whispering to participants, once on stage and in the full glare of the footlights, to “pretend”, or to “play the game”. This strategy would offer the audience
member, already identified as suggestible and readily compliant, no way out. In for a penny and thus, in for a pound, the hapless participant would be left with the choice of either playing along or running everyone’s night out. Not unlike the use of “ringers”, “stooges” were employed by performers to follow them from town to town and act as the first audience members on stage. This practice served the purpose of establishing validity and ensured that other audience members would follow suit, as well as undergirding the performer’s “street cred”. Stage hypnotists also modelled a cult of personality, portraying themselves as possessing charismatic gifts which made it possible for them to create puppets of other people, once hypnotized. As we’ll see later on in this book, though, that’s not the aim of hypnosis, nor its reality. In truth, hypnosis is only guided by the hypnotist. The stage hypnotist of the entertainment’s heyday is, in fact, the locus classic us of the term “Svengali effect”. With the hypnotist cast in the role of mysterious and all powerful puppet master, audience members would be seen to have lost control of their wills, in confrontation of the overwhelming charisma of the hypnotist. As we’ll see a little later on, these practices were so widespread in the United Kingdom, that legislation was required to curtail them, which led to the Hypnotism Act of 1952. Throughout the 20th Century and to the present day, stage hypnosis continues to
attract enthusiastic audiences. One of the best known stage hypnotists is the Amazing Kreskin, who has been vocal in his opposition to the unscrupulous practices of some of his fellows, particularly the use of ringers and stooges. Kreskin, however, is also remembered for his prediction of a mass UFO sighting over Las Vegas, Nevada, in 2002. Naturally, this didn’t come to pass, but hundreds of UFO enthusiasts camped out in anticipation of the non-event, nonetheless. Kreskin’s subsequent media release claimed that the entire affair had been a stunt to prove the power of suggestion in the post-9/11 world. But it seemed he’d been planning to stage such an event since 1973. At that time, he claimed the power of suggestion could “make people see flying saucers”. So, despite his apparent distaste for ringers and stooges, it seems this well-known hypnotist’s self-perception also erred on the side of “Svengali”. Many hypnotists of the period, though, were skilled in the craft and were genuinely able to induce “trance states” for the entertainment of their audiences. As we’ll read shortly, James Braid was inspired to establish his own school of thought around the practice of hypnosis because of a stage hypnosis show he’d attended. Despite some of the practices inherent, then, it’s clear that behind the “roar of the grease paint, the smell of the crowd” there lay a solid basis for what was to become a viable and scientifically-supported clinical discipline.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a form of psychotherapy that focuses on the connection between thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. It aims to help individuals identify and change negative or unhelpful patterns of thinking and behavior. CBT is commonly used to treat a wide range of mental health conditions, including anxiety disorders, depression, phobias, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), eating disorders, and substance abuse. It can also be effective in managing stress, improving communication skills, and enhancing overall well-being.

Is CBT effective treatment for anxiety and depression?

Yes, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) has been found to be an effective treatment for anxiety and depression. Numerous studies have shown that CBT can significantly reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression and improve overall well-being. CBT helps individuals identify and challenge negative thought patterns and develop healthier coping strategies. It focuses on teaching practical skills and techniques that can be applied in daily life to manage anxiety and depression symptoms. However, it's important to note that the effectiveness of CBT may vary from person to person, and it is often used in combination with other treatments or therapies for optimal results. It is recommended to consult with a mental health professional to determine the most appropriate treatment approach for individual needs.

To effectively use Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), it is recommended to work with a trained mental health professional in London who specializes in CBT. However, here are some general steps that can help you understand the basic principles of CBT:

1. Identify and understand your thoughts and beliefs: Pay attention to your thoughts and beliefs in different situations, especially those that contribute to negative emotions or behaviors. Recognize any patterns or distortions in your thinking.

2. Challenge negative thoughts: Once you have identified negative thoughts, challenge them by examining the evidence supporting or contradicting them. Consider alternative perspectives or explanations that may be more realistic and balanced.

3. Replace negative thoughts with positive ones: Replace negative thoughts with more positive and realistic thoughts. This can help shift your perspective and reduce negative emotions.

4. Practice behavioral changes: Identify behaviors that contribute to your difficulties and work on changing them. Set specific, achievable goals and gradually work towards them. Practice new behaviors and monitor their impact on your thoughts and emotions.

5. Learn and apply coping skills: Develop and practice coping skills that can help you manage stress, anxiety, or depression. This may include relaxation techniques, problem-solving strategies, assertiveness training, or mindfulness exercises.

6. Monitor progress and adjust: Keep track of your progress and evaluate the effectiveness of the strategies you are using. If necessary, make adjustments or seek guidance from a mental health professional to refine your approach.

Remember, CBT is a structured and goal-oriented therapy that requires active participation and practice. Working with a trained therapist can provide personalized guidance and support throughout the process.