Hypnotherapy in Swindon with Mark Altree
International Association for Evidence Based Psychotherapy
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Using Anxiety as an example, the following shows how our minds might create an issue for us, and 'build' anxiety into our mind. Anxiety attacks are interesting things, they are terrifying to the sufferer whilst also being absolutely unnecessary to an observer.
In the 'moment' of an attack the sufferer can be physically sick, start shaking and possibly faint. It can be a terrifying and psychologically paralysing experience. To an observer, it may appear to be a completely pointless exercise with no benefit so why bother.
The interesting thing for me as a therapist is that the sufferer and the observer are both correct.
The attack IS in your mind, but because you are not familiar with how to avoid such situations or deal with them if they occur, the fear can seem insurmountable....but it isn't...and you CAN be free!
Anxiety is usually the fear of something which hasn't actually happened yet, it is a terrifying fear of a possible event in the future which the sufferer has no guarantee what-so-ever will occur, but they are convinced that it will and that 'if' it does the effects will be catastrophic. Because of this fear the individual panics. Their subconscious has learned previously that the 'panic' response is appropriate, and because 'panic and fear' are perfectly appropriate responses to the expectation of a possible future event, it continues with its manufactured 'defence' against the imagined future.
Your mind then goes a little further in this belief system:
Because the sufferer is still alive after the last occasion, their sub-conscious is unfortunately under the impression that it has 'got them through' by using panic and terror. As far as your mind is concerned its time for a medal, it has protected you by panicking.
You survived the catastrophic situation, total annihilation did not occur, therefore, the response was totally logical, 100% effective and justified...anyone who disagrees is simply not understanding the gravity or seriousness of the situation! ... so the subconscious continues in life using its outdated and inaccurate guidebook for dealing with dodgy situations.
Here's the problem:
The guidebook for dealing with imaginary situations was written years ago by your subconscious which only had one experience to use as evidence. In that situation it had nothing to refer to as a guide for this current scary situation so your mind chose a basic 'caveman' response ... PANIC! Unfortunately things go wrong from here...because you survived and the problem went away, your mind thinks 'problem solved' 'Hurrah!' and writes in its guidebook for bad situations that all such future events should be dealt with in the same effective manner = panic, fear and terror.
This happens the next time you are in a similar situation further 'proving' that you are doing the right thing by panicking, your mind backs up its own evidence.
Think about it logically for a moment, what are you doing right now? You are reading this, what are you going to be doing in 30 seconds? Probably still reading...but you cannot guarantee that. It may be what you expect to do or plan on doing but you cannot be at all certain that it WILL be true. So, if you cannot predict the future (if we could the lottery would have 50 Million winners every week!) it makes sense that worrying about it is futile...you CANNOT say with ANY certainty what IS going to occur, so worrying about it is only wasting your time and mental effort.
And...your 'decision' to panic is making the only thing you can control i.e. the present, what you are doing NOW...worse!
Yes, you read that correctly...YOU are MAKING it worse, the possible future, the one that hasn't even happened yet is being affected by YOU! It hasn't happened but your expectation of a horrific outcome and your chosen response is making the present worse.
So your mind now says..."SEE, I told you this would happen, I told you the future would be awful", proving to itself that the future WILL be awful, justifying more panic...which makes things even worse. All the time it's your mind doing this...
But...do you HAVE to listen?
Have you GOT to pay attention to your mind?
And if you were to ignore it what would happen? Where would your mind get its energy from?
What would be its reason for continuing with the lies if you weren't listening?
Hypnosis allows access to the library where the guidebook is kept, and while there you can re-write the book and bring it up to date to be more effective for you, and stop relying on the old methods which you already KNOW are unhelpful..........because, If you were happy with the current method of dealing with stressful situations you wouldn't be reading this.
Its not just for adults.
I believe that therapy is for everyone irrespective of age.
You wouldn't build a house and refuse to deal with any problems until 18 years later so why do we assume that the same approach would work for our children? getting to the root cause of something is far easier if it's done early.