At the beginning of 2020 I decided it was time to start therapy. There were a myriad of reasons and things I wanted to address having not had any psychological support since my teens (way before my first diagnosis), and while I was nervous I was also excited.
I went first down the CBT route, that being what my insurance covered, but I quickly found that just didn’t suit me at all. Aside from being too structured, I was struggling to identify negative thoughts because they were so deeply rooted in my subconscious. So when it came to looking for a new approach, hypnotherapy seemed like a sensible choice. I did lots of research, found an advanced practitioner who I talked things through with first on the phone and then in person to check hypnotherapy would suit both me and the issues we wanted to delve into, and I’ve been in treatment (when no shielding) since.
A few months in I thought I’d take a moment to reflect on what I’ve learned from and about hypnotherapy so far (at least, not the super personal stuff) because so many people expressed an interest in knowing more when I talked about starting it on social media.
It’s nothing like you think it’s going to be
Films and TV programmes have so often portrayed hypnosis as people being put into a trance-like state where they are instructed to do things that they won’t remember when they ‘wake up’. Sometimes there’s a watch on a chain swinging in front of the subject’s eyes. I knew going in that it wasn’t going to be like the TV, but I couldn’t really grasp what it would be like. My two big fears was that I’d either be too self-conscious to be able to get into the right ‘frame of mind’ or that I’d be so relaxed I’d just fall asleep.
To be clear, you are working too hard to fall asleep, you are always in control, and you remember everything. To begin with you’ll enter hypnosis slowly using different tools, and over time that process will speed up until you can enter hypnosis really easily. Your instructor can record the first time you do it so that you can practice at home. Part of me still thinks I’m not going to be able to get to the right place each week, and even as she asks what shape comes into my mind (the shape representing my subconscious that day), I think “nothing is going to appear, this isn’t going to work” and then something appears. Answers to questions form out of nowhere. You find yourself saying things that take you by surprise as your subconscious serves up what needs to be said. You kind of need to experience it to get it.
“Your mind never gives you more than you can handle”
Another worry I had was that, having had my subconscious hold it tall together for so many years, I was going to open the proverbial flood gates and fall to bits. But my therapist reassured me that our subconscious minds will never serve up more than we can handle. In fact, I found that if there was a more pressing matter that needed processing, my subconscious kept putting that image in my mind instead of the answers to the questions I was being asked. It was saying “no, this is what we need to talk about today”. Not the other thing, and not both things together, and not the multitude of other stuff on our list.
Our minds are amazing
I can genuinely say that I’ve been shocked by some of the things that have come out of my mouth during sessions. One in particular – a link between a current situation and an event from more than a decade ago that I didn’t know existed that have come together to form anxiety took me completely by surprise. I haven’t thought about that past event in years. But I hadn’t processed it at the time, so it has been pushed aside, held onto, and all these years later had formed the bedrock of insecurity in my mind. When I gave the answer that unlocked it I was floored and these surprises keep coming. What my subconscious has handled without me realising, what it has taken on when I haven’t been able to properly process something is amazing. My mind blows my mind.
It’s a safe way to process trauma
I found CBT excessively emotional. In fact, my therapist said she was surprised I returned each week given how difficult I found the sessions. I just found going over traumatic things awful! In stark contrast, while hypnotherapy has been emotional too, it’s been totally different. Tears have almost always come from a healing place, and I’ve been able to talk about traumatic events with a distance that hasn’t made it anywhere near as difficult. We have used a process of talking to the past version of myself that experienced the traumatic event rather than reliving the event itself. That way we can talk through emotions, thoughts and actions second hand, even though we’re talking to our past selves. It’s also a chance to reassure, praise, honour and forgive the past self that went through the event with the power of hindsight, something we can’t do at the time but never have the impetus to do later on. It’s incredibly healing.
There’s been a lot of love
A lot of the times I’ve got emotional have been when I’ve been encouraged to thank my subconscious for the work it’s done (something we do at the start and end of each session), or when I’ve been interacting with a version of myself. It sounds ridiculous and it kinds of needs to be experienced but just taking a moment at the start of the sessions where my therapist says “subconscious, thank you for showing up today, and thank you for everything you’ve done for Ellie.” just feels powerful. I guess it recognises the magnitude of the every day struggles. And when she suggests I thank a version of myself for showing up, or tell her that I love her, a tiny part of the huge distance that exists between where I am and truly loving myself gets closed. I don’t actually say the words out loud or in my head, but she’s there, and we hug and hold hands and there’s a bond that just makes me sound delusional. Once again, you just need to experience it.
It needs to be more widely available
I’ve long said that there’s no one-size fits all approach to mental health and therapy, and to not recognise that is to ignore the wonderful diversity that exists amongst us. My experience with CBT is absolutely not unique, so many of our community have hated our experience – and many have got a huge amount out of it too! Hypnotherapy is still seen as a fringe option, reserved for ‘hypnobirthing’ and phobias. But I can stand here in testament to its ability to address a wide variety of issues. Is it for everyone? No, no therapeutic approach is for everyone. But I do think it could be useful for some people and I think it’s a real shame that it’s not widely available.
