Hypnotherapy is a heightened state of concentration and focused attention. Guided by a trained, certified hypnotherapist, hypnotherapy allows you to be more open to suggestions to making healthful changes in your perceptions, sensations, emotions, memories, thoughts or behaviours.

One must understand how the mind works if we are to become proficient at self-hypnosis. You must first understand that the mind is like an iceberg. The part you 'see' (conscious) is only a small part of the whole mind. The unconscious mind is a huge warehouse of knowledge and all of our life experiences that make up our current conscious reality. The unconscious mind has capabilities far beyond our conscious awareness.

RULE 1: EVERY THOUGHT OR IDEA CAUSES A PHYSICAL REACTION

Your thoughts can affect all functions of your body. For example worry can cause ulcers, anxiety can lead to increased pulse rate and possibly high blood pressure. (Immune system is affected) Ideas with strong emotional content almost always reach the unconscious mind. Remember: the unconscious mind is the emotional mind. Emotion surrounds information.

RULE 2: WHAT IS IMAGINED OR EXPECTED, TENDS TO BE REALIZED

The mind and the nervous system respond only to mental images. The mental image formed becomes the "blueprint" and the unconscious always tries to follow the blueprint. Expectations tend to become self-fulfilling prophecies.

RULE 3: IMAGINATION IS MORE POWERFUL THAN REASON WHEN DEALING WITH YOUR MIND OR THE MIND OF ANOTHER

Reason is easily over ruled by imagination. Any idea accompanied by strong emotional content is difficult to modify with reason. (we must be wary of leaders who use emotional content).

RULE 4: OPPOSING IDEAS CANNOT BE HELD AT ONE AND THE SAME TIME

You cannot love and hate someone at the same time, for example.

RULE 5: If AN IDEA HAS BEEN ACCEPTED BY THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND, IT REMAINS UNTIL REPLACED BY ANOTHER ACCEPTED IDEA.

Once an idea is fixed, it tends to remain fixed. The longer it is fixed the more difficult it is to change it. This is how habits are formed, both good and bad.

RULE 6: AN EMOTIONALLY INDUCED SYMPTOM TENDS TO CAUSE ORGANIC CHANGE IF IT PERSISTS LONG ENOUGH

Many physicians will admit that more than 70% of human ailments are emotionally based rather than organic. The unconscious has a powerful effect on our physical being.

RULE 7: EACH SUGGESTION ACTED UPON CREATES LESS OPPOSITION TO SUCCESSIVE SUGGESTIONS

A mental trend is easier to follow the longer it lasts unbroken. Thus suggestions should begin simply and become increasingly complex for the mind to follow. Once the trend of acceptance has started you may move on to more complicated suggestions.

RULE 8: WHEN DEALING WITH THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND AND IT'S FUNCTIONS, THE GREATER THE CONSCIOUS EFFORT THE LESS THE UNCONSCIOUS RESPONSE

This is analogues to a seesaw. When the conscious mind is up (active) the unconscious is down (inactive) and visa versa. This is why willpower does not exist. Willpower suggests that you are trying to do something that you really do not want to do.

Note: The unconscious mind takes everything ‘literally’. If you say "I'm mad at something" it may interpret it as 1 am insane" Or if a person "gives me a pain in the neck!" You may end up with one. Many scientists believe that thoughts are energy. As we direct these thoughts toward personal goals, we start physically, emotionally and spiritually, moving toward our desired result.

The Critical Faculty:

This is the area between both the Conscious Mind and the Subconscious Mind. Its primary function is protection and it acts very much like a firewall on a computer guarding your subconscious mind from your conscious mind's attempts to alter current behaviours and thoughts. Deciding whether to reject or accept thoughts and things that we see or hear. Are they in line with what your subconscious believes to be true?

This is where hypnotherapy comes in. Through phraseology, suggestions and imagery, the therapist can bypass the critical faculty allowing you to make healthful changes in your perceptions, sensations, emotions, memories, thoughts or behaviours.

1. Hypnosis can't make you do what you don't want to do.

2. Hypnosis is not sleep.

3. You hypnotise yourself every day without even knowing it, for example. When you are driving, daydreaming, arriving at your destination/watching TV, or reading a book, before falling asleep or coming out of sleep are all forms of self-hypnosis.

4. Don't expect to feel hypnotised. Expect to feel completely relaxed.

The Conscious mind: 

Imagine this as the tip of an iceberg. With an iceberg, we are consciously aware of the part above the water, but the problem is what lies underneath the water.

The Conscious mind is logical, rational and analytical - It's the part of the mind you use on a day-to-day basis for making decisions. For example, it is the part of our mind that wants us to... stop smoking, lose weight, become more confident, etc.

It is the part of the mind that you would like to think is in control. But of course, it isn't in control, because if it were in control you'd just say to yourself that I am no longer anxious, etc.

The Conscious mind is also where we hold our short-term memory and is governed by holding only a small amount of information.

It is also where we hold our willpower. Willpower itself can be useful but it is no match for our imagination which is controlled by our subconscious mind.

The Subconscious mind:

This part of our mind controls all the main functions of our body that keep us going. It does this without us even knowing.

It controls our long-term memories of things, such as what we have seen, heard, felt and experienced from birth. Our subconscious mind is programmed in such a way that whenever it is stimulated by such things as taste, sound, smells, etc it takes us back to the feelings we were experiencing at that time.

The subconscious mind also controls our emotions and feelings both good and bad and will automatically respond when prompted in a way that it thinks will either benefit or protect us.

Hypnotherapy deliberately induces the subconscious mind into a state of relaxed awareness. Once the subconscious mind is in a relaxed state, any therapeutic suggestions can have a great effect on attitudes, perceptions and behaviours and will most definately transform your life.