Session 2 of 6 - Anxiety Therapy From Relaxing Hypnotherapy
We start with a discussion about how things have gone since your last hypnotherapy for anxiety session.
Then your therapist will teach you more about anxiety and it symptoms. The aim here will be to allow you to see or understand, it is normal to feel like this when you are anxious and you do not have to be frightened. We will “re-frame” your symptoms as “something that is normal and happens to everyone when they are excited”.
Then you are taught about “going with the feeling” you are having. This is because, you have done it a hundred times before and come through it OK. It’s nothing to be frightened of, the episode and the feeling will pass soon.
Outline of Hypnotherapy for Anxiety Session 2
- Hypnotic induction to get you into a relaxed state.
- SUDS scale for anxiety (10 worst ever to 1 no anxiety).
- Arrive at your personalised peaceful place, that you have described to your therapist, where you can relax totally and be calm.
- “Anchoring” all of those relaxed soothing feelings you have in your peaceful place by touching 2 fingers (actually a thumb and a finger) together. This “anchor” should allow you to regain those peaceful, calm, relaxed feeling exactly when you want or need them. This is making you a personally peaceful place button to press whenever you want.
- Release techniques maybe used. Telling you a story, also called a “metaphor”, to allow you to release feeling of anxiety.
- eg. Imagining putting all those anxious feelings into a hot air balloon and watching them float away. Your subconscious really enjoys and responds well to positive metaphors.
- Ego-strengthening suggestions to enhance the changes (feeling relaxed, calm, peaceful).
- SUDS scale for anxiety (10 worst ever to 1 no anxiety).
- Count out (1 to 5 feeling better and happier at each count).
- Talk about your peaceful place and the anchor (finger press button) you now have as a coping tool.
- Add-ons to do at home – CBT (cognitive behaviour therapy) techniques.
Write down any negative thoughts or feelings you are having. You can even do this during an anxiety episode if you have one. - Challenge those negative thoughts and beliefs asking how likely is that and what actual, real evidence is there that is going to happen? (eg. These thoughts and feeling will never stop! (You know they will, they always do after a time.) Alternatively, my heart is going so fast I’m going to have a heart attack! (Really? When is the last time you had a heart attack from an anxiety episode?))
- Write down a more likely positive outcome to the situation. Write down what evidence there is for this to happen.
- Write down how the situation feels different in this more positive light.
- Rip up the negative thoughts and thrown them in the bin. Keep the positive outcomes to bring along with you to the next session.
- Add-ons – Practice using your peaceful place anchor as often as you can. Practice makes perfect. The more you do it the more natural it will become for you to use it before, during and after an anxiety episode.
You have made everything very easy to read and cystal clear for me. Thank you. There is a way to right good information that is not fill of jargon and you have done a good job with this. Even some of the stuff I did not understand, you have explained very well. I like that SUDS thing where you can measure how somone feels about something early and then measure it again after therapy. So you get a good idea of how well things worked! Great idea!
Hi Mark. Thank you for your comment. Yes, you have got it correct there. SUDS is a way to “measure the unmeasureable”. So your therapist can measure how a client feels about thier anxiety in the moment, right here and right now. Then ask again in the same way about the same thing after they have had some therapy. If the scores get down to 1 out of 10 before the end of the 6 planned sessions, therapy can be finished because you don’t need any more. In that case things have worked better and more quickly than anticipated.