Individual & Couple Relationships
Counselling and Therapies. Talking to a good therapist can change EVERYTHING!
Does hypnosis really work?
In some sessions or on request, we look at the benefits of clinical hypnosis for strengthened goal results, dependingon your preferences.
Hypnosis isn’t done to you – it’s done with you.
The experience of hypnosis provides a context – a trance like atmosphere – in which your mind focuses on and absorbs helpful ideas and new perspectives.
So, yes, hypnosis can and does work really well when you
actively use the experience to build the frame of mind you need
to make a mends of your worlds and learnt beliefs, helping your goals take real shape.
Can anyone be hypnotised?
Depends on their level of suggestibility and openness to the experience.
Good to know that clinical hypnosis in and of itself isn’t dangerous. On the contrary, it’s a relaxing and empowering experience when you let your mind guide you thrgouh your strengths and depths.
It’s important to choose a therapist you can relate with and establish trust; you then discover that any suggestion you don’t find helpful or doesn't feel aligned to your true self - you can simply ignore.
You’re in charge!
Will it fix my situation for good?
Does hypnosis mean giving up control?
Most emphatically, the answer is no!
This unfortunate but persistent myth comes from the fact that most people’s exposure to hypnosis takes place in an entertainment context, not a clinical one.
Realistically, though, if controlling people could be as easy as trancework, the world would be quite a different place, don't you think?
No, you don’t lose control of yourself in hypnosis.
If that were the case it wouldn’t interest clinicians like me very much because no one ever seeks help by saying, “please help me lose control of myself.”
What has attracted me to hypnosis is the way hypnosis consistently gets people to see more, understand and empower themselves more rapidly & effectively than most forms of therapy practiced in main stream.
What is hypnotherapy in plain words?
That's like asking how long does a good idea last?
It will offer you solutions and open you to the necessary steps setting you on the right path to awareness, understanding and getting yourself back; hypnotherapy can restore your inner calm and acceptance of who you are now, what you stand for and that you choose to become.
Hypnotherapy is a powerful collaborative process where the hypnotherapist uses hypnosis techniques such as guided trance or dream-like states, metaphors and suggestions in a story telling like atmosphere to guide you into an enhanced inner-self exploratory experience.
It is a unique personal journey for each person.
It requires a commitment and a desire to change towards realistic goals.
Goals (and patterns change) can be achieved more quickly when clients are open and receptive to the idea of hypnosis, since no one can be hypnotised against their will.
What is the benefit of trying?
Maybe you tried it before, or maybe you just want to see how it feels.
Experiencing a blend of trance, deep relaxation, connecting life therapies & counseling practice, they all resonate with me in helping people like you regain their power, confidence and control over their own worlds.
I welcome everyone and provide customised therapeutic support to find your alignment in your journey.
The aim is seeing rapid results, inner shifting understanding and benefits from either trancework, hypnosis, body psychotherapy, dream interpretation, and a blend of recognised effective "talking" therapies.
Tailored support & counseling services, including a variety of therapy modalities:
Individual therapy
Couples or Relationship therapy,
Clinical Hypnosis as therapy,
Body Psychotherapy,
Jungian Dream Interpretation,
Counselling & Psychotherapy,
Freudian free association
Attachment theory
Gestalt therapy methods
Positive Psychology.
Let's explore which combination you believe may be a good approach for you.
What types of therapy or support can I experience?
No, hypnosis is not generally considered a therapy on its own. Rather, it is a tool of treatment, a rapid way of delivering helpful ideas and perspectives to someone requesting help.
Hypnosis is typically integrated with other psychotherapeutic treatments, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), Parts Therapy, Timeline Therapy, or Gestalt Therapy.
The generic term “hypnotherapy,” therefore, doesn’t really tell you anything about what the therapist is actually doing other than hypnosis is somehow involved.
Eriksonian hypnosis makes rich use of story telling and metaphors that resonate with your inner worlds, 'speaking' directly and tapping into the powers of your unconscious mind, bringing forth the resources you have within to conquer your fears and bring back a confident, aligned you.
Thus, how clinicians apply hypnosis will be entirely consistent with their individual style and method of treatment as well as with your own openness to the experience.
That’s why the way one practitioner uses hypnosis can be so markedly different from the way another one applies hypnosis, yet both can be valid.
The term 'hypnotherapy" suggests hypnosis is the therapy. Is it?
There are many different types or miodalities of hypnotherapy and below are some of them. As a client, it’s not necessary for you to understand the differences or methods for each type before your treatment.
For ease your mind and to make you feel more relaxed about the experience:
Ericksonian hypnotherapy - something I find very effective, revolutionary, developed by Milton Erikson, a psychiatrist who specialised in family therapy and medical hypnosis
Hypno-psychotherapy - This is an integrative approach, where hypnosis is used alongside another branch of psychotherapy (such as psychodynamic, Humanist, Gestalt or mindfulness). My training is in both hypnotherapy (clinical & medical) and psychotherapy.
Suggestion hypnotherapy - Suggestion techniques are employed within most types of hypnotherapy. The premise behind hypnosis is that when we are in a hypnotic state, our subconscious is more open to suggestions. Suggestions are offered by the hypnotherapist during this state to help alter thought patterns. This technique is ideal for changing habits, overcoming anxiety and reducing stress.
Time Line Therapy™ - It is based on the premise that our memories are stored in a linear pattern (a timeline). Timeline therapists use different techniques to help you release limiting beliefs and negative emotions linked to past experiences.While this approach can be used for a variety of concerns, it is thought to be especially useful for those struggling with depression, anxiety and stress.
What kind of hypnotherapy can I experience?
How does psychotherapy look like?
In psychotherapy we focus on recurrent problems, behavioural patterns, thought processes and emotion as interconnected ways of how we do life.
We explore and build awareness around a person’s psyche (the conscious and unconscious mind and their forces, fears, needs, desires) and inner beliefs, which may have felt a harmful effect in challenging moments.
We explore past events and encounters in order to comprehend the social development, and cognitive and behavioural tendencies, encouraging you to discover yourself, and free yourself of adverse notions, self-beliefs, and environmental stimuli or triggers.
Essentially, in psychotherapy, client and therapist work together to improve problems with a new perspective on the client’s fundamental thoughts, beliefs, or feelings.
Openess to perspectives and delivering true intimate, vulnerable, authentic answers are key to psychotherapy being fruitful as much as the pact and the trust that forms between person and their therapist.
As a method, psychotherapy, since concentrating on adaptation and psychological matters, is in its elements effective when exploring deep-seated issues that affect the way one relates to themselves and others.
How long does a session last?
Sessions generally will last 1(one) hour approximately.
Your first session will take close to 2(two) hours.
Some goals will need more sessions to be achieved, like for example getting over anxiety, stopping smoking or the recovery way from grief or loss.
How many sessions will I need?
We can discuss optimal support in or after our first session; realistically, it all depends on you, on how comfortable you feel about being totally truthful & open to yourself about you and your ways in my presence as your therapist.
The majority of my clients report a significant improvement after their 1st therapy session.
On average, 4-6 sessions bring about lasting change and unlearn maladaptive habits.
What is the Jungian Method for Dreams Interpretation?
It all starts with recalling or writing down all the dream details even if they appear unimportant: setting, people, objects, dialogue, smells, sounds, color, and your “internal talk” and emotions while dreaming the dream. The next steps rely on:
Making Associations, all symbols have meanings, unique to you, forget the books
Connect Dream Images to What’s Happening Internally
Interpret the Dream in context of here and now, in your unexplained feelings or relationships experienced with the world, self and others.
Dreams are about you and not others. All the characters in your dream symbolise aspects of yourself, even if they look like somebody you know.
After interpreting the dream, honor it by doing something physical (and not just thinking about it). By doing something physical, you integrate the dream, which was unconscious, into your conscious waking life. Acknowledge it. The physical act should not be loud or expensive. The smaller and the more intimate, the better.
How can body psychotherapy help?
This holistic approach to treatment works to address concerns of the mind and body as one. I use a blend of hypnosis and psychoanalisys to perform body psychotherapy.
I am a believer that many issues impacting emotional well-being result from continuous repression of traumatic or harmful memories, which are held in the body. These effects may then be experienced through as physical concerns—headaches, insomnia, fatigue, chronic pain—through what is known as somatization. They might also have an impact on daily function, affecting a person's relationships, intimacy, or mood.
Unconsciously, somatization could be a defense mechanism, protecting the person from emotional overwhelm. Some psychological symptoms may be so overwhelming that a person cannot face them consciously. A person’s distress may then find an outlet through the body, converting to a physical symptom.
People who have experienced trauma or abuse may find that body psychotherapy helps them find an alternative approach to working through the negative impact and lingering effects of these occurrences.
This therapy may also be beneficial to people who are attempting to recover from substance abuse or addiction or who have experienced a significant loss.
Recent research has also found body psychotherapy to be one potential method of treating anxiety.
I don't really know what I need...
how do I start?
I hear you...let's talk; book a first session and let's get to work.
As people, when our needs are unfulfilled we tend to go for the stright line to them and that may push us into creating psychological problems for ourselves.
That then can get us into overthinking and sometimes remain blindsided to finding another, good and personally fitting path to having our needs met.
We all have Primal Human Needs in common, despite the different colour, texture and shape of our individual lives.
We all need to:
• feel safe and secure day to day
• give and receive attention
• have a sense of some control and influence over events in life
• feel stretched and stimulated by life to avoid boredom
• have fun sometimes and feel life is enjoyable
• feel intimate with at least one other human being
• feel connected to and part of a wider community
• be able to have privacy and time to privately reflect
• have a sense of status, a recognizable and appreciated role in life
• have a sense of competence and achievement
• a sense of meaning about life and what we do.
When these needs are adequately met in a balanced way, life feels meaningful.
And when not, we feel threatened and fight for them. That fight looks differnt for us all.
A famous couples psychotherapist describes that all we ever fight for (and about) are: respect & recognition, care & closeness, power & control.
Therapy can help you find your way to your resources, those qualities that exist within you that can help with the discovery or recovery journey
and you starting to have your needs met.
This includes personality traits such as optimism and stamina, persistence, creativity and abstract resources, such as comforting memories and the feelings of being loved by those around you.
Assisting you identify your personal resources involves:
• helping you identifying needs through discussion and observation
• helping you identifying how you can meet those needs
This process will allow discussion around which resources are available to you to meet those needs be it towards staying in-touch (contact) with strengths or avoiding maladapting traits. For example, if you express that you feel overwhelmed with no time to yourself \ to reflect, a quiet place within the home or a block of free time within the your schedule could be identified as a resource.
...And from here, a journey of self-discovery and understanding you better begins.
What else can I experience?
Hypnotherapy on Offer
Clinical Hypnotherapy
From deep hypnosis, trancework, inner journey, body psychotherapy, timeline therapy and anchoring suggestions, let's start getting to know the true strength of you and your potential.
Your unconscious mind, like it or not, drives your feelings, habits, moods and your learnt behaviours & beliefs over time.
"Applied in the context of psychotherapy or behavioral medicine, the merits of hypnosis have been studied and consistently affirmed in both research and clinical contexts.
If you recognize that people are capable of more than they sometimes realize then you’ll understand what makes hypnosis so valuable. To this day, I still know of no better way to empower people to take charge of their lives and use their innate resources in new and life enhancing ways."
Dr. Michael Yapko
It is all about finding a comfortable way to accept ourselves in how we did or do life.
The journey of your self creating awareness is what makes you, you. Find a meaningful way of relating to those around you, life and yourself.
Learning how to move on or move past, holding space for your journey with the help of Psychotherapy and Gestalt therapy influences, we tap into the right now, the blind spots and the unfinished business.
We work through what is worth keeping and what is no longer needed to be kept, with openness, acceptance, positive regard and a goal of resurfacing your forgotten parts across few revealing sessions.
"Before you heal someone, ask him if he is willing to give up the things that made him sick."
~ Hippocrates
The Jungian method for dream interpretation is giving meaning to the symbols that our minds reveal for us in dreams.
The mind knows and protects; and when you're ready, you will dream the dream you need to dream, revealing your deepest needs, fears and desires.
“Dreams are impartial, spontaneous products of the unconscious psyche, outside the control of the will. They are pure nature; they show us the unvarnished, natural truth, and are therefore fitted, as nothing else is, to give us back an attitude that accords with our basic human nature when our consciousness has strayed too far from its foundations and run into an impasse.”
Carl Jung
A method that blends hypnosis, psychology & neurobiology, inviting the mind into self-awareness of the body and connect with what it physically stores. That discomfort can be seamlessly transformed with body psychotherapy, to the level where it is fully removed.
This method is where every client feels relief surpassing deep emotions and removing barriers with ease.
One of the quickest and most effective ways to bring a client to understand themselves and how they held onto pain unnecessarily.
Body psychotherapy is considered a branch of somatic psychology, influenced by psychoanalysis, Gestalt psychology, biology, neurology, and Far Eastern philosophy.
Counselling & Psychotherapy
Dream Interpretation
Body Psychotherapy
‟
”Before you heal someone,
ask him if he is willing to give up the things that made him sick.”
_________
~ Hippocrates
Questions asked in therapy
Are you open to a real conversation?
The basic element, the key to any work towards understanding more...are you?Ready for a truly open dialogue?
Tell me where you're at?
Getting an understanding from you on how things look like for you, in your world... where you're coming from, where you're heading...what ishappneing to you?...what is ahead?
What are you sitting with today?
Where does your mind go when you let it?...is more about understanding what meaning you make of it...and what happens for you, what do you experience...trying to untangle whatever is playing on your mind
Imagine you've got what or where you wanted; close your eyes...and tell me how it feels for you?
....And when you get there, how would life be and feel like? How would you do life then... how woudl a day look like, what will be differnt, what will it make happen. We sometimes get so focused on the wanting to change that we forget to imagine how it actually feesl like.
What does a good day look like?
And if you'd have a good day and the support you need, what do you think would help, what does support look like... for one to undestand you, for therapy to work, for you to outgrow this....what does a good day, on the other side of now, look like?
When was the last time you cried?
Tears are a powerful way of shifting energy..think about it...what is something that you never said but you wished to...
All that is trapped inside is flowing through those tears...
The last time you sat in silence...were your thoughts useful? How did they behave?
Our minds protect us and are designed to give us more of what we know or learn; they also take us on aimless journeys, play tricks on us...all the time.
When you observe your thinking...how do those thoughts behave? ... are they useful, are they passionate? childish? throwing a tantrum? deepen the spiral?
How did this come about?
In the scheme of things...how do you explain this to yourself..has there been anyone empathetic to you in your life..the small moments...the choices...the feelings...the emotions
You haven't always been like this...so...who are you?
Tell me about your world, your choices, how did you come to be this you?
When I say strong...what comes to mind?
Our minds attach meaning and symbols or images to abstract concepts and it is through those meanings that we filter and perceive our behaviours and the way we act or react to our eco-system.
So ... when I say strong, or love, or sweetness, or letting go, or tears, or good day, or connection, or therapy, or time, or slow, or calm, or passion...what comes to mind for each of them?
How do you feel about yourself?
Most of us have a confidence in our own capacity to mend, to heal, to move through life at our own pace.
For some of us, we still recover from something, and we know that safety is not a lack of threat, safety is in fact the presence of connection.
...we intentionally choose to connect for our own survival.
Essentially, it's not about what happened to us, it's what meaning we assign for it in our mind.
Taking a look at how do we choose to relate to others knowing that meaning & what we made of 'things' in the past was arbitrary, only valid then...and potentially that meaning is not serving us good anymore.
Why is it important to you?
...if you hold on to something, an idea, an ideal, a stance, a thing, a possession, a belief...it's worth questioning yourself, why is it so important to you? How did you arrive to hold it in such high regard?
Tell me more about...
...try making me understand more about the experience you are describing, and expand into:
- the context inside and outside of you that time you think or talk of right now,
- the 'texture' or how what you feel or felt manifests in your body,
- the taste it left you with,
- the what you did & how it felt like right there and then ...or next day,
- how you cope or made peace with it? does it bohter you? or you accept it?
Yes...No...Maybe
Most of us adopt in our doing life a level of procrastination. Have you ever wondered why do I say yes...no...maybe to anything?
Why do I push something aside in favour of something else? Why when presented with a simple choice point we adopt the simpler, easiest choice?...why I avoid curiosity in that spectrum? why I avoid discovery of possibilities?
What would happen if for the next few days, every time you are about to say no or feel as if easier pushing something for later...what if you say yes instead?
What if you maybe give it a go for while? what would life look like if ...mmm...say you shift your alarm 30 minutes earlier and in those minutes you simply relax, take in the morning sun, slowly make the best cup of tea or coffee, look out the window or just lay in bed eyes open... and have a friendly and kind chat with you...what will you discover?
What do you see when you look at yourself?
Did you ever stopped and wondered why we feel so 'weird' when we hear our recorded voice or when we look at ourselves (truly look) in the mirror?
Did it ever crossed your mind that unless we saw our reflection in the water, we were not seeing our physical appearance to compare it with an other....think about it...how do you see yourself? inside and out?
Stop for a moment, go to the mirror...do you see yourself as a unique experience? ......what do you see?
What are the chances that...you get to end 'procrastinating' now?
I heard someone way smarter than me saying: " the only thing that stops or scares us is that we have not broken it in small enough steps".
Our brain takes a past experience and bends it so that it protects us from what we felt as hard or painful or exhausting back then...so much so, it is that good at looping, that it takes only 4 seconds to tip the balance of choices.
Stop for 4 seconds.
What are the chances that you haven't really considered the smallest step yet?Look around, and think.
What is the smallest step you can do right now?
... Pick that. A starting point.
Split that in half. Do just that one half right now.
And if you only did that...you did awesome!!!
And if you let yourself carried away and be curious... to do just another small step, because it feels good [(it so does!!!) and actually there's a hit of dopamine you feel in your veins] now that you are few more seconds in... well, that is blooming amazing!!!
...and that is all it takes.
How does change really happen for you?
What is it that you usually do to change something? ...anything...
When you look at two or more choices, do you make a conscious decision or automatically pick one?
What any of us do, we give our analytical mind a different model, different parametres to analyse, and as a result we choose differently from the usual pattern.
Let's talk about how this actually happens for you.
Time. We create stories about our own timeline:
Turns out that every time we recall a memory, our brain alters bits of it...it literally remembers it differently. Sometimes is wishful thinking, sometimes is added or subtracted information. Sometimes is added or subtracted intensity of the emotion that we still have attached to that memory.
So what if ....keeping this in mind, we can agree that the more time passes or the more we recall a memory the more it is warped along the story / the valence / the potence we choose to remember it like and what we choose to tell ourselves & keep 'alive' about it?
And more to it: what if, with time passing, we in our own person and mindframe, we now have more discernment, more information & better grasp of our own emotions to understand the story better? To truly consciously add to/subtract from the puzzle from back then the pieces that at the time we couldn't have possibly known?
If you have recently heard of the future influencing the past....this is us, and how we grow. Through the stories that we tell ourselves and we keep inside.
Past, present and future they all live in us, through us. What if we are time condensed in memories?
All memories we tend to label: good memories...not so good memories... good stories...good truths...not so good truths.... isn't time & perspective a wonderful thing?
The sound of my voice
The one element that makes hypnosis work easier is the voice of the therapist you choose.
Sometimes, the way a new therapiest understands you can make all the difference.
It is in the sound of our voices that we resonate with.
What you hear in my voice, you recognise as comforting.
This is a brief, calming technique.
It engages the body & the unconscious mind, calms your nervous system ... here is 2 minutes of getting yourself back and grounded into here&now...
A taste of hypnosis....calm in under 2 minutes
