Let’s briefly follow the progress of a client. Let’s call her Julia. Julia has very low self-esteem, no self-confidence. She doesn’t like herself very much and has been like this for a very long time. Julia is unhappy and knows that her life would be more enjoyable and fulfilling, and her relationships better, if she could just get rid of this problem. She’s fed up with it and fed up with her life.
Julia visits this web site and likes the down-to-earth approach and how the therapy is tailor-made for each client. She decides to give Cognitive Hypnotherapy a try, and arranges a Zoom call with Taggart to find out more.
Julia’s a bit nervous because she doesn’t quite know what to expect, and she’s seen all these things on television where stage hypnotists put people ‘under’ and make them do strange things. She’s worried about losing control and she doesn’t like the idea of someone making her go unconscious.
Julia needn’t have worried, and Taggart was able to put her at ease. He explained that going into a trance is a very normal, everyday thing and that people do it all the time: when you’re engrossed in a book or a television programme, or daydreaming, or when you’re driving along and you realise that you were ‘somewhere else’ for a little while… that was a trance. When you see someone sitting at a traffic light and the lights change, but the driver just sits there, they were in a trance; when you’re standing in a lift and staring up at the little floor number display above the door, that’s a trance.
So a Cognitive Hypnotherapist doesn’t take control of you and make you go into a hypnotic state: he just helps you to guide yourself into a light trance. And you’re likely to be good at it because you’re going into a trance by yourself loads of times each day!
Julia was reassured when she found out that being in a trance doesn’t mean that you’re unconscious. She came to understand that although you’re sitting there with your eyes closed, you are fully aware: you can hear as normal, you can move as normal, and if you wanted to open your eyes, get up and leave the room, you can. You’re completely in control at all times.
The first session: exploring Julia’s problem
So, back to the first session. Julia and Taggart talk, that’s all. Julia explains all about her problem and Taggart listens, taking some notes, and asking questions. Quest Cognitive Hypnotherapists are trained to ask a whole series of special questions that draw out of the client the information they need to help them. We believe that everyone has all the resources they need to resolve their problem and get better, and our job as QCH Practitioners is to act as a sort of ‘tour guide’ to help the client to access their inner resources and resolve their problem in the best way for them. We don’t believe that we know best, so we don’t tell you the solution to your problem: we help you find the answer within you.
Once Taggart had all the information he needed, the session ended (first sessions usually last for over an hour and often up to 1 ½ hours). He explained to Julia what he believed was the best way to proceed to help her let go of her problem, and Julia thought what he suggested was a good idea. She was looking forward to the next session. In fact, talking about her problem openly, and thinking about the questions that Taggart has asked, had helped Julia to feel a bit better already, and she had a clearer idea of what her problem was all about, and what was the way forward for her.
Before the next appointment, Taggart crafted a bespoke, tailor made programme for Julia, based on the way that Julia ‘did’ her problem.
The second session: hypnosis, NLP and other stuff
In her second session with Taggart, Julia was guided through some powerful techniques based on Neuro Linguistic Programming. She was imagining various things, focusing on her emotions, allowing her unconscious mind to provide some answers, and guided to change some of the unconscious thought patterns that were driving her problem. Taggart also helped Julia to go into one of her trance states while he spoke special hypnotic suggestion patterns that he had crafted just for her.
Quest Cognitive Hypnotherapy brings together a whole range of techniques from such therapies as Gestalt, EFT and Positive Psychology, so we have a lot of ‘tools’ at our disposal which we draw on as necessary for each client.
And because a lot of change takes place outside the actual sessions, in-between sessions, and to keep the positive momentum going, Taggart provided Julia with an MP3 track that she should listen to every day, and also gave her some ‘tasks’ to carry out.
Further sessions
Julia returned for a number of sessions where they did further work with NLP and hypnosis, focusing on different aspects of Julia’s problem. She found that Quest Cognitive Hypnotherapy made a tremendous difference to her. Problems like low self-esteem won’t shift just at the click of your fingers, but Quest Cognitive Hypnotherapy is ‘brief’ therapy, so, where Psychotherapy can take years, and CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) can take up to 15 hour-long sessions, with Cognitive Hypnotherapy you are probably looking at 5-7 sessions, sometimes fewer than that, and sometimes more.
So there you have it. What makes the Cognitive Hypnotherapy approach different from ‘traditional’ Hypnotherapy is the attention that we pay to you as a client, your beliefs and your thought processes. Instead of pulling out a “spider phobia” script and reading it out to everyone who comes along with a spider phobia, we believe that every person is unique and that the most effective approach is to tailor our treatments towards each client’s unique way of ‘doing’ their problem, providing them with exactly what they need to let go of whatever is holding them back so that they can get on with their lives.
Contact Taggart
If you have any questions about Cognitive Hypnotherapy and how I can help you now, hop over to my Contact Form, send me a message, and we can arrange a 20-30 minute Zoom chat about what I am going to be helping you with.