So what makes Analytical Hypnotherapy so supremely unique and powerful? And, more importantly, how does it differ from conventional hypnotherapy and psychotherapy. The answer pivots around the use of hypnotic relaxation, the access to the root-cause of the client’s dilemma and the utilisation of his/her imaginative processes.
Hypnotic relaxation
The use of relaxation and meditative techniques will aid the client by enabling him/her to enter a trance-like state in which he/she can make contact with his/her own limbic system (known generally as the unconscious mind).
The limbic system is the primitive cave dweller’s brain which sits in the centre of the human brain complex. The limbic system automatically orchestrates all bodily functions and houses our emotive responses and memory storage. The primitive brain is there to keep us alive and to enable us to respond to danger, threat or pressure in the external environment. For the client who visits the Analytical Hypnotherapy practitioner, the limbic system will be the ultimate source of access to stress or trauma and, moreover, the means by which to heal that suffering. Hypnotic relaxation, therefore, is an important component in therapeutic resolution, although the relaxed state does not need to at a zombie-like level of hypnotic trance.
Hypnosis is used in many practices, such as meditative practice, healing practice and standard hypnotherapy. Standard hypnotherapy practice, based on cognitive-behavioural methodology, employs hypnosis but does not, however, aim to access the root cause of the client’s dilemma. Mainstream psychotherapy may address the root cause of the client’s distress but, without the employment of relaxation techniques, the client may be unlikely to resolve his/her issues at the limbic system level.
Accessing the root cause
Once the client has empowered himself/herself to enter a state of hypnotic relaxation, then he/she can readily access the root cause of his/her stress or trauma. The client’s direct access to the limbic system, which will usually take charge of the therapeutic process, will guide the client to undercover those experiences which are emotively charged and need therapeutic repair. Often the client will express his/her emotions as a cathartic means of releasing pent-up fears, guilt, anger or sorrow about things in his/her life which have, sometimes unknowingly, caused untold distress. These emotions, when held back, will do the greatest degree of psychological damage to the client but can usually be easily unearthed and relinquished in the therapeutic context.
Imaginative faculties
Once emotive distress has been discharged, the client can now often use his/her imaginative facilities, coupled with a soupçon of intellectual reasoning, in order to bring about a resolution to his/her psychological suffering which will, in turn, alleviate his/her emotive, cognitive and behavioural symptoms.
Practitioner’s neutrality
It will, of course, be essential in this equation that the Analytical Hypnotherapy practitioner has himself/herself cleared the backlog of his/her own psychological malaise. Personal therapy is, consequently, an essential component for the Analytical Hypnotherapy practitioner and will be a qualifying factor when taking a course with the Jacquelyne Morison Hypnotherapy Training school. Personal therapy will enable the practitioner to remain neutral, non-judgmental and impartial when assisting the client. Personal therapy will, moreover, give the practitioner profound insight, will fire up his/her lateral thinking and will eliminate any possibility of compromising the client because of any underlying psychological distress.
Jacquelyne Morison
Jacquelyne Morison Hypnotherapy Training