The central principle of cognitive behavioural therapy is that the ways in which an individual behaves and reacts to situations are determined by their interpretation of them.
The cognitive-behavioural approach is largely self-help, and the role of the clinician is to help you to understand how thoughts, beliefs and attitudes influence your feelings and behaviours, and teach you coping skills for dealing with different problems.
CBT helps you to become aware of inaccurate or negative thinking, so you can view challenging situations more clearly and respond to them in a more effective way.
During treatment, systematic discussions and carefully structured behavioural assignments are used to help you evaluate and modify your thoughts and behaviours. The treatment is time limited and mostly based on the here-and-now, and all aspects of therapy are made explicit to you. We work in a collaborative relationship in which we plan strategies to deal with clearly defined problems, for example to recover from panic attacks, phobias or depression.
There has been strong scientific evidence that CBT is a very effective treatment approach in alleviating a variety of psychological symptoms including anxiety disorders and depression and that it has longer-lasting results than medications.
EMDR is a therapeutic approach which aims to reduce distress associated with stressful or traumatic events. It has been found to be very effective in the treatment of trauma. When a person experiences a traumatic event, their brain may not be able to process the information associated with this event like a normal memory. As a result, the information becomes stuck or ‘frozen’ on a neurological level. When this happens, a person may keep re-experiencing what occurred during a distressing event, such as what they saw, heard, felt or tasted. This can be very intense and unpleasant even long after the trauma.
EMDR enables the frozen information to be unblocked and processed like a normal memory, which leads to reduction or elimination of distress associated with the traumatic event. During the EMDR process, the right and left brain hemispheres are stimulated with eye movement, sounds or taps to help with the processing of information.
Although such an intervention may seem simple, EMDR is a comprehensive psychological treatment approach which uses protocols and procedures and is based on certain principles to obtain desirable results.
One of the basic differences between CBT and EMDR is that in CBT a person uses rational thinking and behaviour to change the way they feel, while in EMDR the change is achieved by stimulating the brain, without involving the rational brain.
A hypnotic state is a state of deep relaxation with focused attention and is thought to be an altered state of consciousness characterised by increased suggestibility.
A hypnotic state is a natural phenomenon, which occurs when the brain is in a quiet, receptive state, such as for example when daydreaming, reading a book, watching a movie or listening to music. People enter into a hypnotic state naturally when they become so engaged in an activity that they become oblivious to what’s going on around them.
Clinical hypnotherapy is a form of therapy which purposefully induces a hypnotic state to facilitate achieving therapeutic goals. Once a person has achieved a hypnotic state, the therapist uses many different therapeutic methods ranging from simple suggestions to more complex psychological approaches. It is important to remember that although hypnosis can be a very useful tool in overcoming simple problems, the treatment of more complex behavioural patterns, such as for example depression, eating disorders or panic disorders, can require more complex therapeutic approaches combined with psychological homework.
There are many misconceptions and myths about hypnosis and hypnotherapy, but the most important thing to remember is that all hypnosis is self-hypnosis and that nobody can ever be hypnotised against their will. Even during a hypnotic state, people still remain in complete control, and they can accept or refuse a given suggestion. Just as a person cannot be forced to do anything against their own will, neither can that person be made to relinquish their own judgements or moral codes.
Clinical hypnotherapy is used for therapeutic purposes only and is absolutely safe if used by a qualified clinical professional.
There is vast scientific evidence that hypnotic procedures are very beneficial in the treatment and management of a wide range of conditions and problems including anxiety, phobia, trauma, tension, stress, reduction of acute and chronic pain and alleviating the symptoms of a range of complaints, which fall under the heading of psychosomatic illness. These include headaches and migraines, asthma and irritable bowel syndrome.
There is also evidence that inclusion of hypnotic techniques in a weight reduction programme, in overcoming bad habits such as smoking or procrastination, improvement of personal performance and increasing confidence significantly enhances the outcome of treatment.
Clinical hypnotherapy significantly reduces time necessary for recovery and is probably one of the most pleasant therapeutic approaches.
Energy psychology is the name for a broad range of psychological treatments that utilise the human energy system.
EP is based on the belief that painful physical and emotional symptoms are the result of a disruption in the energy system. Correcting the disruption restores the body’s balance and natural ability to heal itself.
EP techniques can bring about almost immediate relief from distressing emotions and can be very effective in treating most anxiety disorders, as well as many of the most common emotional difficulties of everyday life.
According to psychological research EP has been found to be more effective than other psychological approaches in the treatment of anxiety disorders, including the treatment of physiological hyperarousal found in PTSD, and many of the most common emotional difficulties of everyday life, such as inappropriate anger, excessive feelings of guilt, shame, grief, jealousy, rejection and isolation.
There is also proof that combining EP with more conventional approaches such as CBT or EMDR provides much more rapid outcome than conventional approaches. In addition it has been shown to be effective in reduction of chronic pain.
In my practice I combine more conventional psychological treatment methods with EP approaches to provide greater flexibility and effectiveness in the treatment of various issues, especially with those clients who have not responded to conventional treatments.
