How does Hypnotherapy, CBT & NLP work together

Hypnotherapy, CBT & NLP are powerful therapies in themselves but used together they give you the chance to look at your challenge from lots of different angles, giving you the best chance to have the tools you need to become the person you want to be.

To understand how these therapies can work together, I think it is good to have a general understanding of them as individual therapies first. There are many descriptions for what Hypnotherapy, CBT & NLP are and some of them are very technical in depth. Rather than setting out a long technical explanation I am going to explain them in nice easy terms.

What is Hypnotherapy?

Hypnotherapy is a way of quieting the conscious mind so that you can talk to the subconscious mind. Sometimes even though consciously we want to do something if we don’t have the subconscious mind thinking the same thing then the outcome will always be the same even though consciously we want something different. By talking to someone’s subconscious you can help the internal thought process to be working towards what they want and not still on the old auto pilot. Allowing our subconscious to take over (on autopilot) is something that we do on a daily basis, like when you "zone out" for a while. There are lots of different ways to get a person into trance (a relaxed state of mind where you can speak to the subconscious), it depends on individual characters and expectations, but rest assured almost everyone can be put into a trance.

What is NLP?

NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), the fundamental dynamics between your mind, language (internal and external) and how the programing of them affects our body and behaviour.

Neuro – the neurological system regulates how our bodies function

Linguistic – language, the words we choose to use to communicate with others and ourselves

Programming – the models/links of the world we create (learned behaviour)

Once you understand the mental programming then you can use the power of words and imagery to help someone change their neurological path and therefore produce different behaviour.

What is CBT?

CBT (Cognitive behavioural Therapy) focuses on the ‘here and now’ to help you feel better. Through talking you challenge negative thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Instead of focussing on the causes of your distress or symptoms in the past, it looks for ways to improve your state of mind now.
With all of these therapies the client remains in control with the therapist helping the client to make the change they are looking to make. You will leave the session with the tools to continue the work started in the sessions and develop into the person you want to be.

Hopefully you now have an outline about these three therapies. As I said they work very well by themselves and often I end up using only one with a client as that is what they respond to best. The great thing about being able to use all three is that I can give my clients the best chance to achieve their goals because if one therapy doesn’t work so well for them then I can use another.

I tend to use a combination of all three therapies, using CBT to ask clients questions that challenge them to see a different way, NLP to help integrate the mind with their new thought pattern and Hypnotherapy to tie the three together and help make sure the subconscious is working in the same direction and not still on the old track.

To find out what kind of things can be treated with this powerful combination click here.

By Erika Keat

Erika offers Hypnotherapy, CBT & NLP at Waterloo Body Station on Mondays between 2.30pm - 7pm, please contact Erika for more information.   

© EKTherapies

Everyone Has Ups and Downs, it is What You Do With Them That Sets Us Apart

It is easy when we see successful people to think that they are just lucky, that they haven’t really had to work for it, that they don’t know the meaning of being poor or having to dig themselves out of a mental pit.

For a few people fortunes do just fall in their laps; since the creation of the National Lottery there are the lucky few who become millionaires overnight. I am sure even this wealth, although amazing, comes with big demons that if not confronted could mean the old ways are not far away.

For most of us though we get to where we are through hard work, sometimes hitting rock bottom, learning what we needed to learn and then building ourselves back up again. A great example of this is J. K. Rowling.

This is her story, I hope it inspires you and gives you hope that you can find happiness.

Before she became the world famous and wealthy author she is today, things were very different for Rowling. Separated from her husband, living in a rented flat in Edinburgh while looking after her young baby, Rowling was diagnosed with clinical depression. During this period she sat and wrote in cafes while living on social security; she even contemplated suicide. Yet at every turn, Rowling found inspiration. 

The death of her mother gave her a clear insight into loss, causing her to rewrite Harry Potter's experience as an orphan. Her experience of depression brought her the idea of the Dementors, soul-sucking creatures that feature in her books.

Even with what we now know is an amazing novel in her hands, seven years after graduating from university, Rowling saw herself as "the biggest failure I knew." She managed to learn from this feeling too. Rowling recalls: "Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy to finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one area where I truly belonged. I was set free... I was still alive... I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became a solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life."

Even with her novel completed, and getting ready to become a teacher, she still had her setbacks. Amazingly, "Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone" was rejected by 12 publishers. Then, the daughter of the chairman of Bloomsbury read the first chapter, found it utterly compelling and demanded to see the rest.

This was the start of the turnaround in Rowling's fortunes, and as they say the rest is history.

Sometimes in life we need to recognise when we are heading up the "wrong" path and help ourselves to learn what we need to learn before we embark on the "right" path. Hypnotherapy, CBT& NLP can help you to release negative emotions, let go of old beliefs, forgive yourself for what has been, and help you to walk on the "right"path. The "right" path will still have highs and lows on it but we are working with ourselves, our knowledge, our passions, and striving to achieve what we want to achieve, making life worth living.


By Erika Keat

Erika offers Hypnotherapy, CBT & NLP at Waterloo Body Station on Mondays between 2.30pm - 7pm, please contact Erika for more information.      

© EKTherapies 

Could Laughter be the Key to Happiness?

Laughter is infectious; we all know the amazing feeling of losing yourself in the energy of laughter. But could laughter be the key to happiness? People have started to harness this and create laughter workshops, where you go to laugh, even if it starts out as a forced laugh, the endorphins and benefits still affect your body and mood.

Research has shown the health benefits of laughter are far-reaching, studies have shown that laughter can help pain relief through the releasing of endorphins, increase the immune system, decrease stress, change the “negative” chemicals in the mind, ease conflict, lighten burdens, inspire hope, connect you to others and generally just make you feel better, more energetic and happier, bringing your body and mind back into balance.

“Your sense of humour is one of the most powerful tools you have to make certain that your daily mood and emotional state support good health.” Paul E. McGhee, Ph.D.

This may all seem a bit far-fetched, can laughing really help you to feel better ? We know the benefits of exercise and how that helps us to reduce stress hormones. It helps our bodies to feel more energetic, it clears our minds and allows us to have clear focus again. So can laughter do the same thing? If we build laughter into our day just as we do with exercise we can increase our happiness. Laughter is an incredibly strong medicine for mind and body – it is free, convenient and beneficial in so many ways.

So how do you get more laughter in your life?

We can find laughter in so many ways, maybe for you it is laughing at films or the TV, laughing with friends, comedy clubs, funny clips on line, joining a laughter workshop, the list is endless. Or if all else fails you could just fake it. Just smile and start to laugh – as with listening to a song and how it change your mood, so can laughter. Hypnotherapy, CBT & NLP can also help. This combination can help you to look at the world with a different perspective, to see the funny side in life. It is too easy to allow life to feel like a weight on our shoulders, but you can learn the tools to see life in a different way. To allow yourself the freedom to let go and just laugh and enjoy the world for what it is.

Try it now - smile, laugh or giggle and feel better about your day.

By Erika Keat

Erika offers Hypnotherapy, CBT & NLP at Waterloo Body Station on Mondays between 2.30pm - 7pm, please contact Erika for more information.  

Happy Valentine’s Day

Tomorrow is Valentine ’s Day and whilst for a lot of people it is a day to stop and tell their loved ones just how much they mean to them for many of us it can also be a time of sadness; a reminder that we don’t have that special someone in our lives.

Valentine’s Day, whilst it has its place, is a man-made holiday. We don’t need this one day to tell our loved ones how special they are, it should be part of our day or week to stop and tell them just how wonderful they are. Rather than seeing it as only a day for people to stop and shower their loved ones with gifts it can be the day that you just stop and say thank you for your life. Maybe you don’t have that special someone to go out for dinner with but I am sure that you have a lot of wonderful things in your life. Take this moment to stop and appreciate the wonderful world that you have created.

It is far too easy to focus on the small percentage of our lives that isn’t right. But it is far more beneficial and rewarding if you can learn to focus on the larger percentage that is right and see the remainder that isn’t quite there yet as an exciting challenge. We need these challenges in life to help us grow. Admittedly sometimes they can feel like they are all coming at once or that life “has it in for us”, but if you work with the positive and focus on the positive you will be surprised at just how much lighter life can feel.

Hypnotherapy, CBT & NLP can help you to learn the techniques to focus on the positive, to turn around the negative cogs and realise that we can put the energy where we want to and if we put it toward working with the positive we will feel so much happier even though nothing may have physically changed.

Whether you are sitting at a candle-lit dinner tomorrow or just enjoying your own company, have a wonderful day, stop and take in the world that you have created. Smile and allow the happiness of love for yourself and your life to flow.

By Erika Keat

Erika offers Hypnotherapy, CBT & NLP at Waterloo Body Station on Mondays between 2.30pm - 7pm, please contact Erika for more information. 

New Job, New You

It is that time of year when many of us get restless and we start to look around for our next job. Just as important as ensuring you have edited and polished your CV before applying for the job you’re after, is making sure you are full of confidence and energy and ready to sell yourself to prospective employers.

Many of us have mixed emotions when it comes to the idea of starting a new job. Even if it is something that we have been dreaming of or a career stepping stone that we know is the right one, it is perfectly natural to feel nervous or anxious about the process of applying for a job and being interviewed. We feel the excitement as we begin to imagine what it would be like to be in our new role, but we also feel fear as we begin to think about the possibility of rejection. We begin to consider whether or not we have what it takes to be successful. The fear of failure begins to creep in and we worry about not succeeding, so our confidence can get knocked before we have even started.

Hypnotherapy, CBT & NLP can help you to overcome any anxieties you have. It can help you with public speaking fears, confidence and anything else you feel you need to build on. You can learn how to walk into the interview room feeling calm and confident, ready to “sell” yourself to the company without being overly confident or arrogant. We all need to build on our skills, even if we are good at our current job, we need to learn how to adapt to a new company.

During a session of Hypnotherapy with CBT & NLP we can look at dealing with the weight of expectation you may be carrying and help you to challenge any negative beliefs, building on your strengths and understanding your weaknesses. We will then aim to turn any weaknesses into positives, putting you in a place to grow and develop from.

Even if the job you are going for is an internal promotion, you may still need help to combat old beliefs. We tend to feel that we need to know everything; to admit we have weaknesses can be seen as a negative but that’s not always the case. Often it is actually the opposite – the greatest things can be achieved if we let go of the fear of failure and accept that with a bit of help we can continue to grow.

By Erika Keat

Erika offers Hypnotherapy, CBT & NLP at Waterloo Body Station on Mondays between 2.30pm - 7pm, please contact Erika for more information.