Cognitive Hypnotherapy, Counselling & Life Coaching

It seems hypnosis has been nearly everywhere over the past few centuries: onstage with entertainers swinging fat, gold watches; on couches with reclining psychoanalysis patients; in movies, books, and even children's cartoons. But the one gig hypnosis couldn't get was the scientific laboratory.

Until now.

The long-controversial practice of inducing a trancelike state through suggestion is getting a modern makeover by scientists armed with the latest neuroimaging tools and techniques. These researchers are beginning to offer evidence that, neurologically at least, hypnosis is entirely real.

"It makes sense that we are using modern tools of neuroscience research to understand what is a fascinating phenomenon," said David Spiegel, a psychiatrist at Stanford University. "It's good for hypnosis, and it's good for neuroscience."

Read the full article - (Seed Magazine - 20th October 2006)

According to the 'Fear of Flying' programme broadcast tonight on Channel 4, as many as one person in five of us has some degree of phobic reaction to flying - that's 20% of the population!

High profile disasters and terrorist atrocities, such as 9/11, only serve to heighten our fears. According to research reported in New Scientist this week, television distorts our perception of reality, making us more prone to misjudging the actual risks.

Known as the "availability heuristic", first identified in the 1970s by psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, people are more likely to pay attention to the vividness and emotional impact of past events than on the probability of them happening again. In other words, people tend to rate their chances of dying in a plane crash higher after watching a news item about such an event.

As Hypnotist Lawrence Leyton shows in the Channel 4 'Fear of Flying' programme, it is possible to erase the negative thoughts and feelings of terror with positive feelings, no matter the source of the fear.

At North Kent Hypnotherapy, we use all the underlying techniques shown in the programme (as well as others) to help clients overcome their fears and phobias. Unlike the programme, however, we let clients test themselves in their own time and in their own way (as we don't have to make the experience interesting watching for television).

So if you are one of the many people who suffer from fear of flying, why not give us a call to see how we can help you. Or if you are out of our area, why not select a competent and ethical therapist based nearer home by visiting the Quest Institute or the National Council for Hypnotherapy.

An article in the New York Times highlights recent brain studies which indicate that when people are acting under hypnotic suggestions, their brains show profound changes in how they process information. The suggestions, researchers report, literally change what people see, hear, feel and believe to be true.

(New York Times - 22nd November 2005)

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) a team of neuroscientists at the University of Pittsburgh have seen hypnosis actually working on the brain. In a study to be published this year, a group of patients with the painful rheumatic condition fibromyalgia were hypnotised to imagine a dial controlling their pain levels and the brain activity monitored by the scan.
(The Times - 12th September 2005)

Researchers found that volunteers under hypnosis experienced significant pain reduction in response to painful heat. They also had a distinctly different pattern of brain activity compared to when they were not hypnotized and experienced the painful heat. The changes in brain activity suggest that hypnosis somehow blocks the pain signal from getting to the parts of the brain that perceive pain.
(University of Iowa - 14th March 2005)

Hypnosis is more than just a party trick, it measurably changes how the brain works, says a UK researcher.
(New Scientist - 10th September 2004)