Saturday 19 December 2009

Applications: weight loss

As the the emphasis on image and healthy living grows, so does the multi-million pound diet industry in the UK.

Hypnotherapy can be an excellent method to address and help you lose weight and rather than focussing on deprivation or will power, hypnotherapy can help create a change in your attitude to food and lifestyle choice. It can address the psychological factors that play a key part in weight gain such as lack of confidence, anxiety or depression – the factors that can cause people to comfort eat or develop unhealthy eating habits.

Hypnotherapy is a natural and safe method that is very successful in helping people lose weight and establish healthy eating patterns and healthy life-styles.

Applications: Stress

Would you like to be less stressed?
The rigours of life can be stressful and there are times when most of us feel stressed. Stress is becoming a major cause of illness and unhappiness within the UK whether these pressures come from the self, our peers or feeling unable to cope with the perceived demands put upon us. It is clear that Stress is taking it’s toll as surveys have shown that stress is a major contributory factor in up to 90% of all illnesses and 5 million people in the UK would describe themselves as being very or extremely stressed.

Both Hypnotherapy and Counselling can help to alleviate stress to begin to help you live Your Life as you’d like to be. Please read on -

Stress can be described as an imbalance between a persons demands and their ability to cope with those demands. The personal demands that cause this stress are ultimately imposed by the individual, therefore stress, to a large extent can be indirectly self imposed.

Some common triggers of stress can include lack of interest at work, time pressures, excessive working hours, relationship difficulties, insecurity of the future and money concerns. This can result in muscle tension, increases in heart rate, cold hands and feet as blood is diverted elsewhere and increases in breathing. All of this can be very mentally tiring which in turn can increase stress levels even more.

Tips to help Manage Stress
Being aware that you may be stressed can be the first step to Managing stress. Stress symptoms include mental, social, and physical manifestations. These include exhaustion, loss of appetite, headaches, emotional outbursts (anger/crying), sleeplessness and oversleeping. Increased use of alcohol, drugs, or other compulsive behaviour are often indications. Feelings of alarm, frustration, or apathy may accompany stress. You can also: -

Exercise regularly as your body can fight stress better when it is fit. Exercise also produces endorphins which can raise mood and gives general feelings of wellbeing.
Get enough rest and Sleep.
Eat healthy, well-balanced meals.
Learn and practice relaxation techniques – email me for a free relaxation guide.
Accept that there are events that you cannot control.
Keep a positive attitude.
Be assertive instead of aggressive. Assert your feelings, opinions, or beliefs instead of becoming angry, defensive, or passive.
Talk to others – seek out social support from friends, colleagues and family.
Don’t rely on artificial means such as alcohol or drugs to reduce stress.
Learn to manage your time more effectively.
Set realistic goals – try not to overload yourself or add unnecessary pressure.
Get yourself out of the situation, whether this be leaving or taking a break.
Prioritise and try not to worry about the small things.
Look around – See if there really is something you can change or control in the situation.
Do something for others as this will allow you to be less conscious of yourself and your own concerns.
Work off stress with physical activity such as gardening, housework or exercise.
Be kind to yourself.
Seek help if you’re feeling overwhelmed.
Prolonged stress can have long term physical damage as the body’s response to stress creates the fight or flight syndrome. This is where your body concentrates on it’s perceived emergency situation and prepares itself for battle or to run by secreting adrenaline into the blood stream, halting the digestive system, hindering growth and slowing down the immune system. This can have many effects including causing an increase in general illness levels as the immune system is frequently slowed and stomach ulcers as the digestive system is impeded to protect the stomach lining.

Reducing stress doesn’t mean reducing activity or not achieving your goals but rather being more effective, spending your time wisely and utilizing your inner resources.

Both Hypnotherapy and Counselling can help to alleviate stress to begin to help you live Your Life as you’d like to be.

Applications quit smoking


Have you decided that your time to stop smoking is NOW?

Is NOW the time for freedom?

Studies have found that Hypnotherapy is one of the most effective treatments to help you stop smoking. It is approximately 3 times more successful than Nicotine Replacement Therapy – i.e Patches or Gum.

For more information, you may want to go to the main Stop Smoking website at www.nonsmoker.org.uk

Stop Smoking therapy is a collaborative process (i.e. we work together where we are both committed to your positive outcome) and incorporates a structured range of techniques to allow you to change your perspectives on your current habit and change your behaviour towards it (i.e. to Stop). Further to this, the Hypnotherapy will also allow you to make the changes that you desire at a subconscious level.

Applications: Relationships

Relationships are often the most important areas in our lives. Our wellbeing can be determined by how we relate to others such as with family, friends, acquaintances or colleagues.

Our relationships with others do not always run as smoothly as we would like and when we have difficulties with those that matter to us, our thoughts can be dominated and our emotions and behaviour may change in ways that we may not necessarily want. Relationship difficulties can have far reaching consequences from affecting other areas of our lives as stress levels increase to having to make permanent changes such as seeking alternative living arrangements.

Personal Therapy can help you to explore and process these difficulties and make positive changes to make improvements. Often, these changes can be very small but have profound effects.

Applications: Phobias

A phobia is an intense feeling of fear which is triggered by a specific situation, animal or object which very often poses no actual threat to our physical safety. This fear, which is beyond conscious control, results you taking extreme action to avoid potential phobic situations which can affect your behaviour, thought patterns and lifestyle.

This avoidance only serves to reinforce the phobia, thus making it stronger and creating a more negative affect in your life.

Many phobias are established as a result of past experiences. Many of these are created in childhood through traumatic experiences although many phobias can develop in adulthood through learned behaviour from others, long periods of stress or by developing a fear of fear.

A phobic response creates the stress response known as fight or flight. This is when the body reacts to the stressing event or the fear and causes symptoms such as increased heartbeat, uneven breathing, increased adrenaline production, muscle tension, dizziness, faintness, physical freezing, butterfly stomach and sweating.

Treatment
Personel Therapy can help you take control of your fears and there are a number of ways we can tackle this. For example, a Cognitive Behavioural technique such as graded exposure (where you decide the small steps forward) can bring great benefits. Also Hypnotherapy can quickly allow the brain to learn new behaviours to replace the fear or feelings of panic with confidence, control and calmness. NLP techniques are also a very powerful to allow you to view the phobic situation in a way that you want to

By choosing Personal Empowerment, we can discuss what is happening for you to safely eradicate or reduce your phobia using the therapeutic tools that fit best for you.

Specific phobias
spiders
flies
frogs
thunder
heights
insects

Process Phobias
flying
dentists
driving
exams
interviews
tests

Social Phobia
social situations
interacting with others
eating out
being watched
agoraphobia – open areas

Agoraphobia
Often described as a fear of open spaces, it may be better defined as being fearful of public places such as crowded areas, cinemas, pubs, town centres and public transport. Agoraphobia can often be symptomatic of a broader problem that leads to a person feeling too frightened to leave the house and as such can lead to a very restricted life. A bad experience in one place can lead to an avoidance of that place and this experience can multiply to the point where leaving the house is a very traumatic thought. Many times these fears revolve around public embarrassment and fear of panicking, fainting or drawing attention to themselves in a negative way and is often thought of as a fear of fears.

Social Phobia
Social Phobia is a fear of situations where a person may feel they are being scrutinized by others or that they may act in way that is unacceptable or embarrassing. Often it is when a person feels extreme anxiety in social situations and this may result in great difficult in eating or drinking in the presence of others. This phobia can also cause anxiety when having to speak or perform in public – a level of nervousness is quite normal in these situations, however, severe anxiety and distress is not.

Often beginning in childhood or late adolescence, a central theme of social phobia is the fear that others are looking at them to judge and find out if they are stupid or incapable, which maybe the person’s own inaccurate view of themselves.

As well as the fears of social interaction, dating, going to parties, eating out etc, other symptoms of social phobia can be increased heartbeat, self defeating behaviour, blushing, inaccurate thoughts, stomach ache and the person’s ‘mind going blank’.

Applications: Job related nerves

Job related nerves can be caused by many issues such as lack of confidence, fear of authority figures or lack of esteem which can have a profound effect both consciously and unconsciously to affect your well-being and happiness and your potential and performance at work.

Personal Therapy can help in a number of ways such as by boosting your esteem and confidence, by allowing small changes that can bring profound effects or by exploring what may be holding your back or where nerves or insecurities may come from to allow you to be free of them.

Applications: Insomnia

The inability to sleep, the inability to maintain a regular sleep pattern or the waking up during the night affects the majority of people at some point in their life. Hypnotherapy can be very effective in this area as it can help in deeply relaxing the body which can be reinforced with the teaching of self-hypnosis. This can allow you to be able to gain a good nights sleep and develop healthy sleeping patterns.

Applications: Enhance personal performance

Are you?

Looking for that added ‘something’ to drive you forward
Wanting that motivation to hit those goals or
Looking to improve your performance.

In this competitive age, we all want to be at our best. By being in the right frame of mind and harnessing the power within the subconscious mind, you can continually improve on your existing performance and deliver better results time and time again.

Whether you simply want to gain a more confident perspective or focus on a specific goal or challenge, Personal therapy can aid where you’re going and teach you skills to continually move forward in the direction you want.

Applications: depression

Depression is a medical problem and as such any counselling and complimentary therapy are offered to compliment (not substitute) medical treatment and medical advice.

Where talking therapies can help you gain a knowledge of issues, hypnotherapy and NLP change the way you react and feel in certain circumstances. Additionally relaxation techniques can also be taught during hypnotherapy and with self-hypnosis that can give you great benefit.

Applications: coping with change

During our lives, we experience many changes whether they be changes that we seek to make or changes that are put upon us.

Life continually throws up change and often our happiness and well-being is not determined by what changes but by how well we cope with change.

As humans, we tend to resist change as keeping with the status quo is often easier. When change is unexpected, this can cause anxiety, distress and difficulties in coping with this change. Often, this is because we do not feel secure, comfortable or confident we can cope if things are different. We tend to like what we know – we live within our comfort zone and sometimes we prefer to remain within our comfort zone even if we’re aware that this may not be good for us. When we are familiar with situations and circumstances, we feel more comfortable and we know that we can survive in them. New situations do not offer this security, however, if nothing in our lives changed, our lives would seem very boring.

Personal therapy can help you in many ways. It can help you to to gain a perspective of what’s happening, equip you with the tools you need and to help you explore and assess what is going on before deciding on how to move forward. It can also help to allow you to appreciate your own processes and patterns to allow you to be more resilient to future changes that you experience.

Learning to cope with changes that life brings can be helped with Counselling to talk things through or with Hypnotherapy to communicate to that deeper part of you to encourage acceptance of situations and greater inner strength and resilience.

Applications: confidence

A lack of self confidence and self esteem can create restrictive, yet unnecessary behaviour patterns. By building confidence and esteem, you can feel more much positive and much stronger allowing you to fulfil your potential and desires.

A lack of confidence and esteem can be caused by a wide range of life experiences and can manifest itself in many different ways.

For example:

Fear of rejection
Fear of giving presentations
Fear of speaking in public
Stage fright
Fear of commitment
Social Phobia (see Phobias).

Personal therapy can help you become more confident, assertive and gain greater self esteem in many ways such as through mental rehearsal, exploring issues that maybe holding you back and ego-boosting techniques.

Anxiety or Panic Attacks

Anxiety or Panic Attacks can have a huge impact on a person’s life and the lives of those around them. Anxiety is a part of everyday life and is usually perfectly normal, however, when anxiety attacks are unexplained or frequent and affecting your life, it maybe time to get help.

The Office for National Statistics estimates that 4.7 per cent of adults experience generalised anxiety disorders not including depression, at any one time and that a further 9.2 per cent have mixed anxiety and depression with these ailments being more common in females than males.

Anxiety / Panic Attack Treatment
Anxiety and Panic Attacks can be treated in a number of ways and working together we’d use the techniques that you feel will fit best with you. For example, Hypnotherapy can be a fantastic tool to help you get ‘back on your feet’ and help you control the feelings.

A talk therapy such as Counselling can give an insight into the roots allowing you to be aware of what triggers are likely to affect you and how, and put the right coping mechanisms in place. . Using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (A counselling intervention) we can begin to see how your thought patterns are affecting you and seek to challenge these as well as allowing you to develop new coping strategies.

As an area that I have a strong personal interest in, I have undertaken specialist training in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, NLP and Hypnotherapy and use these techniques one there own or together depending on your requirements. Anxiety and panic is experienced by each individual in there own unique way, hence it’s very important that we work collaboratively to assist you in finding the solutions and strategies that fit for you.

Information about Anxiety and Panic
Anxiety can manifest itself as a simple, seemingly unexplainable feeling of nervousness through to a full-blown anxiety or panic attack. The symptoms of a panic or anxiety attack differs for each sufferer and can include palpitations, pins and needles, shortness of breath, sweating, a feeling of light-headedness, feeling hot or cold, feeling sick, fear of losing control, fainting, or feelings of unexplained but impending dread. They can have a disabling effect on your life where you avoid any place or situation that may create the fear of having an attack such as going shopping, eating in front of others or driving. As time continues the number of places and situations which are avoided grows which can result in the sufferer becoming increasingly agoraphobic.

Often the condition is a manifestation of deeper issues such as being triggered by a specific event or sets of events, a build up of stress or an inability to cope with changes – Fundamentally, your body is trying to tell you something but you may be unaware of what it is trying to say.

I am happy to offer information with no obligation to enable You to choose what is right for You as I appreciate that making the choice to undertake personal therapy is a courageous decision.

About Anxiety
Anxiety is a universal human emotion and is experienced in many situations from preparing for a speech to watching a sporting event. As a part of everyday life it can improve motivation and performance by increasing alertness and preparing the body for action.

For many though, the extent to which anxiety affects them can cause problems and can impede their lives from having a mild affect to severe cases where anxiety can be described as ruining their lives and that of others around them. Described as an overwhelming feeling of emotional or mental discomfort or unease, many people can cope with these symptoms as they last for a short time and occur infrequently, thus having no major affect on their lives. It only causes problems if it the anxiety becomes severe and persistent and affects a persons life by manifesting itself as General Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Panic Attacks, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Phobias, Eating Disorders, Substance abuse, Agoraphobia and Social Phobia – these are known as Anxiety Disorders.

Generally when anxiety is talked of, many speak of symptoms such as: -

Excessive worry and fear of situations and objects
Unrealistic fear of future situations (fear of fear)
Disturbed sleep or insomnia
Fatigue
Trembling, shakiness, constant fidgeting
Cold hands or feet as blood is distributed to the major organs
Pins and needles or tingling sensations
Upset stomach
Increased heart rate
Increased breathing rate
Feeling of jumpiness/jitteriness
Apprehension
Unrealistic worry or fear that something bad may happen to loved ones
Impatience and irritability
Lack of attention span; being easily distracted
General Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
This is where people worry, have fears or feel anxious about everyday affairs and activities such as being pre-occupied with the welfare of others, constantly worrying about financial matters or having an ongoing fear for the future. GAD is viewed as a long term disorder, whereby you can experience anxiety for months and years and where it becomes part of your accepted everyday life. You may go for long periods without being consumed with worry but may be anxious most of the time. This disorder is often linked with depression.

Common Symptoms: -

Constant feelings of worry and being anxious
Feeling of being on edge, shaky and wound up due to high tension levels.
There are numerous causes with each individual having different contributing circumstances and differing symptoms. Commonly though, it be resultant of ongoing periods of stress, inability to cope with life changes or from a single or series of previous traumatic experiences that may be strongly affecting the person.

Panic Attacks
The physical symptoms of panic attacks can be very severe, can vary from person to person and are often described as an unexpected overwhelming terror.

Commonly they can include: -

Hyperventilating
Tingling or Pins & needles
Shaking
Strong feelings of fear
Dizziness
Fainting
Unable to draw breath
Fear of losing control
Fear of being mad or mentally ill
Hot or cold flushes
Sweating
Panic attacks can vary in frequency and can be triggered by certain situations or circumstances. These situations and circumstances again will vary from person to person but are often associated in being around other people however, the actual triggers can actually be much deeper and may be resultant on long periods of extreme stress.

Situations that can bring on a panic attacks include: -

Eating out
Driving
Public speaking
The anticipation of going out
Going out
Being in the situation when the first panic attack was experienced
Each attack can potentially create a new situation to avoid. For example, suffering an attack in a supermarket can result in the avoidance of going to supermarkets. Having a panic attack whilst driving could spell the avoidance of driving and so on.

Theories about the cause of anxiety disorders
There is no single situation or circumstance that causes an anxiety disorder and often it can be resultant of the experiences and environment of the individual. There are many theories speculating possible causes and include it being hereditary, a chemical imbalance in the brain, mental, and emotional issues, personality issues, a stressful lifestyle, trauma and abuse or negative life experiences. There are a number of theories that delve deeper that are put forward by varying published psychologists.

The renowned psychologist Bowlby is best known for his attachment theory. This centres on how infants understand their social world and how the early parent-infant relationship has a major impact on the development of personality. He claimed there are great distinctions between secure and insecurely attached children with securely attached children developing a stronger sense of esteem and insecurely attached children developing beliefs that they are unloved and unwanted which lead to feelings of anger, mistrust and anxiety. Since Bowlby’s research in the 1970’s and 80’s where he proposed that ‘anxiety is the fundamental condition underlying insecure attachment’, studies have been carried out on individuals with anxiety disorders to see if there is a correlation in their attachment style. Two studies found social anxiety disorder to be positively correlated with individuals having an avoidant, anxious or insecure attachment style indicating that the ability of creating a secure attachment between parent and infant can influence the likelihood of the infant to mature to develop an anxiety disorder. The studies did state, however, that some people with social anxiety disorders did exhibit secure attachment styles.

Psychoanalytic Theory (Freudian) suggests that anxiety is rooted in unconscious conflicts experienced in childhood. This could be a conflict of sexual feelings toward their parent of the opposite sex (Oedipus Complex) or could be resultant of problems from an early traumatic experience. The symptoms can be alleviated by identifying and resolving this unconscious inner conflict.

Other theories suggest that anxiety is a learnt response to certain situations or objects and when faced with that stimulus they will look to avoid it. The theory suggests that this learnt response can also be unlearnt.

Chemical imbalances in the brain have also been researched and it is thought that all thoughts and feelings are complex electrochemical exchanges in the central nervous system. Studies indicate that feelings of anxiety and panic are resultant of certain biochemicals therefore the treatment of anxiety should be to correct these imbalances. This does not necessarily mean with the use of medication as biochemical changes can come about through emotional, psychological and behavioural changes.

How counselling can help

Counselling can help:

To explore issues or problems that maybe causing difficulties and assess options to make positive changes.
To gain a greater understanding of self
To gain better strategies in coping or dealing with issues.
Often, by having time and space to talk about concerns and issues in a caring and supportive environment, we can help you begin to gain the awareness and clarity needed to move forward.

Counselling can help you to gain a greater self awareness to enable you to make the right choices for you. By gaining an insight to piece together the parts of your complex uniqueness, it can allow you to see things clearer and allow you to assess your options. It also aims to help you find your own solutions and utilise resources and opportunities you may not realise are available to help you lead a more fulfilling life.

Whether you know it or not, you are the greatest expert on you as only you knows how you feel in any given situation.

Issues that Counselling can help with (to name a few) –

Stress
Anxiety
Lack of Confidence
Lack of Self esteem
Loss or Direction in life
Coping with Change
Coping with Life
Relationship Difficulties / Breakdowns
Job Related Issues
Depression
Identity
- Exploring Self – Often, by having time and space to talk about concerns and issues in a caring and supporting environment can help you begin to gain the awareness and clarity you need to move forward. As Humans, we are complex beings and often behave in automatic or unconscious ways that may have been embedded within us from a young age. By gaining an understanding of ourselves can help us to lead a more fulfilling life.

- Past Traumas – We have all been influenced by our upbringing and past. These may have affected us in ways that have created dysfunctional feelings and behaviours that we may or may not be aware of. By processing past traumas, it can help to let go of the negative feeling associated and allow these past traumas to really be in the past.

- Job Related Issues – Our jobs, career and vocation are very important parts of us as we spend a lot of our waking lives at work. They can provide us with security, satisfaction, well being, interpersonal relationships and much more. If we have problems or difficulties at work, this can create stress and spark other many other issues and concerns. Also, dis-satisfaction at work can leave a gap within us that we look to fill or it can lead to a sense of not knowing what we want.

Talk therapy can assist to gain perspectives, assess options, evaluate your values and gain awareness to find the direction that is right for you.

- Anxiety – read about anxiety here.

- Specific Problems – This can be addressed by exploring the problem or focusing on solutions. By exploring the problem, we can look to gain a greater understanding of what’s going on, assess the possible options and the implications of these problems and seek to manage changes in a way that fits for you. By focusing on solutions, we can begin to look at small changes that you could implement to improve your current situation (s). Long lasting change occurs by a number of small steps rather than a single giant leap (often these giant leaps which take us out of our comfort zone into unknown territory are short lived as we shift back to the comfort of what we know, even if we know it may not be the best for us).

- Coping with Change Living in our changing world, we often need to adapt and it can sometimes be hard to cope with changes that we look to make or to cope with changes that are put on us and therefore have to make. Counselling can assist here to allow you to gain the clarity and find your own way forward whether that be making changes, gaining the strength to have greater control or making better use your resources.

What is Hypnotherapy?

Hypnotherapy works by allowing communication with your subconscious mind
By offering suggestions and alternative behaviours to this part of you and provided they fit with you (i.e. they do not disagree with your personal beliefs and you want to make the changes) these changes can take place very rapidly.

Hypnotherapy is about harnessing the power within your own mind to create the positive changes you desire.

“The Power to Move the World is in the Subconscious Mind” (William James)

Our mind works on 2 levels – consciously and subconsciously. We make decisions, think and act with our conscious mind. Our subconscious mind controls our habits, emotions and instincts and ultimately our behaviour.

It is for this reason that Hypnotherapy is one of the most effective ways to Stop smoking and invoke other positive changes in your life. See below…

Hypnotherapy can help with a multitude of difficulties and can help you to live your life the way you want to such as -

Anxiety
Gaining Confidence
Moving Forward in Life
Being Less Stressed
Coping with Change
Coping with Life
Phobias
Panic Attacks
Insomnia
Weight Loss
Performance Enhancement
High Blood Pressure
Please go to the Applications page for more informationAdditionally, many people use Hypnotherapy to take time out for themselves – time to truly relax and give yourself that mental rest from the world – In our busy lives, how often do we take time out to relax and reflect on what we want to do.

Why is Hypnotherapy so Effective?
The power of the human mind should not be under-estimated. It is this power that can create our problems in the first place – it is this same power which is utilised by hypnosis to work for us rather than against us. The subconscious mind is a very real part of us and anything that the brain is doing right now without consulting you is being done subconsciously. For example, your subconscious adjusts your blood pressure and makes little changes to your body temperature all day long. These physical things are done autonomously but it also has a considerable say over our feelings, habits and emotions. Like a computer, the subconscious mind decides the degree of fear we may feel when confronted like when seeing a spider, our reaction is influenced by the input of your past experiences. If you are a smoker, it’s your subconscious mind that decides to make you crave nicotine regardless of what you (’the conscious mind’) may think about smoking.

Unfortunately the conscious mind normally has little control over this deeper part of the mind. This is an essential survival function rather than nature’s flaw as it intervenes in ways to stop us consciously controlling our heart beating or appetite for example. As far as your inner subconscious mind is concerned, it sees that all of our anxieties, cravings or habits are in our best interests. When it gets things wrong, it is unaware that this is the case and like a real computer it cannot reason things out – it is programmed in a certain way. This is where hypnotherapy can help as it is the most direct way of communicating with and ‘re-programming’ the inner (subconscious) mind.

What is Hypnosis?

A hypnotic state is created when the therapist guides the client to a deeply relaxed level which can be described as being half awake and half asleep and is very similar to that feeling of being miles away that you may experience from time to time.
For example, have you ever been engrossed in a book and then realised you couldn’t remember reading the last few pages or have you ever been driving and arrived at your destination and wondered how you got there?. The client remains in control of their thoughts and behaviour at all times with you being the ‘Captain’ and the therapist being the ‘Navigator’.

This state of deep mental relaxation is very pleasant and your mind will remain very clear throughout, however deeply you go. There is no question of being controlled or manipulated against your will; you remain in control at all times. Once the deep state of hypnotic relaxation has been reached, the subconscious mind can then absorb information, suggestion and other content which can bring about the therapeutic changes.

It is the mind that can create dysfunctional thoughts or behaviour patterns and the power of mind should never be under-estimated. By harnessing this power in the right way, such as with use of hypnotherapy, dysfunctional behaviours and thought patterns can be eradicated or alleviated.

What is NLP?

NLP stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming and explores the relationship between how we think (neuro), how we communicate verbally and non-verbally (linguistic) and how these are programmed to create emotions and behaviour.
By understanding how our mind is programmed to certain situations, we can use techniques to make changes. For example, irrational fears can come about due to many reasons such as having a traumatic event when we were young (e.g., a dog biting us creating a fear of dogs), learnt behaviour (e.g. seeing our mother being scared of rats teaches us to fear them) or behaviour instilled in us from society and further reinforcement of that (e.g. we see many people being scared of spiders and this can be positively reinforced when we get the positive attention from someone rescuing us). The behaviours that are created from the stimulus (seeing a spider/rat etc) are resultant of how we have programmed this in our mind. If we can alter this programme, we can alter the unwanted behaviour.

Taking the example of a fear of spiders, the person will often picture the spider being particularly large and very close to them where someone who is not concerned about spiders will have a representation of a small creature that doesn’t do anyone any harm and is insignificant to them (far away and small). In NLP we would ask the question “if someone can not be concerned about spiders to the extent they are not significant then why can’t the other person be the same?” So we would use a technique with the phobic person so that when they think of a spider they represent it to themselves in a similar way to the person who is not concerned about the little creatures i.e. at a reasonable distance and a proportionate size. Thus we have modelled the phobic person’s behaviour on the person who is not concerned about spiders.

NLP therefore, can remove self imposed limits as it gives individuals choice; choice to choose their behaviours, emotional states and physical states of well-being by understanding how the mind works.