Issues

Life can be challenging….

Sometimes life can be challenging. We can often find ourselves working in high-pressured environments - in the work place, universities or at home (and increasingly from home). We may experience our performance being measured constantly, e.g. for students through exams and coursework, or at work through performance targets, income generation, or our own perception of what we believe we ‘should’ be doing. These pressures can create enormous work/life challenges and overwhelming stress and anxiety. And they can exacerbate existing conditions or your response to life events such as bereavement, or maybe the discovery of your own sense of identity or sexuality. Getting the right treatment and building long-term resilience skills can make all the difference and ensure you enjoy your life - whether that be at university, at work, at home - and into the future.

I specialise in anxiety and stress - in all it’s guises and consequences - and especially in pressured environments like universities (higher education), the work place, and also (with an expert background in environmental policy) in eco-anxiety - a fear (or sadness/anger/grief) about the future related to the environment and climate change.

Cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy

Here at Imagination Therapy I can help you resolve the sort of personal issues that are all-too-common in all walks of life (in higher education, the workplace or at home), like anxiety, stress, low self-worth and perfectionism, whether you're a student or a member of staff, or anyone else. Cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy (CBH) is typically a relatively short-term treatment (such as 4-10 sessions), underpinned by extensive peer-reviewed scientific research, that seeks to give you the necessary tools and skills to help you to overcome problems and become more resilient in the future.  Skills training for long-term resilience is an integral part of CBH.

Cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy is fully evidence-based and integrated with recognised, tried and tested cognitive behavioural psycho-therapeutic techniques and models. Hypnotherapy draws on the power of your own imagination in helping you find the solutions to your problems. It fully integrates hypnosis  - focused attention on a dominant idea - with cognitive behavioural and mindfulness techniques. If you suffer from anxiety, stress or low self-esteem then you already know the power of your mind - your imagination - your thoughts and feelings and the power of your own (negative) story telling. CBH uses that power for positive change - to help you understand the relationship between your thoughts, feelings and behaviour and bring about real and lasting change. In this way all hypnotherapy is imagination therapy and I can help you harness your own resources to solve your problems, tailoring treatment specifically to you and your situation.

Skills training

Many of the CBH techniques I use in one-to-one therapy or in groups involve building psychological flexibility and long-term resilience skills for good mental health. They are central to helping resolve specific problems and the skills you practice and develop will enable you to bring about fundamental changes in the way you approach life now and in the future. Techniques include:

• Mindfulness (and attention training)

• Relaxation

• Self-hypnosis

• Assertiveness

• Problem-solving

• Habit reversal

These are truly transferable skills - for life.  Keep an eye out on the blog page for news about workshops, e.g. mindfulness/relaxation, eco-anxiety, and self-hypnosis half-day workshops. Periodically, subject to demand, I also run an online peer support group for PhD students/doctoral researchers - see my Eventbrite collection.