Joanna’s motivation to overcome her phobia was her children. Due to her fear of flying, her sons had not flown before but both were due to be going away independently over the summer and she wanted them to feel confident in flying – so she had to be too!!
Like most people who have this phobia, it not only makes the trip itself difficult, but will impact them for days and often weeks before the flight is due, and then also effect the holiday as the fear of flying rises again for the home leg.
Also, very similar to others, Joanna did not really understand where her fear had come from, her fears had just escalated over the years.
Phobias are typically very responsive to hypnotherapy and Joanna used the ‘deep dive’ process that I’ve developed over the years to effectively treat these acute fears. It is a 2.5-3 hour session where we use a range of very powerful techniques to change the mental association with the fear. Whilst intensive, it works!
Joanna was also given a personalised recording to listen to post the session that helped embed the work that we did and could be used to help reinstate a sense of calm at any point.
Joanna sent me photos from her flight out. She was listening to the recording, smiling and felt calm, as did her two sons. The younger of the two had expressed some concerns but by her staying calm, it really helped him too.
She can now relax when they go off on their own separate adventures over the summer and can also now plan her own next trips knowing that flights will never need to hold her back again.
In Joanne’s words, “I am amazed at how something I had struggled with for so long was dealt with so quickly. I really wish I had dealt with this sooner but am now looking forward to be able to plan holidays anywhere I choose to go in the future.”
Hypnotherapy is very effective at dealing with phobias of all types. Many people suffer needlessly due to embarrassment or believing they can never change. It needn’t be that way! For more information, please do get in touch.
Emma had had a fear of flying for years. The days before a flight would be affected by the increasing anxiety. She would study the weather forecast each day for the location and the destination airport and would work out how she could refuse to get on the plane if the forecast was not good.
She could never relax in the airport and during the flight itself, her husband’s hands would be squeezed to death!! And then the whole thing would start again on the days before the return flight, impacting on the fun and enjoyment of every holiday.
Phobias are very responsive to hypnotherapy and Emma used the ‘deep dive’ process that has been developed over the years to effectively treat these acute fears. It is a 2.5-3 hour session where we use a range of very powerful techniques to change the mental association with the fear – flying in Emma’s case.
Emma was also given a personalised recording to listen to post the session that helped reinforce the work that we did and could be used to help reinstate a sense of calm at any point. She continued to use some of the tools from that recording which worked well for her during the flight.
Emma’s text’s to me evidence her experience. Here are the messages received from her after her outbound journey and return journeys:
“I made the flight in one piece with Steve saying he had never ever known me so calm. I have to say it as an amazing thing not to be experiencing the churning stomach and need to not be totally sober. We even had a long delay on the tarmac and then a flight taking off before us who had to declare an emergency. Normally I’d have been in internal panic but not this time. Even the turbulence didn’t worry me; I actually finished my book!”
“…Even when towards the end of the flight it was announced we were entering thunderstorm activity, I didn’t go into panic mode at all and Steve’s circulation was intact. Not once did I fixate on the 35,000 ft between me and the ground. Honestly it’s been a revelation, I can’t believe the difference.”
Hypnotherapy is very effective at dealing with phobias of all types. Many people suffer needlessly due to embarrassment or believing they can never change. It needn’t be that way! For more information, please do get in touch.
Vlatko was experiencing high levels of anger that were affecting his relationship and causing him concerns regarding his employment as he was finding it harder and harder to control his outbursts. Along with the anger, he was also starting to feel a lot of physiological pain in his chest, feelings of nausea and bloating and regular headaches.
Vlatko had grown up with a very controlling father who often belittled him as a child. He also dictated what career he went in to preventing Vlatko from following his heart’s desire. His Mum tended to back his Dad up leaving Vlatko feeling very alone.
We had a total of 5 sessions over the space of 6 weeks.
In between each session Vlatko was experiencing improvements and each session moving him further forward towards his goal.
During our work together, Vlatko’s sleep improved significantly. Throughout the process he started to notice himself not reacting to situations that would previously have caused him to flare up. He found himself feeling happier and many of the physical symptoms had dramatically reduced.
His relationship improved and his partner commented, “I feel much more relaxed with him now, I dont feel like I have to ‘walk on egg-shells.”
A significant change for him was to then be able to talk about his father without feeling any negative emotions – talking from a place of calmness.
He was able to return to the gym and all the breathing discomfort, headaches and nausea disappeared.
Anger can be more common in men but women can experience high levels too. If anger is impacting on your life, and that of those you love, let’s chat.
Clare had a debilitating fear of spiders leading to her being unable to go into parts of her home, such as her conservatory, when alone in the house incase there was a spider in there.
Her motivation to gain support was not only the impact on her life, but an awareness of how her fears were starting to be picked up by one of her young sons.
Clare had not experienced hypnosis before but was willing to do anything to help resolve her problem.
Clare had just one session. There are a number of techniques that reduce phobic reactions and the one that was used with Clare was a visualisation based technique.
Whilst many phobias, such as fear of flying or heights, can have a controlled exposure to the risk – ie you can control when to fly or go up a skyscraper, the risk of seeing a spider, especially at Autumn time is faced daily. Therefore, this requires an approach that is easy to implement so it does not drain the mental resources.
Clare is a very visual person. The subconscious mind, where fear is managed from, is very playful and we used this playfulness to imagine any spiders she saw as having wellyboots on. This gave her a mental strategy to apply at the trigger of seeing a spider, rather than her mind defaulting to the fight or flight response. Her technique was to mentally boot up each of the 8 legs.
This technique supports the fact that the mind cannot tell the difference between reality and imagination and in Clare’s mind, seeing a spider with wellies on was not something that instilled fear.
Clare is still not a fan of spiders, however….. “Although I still don’t like them, seeing them with coloured welly’s on takes the fear away.”
This is a significant result in one session and enough for Clare to be happy knowing that any exposure to spiders is something she can deal with. She can now spring clean those corners of the house that in the past would have been avoided and garden without fear of spiders emerging from the shed – and her husband is happier not to have to do those jobs now too!!
For more information on techniques used for resolving phobias, please read on here
Jeremy had a fear of public speaking, largely focused around running large team meetings.
Like many, he had reservations about hypnotherapy. “I didn’t think it would work,” he said.
The first step in exploring working together is typically an informal chat with Caroline so that concerns such as these can be discussed. It helps people make an informed decision as to whether this form of therapy feels worth exploring more. Jeremy was based outside of the UK which also added another element to our work as it would all be done over zoom.
Jeremy was experiencing high levels of anxiety whenever a need to present was on the horizon. This had not been made any easier during the Covid pandemic and everything going online. His sleep was also being affected prior to doing any talks.
In the first session, clients have an experience of hypnosis so that they know how it feels before plunging in any deeper. Jeremy’s description of this experience was; “It feels deeply immersive and out-of-body at the same time. The body is in a deeply relaxed physical state while the mind is somewhere on a venn diagram between meditative sleep, alertness and deep introspection.”
During the 4 sessions we had together, we worked on uncovering the root to anxiety which went back to college days for him, and then developed some strategies to boost confidence when presenting.
The result in his own words: “I believe working with Caroline helped my mind re-categorise how it perceives public speaking. Now I have significantly less anxiety, more confidence and can perform better than before. 100% worth it.”
A fear of public speaking is often a source of anxiety but one that many overcome. However, if a fear of something starts to affect your sleep, your ability to eat or you feel that it is a level of anxiety disproportionate to the activity, then please do get in touch.
Rachael had had an accident at work leaving her in extreme back pain resulting in her losing her job. She had gone from living a busy life as a single Mum to being in constant pain, living off benefits and having a very restricted life. In her words, she had “no joy” in her life which had led to a suicide attempt.
Going back further into her life, there were other factors such as successive controlling and abusive relationships, various medical conditions, and a tendency to always putting herself and her needs secondary to everyone else’s.
Rachael was recommended to me by her partner, so we were able to get a swift start as her awareness of how I worked was already in place and after the first experience of hypnosis, she could feel a change in the levels of pain in her back. Her aim was to be able to throw away the crutches she was using.
After two sessions, she walked into the house without crutches – she was not quite ready to throw them just yet but was confident enough to walk short distances without them.
In total we had 4 sessions spread out over nearly 3 months. On our follow up call a month after her last session, she reported that she was now “able to walk upright without my crutches and am off my pain medication. When I am in pain, I can relax and use my mind to help control it.”
Whilst this was a great result, the increase in her self esteem was for me, more significant. “I am able to vocalise my thoughts. I have stopped being all things to everyone and am now my true self.”
“I now have the confidence and strength to look to go back to work and hopefully enjoy a job I really want to do.” (Rachael was waiting to hear if she has been accepted to train as a phlebotomist).
Working with Rachael helped her use her mind to not only heal her body but also to create a mental strength to create a life of her choice.
“I have no doubt that Caroline saved my life as I was in such a dark place.”
If you can relate to any elements of Rachael’s story, please get in touch
Maxine has a daughter who was struggling with social anxiety, panic attacks and was ‘of clinical concern to the professionals treating her.’ My work however was not with the teenager, but to support Maxine through the stress of being a parent to an unwell child and this was all provided through an online forum called teenstress101. In her own words. “I felt overwhelmed and did not understand what I was dealing with and how to help her.”
Teenstress101 is a closed facebook group for parents of teenagers where I provide tips and techniques on supporting teenage anxiety but also in helping support your own stresses that result from parenting.
She went on to say, “Honestly, what I found so comforting was that you, a professionally trained expert and mother of teenagers were willing to give your support to total strangers to genuinely help people who were struggling.
The support I got from you and your forum got me through some dark and difficult months/years. I also gained some very valuable words/advice regarding my oldest daughter who was in a troubled relationship and the victim of domestic abuse.
I was a little broken at times and you helped put me back together more than once. Whilst we did have some private message exchanges, sometimes it helped just reading other people’s posts and gave me comfort to know I was not alone.
I am very thankful and appreciate your wonderful kindness and I will remain a member of teenstress101.”
If you are a parent of a teenager (or nearly teen) then please feel free to come and join the forum and find out more about what support is offered.
Caroline has the unique ability to ‘know’ when someone is ready for change. Her natural perception, intelligence and strong kinesthetic awareness means Caroline ‘instinctively’ uses the ideal intervention, every time, to enable people to ‘see’ and deal with the underlying problem or root cause of a particular behaviour.
In my case Caroline noticed I exhibited a strong desire to please people, often at my own expense.
Caroline suggested a timeline style intervention and used a ‘hypnotherapy’ style questioning approach to help me discover where this belief of ‘HAVING to please others first’ had originated.
I remember clearly that ‘we’ went back through 2 or 3 generations and I discovered a ‘bizarre’ piece of information that, although made no logical sense at the time, gave me peace of mind and more importantly an understanding of the ‘root cause’.
Once Caroline had ‘bought’ me safely back ‘into the room’ I was amazed at ‘our’ discoveries. I seem to remember feeling peaceful and calm. The experience has now given my conscious and unconscious minds a chance to ‘rationalise’ and ‘move on’ thus ‘freeing’ me from the old strong desire to please! I am now ‘in my own power’ and my choice to please others is NEVER at my own expense.
The intervention, followed an emotional period following the breakup of a 13 year marriage in 2000.
Caroline’s ability to ‘maximise’ the opportunity for change was profound and I am deeply grateful to her on all levels.
If you have Caroline ‘in your life’ now, please know you are safe and ‘seen’; allow Caroline to heal the parts of you that are ready to change now.”
Lesley was facing an acute illness, potentially terminal.
These words have come directly from her.
“I have known Caroline in a professional capacity for 10 years. Caroline has a wonderful trait – integrity. In everything that she undertakes she approaches it with sincerity, professionalism, honesty, decency and truthfulness.
In 2012 I had a personal crisis related to my health. I was in deep despair and felt that I needed to help myself deal with my illness both physically and mentally.
I had had clinical hypnosis about 5 years ago – through someone I had researched on the internet – to give up chocolate. That worked and still does – so I believed that Caroline could help me to help myself.
I had around 6 sessions during 2012/13. My medical prognosis was not good and I was at an all time low mentally. Caroline helped me to manage this very difficult period in my life. Her skills enabled me to find the way forward and now all I can say that I have exceeded my medical prognosis and I am in good health, leading a full and active and very happy life.
I’m not one to gush – but I really could not have coped without Caroline’s input. She facilitated my medical outcome by working with me under hypnosis. I have an awful lot to thank her for and words just don’t seem to be enough.
If you are at a crossroads in your life – physically or mentally, you have the power within YOU to change. Caroline can help make that happen.”
Jude was referred to me by someone close to her and came with the request, “I want some of what she has found!” He friend had done some weight management work with me and at that point, lost over 3 stones.
Despite having seen the impact of hypnotherapy on a close friend’s weight loss, Jude, like many others, had concerns about it. “I was concerned that it wouldn’t work in that I wouldn’t be able to be hypnotised and that if it did, I wouldn’t get the results I wanted. I was also concerned about being out of control.”
This is a common feeling based on the TV and stage shows that use hypnosis but after talking her through the differences between stage entertainment and the therapeutic use of hypnosis she agreed to give it a go! “It was just like being really relaxed. You are still aware of everything and sometimes still wondering if you are actually hypnotised!”
Jude and I had a total of 7 sessions together. The results that she felt she had made included;
“Weight loss was slow but steady. I had no desire for or reliance on sweet, sugary foods and there was no more snacking between meals.”
Weight management through hypnotherapy is not all about abstaining from foods or constant calorie counting, it helps that part of your mind that controls eating to make better, more healthy decisions that also reflect what the body needs. However, there are often secondary benefits that come out of hypnotherapy:
“I now value the need to look after myself more and better protect myself from the slugs and arrows!” (Jude’s metaphor for the ‘stuff’ that life throws at us!)
Jude had a high convincer filter – a filter we all have but can be set at different levels and hers meant that she needed to see a good amount of evidence to trust that the changes were not just temporary.
Her final comment was: “The belief that it has changed my behaviour and that I will remain that way gets reinforced every day!”