Tag: <span>EFT</span>

Anxiety • • • • • • • By Brad Mace 0 Comments

Help For Hoarders

Help for Hoarders

living

This week I attended the CCVS Community Marketplace at the Firstsite venue in Colchester. I was here working alongside  a community interest company ‘Your Living room’ who have started using my therapy services this last year for their unique person centred approach to decluttering for  their clients that are affected by a hoarding disorder which is impairing their quality of life. Their vision is to make a home as functional, comfortable and organised as possible, according to the preferences and personality of the individual client, whilst improving their quality of life and maintaining their dignity.

Their fully trained staff work closely and empathetically with the client’s family, social landlords, support groups and the diverse professional Essex network. They look to ensure that a realistic support plan is maintained for the client, beyond the decluttering process.

Their clients ‘Care and Support Plan’ aims to ensure that they are able to return to living, in a safe, manageable and agreeable existence, by encouraging them to be involved in the decision making process throughout and help them re-establish their independence.

The care act (2014) states that self neglect, a form of abuse now encompasses hoarding as a safeguard concern. Your living room does some great work in that not only do they help with the decluttering  process but they offer  emotional support throughout and after. That’s where my therapy services are often used. I could explain it as that where they work with decluttering in the home I work with the decluttering of the mind.

For the most part to begin with I use some cognitive behavioural therapy to identify a hoarders regularly occurring cognitive distortions which have created the psychological distress leading them to suffer from depression/anxiety leading them to hoard. These are what would trigger automatic subconscious thoughts influencing their actions creating a subconscious fear. Normally these would have been formed around their early years. By recognising these emotions and and the thought pattern attached to it we can use therapy to reframe those negative thought patterns and also clear repressed negative emotions. Often with hoarders this can be loss which makes sense that in their minds they need to hold onto everything feeding their fear of ‘losing’. This is not always the loss of a loved one, but, as in one case that I worked with, can also be the loss of material things or having things stolen from them. Off course, as always in therapy, we cannot presume that the originating problem is always going to be loss either.

Normally after doing reframing work using congnitive behavioural therapy I would then be looking at using Emotional Freedom Technique. What I love about this form of therapy is not only the work that we can do one to one but also that it is a fantastic self-help tool that I can teach the client so that they still have something to use when we are no longer there to support them. EFT or ‘tapping’ as it is often referred to can be described as emotional acupuncture without the needles. It is a way of tuning into a negative emotion that we feel about an event and decreasing the intensity of that negative emotion. When I first became involved in EFT it was a difficult concept for my mind to grasp because as a hypnotherapist I was always so used to working with positive suggestion that to focus on the negative was quite an alien idea to me. When I started using the process in the hypnotherapy consulting room in Essex though I found that I was not only getting quick but also lasting change with clients. I have to say that I also have used it on myself for many things including pain relief with fantastic results.

Not only is it a good tool for the hoarder because they will be suffering from a lot of anxiety about letting go of some of their things or they could be suffering from depression which EFT can also take a load of their shoulders. It is also a good way of back tracking through feelings to get to the root cause of what may have caused their symptoms. If this can be done then it is possible to get everlasting change which could make such a difference to their lives.

Working alongside your living room is an absolute pleasure because I know that I am working with good professional people who have a genuine compassion and empathy with their clients.

Your living room also have a sister company viventium which they use for training. They offer hoarding awareness training in which I also go along and talk about therapy for hoarders. I am also hoping to work with them in the future with some training packages that I am putting together.

 

 

 

Uncategorized • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • By Brad Mace 0 Comments

Hypnotherapy and Addiction

Hypnotherapy and addiction

Image saying addiction there is a way out

This week I am talking about addiction and how hypnotherapy can help. The word addiction comes from the latin word addiction which mean a ‘giving over, surrender to.’ The dictionary would describe the noun for the word addiction as ‘the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.’ Some scientists  believe that some of us have naturally addictive personalities which could be a make up of our genetics. It may be harder for people with certain genes to quit once they start. Or they may experience more severe withdrawal symptoms if they try to quit.

Habits are not addictions, but bad habits share traits of addictive behaviors and bad habits can become addictions. Things like sex-addiction and gambling can have a huge control over peoples lives. And there is the key word ‘control’. If something has such a control over our lives there is nothing more empowering than taking that control back.

Cocaine addiction seems to be becoming more common and I have noticed quite a dramatic rise in clients with cocaine addiction since I first started working as a therapist fifteen years ago. Smoking has, of course, always been a popular one for addicts and also alcohol. This is also where we cross into a grey area with the difference between addiction and habit. I see smoking as more of a habit which is why we can use some psychotherapy and suggestion to break the habit rather than having to get to a root cause of the problem. All that is needed for this is one 2-hour quit-smoking session and that session has a high success rate. If, on the rare occasion, this is not successful then I would look into some analysis to see if there is an emotion being fed.

 

Factors that make it harder to become addicted also may be genetic. For example, someone may feel sick from a drug that makes other people feel good. But someone’s genetic makeup will never doom them to inevitably become an addict. Remember, environment makes up a large part of addiction risk. This is where I believe that hypno-analysis is very important to get to the root cause of what may be causing the addiction or indeed root causes as this is often more than one factor. Hypno-analysis is a tool used in hypnotherapy to discharge any negative emotion from the subconscious that may be causing symptoms. We refer to these trapped negative emotions as ‘repressions’. During our former years from when we are born to when we mature, this could be 16,17,18, we are all different, if something happens to us that we cannot emotionally deal with then that emotion gets repressed into our subconscious and it can sit there causing us to do things that are out of our control. In my experience these memories are normally remembered consciously but when hypnotising a client and suggesting to the subconscious that it release anything that may still be bothering it what the client is not normally aware of is how much emotion is still attached to that memory. It is that very emotion which has been causing the symptom wether it be anxiety, bad habits, addiction or fears. Because our subconscious always overrides our conscious that is why we feel we don’t have control over our addiction. It’s a bit like the smoker who has a cigarette  lit in his/her hand before they have even consciously thought about lighting a cigarette. This is why hypnotherapy is effective for quit-smoking because it does some re-programming in the subconscious stopping the client thinking about smoking all the time. This is where suggestion works comes into play. So where hypno-analysis uses regression to let go of past trauma suggestion is used to re-frame negative thoughts in our subconscious to help us overcome our symptom. Therefore I would normally use a combination of hypno-analysis and suggestion when helping a client overcome an addiction using hypnotherapy.

Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) also known as tapping can also be used alongside hypnotherapy as a tool to ‘tap away’ our negative emotions that may be related to a particular habit or addiction. This is a great tool to give a client to take away with them to use should they get any unwanted urges towards their particular habit or addiction. Using this tool they can bring down the strength of the particular emotion that could be driving their addiction or habit. It’s another great way for the client to take control back. Please see my Emotional Freedom Technique Page and video for further information.

No one should be kept from living the life of their dreams because of an addiction or a bad habit.

 

Motivation • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • By Brad Mace 0 Comments

Motivation

Hello again everyone and welcome to my third blog. This week I have decided to talk about motivation.  Funnily enough I had to motivate myself to write this blog! At the end of the last blog you will remember me putting that I would write about motivation in the next blog. Well I am not sure where that came from. It just came into my mind, probably because, yes, it is an important part of a hypnotherapists work. When I really thought about it though I wondered how I could possibly condense that down into about a thousand words for a blog. After all there is so much to be said about motivation. Then I got a cold. It is very rare for me to not feel well. I became de-motivated! Sometimes though our bodies have ways of telling us that we have to slow down and I believe this is what happened. So, between clients, I recharged and re-motivated myself.

What is motivation?  Motivation is defined as the process that initiates, guides, and maintains goal-oriented behaviours. So, motivation can be self-orientated and it can also be used to motivate others. The Cambridge English dictionary describes the nouns of motivation as both enthusiasm and reason. For example ‘there seems to be a lack of motivation among the employees’, ‘that student lacks motivation’ (enthusiasm) or what was the motivation for the attack and’ the motivation behind the decision is the desire to improve the service to our customers’ (reason).

There are two ways motivation works in hypnotherapy. First I will talk about the definition of reason. This would be what I, as a hypnotherapist, would be looking for during  hypno-analysis.  Hypno-analysis is the process of hypnotising a client and guiding them back to their former years to find out any emotional baggage that their subconscious may be holding onto. By doing this we can find out what  colours the individuals thoughts and behaviours and makes that person act in a certain way. For example, if a client was seeing me for weight loss and we regressed to a time in childhood where that particular person had been told off for not eating all their meal then their protective subconscious may have held onto negative emotion related to this that then caused that individual to always finish a meal even if they felt full and to overeat. It would be a learnt thought process that eating everything was good. By releasing this as an adult the adult mind realises that actually this is not quite true and that person can move forward more healthily. Suggestion would also be used here to reinforce healthy eating and only eat as much as is needed.

So many things happen in our former years that can affect our motivation. If there is a lot of trauma this can lead to depression which has a huge effect on our motivation. Anyone that has suffered from depression realises that it can be hard to even motivate yourself out of bed in the morning. If somebody was constantly told that they were useless, that they would never amount to anything then they may become de-motivated. So there are reasons behind each of ours very ways of being. What motivates or de- motivates one person will not necessarily be the same as another. Once we clear what has de-motivated an individual we can move onto motivating them in the right direction which leads me onto the second definition of ‘enthusiasm’.  So where a hypnotherapist has used hypno-analysis to find the reason for demotivation he/she can then use suggestion therapy to motivate and enthuse the client. Some clients will get positive results just from some suggestion work. For example I have had marathon runners beat their best time by having some suggestion work to help with motivation. If a person is generally de-motivated in life though we would have to start looking at the core reason for this. A person may come to me for a quit-smoking session. This is a one off two hour session using psychotherapy in the first hour and then an hour of hypnosis using suggestion therapy to quit the habit. If anyone still smokes after this then I offer a free top up session. It is very rare that anyone needs to return for this. However if they do and then after that the habit is still there then it indicates a much deeper rooted reason for self-destruction that would have to be investigated with analysis should the client wish to go down that route.

Some of us are better at self-motivation than others and some of us are better at motivating others. That doesn’t always necessarily mean that they are as good at motivating themselves. All of this comes down to life experience.

So, have a think. What motivates you? Also, what de-motivates you? If we can face up to some of our demons that de-motivate then it makes it much easier to motivate ourselves. Willpower has a great effect on our motivation but what makes some people have stronger willpower than others? Again it’s very much down to life’s experiences. “All you need is will power” is part of the new years resolution language. Many hypnotherapists find that they get their busiest periods towards the end of January when people are breaking their new years resolutions by not being able to break a bad habit by willpower alone. Motivation hypnotherapy is a great strengthener to a clients will power.

Of course there are many other factors that can de-motivate us. Illness, for example. As I mentioned earlier I became de-motivated when I got a cold. Don’t beat yourself up if at times you are not as motivated as others. There is really only a problem if you are never motivated to do anything.

It’s not only hypnotherapy that can help with motivation but also EFT. Finding your blocks to success and then tapping away those blocks! Look at my EFT page for more information.

Alcohol or narcotics abuse will definitely demotivate you. Don’t fall into the trap that drugs will give you a buzz and energy. They can end up taking control of your life and motivation is about being in control.

Sometimes just having a goal is enough to motivate us. I know, personally, if I have a few extra pounds on and I have a holiday booked those few extra pounds are going to be gone by the time I get on that beach!!!

So think about what could motivate you towards your goal and if there is no goal there find one!

In The Beginning Pt 2 • • • By Brad Mace 0 Comments

Everything happens for a reason

Hello again. I hope you all enjoyed reading the first part of my Hypnotherapy blog last week. Following on from that, I’d just like to talk a bit about things happening for a reason. I believe that everything happens for a reason and that we can learn so much from all of our experiences. Both the  good and bad.

So, the question that I left you with at the end of my last blog was “Did I ever look back and realise that my accident happened for a reason? Was I ever grateful for the experience?  In all honesty I can say that the answer is YES! It was so hard to see at the time and for maybe many years after but hindsight is a great thing. I will give you the reasons why. To start with I was not really doing a career that I was suited to. I went straight from school up to the city to work purely for financial reasons. Money was never a great driver for me but I needed to earn and I suppose I was kind of steered in this direction by my  family. I worked in the financial markets and Maths has never been my Forte!! In fact I have quite an aversion to anything to do with numbers!  But I did enjoy the social side of the job and I liked the excitement of being in the city. I had many laughs there and met some great people. I think, though, I always knew in the back of my mind that I wasn’t doing what I should be doing. I also didn’t know what it was that I should be doing so I just ploughed through and got on with the job. This was causing me some stress though. Much of the time I knew my colleagues were finding it more naturally easy to do the job than I was. Because of that though I was working harder and I believe I did have a good reputation at work. So even though I was a bit like a fish out of water I got on with the job to the best of my ability. Its only now that I look back that I feel that if I hadn’t have had my accident I probably would have just muddled through and stayed in the security of the job. I probably would have aged a lot quicker as the job was very stressful. Many of my colleagues have had to come away from that work now.  As I now know through my work as a hypnotherapist stress causes disease. If I had stayed in a job that I felt uncomfortable in (not at ease or at Dis-ease) I could have very well made myself ill. Stress can lead to illness including cancer and have all sorts of other negative effects on the body.

If I had not had my accident I probably wouldn’t have had a career change so I wouldn’t have been led into my work as a hypnotherapist. It wasn’t til years later that I realised that I had used hypnosis naturally in my recovery and that I had also used hypnosis as I child to help me through childhood trauma without even realising it. I shall talk about that further in a later blog.

As a result of my accident I also suffered PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) and I believe that I now do some very good work using hypnotherapy and EFT (tapping) with clients suffering from PTSD. This is something that I wouldn’t have insight into or any empathy with without that experience. I also suffer a very mild tourettes symptom as a result of my head injury and although I have coping mechanisms to deal with this (most wouldn’t even realise that I suffer) it has also given me great insight into tics and how to help others.

Another important lesson that my accident taught me was to be grateful for everything that I do have. I haven’t taken life far-granted ever since and I know that I did before. I am grateful for everyday that I wake up healthy and able to function normally. I thank the universe for everything that I have. I am so grateful for every one of my lifes experiences and where they have brought me today. I do some work in motivation with groups and also some tutoring in employability. Many of these people just have a lack of confidence due to experiences in their youth, either at home or at school. Being told they are stupid or put down in other ways. I don’t believe that any one of us is stupid. We just all use different parts of our minds. As I mentioned earlier I am not very good with figures but I do know that I have emotional intelligence. This is something that I can use in my practice and in my tutoring. I teach that we all have skills and do some exercises to help learners to find out where their skills lie so they can then find out in what area to develop. This alone helps with their confidence.

So, in summary, I am grateful for my accident and all of my life experiences which have led me to where I am today. Anyway that’s enough blogging about me for now. In my next blog next week I will talk about Motivation.

Have a fantastic week ahead everyone and remember, whatever challenges life throws at you, there will be a reason for it. ;-).

 

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