While it would be easy to just write a how-to guide about Zoom hypnotherapy, this article delves a little deeper. If you’re in a position of not knowing much about hypnotherapy you will discover;
- What is Zoom hypnotherapy?
- How does Zoom hypnotherapy work in practice?
- How is hypnotherapy online beneficial?
- What are hypnosis and hypnotherapy?
- Is Zoom hypnosis safe?
- What are some of the conditions that can be treated using hypnotherapy online?
What is Zoom hypnotherapy?
Quite simply Zoom hypnotherapy is the process of delivering virtual hypnotherapy sessions using the online communication platform Zoom. Virtual hypnotherapy simply means that the hypnotherapy session takes place online instead of in a therapy room. Zoom hypnotherapy, virtual hypnotherapy, remote hypnotherapy, Zoom hypnosis, or online hypnotherapy all essentially mean the same thing. All are ways for a hypnotherapist to work online with a client who is able to stay at home to take part in an online session.
How does hypnotherapy online work in Practice?
The actual hypnotherapy sessions will follow the same format as if we were meeting face to face. The only difference is that all our communication is done online. This makes online therapy possible from anywhere in the world. Your online hypnotherapy sessions will take the same structure as they would if they were taking place in a therapy room.
All parts of the hypnotherapy process can take place via Zoom, from the initial consultation to the therapy session itself.
Do I need to be good with technology to use hypnotherapy online?
Thankfully not. You will be sent an invitation via email stating the time and date of our session together. You will then only need to click on the link in the email to connect to the session.
I will then invite you into your hypnosis session. It really is that simple.
Where can the sessions take place?
Hypnotherapy via Zoom can take place from anywhere there is a stable internet connection. If you are away from your house due to work or leisure commitments it really doesn’t matter. If you have a device connected to the internet you still receive the benefits from your hypnotherapy sessions.
Is there a best position to be in?
The best position for you to be in is the one where you feel the most relaxed and feel comfortable. You might have a favourite armchair or sofa, or you may prefer for you to be on your bed.
As long as you are able to relax then any of these are great. You might worry about falling asleep during your hypnotherapy session. In reality, this very rarely happens and if it does you’re in the safe, familiar surroundings of your home. You can’t get stuck in trance, you just drift off into sleep.
Is Zoom hypnotherapy safe?
Zoom hypnotherapy is extremely safe. As we don’t come into face-to-face contact there is no risk of transference of any type of virus.
Are there any benefits of using hypnotherapy online?
There are many reasons why people prefer using hypnotherapy via Zoom to the more traditional face-to-face format. These include:
As there is no need to travel to your session it makes better use of time. Because of this, it can make treatment much more convenient. It makes it easier to fit a therapy session into a busy day as only an hour needs to be spared. There is no need to add any travel time to either end.
During the last part of our session, you will be guided into a relaxed state. It is during this state that your unconscious mind becomes receptive to beneficial suggestions. One of the major benefits of being in a familiar environment is that you have the potential to enter this trance state more quickly.
Added benefits to virtual hypnotherapy
Many people are quite self-conscious about being watched when they have their eyes closed. If you are on a therapy couch it is possible that you might feel quite vulnerable. You are able to turn the screen away from you when using Zoom hypnotherapy.
There is no need for me to see you. The only need is for you to be able to relax while listening to the relaxing music and my voice.
Many people find driving to new locations and finding parking spaces quite stressful. As the therapy session will usually take place from your home this issue is immediately resolved. As many of my clients are seeking help with symptoms related to anxiety, it makes no sense to add to their worries. Additionally, if you are seeking help for social anxiety or agoraphobia then you don’t need to leave your house.
Offering hypnotherapy online means that I am able to provide my services to both national and international clients. This gives many clients the opportunity to benefit from my services. They would never have been able to if face-to-face therapy was the only option available.
So wherever you are reading this article from we can work together. I have been able to help people from Canada, Gibraltar, Wiltshire and Kent even though I’m based in Hertfordshire.
Is hypnotherapy online as effective as face-to-face sessions?
There is absolutely no difference in the structure of the session and the benefits are just the same if not better.
Humans are by nature creatures of habit. Our brains love repetition. Repetition means we can move things from our conscious to the unconscious mind. This means it requires less effort on our brain’s behalf.
When things are comfortable our brain feels safe and we are able to relax more. This may make it possible for you to enter a trance state more quickly. This means that your brain will have more time to reflect on the things we have discussed during the session.
A number of studies have been conducted comparing the effectiveness of hypnotherapy online to face-to-face sessions. None of the studies found Zoom hypnotherapy sessions to be less effective. Some of them found it to be a more effective method of delivery.
Can I be hypnotised online?
Everyone goes in and out of a trance state multiple times during the day. Some people are very susceptible to hypnosis and can enter a deep hypnotic state very easily. This is certainly not necessary as far as your hypnotherapy session is concerned.
You just need the ability to relax. This will enable your conscious and unconscious minds to work together to find solutions to your problems. I have run hundreds of hypnotherapy sessions using Zoom. No clients to date have found it difficult to relax in their own familiar surroundings when using Zoom hypnosis.
What is Solution Focused Hypnotherapy?
Solution-focused hypnotherapy is a safe, modern type of therapy that combines the use of talking therapy and hypnosis. It has its basis in neuroscience and offers a holistic way for you to improve your mental health.
Solution-focused hypnotherapy can be thought of as a process that enhances your brain’s natural ability to reduce anxiety. It is very effective on its own. It can, however, also be used alongside other activities to improve mental health and well-being.
During a therapy session, I focus my attention on getting you to be the best version of yourself, your end destination. To get you to this end destination there is no need for you to recall negative experiences of the past. It’s therefore very outcome-focused. We work together to make you the person that you wish to be.
In life, it can sometimes be beneficial to analyse and evaluate situations. When using hypnotherapy for anxiety-related conditions doing so can create more anxiety.
Begin with the end in mind
With solution-focused hypnotherapy, we recognise that we can’t change the past. We, therefore, begin with the end in mind.
You might think of it a bit like a taxi ride. When you get into a taxi you tell the driver where you would like to go. To get you where you want to go, there is no need to find out where you have been.
All of my work is focused on getting you to your end destination. A place where you are free from the debilitating effects of your condition that you sought help with. We look at what you want to achieve (the solution) as opposed to what prompted you to seek help (the problem).
What conditions can be helped using hypnotherapy online?
Any condition that can be treated with face-to-face therapy can also be effectively treated using hypnotherapy online. Solution-focused hypnotherapy is so versatile. It can be used to help people to overcome a whole range of conditions, from stopping smoking to improving sporting performance.
What are the most common conditions that Zoom hypnosis is used to treat?
I generally find that most of the clients I see come to me to find relief from:
Anxiety
Solution-focused hypnotherapy is particularly effective in lowering high stress and anxiety levels. These can have a negative impact on both physical and mental health. Anxiety is a natural reaction to a stressful situation. It’s an unconscious mind/body survival response that has been with us throughout our evolution.
Throughout most of our history, as a species, we have lived in very harsh conditions. We spent a lot of time fearing for our lives.
When we judged a situation to be life-threatening we engaged our fight/ flight mode. Our body was flooded with stress hormones, blood flow increased to our heart, lungs and muscles. This gave us the best chance to fight our foe or flea as fast as we could. Anxiety is really just a natural survival response we all have.
It’s more common however for anxiety to gradually build up over weeks, months or even years. Neuroscience informs us that anxiety is created by thinking negatively or worrying about a situation or event. It’s not the actual event that creates anxiety. It’s the thoughts surrounding it.
Solution-focused hypnotherapy helps you to change the part of your brain that you think from. It enables you to think from the logical, rational part of your brain rather than your emotional, reactive part. In your intellectual mind, there is no anxiety.
You can find out more about hypnotherapy for anxiety here.
Phobias
A phobia can be described as an extreme, overwhelming, or debilitating fear of an object, place, situation, or feeling. When we experience a phobia, it can trigger an overwhelming physical and emotional response instantly engaging our fight/flight/freeze mode.
There are common phobias such as the fear of flying, dentists, or confined spaces. Less common ones include; buttons, zips and lollipop sticks. They all have the ability to initiate a stress response. When the brain recognises the object or situation then stress hormones are instantly produced.
This increases both breathing and heart rate enabling the sufferers to run as fast as they can away from the perceived danger. Sometimes if the fear is particularly strong the person can lose the ability to run and is instead frozen with fear.
Phobias can often develop in childhood. If a child hears their parents react to a situation or object with fear, then the child builds up an association.
They can also develop as a result of a frightening experience such as a plane dropping rapidly in severe turbulence. Even though the passenger may have been on hundreds of flights before, this one terrifying event can be enough to lodge a fear template in their brain.
Using online hypnosis, it is possible to remove this fear template. We can then reframe future thoughts so that all negative associations disappear.
You can see how I used virtual hypnotherapy to help Dee to overcome her flying phobia here.
You can find out more about hypnotherapy for phobias here.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
When a person is suffering from OCD they live with intrusive ruminating thoughts in their mind which cause an increase in anxiety. Most people recognize that their behaviour is irrational and therefore a conflict occurs between the emotional and ration parts of the brain. Sufferers, however, feel bound to carry them out to help keep themselves or others safe from harm.
The sufferers ruminating thoughts are located within their primitive mind. It’s essentially trying to keep them safe by regularly reminding them to carry out their compulsion.
OCD doesn’t exist in the intellectual part of the brain. By lowering the anxiety surrounding the condition it is possible to quite quickly stop the ruminating thoughts. This happens by changing the area of the brain that controls thinking.
You can see how I used Zoom hypnotherapy online to help a client overcome OCD here.
You can find out more about hypnotherapy for OCD here.
How many sessions of Zoom hypnotherapy online will I need?
The number of sessions you need to achieve your goals may be different from others. There are different variables that come into consideration, these include; the length of time that you have had the condition, the type of anxiety you have (OCD treatment tends to take longer) and how committed you are to your therapy.
With solution-focused hypnotherapy, we are always focused on your preferred future. This is where you imagine you would want to be when all the problems you came to see me for have vanished.
Obviously, this is very individual. Therefore the number of sessions needed to achieve this can differ between clients. However, it is very typical for people to have met their goals in just 6 sessions.
What actually is hypnotherapy?
There is a vast array of therapies available to help people to resolve their mental or emotional issues. There is almost a therapy for each letter of the alphabet ranging from Art Therapy all the way through to Water Cure therapy.
Hypnotherapy differs from other types of therapies as it uses hypnosis/trance to bring about positive change in people.
I’ve heard of hypnosis, what is it?
You will probably have heard of both the terms hypnosis and trance. They can be thought of as being interchangeable.
They both describe a time when we experience a shift in our conscious awareness. It’s described as like being in a daydream. So you go into trance when you gaze out a window. Roughly every 6 to 7 minutes we go into trance throughout our waking hours.
Hypnosis is really a problem-solving state. You may just feel that you’re in a nice daydream but ‘behind the scenes’ parts of your brain are in overdrive. Unconsciously parts of your brain are communicating and building up networks to help solve your problems. Your brain can only access all the necessary parts when you’re nicely relaxed.
Have you struggled to remember a name?
You can probably relate to a situation where you have forgotten the name of a person, song or film title. While you’re consciously trying to remember the name, it just won’t come to you. It’s only later when you’re daydreaming that the name pops into your head. Your unconscious mind has been busy trying to retrieve the information and when it finds it, it alerts your conscious mind.
This is why hypnotherapy can be so beneficial, as it allows you to spend more time with your brain in its problem-solving state.
What actually happens to my brain during hypnosis?
Whether you enter a trance state using face-to-face or hypnotherapy online the effects on your brain are still the same.
During the light trance state used in solution-focused hypnotherapy, your brain is able to build new positive pathways and connections. When done regularly hypnotherapy can help you to think less emotionally and instead think with logic and reason. Your brain shuts off its supply of noradrenaline when you enter a trance state. This is one of your body’s main stress hormones so you come back to full consciousness feeling calmer.
When in hypnosis your brain waves actually alter. If you are suffering from overwhelm, your beta waves will be predominant and your levels of stress hormones will be high. Your supply of stress hormones lessens when you are in a relaxed trance state. This enables your more relaxing delta waves to continue to help calm you.
Your problem-solving state
During hypnosis, your alpha and theta brain waves then become more influential. This enables you to visualise and then come up with solutions to your problems. When in trance we allow our brain to make a proper assessment of our situation. This is because it’s not being overloaded by never-ending thought processes.
You might think that your brain switches off when you’re asleep or in trance. It’s quite the opposite. Parts of your brain that you can’t access when conscious, are working hard to help you to solve issues. You may have experienced this if you’ve ever gone to bed thinking about a problem.
You may have spent hours trying to use your conscious mind to figure it out. Amazingly when you wake up in the morning you have the solution. While you are asleep your brain has entered its problem-solving state to find the answer for you.
Is Zoom hypnotherapy similar to the stage hypnosis I’ve seen?
Zoom hypnotherapy is nothing like stage hypnosis. Many of us may have watched a Paul McKenna or Derren Brown show and been amazed at what we’ve witnessed. Hypnotherapy is far removed from this. You may also have been entertained when watching a stage hypnosis show in a local theatre.
Hypnotherapy is very different to both of these examples as they require the volunteer to go into a state of trance very quickly. The hypnotist uses ways of testing the audience’s susceptibility to hypnosis prior to using a rapid induction technique. It’s essential for their show that they can get a person into a state of hypnosis quickly.
They often use touch as a trigger. Nobody in the audience is going to want to watch someone going into hypnosis over a long period. As a hypnotherapist, I only use trance for therapeutic reasons. I give you all the time necessary for you to drift off peacefully into a trance at your own pace.
How do I find out more about Zoom hypnotherapy?
During our initial consultation, I will happily answer any questions you may have about using hypnotherapy online. This will also be an opportunity for you to discuss how your condition is currently holding you back. We can also discuss how you would like your life to be different.
Having listened to you I will then be able to explain what is happening in your brain to make you feel the way you do. You will also discover how we use hypnotherapy online to help you confidently move forward with your life.
I’d love the opportunity to support you while you make positive changes to your life. If you wish to get in touch, please contact me using the highlighted link or you can book your consultation using the button below.
Author: Ian Murton HPD, DSFH AfSFH Reg NCH Reg CNHC Reg is an award-winning Solution Focused Hypnotherapist running sessions via Zoom from his home on the Hertfordshire/ Bedfordshire border.
Perhaps you might be interested in reading some of my other blogs;
Anxiety and Insomnia: How hypnotherapy helps
How much does hypnotherapy cost and other useful info
The Amazing Benefits of Hypnotherapy
Hypnotherapy for driving – achieve amazing results online
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