My philosophy & therapeutic outlook

The best type of therapy – is the one that works for you, so, I use a range of  techniques including; Psychology, Hypnosis, Emotional Freedom Technique (tapping), Spirituality (non-religious), EFT, NLP, Rapid Cognitive Therapy, CBT, Meditation and, of course, a lot of common sense.

I call this integrated style ‘Mind Therapy’ and we will use the techniques that feel right for you and the ones that stimulate the changes that you want, in addition, I feel that it is important that you learn many of these techniques for use on yourself, now and in the future – But, there is so much more to it than this……

Talking or listening therapy?

The work I do is NOT focused on you talking and talking about your problems and going over your past time and time, I feel this just reinforces old patterns and unhelpful emotions.  My style of therapy and education is based on teaching you new ways to act, new ways to think, new ways to connect with your emotions and whole new ways to interact with life and yourself.

In fact, I do most of the talking for the first session or two as I give you dozens of new ways of recognising and understanding your problem, then teach you the techniques required to move through them. This new way of being not only helps you to overcome your presenting problem, it also allows you to change other aspects of who you are and how much you love and respect yourself.

Is it therapy you need or something more personal?

Over the years I have read through hundreds of websites and heard from many therapists who say “hypnosis will cure you of this” or  they say ‘”hypnotherapy will stop that”   However, I don’t really think this is how effective therapy works, especially if you are looking for long term changes to your emotional responses and well-being.

It’s true that a good hypnotherapist can use suggestion to get change at an unconscious level, but what then? What happens when you next experience stress or anxiety in your life? Because you haven’t actually learned how to consciously change the way you think or act and you’ll probably still be unaware of the reasons why you had those old behaviours in the first place.

You see to me, real change happens when someone can gently take you on a journey of self discovery, where you get powerful self realisations that make you say “Oh! Goodness, I really am like that – I didn’t see it.” - Prompting an awareness that allows you to see yourself in a new light (good and bad) and clearly highlights to you the truth… That the unconscious strategies you have been using for years may well be flawed.

So, this is where I come in, I have the skills to help you quickly see these unhelpful unconscious strategies at work. I have the experience and knowledge to show you new ways of thinking that retrains your mind to get a whole different set of emotional responses that are more in the realms of calmness and confidence. Once you understand this new framework therapy takes on a whole new dimension, because we are changing old responses and installing new, more appropriate, ways of communicating, acting and emotionally responding to the people and events of your life.

But what then? You have discovered new things about yourself, you have learnt new ways of thinking and controlling your emotions, you have used therapeutic interventions to update your unconscious mind – Well, the last step is – What are you going to do next? What do you want? How would you like to be? If required, I can help you articulate what it is you want from life using a whole range of tools that can help you to set new goals and become the person you really want to be.

My job as a therapist is…

To lessen your emotional discomfort, whilst enabling you to take back control of your feelings and importantly, your actions. Because then you’ll have choice in your life, no longer the victim of the unconscious thoughts and emotions that seem to hijack us and can so often hold us in an uncomfortable and unmotivated state.

To make this happen I use a whole range of therapies and therapeutic techniques, because in my experience ‘one size does NOT fit all’  -  My education and background is science based, so I am keen to apply tested formulas to get change, however, experience has taught me that the unconscious mind is a fickle beast and responds to a whole range of diverse interventions. So, that’s what I use.

To me, it’s all about the unconscious mind, that part of us that controls most of what we do and certainly ALL of what we feel, both good and bad. The trouble is, the unconscious does not respond to language very well, so when we say “I really must stop this” it seems to fall on deaf ears.

Most anxiety based complaints are the unconscious mind telling you (with feelings and sabotaging actions) that a part of you is unhappy and you should listen to it. So, I teach you ways of understanding how to work with your unconscious mind where it is possible to get profound emotional changes.

Problems versus Symptoms

Over the years the many of my clients have said “John, I have a problem” and then they proceeded to tell me all about a symptom – for example, “I have this problem, I’m feeling anxious” – and it’s true they are feeling anxious, but what underlying problems have instigated those feelings of anxiety in the first place?

Circumstances, past experiences, chemical imbalances, relationships, self esteem, career, just feeling lost, out of control internal dialogue, pain, medical complaints, lack of a bright compelling future – the list goes on….

Treating the Whole You

To make lasting changes it is important to treat the whole person, mind, body, spirit, soul, conscious, unconscious the whole nine yards – It’s a 3 step process.

1. Self awareness

What type of a person are you? How do you feel about yourself? What conflicts might be going on inside you that you are unaware of? Do you need to be liked? Do you dislike conflict? Are you comfortable speaking your mind? Do you try to protect other people’s feelings?

So, the first step is to understand more about yourself, to recognise that it is reasonably easy these days to map out your characteristics and become far more self-aware. This understanding allows you to see why you react in certain ways and elegantly allows you to gain new perspectives of how you unconsciously operate and develop new more appropriate (unconscious) behaviours.

2. Therapy

Once your problem (not symptom) has been identified and your self awareness can see new ways to think, new ways to behave, then the therapy can begin. Using a range of safe therapies, such as, Hypnotherapy, EFT, Time Line Therapy, NLP, Cognitive Therapy, we update those old unconscious responses. I teach you many of these techniques too, so they are always available and become part of your own ongoing personal development.

Finally, we come to a part of the process that (in my opinion) is so often ignored – Once you are feeling more emotionally secure, more confident, more in control of your feelings and actions – what are you going to do with your life?

What are your goals? What are your values? What do you want to do? When? Where? How? And with whom?

Because many people go through a therapeutic intervention, feel better, then go straight back to the same life that kicked off the problems in the first place – and worse still, do the same things – and around the loop they go.

3. Motivation

As part of the whole process I work with you to get a better understanding of ‘who you really are’ and we tease out a better understanding of ‘who you want to be’ and ‘what you want to do.’

I find that exploring the direction you wish to travel in – is one of the most important aspects of any change work – and one that I am dedicated to helping my clients understand and adopt (if they wish) – it’s not easy, but it is possible and the results are remarkable.

A journey of self awareness and change

So, it’s a journey, self discovery, understanding how the unconscious works, finding things out about yourself, improving self esteem, learning to love yourself more – Changing in so many ways – most importantly taking control of your emotions, because this gives you choices – what you then do with this new confidence is up to you!

The time to do something is now

The best outcomes occur when the client and the therapist feel comfortable with each other so I always like to chat for a while with each client before they chose to proceed. You are welcome to call me anytime or we can meet face to face for a confidential and obligation free discussion, then you decide what is right for you.