Hypnotherapy Blog

In my Plymouth hypnotherapy practice, I generally find that clients feel significantly better after their first session. This is very encouraging, of course, but it can create unrealistic expectations. The fact is that you cannot expect to continuously improve without every slipping slightly backwards. On their third session, clients are sometimes disappointed because some set-back has occurred. They often say the down-turn in their mood has happened “for no reason”, however I almost always find on detailed questioning that something has occurred to change their mood. That “something” might be trivial for someone else, but for the client it is important, and we can generally discover why that “something” has had such a bad effect on them.

The truth is that, as the saying goes, “Rome wasn’t built in a day”. The problems for which people generally consult a therapist did not spring up overnight. Often they go all the way back to the client’s childhood, maybe twenty years or longer. So it stands to reason that such long-standing problems will not be demolished instantly.

Therapy almost always has its ups and downs. Suppose the best that you could feel was a 10, and the worst was a 1. Maybe you’re a 3 when you call me, and a 4 when you arrive for your first session (people often feel a bit better just for having done something- anything- about their problem). Following your first session you might be a 6, and feel very pleased. But the second session you might be down to 4 or 5 again, and then back up to a 6. Then in your second week, something happens and you slip back down to 3 again. Following your third session you’re back up to 6. And so it goes on. The general trend is upwards, but within that upward slope there are times when you go downhill again. That is the reality of therapy, and of life in general.

Many of the false expectations of hypnotherapy result from people seeing stage hypnotists on television. I will talk about stage hypnotists in a later news post.