Can Hypnotherapy Help With…

Zetta Thomelin
Hello, I am Zetta Thomelin from the UK Confederation of Hypnotherapy Organisations, and I am here today with my fellow director Maxine Bryce. Today, Maxine.

Maxine Bryce
Hi, Zetta.

Zetta Thomelin
We were going to start by talking about performance anxiety and perhaps stray a little bit into performance enhancement, because they are kind of interrelated. We are recording this at the time of the World Cup. And I cannot think of a greater performance anxiety than standing there having to take a penalty that your whole country is depending upon. So, obviously, sport is an area where there is a lot of performance anxiety, and there are real chances of improving your performance. But we have also got things like doing that presentation to your boss or a seminar group. What sort of areas are you treating for performance anxiety, Maxine?

Maxine Bryce
Well, it might help if I give you a little background. Because my background was originally in performance - I was a professional dancer for ten years. And growing up, I had a terror of exams and, later on, also auditions. So I am very familiar - it is a knowing in the body - with the symptoms of performance anxiety. And so it seemed, when I became a hypnotherapist, that working in this area was a natural fit for me, because I have been there and been able to make those changes. After I qualified, I became a performance coach in the corporate sector, well over twenty years ago, helping top executives who had fallen behind in their remits due to stressful lives, perhaps outside of their work, and were unable to perform at their best. So I was brought in to help them with my skills. And some of the areas are familiar across all disciplines, including sport. One of the biggest is fear of failure. Fear of public speaking - and especially in the corporate sector when someone has been promoted who did not necessarily come from a management background. Perhaps they were in a team and suddenly they are now a manager. They have to use different skills, and being able to present to the board is a completely different thing altogether. And that crosses into things like auditions, exams and interviews as well. The fear of not being good enough - they are all interlinked. And fear of rejection, which I believe underpins all the fears you could possibly mention. Fear of rejection comes into play because when you fail, you are quite often rejected. So all of these fears come together. I see quite a lot of overthinking, overwhelm, self-doubt and panic. Talking of football, I have worked with athletes along the way - two Premier League football players who I cannot name - and more recently with equestrians on Team GB, supporting their performance in the arena.

Zetta Thomelin
That is so exciting, Maxine. You have just brought so much out there. Firstly, if you have had the experience of having to perform, and you know what that feels like - that pressure and that spotlight - I think it helps you to help someone else, because you have walked the walk. You know how that feels. And when you have overcome it yourself, you are much clearer on the techniques, and you are giving from a place of absolute knowledge, aren't you? And I think the fear of failure, fear of rejection, not being good enough - these are things that we are dealing with every day anyway, in relationships and in so many areas of life. But this is just a spotlight on all of that, isn't it? I see it every day coming through my door in just slightly different forms. Recently I had someone who was doing karate, and their tutor had said to them: "You are so anxious, you are not fluid enough, you are not going with it enough - and therefore you are not going to pass your exam." And that is tough. But we worked with it. The joy - and I am sure you have experienced it - of getting the text message saying "Yes, I passed!" or "I got the audition!" or passing the driving test. Is that not one of the most common things - the fear of failing a driving test? I had someone recently who had said, "I am just never going to pass it, I am never going to pass it." And they sailed through first time. It felt so rewarding to be working with those fears and seeing them overcome.

Maxine Bryce
And it is amazing to be there to support them on that journey. And if they can do that, then they can do anything - it gives them confidence. So yes, these anxieties, as you say, are across the board in all aspects of life. It does not have to be performing in an opera or on the world stage of football or the Olympics. It can be day-to-day going to your job or, as you say, in your relationship: "Am I good enough? Am I doing my best?" The fear of getting things wrong - especially if someone has been in a relationship that may have been abusive, or has seen family that were that way.

Zetta Thomelin
That is interesting. But it is all interrelated, and I think, as hypnotherapists, we are working with things where the fundamental core roots are quite similar. And therefore, sometimes the treatment can be quite similar - the approach you take can be quite similar - though the client has come in for something which seems perhaps very different. The high standards we set ourselves now - we cannot get it wrong. Maybe it is because of social media and the spotlight people have on themselves. The fear of humiliating yourself or getting it wrong is bigger, because if you get it wrong, you get it wrong very publicly.

Maxine Bryce
Right. And I truly believe that all comes under perfectionism - the need to be perfect, or else. The consequences of not being right and not being perfect. And, of course, we are human, and there is no such thing as a perfect human. We learn from those mistakes.

Zetta Thomelin
Don't we? You cannot learn without making mistakes. I often use the Erickson metaphor of the baby falling down as it is learning to walk, until it gets it right. That baby does not sit on the floor going, "Oh, this is too hard. I am not going to keep trying to get up again." They keep it up until they get it right. Whereas an adult - you make one mistake and you think, "Oh, I am a failure."

Maxine Bryce
Babies don't go, "Oh, walking's not for me!"

Zetta Thomelin
Exactly! So what sort of techniques do you use with clients? Obviously there are a lot - but perhaps a couple of your favourites?

Maxine Bryce
One of my favourites, alongside using hypnotherapy during sessions, is EFT - which stands for Emotional Freedom Techniques. It is a combination of NLP and Western psychology, and the use of very gentle tapping on some specific, important acupoints. The technique of using acupoints has been around for thousands of years across the world. It has been researched and proven time and again, and it shows how the parts of our brain that are employed when we are stressed, anxious and traumatised can release those emotions and calm our nervous systems down - as well as calming the emotional distress in the moment. It is quite complex, even though it is quite easy to teach - and that is why I like to use it. You cannot give your client a bag of needles - an acupuncturist cannot do that and say, "Do this at home until our next session." I like to teach my clients how to use the basics of EFT to reduce their anxiety before a performance or a competition. I am not going to be there to help them on the spot, and it also helps to maintain the results they get during the session.

Zetta Thomelin
Yes, I think what is so wonderful about hypnotherapy is all the things we can bolt on to it. So we do a hypnotherapy session, and bolt on some CBT, some NLP, some EFT - and you have got a very rich resource, haven't you? I give people something to take away to use when they are going into that situation. It is about creating a positive resource state - thinking about something where they felt good, where they achieved, and then anchoring that by pressing their thumb and finger together. I have even had clients say, "Oh, I saw someone else doing that - I know that one too!" It is giving them things they can use for themselves, which gives them confidence and removes the stress in that moment. And then there are rehearsal techniques. I was fascinated by some research done at Harvard University, where they had electrodes on people's brains to monitor them as they played the piano. Then they got people to imagine playing the same piece in their minds, and monitored them again. Exactly the same neural pathways were being followed, whether they were really playing the piano or simply imagining it. And I think this is fundamental to how rehearsal techniques reinforce clients' confidence - because you are actually building those neural pathways. As far as the brain is concerned, they have already done it.

Maxine Bryce
Again and again. That is right. And interestingly, you bring that up - it is one of the key techniques I use with my equestrians. They have a test to perform in front of a judge or a number of judges. If it is an international test, I always use it myself - I do dog agility. We are given so many minutes to learn a course of twenty obstacles. You have to learn where the numbers are, plan how you are going to complete it with your dog - and the dog never gets to see the course. So in those few minutes between studying that course and walking into the arena, it is like learning a dance routine and then teaching it to your dog, who has never seen it before, in front of a judge, with a crowd watching. So it is all fears in one. And of course, there is only one winner. Mental rehearsal is essential.

Zetta Thomelin
I think so too. For anything you are trying to do, I also use what is sometimes called the cinema technique, or the fast phobia technique. You are watching the scenario, but you are changing it - you rewind the images and then you watch again. You rewind it, and that reframes it. And then you give it a piece of music, and that piece of music becomes your comfort blanket going into that situation. There are also ways of releasing fears - various visualisations you can do. And it builds self-esteem too. It is just - there is such a range of things we can do. It is incredible the toolkit we have.

Maxine Bryce
Yes, the tools that we have and give to our clients can help unscramble some of the trance states they have got themselves into accidentally.

Zetta Thomelin
Exactly. And even if there are self-esteem issues in the background, and someone has come to you simply to pass a driving test or do well in a particular sports performance - their whole sense of self feels better at the end of it. And I think that is wonderful, because we are getting into core issues. I could talk to you for hours, Maxine, but I think we need to call it a day there. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with me on that. Maxine Bryce, thank you. You will see more of our videos in the future. Thank you.

Zetta Thomelin
Hello. I am Zetta Thomelin from the UK Confederation of Hypnotherapy Organisations, and I am here today with my fellow director, Maxine Bryce. Hi Maxine.

Maxine Bryce
Hi Zetta.

Zetta Thomelin
We are going to talk today about grief and loss, which is something we can all relate to. I think the first thing people think of is bereavement, but illness can bring loss too - a loss of the life one had expected. We can experience loss through the inability to have children, we can grieve the end of a relationship, the loss of a job, or even a family home that has passed out of the family after decades. There are so many different ways in which grief and loss can touch our lives, and I don't think anyone goes through life untouched by it. So, what kinds of grief and loss are coming through your door, Maxine?

Maxine Bryce
Absolutely. I was nodding when you were saying that, because they are very similar, or the same, areas of grief and loss that I see. Sometimes some of them aren't considered grief unless somebody has died. And I do see quite a lot of heartbreak from pet loss, where people feel almost ashamed because it isn't a person. And yet to me, the loss is the loss.

Zetta Thomelin
I have experienced this with clients as well, this sort of embarrassment. It wasn't a person, but it was my horse or my dog. When you think about the relationship you have with an animal that lives in your home, you are often closer to them than some friends, because you see them every day. They are a part of your life and they are dependent on you.

Maxine Bryce
Yes. And pregnancies - you mentioned those too. What springs to mind is multiple failed IVF attempts. Every single one is a loss, and the person or the couple grieve over that. Other areas of loss - redundancy, for example?

Zetta Thomelin
Yes.

Maxine Bryce
Sudden redundancy - you are dealing with the shock as well, and having to rebuild from that. Especially if it is a job you thought you were going to have for life, and it feels like a rejection.

Zetta Thomelin
Doesn't it? Absolutely. Why me? Am I not good enough?

Maxine Bryce
All of those fears come into play, and the decisions people make about themselves as a result. Loss also comes through chronic health issues. I have worked with a great many clients dealing with conditions such as chronic fatigue syndrome and ME, and with that comes so much loss.

Zetta Thomelin
It is the loss of the life you thought you were going to have. What might have been. And trying to recalibrate yourself. I had some chronic health issues some years ago and was unable to work for a period. I had encephalitis, and I had adjusted to being someone who couldn't really do anything for herself - and I simply didn't know who I was any more. It was such a shock to my system. The way I had seen my life playing out was no longer going to happen. In actual fact, my life changed direction and the end point has been wonderful. But I had to work through that loss. I had had a busy life as a successful CEO in London.

Zetta Thomelin
All of that went, just like that, and I didn't know whether I was going to get better. I didn't know if I was going to be able to rebuild my life. I did, in a different way, but the loss was enormous. This is something a lot of people don't really take on board or fully understand - the level of grief involved in a health crisis.

Maxine Bryce
No, because it is a loss of identity. With chronic illness, the expectation - if you are normally resilient - is that you will get better and bounce back. But when you don't, and you keep trying, it can begin to feel more and more hopeless. Then you can find yourself grieving for the life you had and the person you were before it all happened.

Zetta Thomelin
Another interesting dimension to health is that someone can go through cancer - perhaps two years of treatment and chemotherapy - and survive. And everyone around them says, "wonderful, life is back to normal." But that person may not be ready for that. They may still be grieving what they have been through, the time lost, and the fear.

Zetta Thomelin
That can really shape how they feel, and there is a process that needs to be worked through.

Maxine Bryce
Absolutely. And what comes to mind as you say that is the people surrounding the person who has been ill.

Zetta Thomelin
Yes.

Maxine Bryce
They change too. When the person recovers, there is a great deal of adjustment to be done, because everything has shifted. There can be resistance around that.

Zetta Thomelin
And the process of getting better is itself an interesting one. I remember when I began to recover - I had just adjusted to things being one way, and now I had to adjust all over again. You are losing something at different points, aren't you, and then finding something new. Obviously bereavement through death is a very different thing, but I think we need to acknowledge all those other forms of loss that are present in our daily lives.

Maxine Bryce
Absolutely, because most of us carry some form of grief - it includes the loss of our hopes and dreams. Something else that comes to mind is anticipatory grief. When there is a diagnosis or a prognosis, anticipating the loss of someone close. I recently attended a family funeral - the person who died was quite young.

Maxine Bryce
But it was a true celebration. The day of the funeral was a celebration of her life, and because she was no longer here, she was no longer in pain. A great deal of the grief had already been felt in advance. Some were celebrating her life. It was still deeply sad, and very unfair.

Zetta Thomelin
But we don't want to avoid going through that process, do we? The ritual of loss matters. I think having a funeral is important. Some people aren't having funerals now, and I find that quite troubling, because there is no way of beginning that process, of marking the loss. It is hard, it is really tough, but it is an acknowledgement. I think in the modern world there is a tendency to hide from that. There are many things we could discuss in relation to helping people through grief. How do you use hypnotherapy with your clients?

Maxine Bryce
A great question. I think people can accidentally become stuck, reliving painful memories and traumatic events - seeing someone ill, the visits to hospital. Those images become fixed in the mind. So part of the work is helping them to shift that, and also to address regrets - all the things they wish they had done but didn't.

Maxine Bryce
The things they feel they should have done, and the things they wish they had said.

Zetta Thomelin
Sometimes, running alongside the hypnotherapy, you can invite someone to visualise saying those things to the person they have lost, if they are ready to do that. But they can also write a letter. There is a lovely book called The New Diary by Tristine Rainer, in which part of the approach involves writing to the person who has died as a way of processing the loss. I had a friend die suddenly and unexpectedly a couple of years ago. I sent them a text message, knowing they would never see it, but the act of sending it was my way of saying goodbye. It felt right. I am really glad I did it. It may sound rather eccentric, but it was a way of addressing that goodbye - of saying it when I hadn't had the opportunity to do so.

Zetta Thomelin
With hypnotherapy, I use quite a lot of metaphors when working with grief. There is a brilliant one I came across on an online forum, about a shipwreck and clinging to the wreckage, with waves washing over you every now and again. Over time, those waves come a little less frequently and are a little less powerful, but they can still catch you unawares. I think it captures that experience of relatability so well. Grief can feel very isolating, whatever its cause. And to encounter something that says, "someone else has felt this, someone else understands where I am right now," can be genuinely powerful.

Zetta Thomelin
I also use a metaphor about a house, where someone is moving from one room to another. You are simply in different rooms. It is a way of helping people feel less separated - they are just in another room in the house. You are working, they have things to do in their room, and you have things to do in yours. Because when we think about it, there are so many times in our lives that the people we love are not in the same space as us. So it is just acknowledging that, trying to make it a little softer. I think for people who have faith, it may be a little easier. We won't get into the ins and outs of that, but if you have a faith and you believe you are going to see that person again, it is obviously much easier than for the person who thinks, "that's it."

Zetta Thomelin
As the therapist, how you work with someone is inevitably shaped by that, isn't it?

Maxine Bryce
Absolutely. I like to use the metaphors the clients themselves offer, and they are often given spontaneously. But if not, I will ask - if there were a metaphor for this, what might it be? More often than not, they will give me something really valuable. If not, I tease it out by asking, what is it like? What does it feel like for you? And whatever they give me, I can work with.

Zetta Thomelin
It is even more powerful because it has come from them.

Maxine Bryce
Yes. Even if they are on the phone or on Zoom for a consultation, I will make a mental note of any metaphors they have used.

Zetta Thomelin
I have just thought of another one I came across through Bruce Lipton, the cellular biologist. He used the image of a receiver - that the receiver simply isn't working, but the radio waves, or the television waves, are still out there. It is just the receiver that isn't functioning. I think for some people that really gives them a sense of feeling less isolated in their loss. I sometimes use poetry with clients because it speaks in a very particular way, and in a very hypnotherapeutic way, because of the rhythm, the metre, and the language. But it comes back again to relatability - someone understands how I feel. I often use W. H. Auden's "Stop All the Clocks."

Zetta Thomelin
Because that feeling is so overwhelming - we have to stop the clocks. And I think people feel, "yes, someone knows how bad I am feeling right now." Just being understood is part of that journey. Being heard, being understood. Which you touched upon at the beginning, when we were talking about pets, because the loss of an animal that has been part of someone's life-

Zetta Thomelin
that need to feel believed, that the grief is real and tangible, and just as significant as any other loss. To know that it is being understood and acknowledged.

Maxine Bryce
Yes. And sometimes there is guilt that comes with that.

Zetta Thomelin
It is not a competition, is it? One person may grieve more deeply in one situation than in another. It isn't a competition - it is about how someone is actually feeling, and how you help them navigate that. I suppose that is our job, isn't it? To help them navigate their loss, whether it be their marriage, their life, their closest friend. It is inevitable, because throughout life we experience loss. It is part of being here. There are things that will come and go from us.

Zetta Thomelin
And we need to develop a map, a route, to navigate that.

Maxine Bryce
I am working with somebody at the moment who reminded me that in one of our recent sessions, the client's spouse had died in very tragic circumstances. All they could think about were those images. We worked on accessing positive memories, going back to a time when that person was full of energy, radiant, full of joy - being able to bring those memories back. We approached it carefully. The client acknowledges everything that happened. We are not dismissing anything else. We are not covering it over or placing a bandage on it. It is about restoring the ability to recall what was, for the most part, a happy life.

Zetta Thomelin
Because the worst part is that final chapter, and yet there is all this other rich experience behind it. Really important work, I think. Gosh, well, thank you so much for talking with me today. We could go on and on, but I think we will leave it there. I very much look forward to talking with you again and exploring some of the other areas we could cover.

Maxine Bryce
It has been my pleasure, and a joy to talk with you too, Zetta.

Zetta Thomelin
Thank you, Maxine. Goodbye.

Zetta Thomelin
Hello. I am Zetta Thomelin, and I am joined today by Georgina McKinnon. Hi Georgina.

Georgina McKinnon
Hi Zetta, it's lovely to see you.

Zetta Thomelin
Lovely to see you too. We wanted to talk today about IBS and how hypnotherapy can be used as an effective treatment for it. I wanted to raise this because I attended a Royal Society of Medicine webinar on the subject, presented by Professor Palsson from the University of North Carolina. He explained that in America, hypnotherapy has been used very widely to treat IBS and gut-related symptoms, and that here in England we are trailing behind. That is a real shame, because so many opportunities for healing and recovery are being missed. He explained that four in ten people in the world will experience a gut-brain disorder at some point - that is, a disruption in the communication between the brain, the stomach, and the digestive system.

Zetta Thomelin
And it is a growing problem. Hypnotherapy has been investigated extensively as a treatment. There were twelve randomised controlled trials in which hypnotherapy came out on top in nine of them - performing better than pharmaceutical or other interventions. In the remaining three, it came out equal to the pharmaceuticals.

Zetta Thomelin
When you consider the side effects of pharmaceuticals, and some of the invasive surgeries carried out for gut issues, it is remarkable that hypnotherapy is not being used more widely here in the UK, and that people are having to seek it out for themselves. To reference one particular trial that I found especially striking - it looked at gastric emptying time, which can cause significant problems with digestion. The standard emptying time recorded in the research was 274 minutes. Following a pharmaceutical intervention, that reduced to 227 minutes. But following hypnotherapy, it reduced to 150 minutes - far faster. What a difference. The data is compelling, and it needs to be acted upon more widely. This research builds on the foundational work of Professor Whorwell, and I know, Georgina, that you have studied his work closely. Could you tell us a little about that?

Georgina McKinnon
IBS is extremely common. The difficulty is that people don't talk about it enough, so conversations like this one are important in raising awareness of the help that is available. The term irritable bowel syndrome has been in use since the 1960s. It is more common in women than men, by roughly three to two. It is a syndrome rather than a disease, so it is not directly life-threatening. However, approximately 15% of the adult population in the UK suffer from IBS, and the symptoms can be really debilitating. In many ways, people put their lives on hold because of this condition.

Georgina McKinnon
We are often the last resort, which is frustrating in the extreme. The condition costs the NHS around £200 million a year. IBS is classified as such when it is chronic and accompanied by additional symptoms persisting for at least six months. Peter Whorwell is a professor of gastroenterology based in Manchester who has been studying this condition for around 40 years. His work is widely regarded as seminal. Perhaps the most significant study was published in The Lancet in 1984.

Georgina McKinnon
That research is still cited today, and it really marked the beginning of Professor Whorwell's journey with this work. At that stage, he took thirty patients - fifteen received psychotherapy alongside a placebo, and fifteen received hypnotherapy alone. With the psychotherapy group, there was only a slight improvement. With the hypnotherapy group, the results were so effective that there were no relapses for three months. That, I think, was what set him firmly on this path. He now treats

Georgina McKinnon
3,000 patients a year at his clinic and takes on 400 new patients annually. If anyone needed proof, that speaks for itself. Seventy per cent of the people he sees experience long-term, meaningful improvements from the hypnotherapy he uses. I myself have been seeing a significant number of clients who have done their own research, heard that hypnotherapy may help, and come to me seeking support. What we do know

Georgina McKinnon
is that although stress is not the only cause of IBS, it is a factor that exacerbates it considerably. Studies in animals have shown that when a rat is restrained or placed on a platform surrounded by water with no apparent means of escape, the motility of the gut changes - speeding up in one area and slowing down in another. That disrupts the normal rhythmic movement of the bowel, which can lead to constipation or, at the other extreme, to very

Georgina McKinnon
severe diarrhoea. A client may present with either of those conditions. Fatty diets and heavily spiced food can worsen things, but if we can address the underlying stress, encourage lifestyle changes, and couple that with hypnotherapy to calm the system, the effect can be enormously beneficial. The work I have done with clients has, in many cases, completely changed their lives.

Georgina McKinnon
A great many clients come to me through personal recommendation, and when people experience positive results and genuinely feel better, they do begin to talk about it. That generates further referrals. But what we really need is more openness at the medical level. I had a client come to me this week who said I was her last resort - her doctor had told her nothing more could be done, and had not mentioned hypnotherapy at all. That is frustrating, given that Professor Whorwell has had paper after paper published over the last

Georgina McKinnon
thirty to forty years. The information needs to reach GPs and other medical professionals. It can take around ten years to receive a diagnosis of IBS, because patients go through intervention after intervention and test after test. Those tests are necessary to rule out underlying medical conditions, but IBS can also mimic other problems, such as gynaecological issues.

Zetta Thomelin
Yes.

Georgina McKinnon
So someone may be sent down entirely the wrong investigative route, which takes time and costs the NHS considerably. Professor Whorwell no longer uses colonoscopy as part of his assessment. We perhaps need a wholesale rethink of how this condition is approached and treated. That is why I work in this area - and in fact, I am currently writing a training programme for hypnotherapists to help them work with IBS, because we need more practitioners equipped to do so.

Zetta Thomelin
Absolutely, we do. When you see the results as we both do, every day in the therapy room, and you think of all the people who are being denied this or simply don't know it exists - as you say, it is always personal investigation that brings people to us. Every client who approaches me says, "I've done some research and it looks as though there might be something in this." You think - if they were getting that guidance from their GP, it would cut out so much suffering, quite apart from anything else.

Georgina McKinnon
Absolutely. And NICE actually recognises hypnotherapy as a valid treatment. Which makes it all the more disappointing that we are not receiving these referrals.

Zetta Thomelin
And it gives people a sense of hope, doesn't it? A feeling that they can begin to take back some control - particularly when they start to understand what is happening in their own body. As you have just explained, during the stress response the digestive system effectively shuts down, because energy and blood flow are directed to the arms and legs for fight or flight. That system becomes unsupported. When people begin to understand that there is something genuinely physical happening, and that they can begin to influence it through calming the mind, that is very empowering.

Georgina McKinnon
I worked with one gentleman who was experiencing severe IBS every time he visited a particular location. Something had happened there that had triggered a stress response. He was a builder, and he had been working in the basement of a building when there was a partial collapse. The lights went out, the space filled with dust, and for a moment he could not find his way out. It was a frightening experience, though he did get out safely. However, because it was his job, he had to continue working on that building - and every time he went near that village where it stood,

Georgina McKinnon
he experienced severe IBS. Years later, even after the job had finished, simply driving through that village was enough to retrigger the response. That is the mind-body connection at work. The mind was trying to protect him from perceived danger by recreating that same physical reaction. It is exactly this kind of investigative work - finding out when it started, what triggered it, and what the mind and body are actually responding to - that can bring real and lasting relief.

Georgina McKinnon
I also teach my clients self-hypnosis, which gives them a very tangible sense of being in control. If they begin to feel stressed, a little self-hypnosis can help calm things back down. I am a firm believer in helping people to help themselves.

Zetta Thomelin
It is about getting control back, isn't it? And understanding what is happening. I think it is important to be clear - when we talk about the mind-body connection, we are absolutely not saying it is all in the mind. The problem is real. The body is genuinely reacting. People can feel misunderstood and unsupported, and what we need to convey is that the mind is creating a genuine physical response - and that we can help bring that back under control.

Georgina McKinnon
It is definitively a functional problem. The body is not functioning in the rhythm that it should, and there is nothing imaginary about that. I have a quote here from Professor Whorwell, from an interview he gave in 2016, which captures this perfectly. He said that when he was a medical student in the 1970s, he was told that people with IBS were oversensitive females who should not be taken too seriously. That misguided perception, he noted, has unfortunately persisted.

Georgina McKinnon
That was the 1970s, and Professor Whorwell was training to be a doctor at the time. If that was what medical students were being taught, we have come a long way since then - but there is still much to do in terms of education and dispelling the myth that IBS is somehow not a real condition.

Zetta Thomelin
Absolutely. And that is what we are trying to do today - to help people understand what is happening, and that something can be done about it. To encourage people to seek the right support. Hopefully, viewers will feel empowered to speak to their GP about hypnotherapy, or to find a local practitioner who can help them reclaim their lives.

Georgina McKinnon
If I could offer therapists one piece of advice, it would be to write to the GP of every client they work with - firstly, as a courtesy, to ensure there are no contraindications to treatment and that the IBS diagnosis has been properly established. But also to write to the GP once treatment has concluded, and to share something of the client's experience. More than anything else, that is what will get the message through to GPs - not only that we are recognised as a valid treatment by NICE, but that what we do is genuinely helping people.

Zetta Thomelin
And it is those real stories, heard directly, that make the difference. It is not an abstract statistic. It is a real person who has got better, or who has regained control of their body.

Georgina McKinnon
And, of course, the GP will be saving the NHS money into the bargain.

Zetta Thomelin
Yes, and that is part of a much wider picture - not just the NHS, but people who may be on sick leave, unable to work, unable to contribute. Getting their health back has implications for their mental health, their sense of purpose, their quality of life. It really is a win all round.

Georgina McKinnon
Professor Whorwell does take a holistic approach. He looks at diet - he recommends a low-FODMAP diet - and on occasion uses antidepressants, which have been shown to have a beneficial effect on the gut. So hypnotherapy is not the only tool he uses. But in severe cases where other approaches have not helped,

Georgina McKinnon
he does prescribe hypnotherapy. And that, in itself, says a great deal.

Zetta Thomelin
It is fascinating that this work began here in England and was genuinely groundbreaking at the time. In America, they picked it up, ran with it, and are now using it very widely. We have not moved forward quickly enough here. But perhaps this is the moment when that begins to change.

Georgina McKinnon
And it is worth saying that IBS affects all races and all socioeconomic backgrounds. It is not confined to any one section of the population, which is precisely why we need to get on with this.

Zetta Thomelin
If four in ten adults worldwide are going to be affected by gut-brain issues, that is an enormous number of people. Thank you, Georgina. This has been a really interesting conversation, and I hope it has been informative for our viewers. We will be producing more videos in the coming weeks, so do look out for us.

Georgina McKinnon
Excellent. Thank you very much.

Zetta Thomelin
Hello. I am Zetta Thomelin from the UK Confederation of Hypnotherapy Organisations, and I am here today with fellow hypnotherapist Lisa Williamson.

Lisa Williamson
Hello Zetta, lovely to be here.

Zetta Thomelin
We are going to talk today about hypnotherapy for pain. Can hypnotherapy help with pain? The interesting thing about pain is that it is a perception, processed by the brain. Information is sent via nociceptors through nerve points on the spine up to the brain - to the cerebral cortex - where pain-transmitting and pain-modulating substances are released. That information is then processed by the brain, taking into account other factors such as the emotions present at the time of the pain event. So various things can affect how pain is perceived and felt. This makes it fascinating, because

Zetta Thomelin
on one day something can be agony, and on another it might not be - or for one person it may be very painful, whilst for someone else it is quite manageable. Have you come across this in your work, Lisa, and what kinds of chronic pain have you worked with?

Lisa Williamson
Yes, and as you say, it is incredibly interesting. People's perception of pain varies so much. I have had clients come to me with fibromyalgia, arthritis, back pain, knee pain, and mobility issues. It is important to say that a diagnosis from your GP is needed before having a session of hypnotherapy, and then we can move forward from there. But you are absolutely right - the perception of pain, and why it seems better on some days than others, is very interesting indeed.

Zetta Thomelin
It is, isn't it? And that point about diagnosis is important. We do not want to mask pain if it is telling us something. Pain is a signal that something is wrong. Once we know what that is - whether it is a damaged ligament or something else - we can focus on supporting the person in managing it. But we need to understand the cause before we attempt to help someone mask or manage it. There is also a risk that if pain is dulled too much, they may overdo things. You do not want to eliminate the sensation entirely - you want to make it manageable.

Lisa Williamson
Yes, absolutely.

Zetta Thomelin
So, have you used a pain-blocker technique in your work?

Lisa Williamson
Yes, and it is very, very interesting. The client begins from a place of relaxation or trance - a deeper trance. You find out where they feel most at ease, and then - and I think this is a fantastic technique - you invite the client to press the point just above the area of pain, and that interrupts the signal from the injured area to the brain. It is a direct suggestion: I am stopping this pain signal now. Because the client is in the session precisely because they want to stop and control the pain,

Lisa Williamson
you work through that with them. You also add, while they are in trance, that whenever they feel the pain again, they can touch the area just above it and turn the pain off, or turn it down. It is quite remarkable. Of course, the client is already deeply relaxed at that point, which gives them the confidence to engage with it fully.

Zetta Thomelin
And of course, the more relaxed you are, the more pain eases anyway - because when we tense against pain, we intensify it. So the very act of relaxing is already part of the process. That pain-blocker technique is so interesting. I have used it, for example, with patients who were having difficulty tolerating a cannula being inserted in hospital - blocking the signal at the wrist, so the discomfort does not travel to the brain. And then, once the difficult moment has passed, you can release the block and restore normal sensation. I suppose this takes us slightly into the territory of hypno-anaesthesia. I remember when I was studying hypnotherapy, how fascinated I was by the story of James Esdaile, who conducted experiments in India performing amputations using hypno-anaesthesia, because they had no

Zetta Thomelin
anaesthetic available at the time. I recall that when he gave a demonstration in London to a group of doctors, they claimed the patient having his leg amputated was simply pretending not to feel the pain - which is extraordinary, isn't it? They simply could not accept the power of hypno-anaesthesia. But if we accept the evidence - and there is a great deal of it - then the capacity we have to control what we sense and feel is remarkable.

Lisa Williamson
Oh, absolutely - it is incredible. And on a rather different note, do you remember those pedicure places with the little fish, where you put your feet in and the fish nibbled away the dead skin? I remember being told that as you put your feet in, you should not think of the fish nibbling at you, but rather imagine it as bubbles - champagne bubbles. And that is exactly it, isn't it? Changing the perception and interpretation of the sensation.

Zetta Thomelin
That is absolutely right. You are changing the interpretation of the message being received.

Lisa Williamson
Yes, exactly. And that is why people can train themselves to get into ice-cold water - they train their mind not to interpret it as freezing and dangerous.

Zetta Thomelin
And that inner dialogue is important too, isn't it? Some people talk the pain up. Moving people away from that kind of thinking brings me to the question of what techniques you might use with someone experiencing pain. Are you using distraction techniques?

Lisa Williamson
Yes. I think, as you said, the pain blocker is very interesting. But I tend to find that getting the client to that relaxed place first is essential. If a client has told you that they love to relax on a beach - gentle waves, soft sand, that lovely warm sensation - I bring them to that place of relaxation first. And as you say, distraction plays a part too.

Lisa Williamson
We can direct the focus elsewhere. It is a little like that script, Zetta - being in a restaurant or a café, talking to a friend, and then becoming aware of someone else's conversation nearby, so you zone out from your friend and tune in to that other voice.

Zetta Thomelin
And we can zone in and out. Moving out of the body, in a sense - out of that bodily awareness for a while. Some respite from it.

Lisa Williamson
And do you think that then gives them a kind of confidence with the pain - a sense of, "I am going to work with this, we are going to bring this down," rather than fearing it?

Zetta Thomelin
That is exactly the point, isn't it? People get caught in a fear of the pain, and in the belief that they cannot do anything because of it. It is about shifting away from that perception. I think my most powerful experience of working with pain was with a cancer patient I used to visit once a week, who was in the terminal stages of the illness. She was in agony, waiting for her next dose of morphine, with two hours still to go. She said to me, "I don't think I can go into trance today, I just can't." I said, "That's all right.

Zetta Thomelin
Do you mind if I just talk?" And I began to speak very gently, modulating my voice, and I used an NLP technique in which I gave the pain a colour, a shape, a texture, and a sound, and invited her to wrap it up in a blanket - containing and managing it. When we had started, she had been rocking and was unable to speak. Gradually she grew more and more still, and then completely quiet. Her eyes closed, and I carried on talking, and then I stopped and simply sat with her. She was in complete peace. I thought - if we can talk our way out of that level of agonising pain, how powerful this is. Eventually, about half an hour later, she opened her eyes and said, "Thank you. I feel so much better."

Zetta Thomelin
It had simply got her through to that next dose of pain relief. I am not suggesting we could have eliminated that pain altogether, but she had been given respite - at a moment when she really was not coping. If people could learn techniques like that to use for themselves when they reach those difficult moments, that is really remarkable. I do suffer from chronic headaches myself, as a result of an eye condition. When I first experienced that pain, I could not imagine living a normal life with it. But as you gradually learn to manage it, and begin to do things despite the pain, you start to reclaim your life and stop letting it dictate everything.

Zetta Thomelin
Sadly, if you have had chronic pain for a long time, you can forget what life without it felt like - and in a way, that is actually a helpful place to be, because striving for a permanent, total return to a pain-free state can be the more challenging goal. It is about moderating the pain and making it liveable, so that you can get on with your life.

Lisa Williamson
Absolutely. Bringing it down a few levels, or switching it off even for a short time, just long enough to rebalance yourself.

Zetta Thomelin
And you can visualise a dial - a control panel - can't you?

Lisa Williamson
Yes, I do love that technique. I actually used it this morning with someone, turning down the dial on the pain in her lower back.

Zetta Thomelin
Wonderful. One of my favourites is the Ericksonian truisms - Erickson being one of our great heroes in this field. He would say something like, "You have this incredible ability to turn off sensation - because whilst you have been sitting there, you had completely forgotten the sensation of your glasses resting on your nose. And only now, as I mention it, do you notice it again. No anaesthesia was applied to your feet to stop you feeling your shoes - and yet you had forgotten that sensation entirely. So you do already turn off sensation. And if you can

Zetta Thomelin
remove your awareness of your shoes on your feet, you can move your awareness elsewhere - away from the pain." Another technique of his that I find very interesting is to seek out the centre of the pain. I experimented with this myself during my own early experience of chronic pain. He invites you to imagine moving into the very centre of the pain - and I found that I simply could not locate it. You end up moving away from the pain in the process of searching for its centre. You almost bounce away from it. It is a very interesting effect.

Lisa Williamson
That is fascinating. As you were describing it, I found my brain automatically thinking, "I am in the pain - but I can leave it." I also love one of your scripts from your book, about the Dead Sea - that beautiful visualisation of floating, completely supported. I use that on myself sometimes when I have an aching neck. Rather than dwelling on the stiffness, I take myself through that exercise - the image of the Dead Sea holding me,

Lisa Williamson
all the little muscles supported and at rest. And it really is quite remarkable how things begin to relax. As you said earlier, with pain we so often tense up,

Zetta Thomelin
and that makes it worse, doesn't it? When we relax into it, it is so much less painful. Obviously there are degrees of pain - with very severe pain we may only be taking the edge off it, but somewhere in the middle range we can often reach a point where it becomes negligible. And then there is the use of temperature in visualisation - imagining warmth or coolness moving through the affected area, like a warm or cold poultice. It is remarkable how receptive the mind is to these ideas. And this is precisely because pain is a perception - something that is felt, and shaped by so many other factors.

Zetta Thomelin
It really does open us up to these kinds of visualisation processes as a way of managing pain.

Lisa Williamson
I have had some good results with clients who have a fear of the dentist - specifically the fear of pain during dental work. I use it on myself as well. When the hygienist is working near a sensitive area, I find myself relaxing into a beach scene. Or when the cold water spray goes in, I think, "That is simply cooling my gums in a lovely way." I am still aware it is there, but it no longer feels threatening or unpleasant.

Zetta Thomelin
It really is remarkable what we can do. And as far back as 2007, there was a substantial research project into hypnotherapy for chronic pain, and its findings strongly supported its use. So it is a tool we can use with a client in a difficult moment, but also one we can teach them - through recordings, or simple techniques they can work through independently - so they can begin to manage that pain and reclaim their lives. And I think when they begin to do that, the pain becomes more manageable anyway, because their attention is drawn outward,

Zetta Thomelin
away from the pain, by being absorbed in life again. As you know, when you are absorbed in an interesting conversation, you can forget the pain for a few minutes - and it is only when the conversation stops that you become aware of it again. I think it helps people to realise that there is this fluid, shifting quality to pain awareness - that it is not fixed and immovable.

Lisa Williamson
Yes, it really is incredible. And it is the same with sound - you become aware of sounds outside, or you do not. As you say, when did you last notice the sensation of your glasses on your face? I love the heat and cold idea too, as you were describing.

Zetta Thomelin
There is just so much we can do, and I find it genuinely exciting. Of all the areas we work in as hypnotherapists, helping someone manage pain is one of the most rewarding, isn't it? To give someone the means to manage their pain and reclaim some quality of life - to make things more bearable.

Lisa Williamson
Absolutely, absolutely.

Zetta Thomelin
Lisa, we could talk for hours, but I know we must leave it there. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today about whether hypnotherapy can help with pain. I think we have answered that question rather well.

Lisa Williamson
We have. It has been a real pleasure. Thank you very much, Zetta. Goodbye.

Zetta Thomelin
Hello, I'm Zetta Thomelin from the UK Confederation of Hypnotherapy Organisations, and I'm here this morning with Maxine Bryce, one of my fellow directors. Hello, Maxine.

Maxine Bryce
Hi, Zetta. Thank you for inviting me.

Zetta Thomelin
It's nice to see you and to talk about this interesting subject. We're going to be talking today about whether hypnotherapy can help with insomnia. But I just want to start by defining what that is because it's a word that gets bandied around. So we've got sleep onset insomnia, which is difficulty getting to sleep. Then there are people who wake in the night and can't get back to sleep, waking very early, known as middle of the night awakening. For it to be defined as insomnia, this needs to be happening at least three times a week over a period of three months, and really impacting on day-to-day life. If anyone has experienced what that sleeplessness is like, it does begin to affect your ability to work, go to school, or whatever it is you're doing.

So Maxine, what sort of things do you think can influence people's ability to sleep? How does this start? What's going on for people?

Maxine Bryce
That's a great question. For me, the most common things I find are anxiety, worry, catastrophising and rumination, going over and over things that might happen or have happened. Most of us don't have a process to bring down that emotional intensity, so it just stays there and can virtually inflame itself. I think hypnotherapy can really help with that.

Zetta Thomelin
Managing anxiety is one of our big areas, and I think it's also part of the treatment plan. There's the overthinking. We've all been there, lying there looking at the clock and thinking, oh gosh, another hour has passed. There are other contributing factors too, like shift work and trying to get back into a normal sleeping pattern afterwards. I've suffered from sleep apnoea myself, and when that first started, I became afraid to go to sleep because of worry about what was going to happen. So you need to process and manage those fears. Certain medical conditions can also have an impact.

Maxine Bryce
Great points. Insomnia for me is often a symptom of a deeper issue. For example, something that has happened, such as a redundancy, a divorce, loss of home and safety, or a fear of something coming up, an imminent operation, an interview or an exam. I work a lot with chronic conditions, and there's a tendency to worry about symptoms that are not going away, especially when people feel they've tried everything. There's also the cycle of waking in the night and being unable to return to sleep. Some of the most common examples I see involve money, fear of losing a job or home, relationship instability and a sense of lost safety. I've also worked with people who have a fear of death, either their own or someone close to them.

Caring patterns can play a part too. I recently lost my mother, and my own patterns were out of balance because I was getting phone calls in the middle of the night and began to anticipate them. Other patterns include shift work and changes to the body clock. I used to work alongside a physiologist who designed long-haul sleep patterns for flight crew, scheduled every four hours. Apparently we have a four-hour sleep cycle rather than the eight-hour block assumed in the modern age, where electricity means darkness for eight hours and we are expected to sleep throughout.

Zetta Thomelin
That's part of the difficulty, isn't it? If we think of the animal kingdom, it is simply not normal to expect to sleep for eight solid hours. We're trying to override our natural systems some of the time.

Maxine Bryce
And then we believe something is wrong if we don't. It is quite normal to get up in the middle of the night, go to the bathroom, come back and relax into sleep again.

Zetta Thomelin
So it's about trusting that pattern. Most people who've struggled with sleep know that feeling of looking at the clock and thinking, I'm not going to get back to sleep, watching another half an hour pass, another hour. The worse it becomes. And it's often that moment when you look at the clock and there's only an hour left and you think, there's no point trying any more, that you finally fall asleep. It goes to the law of reverse effect. The harder you try to do something, the more difficult it becomes. I try to work with clients to help them understand what is happening there.

Maxine Bryce
And when we explain what's actually happening, instead of what clients believe should be happening, it can give a real sense of relief. When they understand that it's not a scientific fact but a belief that feels like a fact, clients can start to relax and get back to sleep more easily and naturally.

One thing that crossed my mind is that some people use alcohol or other substances to get to sleep. A bit like smoking, people say it helps them relax, but actually these are all stimulants. The body is doing a great job in spite of what we're putting into it. Anyone with sleep apnoea should be guided by their medical doctor.

Zetta Thomelin
Pain is something we should mention too. Without the distractions of the day, pain becomes bigger and more dominant at night.

Maxine Bryce
Absolutely. I had a frozen shoulder, and in the first phase I was tossing and turning every couple of minutes trying to get comfortable. I had to use my own techniques to manage it. As you say, it's a case of physician, heal thyself. We have all these tools in our kit.

Zetta Thomelin
Helping people understand sleep and the science behind it can help them manage their own patterns and issues. So what sort of things do you use with people to help them sleep, Maxine? What are you working with?

Maxine Bryce
I always start by looking at what might be at the root of the insomnia, their biggest worry apart from not being able to sleep, and address that with hypnotherapy. If they don't know what their biggest worry is, because sometimes you can lose sight of it and the fear of not getting to sleep has itself become the central issue, I will work with that fear directly. I explain the sleep cycles we discussed earlier, and I use self-hypnosis with clients, which is brilliant for sleep.

In terms of practical strategies, stopping all screen use, phone, tablet, computer, at least thirty minutes before bed, an hour if possible. Writing a short handwritten list of things to do the following day is also very helpful, so you can switch off knowing it's already noted. No more than three or four things though, otherwise you risk feeling overwhelmed. Getting ready for bed at least thirty minutes in advance is important because physical action stimulates the autonomic nervous system and needs time to settle.

I give clients a breathing exercise called balanced breathing: breathing in for a count of four, and out equally for a count of four, which balances the autonomic nervous system. The focused attention on counting means you cannot be thinking about anything else at the same time.

Zetta Thomelin
We need to distract the overactive, ruminating mind. Any fixed task moves the mind away from I must get to sleep. When we have worrying thoughts we're thinking quickly, speeding up the brainwaves rather than slowing them down, which is what we need to do.

I use breathing techniques too to help wind down, because peptides are released from the brain during those exercises, which all helps. Good nocturnal routines are important. I personally invested in an old-fashioned alarm clock so I wasn't using my phone as my alarm and didn't have it by my bed. You want those things out of your space so you have a clean sleep environment with no temptation to check emails or messages in the night.

Maxine Bryce
That's a really good idea, because there is a real temptation when someone is awake and unable to return to sleep to look at a screen, which is counterproductive because the light signals to the brain that it is daytime.

Zetta Thomelin
Exactly. So you need the right routines and the right techniques to use in bed. One specific thing I do is called creating a sleep trigger. The unconscious mind is waiting for a signal to take over, and if the mind is hyperactive, it is not receiving that signal. In trance, I describe a particular scene: the client on a beach watching a sunset, or in a garden watching a leaf fall from a tree. I then suggest that when they get into bed and visualise this scene, it becomes the trigger, the signal their brain needs to know it is time to sleep. When they get into bed they are not thinking about the next day's appointments. They are doing their sleep trigger. It's a double effect: the mind goes somewhere calm and restful, they have something to focus on as a distraction, and you have sown the positive suggestion that doing this will take them to sleep.

Maxine Bryce
That worked for me just hearing it. I could curl up right now.

Zetta Thomelin
I tend to use it in the first session to give clients a sense of taking control, because lying awake feels so powerless. All of these techniques are addressing the sleep itself. But as you say, we also need to look at what's going on in someone's life that created the problem in the first place.

I also notice that in some families sleep is a big issue. "How did you sleep last night? I had a bad night." It becomes something that has to be achieved, and this pattern often runs through families. Bad sleep can be something learned within a family. So we need to help people unlearn it, and give them the awareness that they will survive if they don't sleep perfectly every night. If we take the power out of it, stop it being this enormous thing that must be achieved, people sleep. It's the harder you try, the more difficult it becomes. It is about reaching a place of acceptance around sleep.

Maxine Bryce
At the mercy of it. It becomes so vast and powerful for people who are struggling. The original issue may have passed, but they are caught in a cycle of getting so stressed about sleep that sleep itself has become the dominant problem. What if I don't sleep tonight?

Zetta Thomelin
How will I get through the day? You will get through it. You have before, and you will again. Think of some jobs where people have to function at high capacity no matter how tired they are. Good sleep is really helpful for processing and releasing things. We've all had the experience of something feeling very bad one day, and the next day it doesn't feel as dominant because sleep has helped us process it and it no longer stays at that same intensity.

Maxine Bryce
One thing I encourage my clients to do is take a nap during the day if they can, no more than thirty minutes. The science suggests twenty to thirty minutes gives what some people call a power nap. Even if it's that alpha state where you're almost drifting off but not quite fully asleep, it is very restorative for energy levels and good for the mind. It tends to help regulate and prepare us for later.

When I was working in the corporate sector as a performance coach, we introduced this concept, and a couple of large organisations in the UK created dedicated rest rooms with comfortable chairs and earphones with meditations. Employees were told that taking a nap was not only acceptable but encouraged, and the results were clear.

Zetta Thomelin
It is more natural to the human condition. Having a nap during the day is not a bad thing. I plan my working day around three o'clock because I'm very aware that is when I begin to dip. Even a fifteen-minute meditation, where you're just bringing your brainwaves down, is very productive. Some people are so keyed up all the time that learning to relax is part of the work. Just helping someone go into a trance state and seeing them emerge saying, "I can't believe I just relaxed like that," is itself a revelation. You've just done it. You have the power to slow down and calm yourself down. So the very process of having hypnotherapy is helping to retrain the mind into calming and slowing down.

It's about working with what's going on behind the sleep issue as well as the sleep issue itself. I love working with insomnia because it's such a tangible thing. When you get that message, "Yes, I slept last night," and the client has proved to themselves that they can do it, you build on that success and on the evidence they've created for themselves. Thank you so much for talking to me today about insomnia, Maxine. I look forward to talking to you again about another topic.

Maxine Bryce
Excellent. Thank you.