Reconnect with your essential self

Hypnosis is a state of inner absorption, concentration, and focused attention—when your mind is concentrated and focused, you are able to use it more powerfully.

At La Source, we use clinical hypnosis in three main ways:

• We tailor each hypnotherapy session to your cognitive need, allowing you to bring forth your own resources into the problem space.
• We present ideas and suggestions that, in a state of concentrated attention, have a more powerful impact on your mind.
• Hypnosis may be used for unconscious exploration, to better understand your underlying motivations and perceive the world differently, creating awareness of possibilities moving forward.

Strategic psychotherapy is a solution-based approach. We don't dwell on the past, because we believe that the solution is in the present. Most problems come from our unconscious patterns and processes that we have learnt in the past.

As strategic psychotherapists, we are interested in bringing the sequence of actions that create the problem back into conscious awareness, so that the point at which it 'goes wrong' can be found and changed.

When a person is 'unconsciously competent' at a behaviour, they do not know how to change. This is when Strategic Psychotherapy becomes beneficial.

This is what concerns people the most. However, be assured that you are still fully in control of yourself when you are hypnotised. You are still conscious, but your conscious mind is extremely relaxed. No one can take control of you and make you do things while you're hypnotised unless you allow it.

Absolutely not. When you are in a hypnotic state you are more aware and more focused on yourself than you are in a normal state. You are not giving up your free will or allowing anyone to turn you into a "zombie".

Despite what you've seen in the movies, hypnosis doesn't make you the slave of the person hypnotising you. You are in full possession of all your faculties throughout the hypnosis session. You will never do anything while you are hypnotised that you wouldn't do under normal circumstances.

No one can hypnotise you without your consent. It just won't happen. Hypnosis isn't magic. If you don't want to be hypnotised, you won't enter a hypnotic state.

The process of entering a hypnotic state takes time for your body and mind to reach the necessary state. You can stop the hypnosis session at any time during that process if you're not comfortable or if you don't want to be hypnotised.

It's physically impossible for that to happen because you are not unconscious at any point during hypnosis. You will be in a different state but fully conscious and you can come out of that state any time you choose.

Sometimes when you get the verbal cue to come out of hypnosis you may not want to because what you are experiencing feels so good. When that happens, it may take you a few minutes to return to your normal awareness—but that is only because you want to stay to continue enjoying the experience. You are always in control, even when you are deep in a hypnotic state.

You absolutely can hypnotise yourself. You will need to learn the proper way to do it but once you've had some instruction it's very possible. Some people prefer self-hypnosis because they can't relax enough to get into a true hypnotic state when someone else is around.

However, when you're using self-hypnosis you aren't getting the expertise and therapeutic guidance that you would from a trained therapist. If you're using hypnosis to help you deal with anxiety, depression, or psychological issues then you should see a professional therapist rather than relying on self-hypnosis.

Yes, hypnotherapy is often used to treat children with behavioural disorders and children who have had traumatic events happen to them. Some hypnotherapists have found that using hypnosis as a method of treating night terrors for children under 10 years old can be more effective than other treatments. If your child is having night terrors and has not responded well to other treatments, using hypnosis is an option you should discuss with your doctor.

Lots of people are sceptical about hypnosis at first, but usually that's because they don't have a good understanding of how hypnosis is used for medical and psychological treatments. Hypnosis is not some crazy New Age therapy. It's a legitimate therapeutic technique that has been used with proven success to treat medical and psychological disorders in millions of people. Hypnosis has a long history of being used to treat illness; it's not a new or untested therapy.

Hypnosis isn't a magic cure that will get rid of all of your problems at once. You will still need to address your medical and psychological problems one at a time, and over the course of several treatments, in order to see results. In general, you will need to tackle one problem at a time when you're using hypnosis as a treatment.

Yes, you will normally need more than one session to resolve your issue. Most people see noticeable results after just a few sessions so you might not need extensive hypnosis or months of treatment, but it will almost always take more than one session for you to see any kind of noticeable results.

Hypnosis is perfectly safe. You are always in control of the situation and you are never unconscious. Unlike drug therapies, hypnosis has no possible side effects and in most people hypnosis works consistently, unlike drugs which may or may not work depending on your body's chemistry. Hypnosis can safely treat the physical and mental aspects of common problems like addictions and can help you break your physical and emotional dependence on overeating, smoking, drinking, or any other destructive pattern.