About Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy

Also known has Hypno CBT®, Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy is a solution-focussed therapy which helps people to make positive, long-lasting changes. It’s not formulaic, it allows therapy to be tailored to your individual needs – threads from each can be woven in when required.

In brief, Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy uses:

• cognitive techniques to help you recognise unhelpful thinking patterns, release these and reframe them with more rational and helpful thoughts;
• behavioural strategies to enact your helpful thought patterns in real life, as well as change old behaviours in favour of new ones
• hypnotherapy to promote relaxation and provide opportunities for your imagined rehearsal of implementing changes in your thoughts, feelings and behaviour.

In more detail:

It’s an interactive talking therapy where a holistic approach is used to help the therapist understand the client’s current issue(s):  how they are thinking and feeling (both physically and emotionally) and how they behave. This is based on the concept that our thoughts, feelings and behaviours are interconnected and influence one another. Unhelpful patterns of thinking, feeling and behaviour can then be identified.

Cognitive therapy supports the client in challenging these, learning therapeutic skills such as restructuring or reframing, then replacing them with more helpful, often more realistic, thoughts and beliefs.

This is used in conjunction with behavioural therapy techniques which support the client to enact the new behaviours. This can take the form of teaching relaxation practices and techniques which can be used as regular practice or within challenging situations. It can also, crucially, support the client in mentally rehearsing the enactment of their new behaviours.

Hypnotherapy in CBH helps this imagined rehearsal feel far more realistic and believable which can help to bridge the gap between planning behavioural change and actually enacting these positive changes. Hypnotherapy can also be used in (and between sessions) to enhance relaxation and receptiveness to these beneficial ways of thinking and behaving, as well as to increase motivation and self-belief.

For more information on clinical hypnotherapy, see FAQ.

Research (Ramondo, 2021) shows that combining clinical hypnotherapy with cognitive and behavioural therapy can be more effective than CBT alone and that results can be longer lasting.  (See more on Research Articles)

Sources:

Ramondo et al, (2021) Clinical Hypnosis as an Adjunct to Cognitive Behavior Therapy: An Updated Meta-Analysis – PubMed