Hypnotherapy

The Conscious & Subconscious Minds

In the brain, there are two parts of the mind, the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. The main difference in them is that the conscious mind is the logical, thinking, reasoning, decision-making part of the mind, and the subconscious mind is essentially a memory bank which records everything that you have ever experienced in your entire life, from before birth to this very moment. Information that normally comes in during the waking state from all of your senses enters into the conscious mind where you can process it, analyse it, understand it, filter it, etc. Your mind then stores this information into the subconscious memory. This then becomes part of your available memory bank and represents essentially all of the knowledge and information you have learned in this way – from the very beginning of your life. Most of this information is available to you anytime you may need it or want it. Everything that you have ever learned, consciously and subconsciously becomes the basis of all your habit patterns. In other words, everything that you do in your life is really a habit pattern that has been learned previously at some point in your life. The particular problems you want to resolve are essentially habit patterns that need to be unlearned and learnt in a new way.

Information can also enter the subconscious mind directly, completely bypassing the conscious mind.  Probably as much as 80% that we have experienced from the beginning of our lives enters the mind in this way.  All our experiences enter the subconscious mind, whether we are consciously aware of it or not.  This is a very normal process which goes on all the time, when you are asleep, daydreaming, under anaesthesia, unconscious, etc.  Our subconscious mind stores everything just like a computer memory bank no matter how insignificant.  Negative information enters the subconscious mind with a lot of emotionally charged energy.  This accumulates in the subconscious mind and keeps piling up resulting in the underlying problem or the REAL problem for all your symptoms (e.g. depression, anxiety).  The symptoms are NOT the problem; they are only the symptoms of the underlying problem.  Your depression or anxiety or any other problems you are experiencing are only your symptoms.  You are actually in the habit of producing these symptoms in the way in which you behave, think and feel.  This real problem is the problem you want to work through and resolve, but the conscious mind is not always able to easily access this problem.  The subconscious mind does not have the ability to erase thought and that’s why we have problems.  It is often more preferable to have these symptoms, than to have to deal with whatever it is that is down in the subconscious mind.  Logically it makes no sense to hold onto these symptoms, but you generally have no conscious control over them.  There is a brain barrier between the conscious mind and the subconscious mind making it difficult to access this information.

Ego State Hypnotherapy

Ego State therapy is based on the premise that the personality is composed of different parts, rather than being one homogenous whole.  These different parts are called ego states.  Ego States can be thought of as mini personalities, each one having a particular trait.

An ego state may change during a single trauma, such as a rape, a bad accident or loss of a loved one.  Ego State hypnotherapy allows the traumatised ego states to be brought to the surface and empowered so they may no longer have to negatively interfere with the person’s life.

Many ego states develop throughout our lives in order to help us, but as time passes the way in which they are “helping” an individual is no longer beneficial to them.  For example, a protector ego state may have formed to protect you against abuse as a child, but this protector ego state is keeping you from forming a healthy relationship as an adult.