During a preliminary call with the hypnotherapist I was scheduled to see to treat my anxiety, the hypnotherapist immediately asked me what I was worried about.
This was a fairly broad question that I found difficult to answer in a short phone call. I asked, “May I give you a little thought and send you the list?” He replied that this was a typical sign of anxiety, and that he didn’t want to “get it wrong” somehow.
Was he right? Or was my response even valid? Feeling a bit unsure, I arrived at Christopher Paul Jones’s clinic on Harley Street with an open mind but a little nervous (I’d previously undergone a form of hypnotherapy for something else in my life and it had helped me a lot).
Christopher is known for freeing people from fears and phobias in just one session and has received some pretty positive reviews, although he points out early on that the same thing can be done with anxiety, but it may be a little more complicated and take more time.
Overview of Hypnotherapy
🧘 Health Hacks Review: Hypnotherapy
⭐Celebrities who have tried it: Fergie, Lily Allen and biohacker Tim Gray
⏰ Treatment time: 90 minutes (plus 30 minutes extra)
💸Price: GBP 300 per session
✅Experienced Professional: Understand anxiety, address the root causes, feel calmer and connect with yourself
❌Disadvantages experienced: It took me a while to get used to it and it was hard to keep up.
📝Rating: 3.5/5
What is Hypnotherapy?
There are many different methods of hypnotherapy, but it’s not the type of thing you see on TV where someone hangs a clock on you and says, “You’re going to enter a hypnotic state.”
You probably Relaxed state The aim is to speak more to your unconscious mind (thoughts and feelings that you are not normally aware of) (through a combination of conversation and techniques). However, you are still in full control and do not have to follow the therapist’s suggestions if you do not want to. Sessions may involve closing or opening your eyes.
A hypnotherapist’s approach will be based on what you want to work on, in Christopher’s case, he is trained in Clinical Hypnotherapy, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), EMDR, Modern Psychotherapy, NLP, Time Line Therapy, EFT and Rapid Guided Therapy, and can use the combination that works best for the individual.
He’s also the author of Face Your Fears: 7 Steps to Conquering Phobias and Anxiety, and he weaves it all into a seven-step approach, which boils down to this:
-
recognize (Understanding the roots)
-
Relax your mind
-
reward (What is your anxiety irrationally protecting you from? Identifying the secondary benefit can help you remove the obstacles that keep you from letting go of your fear.)
-
recipe (Dismantling the thinking, behavior, and emotional strategies that reinforce fear)
-
Releasing the past
-
Regulating emotions (Involves replacing fear responses with more positive ones)
-
Achieving a powerful future (Creating a future where fear does not dictate our choices)
My thoughts
Upon arrival, I chose to take the old-fashioned elevator to get to Christopher’s floor, but was immediately startled to find myself trapped in darkness, with only the lights flickering for a split second. I couldn’t help but wonder if this was part of his way of “facing his fears”…
Christopher began the session by asking me about my anxiety triggers, what it means to “deal” with anxiety, what purpose I think it serves for me, and understanding why it’s illogical. From our initial phone conversation, I felt a sense of familiarity with him. He was kind, validated my feelings, and infused humor into what could have been a pretty intense experience.
We proceeded to where it all began – the “inner child work.” He had me stand on the spot, focusing on different points in the room, moving my eyes from left to right, guiding me through visualizations from past to present. I answered his questions by leaning forward for “yes” and leaning back for “no” (this likely came from my unconscious).
It took some getting used to and felt like a lot to keep up with. But after some reflection, I began to understand it better and even got a little emotional at times. When asked how I felt now, I said it was definitely better than when I entered the room, but I still had doubts about how I would feel when the “effect wore off.”
We addressed some of my “what ifs,” including fears about what I would be like if I didn’t have anxiety. We enjoyed learning that we are more ourselves when we are at peace.
When I was asked to explain again what it meant to “deal well” with anxiety, I found this difficult – a good thing – and Christopher continued to dispel my faint doubts with techniques like tapping different parts of my body, clenching and releasing my fists, and saying affirmations out loud.
I felt lighter and this time I decided to take the stairs as I didn’t want to ruin the moment (the elevator confirmed that it just needed repairs…), I was less annoyed by traffic trying to cross the road and I enjoyed the loud music of street performers on the subway – is this part of being more peaceful?
An incident triggered anxiety to creep back in. You can’t control your life, but you can control how you respond to it. Being able to recognize and monitor my anxiety more was probably an improvement for me. It didn’t “go away,” but it was still very much there.
A few weeks after our first session, Christopher offered me an additional session, but this time over Zoom, there were technical issues and I was only able to fit 30 minutes in. I quickly realised that hypnotherapy over a video call just wasn’t for me. I felt even more ridiculous when I realised someone was watching me on a screen but unable to connect.
Still, it was helpful to remember what I learned in our last session: yes, something may go wrong when I feel out of control, but when I’m at peace with my mind I feel more like myself, so what will be, will be.
He also mentioned that anxiety shouldn’t always be ignored, as it can sometimes tell you something useful about a situation (i.e., that something might not be right). In this sense, being more in touch with your intuition can help you know when to act.
It’s not about Finding He told me to talk about my anxiety, otherwise I would become anxious. He also scolded me for using unhelpful words like “anxiety”…
Experienced Professional:
Disadvantages experienced:
-
Learn a lot by switching between different techniques
-
Check in with “how am I feeling right now” – Although unintentional, I have personally felt pressured to feel a certain way and it has taken me away from the moment.
-
The zoom effect fades (not Christopher’s fault)
Would I do it again?
I still feel it just below the surface and it tickles me at times, but overall my anxiety (sorry, Emotions or Anxiety levels) has been under control. Is this because the stressor in my life has been removed? Will it come back? Who knows, but perhaps in that respect I still need to work on the “what ifs” and how to deal with them.
I would definitely return to hypnotherapy and can see that Christopher’s work had a positive effect on me, but for this particular treatment I think it would have been more effective to spread out what we did and check in with myself less often during the session.
So, I think hypnotherapy can reduce anxiety, but I agree that anxiety is complicated and time consuming.
