Clients usually have very clear ideas of how they would like me to help them but Claire had me baffled. "I would like," she told me, "to have the gestation period of an elephant."
Hypnotherapy is capable of helping people to achieve many things but that sounded well beyond anyone’s capabilities. "That’s twenty-two months" she said. On further questioning I discovered that Claire was newly pregnant with her first baby but was dreading the thought of giving birth.
It took just three sessions of therapy to turn Claire from someone terrified of childbirth to becoming a woman actively looking forward to having her baby. "I wish I was having it tomorrow," she told me as she left for the final time.
Those kinds of transformations make working in this fascinating area of psychotherapy so rewarding.
It was my granddad who first opened my eyes to the possibilities of hypnosis as a tool for change. A printer by trade he had been a heavy smoker since childhood. On the way home from his single visit to the hypnotherapist he had to stop the car and empty his ashtray because the very thought of sharing his car with the fag ends disgusted him.
It was my own treatment by a therapist some years ago to lift the curse of a phobia that set me on the road to the work I do today. Now I help people achieve all kinds of change in their life from losing weight or tackling an alcohol problem to stopping smoking and gaining control over unwanted habits.
Take Liam for example. His wife Rose was expecting a baby in five month's time. A moderate smoker up until she became pregnant Rose had stopped smoking as soon as she knew she was expecting. Liam continued to smoke but now wanted to stop. Not only did he want to support Rose but he also wanted to set a good example to his new son or daughter by being a non-smoker.
As Liam had the very best of reasons for wanting to stop he came to me for the usual two hour long session to cure him of his smoking habit. Some smokers need a follow-up session, provided free, but Liam was among the estimated 95% of my clients who succeeded in giving up after just one treatment.
Apart from the health benefits to himself, to Rose and to their new baby, Liam also found the £2000 he was spending each year on his 20 a day habit a useful addition to the family budget.
My interest in the treatment of infertility led me to train alongside Sjanie Hugo, the UK’s leading specialist in this field. As a certified Fertile Body Practitioner many of my clients seek help to achieve their dream of having a child.
Sally came to see me before what she and her husband knew was going to be their last chance to have a baby using IVF.
Previous pregnancies had failed because Sally had been unable to hold on to the baby for more than a few days. She was unable to see any future life without her own natural child and felt her life had no meaning without a baby of her own.
Because of the timing of her treatment at Nurture she only had one session of hypnotherapy with me. Firstly, under hypnosis, we addressed her concerns about natural motherhood. We explored the other options open to her - adoption, fostering and accepting the situation and living as a childless couple.
I also gave her suggestions that her womb was a welcome and comforting place and that her embryo would find a safe home there and not want to leave until he or she had reached their full term.
At the end of the session Sally told me that she felt much more relaxed about motherhood. She now completely accepted that if this last chance failed she could still lead a fulfilled life by exploring her other options. Becoming a natural mother no longer had the same significance for her, a revelation that came as a considerable surprise.
But this last chance did not fail. Sally held on to the baby and is now well into a "normal" assisted pregnancy and is looking forward to the birth later in the year.
Helping children tackle their fears and anxieties is another area of my work that gives me enormous satisfaction - like ten year old Mia who suffered from koumpounophobia, an unpronounceable name for a surprisingly common fear of buttons.
Mia could not wear any clothes that contained buttons and was even unable to give her daddy a cuddle if he was wearing a shirt with visible buttons. Her new uniform at high school required every girl to have buttons and she knew she had to rid herself of her fear.
At the start of the session she was only able to look at a photo of buttons if I held it on the other side of the room. One hour later she was not only able to hold a pile of buttons in her hand but was going off with her mum to buy a jumper she had seen "with great big buttons" to celebrate.
I could also have told you about Deirdre who wanted hypnosis to help her lose weight for her daughter’s wedding who I met again by chance two years later. She had not only kept off the weight she lost but now revelled in her new healthier lifestyle. Or Holly who I met in the city centre and who wanted to tell me how the therapy I gave her for OCD had made such a difference.
My passion is to help you change your life in whatever way is appropriate for you. Book an appointment today by calling 0115 8541708 or 07752 438901 or try a short free consultation if you want to meet me to discuss your condition and treatment before making a longer appointment.
To protect their identities all names of clients have been changed.
