Solution Focussed Brief Therapy (SFBT)

SFBT is based on four key principles:

An overload of stress is the root cause of all
psychological and many physical problems.

It's not events that cause us problems
but how we choose to think about them

You are who you imagine you are... and you can
change your life by simply changing what you imagine

You have all the resources you need to
overcome any challenge you may face

1. Stress - A good analogy is to imagine that you have a 'stress bucket inside you and every time you have a negative thought you create a little more stress that goes into your bucket. If you have too many negative thoughts, or dwell too much on them, your bucket can become overloaded with stress. This causes your subconscious to deem your life to be in crisis and to seize control. It then offers you just three emotional responses of anger, anxiety and/or depression.

If this persists a whole range of psychological symptoms can develop like excessive worrying, uncontrolable anger, low self confidence, migraines, panic attacks, heightened phobias and inability to sleep.

The solution to an overload of stress is deep relaxation. During a course of SF Hypnotherapy, you will not only relax deeply and clear out stress during the sessions, but will also be honing your deep relaxation skills (and releasing even more stress) at home in between the sessions.

Learning to relax deeply is a skill and like any skill it improves with practice. In the course of your treatment you will be practicing every day for a month. Some people will find it easier than others, but don't lose heart. if you are truly committed to changing your life, you can be assured that within a month you will be experiencing blissful states of deep relaxation...and you will have learnt a valuable skill, which will stay with you for life.

2. Problems - Whenever you are faced with a problem you always have two ways to think about it or react to it. You can either choose to worry or get angry about it, or accept it has happened and find a positive way of rationalising it or responding to it.. This could be as simple as accepting that you have made a mistake and recognizing that you have learnt something from this.

We create problems and stress for ourselves whenever we think negatively about something that has happened in the past, react badly to something that is happening in the present or imagine the worst when we think about an event in the future.

The Past - You are full of regret for something you did or said (or was done to you) in the past.
Negative Response - You dwell on the event feeling more and more anxious(or angry about it.).
Positive Response - You rationalise, it's in the past, there's nothing you can do to change what has happened. You have done everything you can do. You have apologised and learnt from the experience (or you have accepted that being angry with someone else only hurts you and you have no wish to hurt yourself so you decide to let the anger go).

The Present - You make a mistake
Negative Response: You deflect blame... ...and deny responsibility
Positive Response: You hold your hands up, admit your mistake, apologise and promise to learn from the experience. Your honesty is admired and you could even have benefitted from making the mistake.

The Future - You are dreading an upcoming event
Negative Response: You imagine the worst, you will be useless, no-one will like you, you are bound to fail.
Positive Response: You imagine what you want to happen not what you fear

In your hypnotherapy sessions you will be asked about things that cause you problems and you will adopt new positive ways to think about them. Your subconscious will be given a smart new belief system..."Problems are opportunities to learn and grow".

3. Beliefs - Your self image is the way you see yourself in your imagination. Self image is incredibly powerful and your behaviour is governed by how you imagine yourself to be.

The main principle of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is that what you believe about yourself determines how you think, feel and behave.

A combination of positive and negative influences shape your belief systems from early childhood through your adult life. We are all likely to have come across someone who has attempted to undermine our confidence and self esteem with a cruel or negative observation.

What you believe, therefore, is not a reflection of who you truly are, but a direct result of all the influences both positive and negative in your life.

Any negative beliefs you have about yourself not only cause youstress but they hold you back in life. The good news is that if you believe that you are a failiure, lack confidence or will never achieve an important goal you are wrong. These are irrational beliefs that need to be changed.

In your hypnotherapy sessions you will replace old negative beliefs you have about yourself with new, smarter, more rational and much more positive ones.

4. Resources - In my practice marketing literature I say "The bad news is I have no magic powers over you...the good news, however, is that you do and my job is to help you unlock them".

At the end of youTreatment Plan you are given your unique relaxation track for life (on CD or MP3). This track will contain your perfect relaxation setting (e.g. beach, forest, garden) and will address the core challenges you face in life.

This track is designed to help you to tap into your virtually unlimited mental resources, to stay in control of stress, achieve what you want to achieve and just enjoy life.

Using these 4 core principles I have developed a 4 Session Template Treatment Plan, which can be applied to just about any symptom or goal you may have.

See my 4 Session Template