Hypnotherapy Auckland

So you may be considering using hypnosis or hypnotherapy. When discussing hypnosis often the unconscious or sub-conscious mind is referred to.  Some people find this an unusual concept.  In this article I am going to help bring a little light into what a hypnotherapist is referring to by these  concepts.

People often talk about the unconscious or subconscious, like it is something apart from us.  However your unconscious and subconscious is as much a part of you as your consciousness  and where one starts and the other ends is next impossible to define.  However hypnotherapists use models of  the mind to  allow us to explain  concepts easier.

Unconscious

Our unconscious can be thought of everything we were the moment we were born. We cried, our heart beats, we breathed we have a nervous system Hands clasp, eyes open . So the unconscious parts of our brain comprise of bodily functions that keep us alive which allows us to learn and interact from the world around us.

Conscious

We are aware we have a consciousness by the contrast of sleep. When we are asleep consciousness  isn’t there. When we are awake it is. Consciousness directs our attention to what is important to us at the present moment.  The work we are doing, the book we are reading, what we are looking at.   To be able to represent the present, consciousness  has to be able to distinguish between the past and future. So our consciousness operates linear, it is aware there is as a yesterday, today and tomorrow.  I once was a baby, I grew up and now here I am today an adult and I can look forward to tomorrow.

Sub-Conscious

We know we have subconscious processes because we dream and react automatically in many situations.e .g pressing down on the break at a red light.  The subconscious mind comprises everything we have learned, experienced   about our world from the moment we were born. It’s like a great big bowel of experience all sloshing about together. Our subconscious represents how we feel act and perceive situations, it is where our feelings come from and represents our personality.

The subconscious while learning new things also has to  ensure new information fits with the person you are now.

Our mind is constantly  bombarded by  information from the world around us, Family, friends, work colleagues, T.V internet, all telling us their opinions  about what we should be doing, thinking, and acting. If  we agreed with every new piece of information that came into our heads we would become very confused, and how we act and thought would dramatically change every day.

So our subconscious filters out the majority of the new information so we are not overwhelmed or, slots it into a preconceived basket about what the information means,  this then  gives stability to who we are as a person

This filter is comprised of perceptions, thoughts, and previous experience.  Hypnotherapists  call this function the critical faculty. It means that before we accept something new into our lives  it is compared against what has come before in our lives, if it fits we use it, if it doesn’t we tend to ignore it. A problem occurs when earlier experiences were perceived wrong in the past which then in turn affects a person negatively in the present. So when new thoughts are given they are not accepted.  For example a spider crawling over a baby when they are young and can’t move may be perceived as dangerous, however as an adult logically at a conscious level the person understands a little spider won’t hurt them however the old unconscious perceptions remains. This kind of flow on affect from misconception as a child to adults can affect our ability to have self confidence, feel loved, good about ourselves, create strong loving conne3ctions with other people.

Hypnosis is a process of bypassing this filtering process. So when statements are made they are readily accepted into the subconscious instead of being analysed and filtered by previous experience. Hypnosis is a means of updating old thought process that are outdated and  bringing alignment between current desires and  subconscious behaviours.