I’ve been thinking about something recently.
Solution Focused Hypnotherapy can sometimes be something people find after they’ve already tried lots of other things.
I know it was for me.
And it’s something I see in my work too.
Which got me wondering…
What if it wasn’t the last?
What if it was one of the first?
Sometimes we know our problem REALLY well
By the time some people come to see me, they know their problem REALLY well.
They’ve thought about it.
Talked about it.
Googled it.
Analysed it.
Tried to understand why it’s happening.
Tried different things to change it.
I know that cycle VERY well.
For years, particularly when it came to my hair pulling, so much of my attention was on understanding and fixing the problem.
Why do I do it?
How can I stop?
What haven’t I tried?
What else can I do?
I tried different therapies and different approaches over the years.
And I’m absolutely not saying those approaches don’t have value. They can, and we’re all different.
But for me, there was an awful lot of focus on the problem.
And sometimes I’d go into a therapy session already feeling like I’d failed.
I’d pulled.
Again.
So what did I have to say that was good?
In my mind…
Not much.
Or at least, that’s what I thought.
Because when so much of my attention was on the problem, that’s what I was looking for.
Did I pull?
How much?
Had I managed to stop?
What else could I do to help myself stop?
And if the answer wasn’t what I wanted it to be, in my mind I hadn’t done very well.
Then I found Solution Focused Hypnotherapy
And it felt different.
Suddenly, we weren’t spending the whole session looking at what was wrong.
Instead, I was being asked questions like…
What do I actually want?
What would I like life to look like?
What’s already working?
What’s different on the better days?
What have I done well?
What would I like more of?
And what might be one small step in that direction?
Honestly, for me…
It was a breath of fresh air.
And something else happened.
I actually started looking forward to my sessions.
I knew it would perk me up
I’ve had so many people tell me that they haven’t looked forward to therapy sessions they’ve had in the past.
And I get it.
Because I’ve been there too.
But with Solution Focused Hypnotherapy, I actually wanted to go.
I knew it would perk me up.
I could go into a session perhaps not feeling particularly great, or thinking I’d had a rubbish week and had nothing good to report.
And then we’d start talking.
And somehow, during that conversation, I’d begin to notice things I’d completely overlooked.
Things that had gone well.
Things I’d enjoyed.
Things I’d handled differently.
Things I’d actually done really well.
Things I wanted more of.
Where I wanted to go.
And I’d come away feeling better.
Not because everything was suddenly wonderful.
Not because the difficult stuff wasn’t real.
And definitely not because we were pretending the problems didn’t exist.
But because for that hour, my attention wasn’t only being drawn towards everything that was wrong.
We just weren’t giving the problem the whole hour.
I LOVE that.
Sometimes the good stuff is already there
And now I see this from the other side of the therapy room.
I’ve had people come into a session and, in their own way, tell me:
“I’ve had a rubbish week. I’m not really sure there’s been anything good.”
And it would be super duper easy to deep dive into everything that hasn’t been good.
And yes, I know…
Life happens, right?
Sometimes it IS pretty rubbish.
But often, underneath the rubbish, there are a few little gems.
Perhaps you handled a tense interaction really well.
Perhaps you still went to your exercise class even though you didn’t feel like it, because you knew it would be good for you.
Perhaps you felt like hiding away at home, but recognised that would only feed the anxiety.
So you didn’t cancel seeing your friends.
You went.
And actually…
You laughed.
You smiled.
You had a good time.
Those things matter.
Part of my job is to notice
This is something I really enjoy about the work I do.
I listen.
I read between the lines.
I notice the little things you might have brushed straight past.
And sometimes I’ll reflect them back to you.
“Hang on a minute… do you realise what you just did there?”
Because when our attention is so focused on what’s going wrong, it can be incredibly easy to dismiss what’s actually going right.
You might come into the room thinking you’ve had a rubbish week.
And I’m not going to tell you that you haven’t.
But I might help you notice that rubbish wasn’t the whole story.
There were other things there too.
And with practice, we can begin to bring more of those things into our conscious awareness ourselves.
So… what if?
Sometimes I wonder how different my own experience might have been if I’d discovered this way of thinking earlier.
Again, I’m not suggesting Solution Focused Hypnotherapy should replace every other approach.
Different people need different things at different times.
But I do find myself wondering…
What if Solution Focused Hypnotherapy wasn’t the last thing people tried?
What if, sometimes, it was one of the first?
What if, alongside acknowledging what’s difficult, we also started asking…
What’s already working?
What do you want instead?
What would you like more of?
What would your life look like if things were beginning to change?
Because sometimes, by the time someone comes to see me, they already know their problem REALLY well.
Maybe we don’t always need to spend another hour getting to know it.
Maybe we can spend some time getting to know what you want instead. 💛
Hmmm…
I wonder?
Claire x