As a solution focused hypnotherapist, I’ve worked with multiple clients transform their relationship with anxiety using techniques that work with the brain’s natural ability to heal and create positive change. Unlike traditional therapy that explores past traumas, solution focused hypnotherapy looks forward, helping your unconscious mind find the resources you already possess to overcome anxiety attacks.
How Your Brain Creates and Can Stop Anxiety Attacks
Your brain operates like a sophisticated computer, and anxiety attacks happen when it’s running outdated software. The primitive part of your brain, designed to keep our ancestors safe from sabre-toothed tigers, doesn’t distinguish between real danger and perceived threats that could be imagined due to chronic stress, tipping us into a fight-and-flight state.
During hypnosis, we access the incredible power of your unconscious mind—the part that controls your heartbeat, breathing, and automatic responses. This is where lasting change happens, below the level of conscious interference and self-doubt.
The Solution Focused Trance State
Unlike stage hypnosis, therapeutic trance is a relaxed and focused state of awareness—similar to daydreaming or being absorbed in a good book. When in trance, your unconscious mind becomes more receptive to positive suggestions and can begin reprogramming your automatic responses to anxiety triggers.
I guide clients into this comfortable trance state using progressive relaxation and positive imagery. Within minutes, their breathing deepens, muscle tension releases, and their nervous system shifts from fight-or-flight to rest and digest, allowing them to feel very relaxed and experience a somatic benefit. My clients often use the audio recording I share when it’s time for bed, and it helps to optimise their sleep and processing of the day’s events.
Future Focused Visualisation
Instead of analysing why you have anxiety attacks, we create detailed mental rehearsals of you handling challenging situations with calm confidence. During trance, I might ask you to imagine yourself in a previously anxiety provoking situation, but this time seeing yourself breathing easily, feeling grounded, and responding with complete composure. Visualisation can be an incredibly powerful tool, because your unconscious mind cannot tell the difference between a vividly imagined experience and reality. You can think of it that each time you mentally rehearse success, you are creating the opportunity to rewire your brain’s response patterns.
The Preferred Future Technique
This powerful approach involves identifying exactly how your life will look and feel once anxiety no longer controls you. During hypnosis, we explore this preferred future in rich detail: what highlights what you’ll be doing, how you’ll feel and what others will notice about your newfound confidence.
A good example is avoiding social gatherings. Through preferred future work, clients can visualise themselves enjoying conversations at parties, feeling relaxed and engaged, and over time, tackle this fear, allowing them to be present and enjoy these aspects of life.
Resource Anchoring in Trance
Everyone has experienced moments of feeling calm, confident, and in control, even if they were brief. During hypnosis, we identify these positive resources and create mental anchors that you can access whenever anxiety begins to surface.
I might guide you to recall a time when you felt completely at peace, perhaps walking in nature or holding a loved one. We then anchor these positive feelings using a trigger word and creating a simple gesture, such as pressing your thumb and forefinger together, generating an instant calm response that you can use anywhere. The more you use these anchors the more automatic they become.
Hypnotic Reframing of Physical Sensations
Many people fear the physical sensations of anxiety—a racing heart, sweaty palms, or shallow breathing. In trance, we reframe these sensations as signs that your body is preparing you for positive action rather than danger signals.
Your unconscious mind learns to interpret these sensations in a different way. That increased heart rate? It’s your body energising you. Those butterflies? They’re excited about upcoming opportunities. This reframing happens naturally during the relaxed hypnotic state.
The Scaling Technique with Hypnotic Enhancement
We identify your current level of happiness on a scale of 1-10, then use hypnosis to help your unconscious mind discover the resources needed to move up even one point on that scale. The beauty of this approach is that small improvements compound quickly.
During trance, I might ask your unconscious mind to show you what life looks like at a 7 instead of a 5 on your scale. These insights come naturally when your conscious, analytical mind steps aside.
Post-Hypnotic Positive Programming
Before emerging from trance, I provide your unconscious mind with positive suggestions tailored to your specific needs. These might include: “With each day that passes, you find yourself naturally calmer and more confident,” or “Your unconscious mind now chooses relaxation as your default response to challenging situations.”
These suggestions work continuously, even when you’re not consciously thinking about them, gradually shifting your automatic responses to stress and potential anxiety triggers.
The Science Behind Solution Focused Hypnotherapy
Brain imaging studies have shown that hypnosis produces measurable changes in neural activity, particularly in areas responsible for attention, emotional regulation, and self-awareness. The relaxed trance state allows your brain to form new neural pathways more easily, essentially rewiring your default responses to anxiety-provoking situations.
Solution focused approaches are backed by extensive research showing they often achieve positive results faster than traditional talk therapy. By focusing on solutions rather than problems, your brain naturally begins to look for evidence of improvement and builds upon small successes.
What to Expect from Solution Focused Hypnotherapy
Most clients begin noticing changes within the first few sessions. Unlike traditional therapy, which might take months or years, solution-focused hypnotherapy typically produces significant results within 6-12 sessions. This isn’t because we’re rushing the process but because we’re working directly with your unconscious mind’s natural ability to create positive change.
Sessions are deeply relaxing experiences. Many clients tell me it’s the most peaceful part of their week. You remain aware and in control throughout, simply allowing your unconscious mind to absorb positive suggestions and create new response patterns.
Building Your Hypnotic Toolkit for Daily Life
Between sessions, I teach clients simple self-hypnosis techniques they can use independently. These might include brief relaxation protocols, positive visualisation exercises, or resource anchoring techniques that take just a few minutes but provide lasting calm.
The goal isn’t dependence on therapy, but rather teaching your unconscious mind to maintain these positive changes naturally and automatically.
When Solution Focused Hypnotherapy Is Right for You
If you’re tired of analysing why you have anxiety and ready to focus on how you want to feel instead, solution focused hypnotherapy might be perfect for you. It’s particularly effective for people who are motivated to change, willing to engage with the process, and ready to let go of old patterns that no longer serve them.
This approach works beautifully for anxiety attacks because it addresses the unconscious patterns that create them, rather than just managing symptoms. You’re not just learning to cope with anxiety—you’re actually changing your brain’s automatic responses at the deepest level.
Moving Forward with Confidence
Your unconscious mind already contains all the resources you need to live free from anxiety attacks. Solution focused hypnotherapy simply helps you access and activate those resources. Every time you enter that peaceful trance state, you’re not just relaxing—you’re literally rewiring your brain for calm, confidence, and success.
The future version of yourself, living free from anxiety attacks, is already there waiting. Hypnotherapy is simply the bridge that helps you become that person, naturally and effortlessly, one session at a time.
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