Anxiety and Hypnotherapy

Anxiety and panic attacks have increased over the last twenty years, and over the last few years, I have treated a great number of people suffering from generalized anxiety disorder. Many of them are or have been teachers—both primary and secondary–solicitors, and members of the armed forces.

Many individuals who first experience these attacks go to their GPs to ask for help and advice. Often, they are given antidepressant medication to control the effects of the attacks; however, this does not solve the problem and, if anything, it does not help the person because it takes away control from the individual—control that he or she desperately needs.

Psychotherapy, used in conjunction with hypnotherapy, is extremely powerful: this treatment approach can be used to help people suffering from anxiety with or without panic attacks. The combined approach, often known as integrative psychotherapy,  works as follows. The psychotherapy is used in order to support individuals and help them to work through the traumas that are responsible for the attacks, while the hypnosis accelerates the healing process and helps individuals to lessen the effects of the attacks.

During a panic attack, clients can experience the following effects: rapid breathing, breathlessness, light headedness, flashing lights, feeling faint, sick, feeling hot or flushed, increased heart rate, hyper-awareness, anger, feeling of the loss of control and being outside one’s self amongst other symptoms.

Often, individuals feel anxious while travelling—by car, bus, train or on a plane—or in large crowds. Clients get worked up about these problems and this only makes them worse, and this can also lead to avoidance behaviour.

Where do I Go to Seek Treatment

Many individuals go to see a hypnotist to get support. Some think that he can wae a magic wand and everything will be better; however, it is important to go to a trained psychotherapist: he or she will be able to guide you through the anxiety slowly and in your own time, and will then be able to help you come to terms with the issue and help you alleviate your attacks.

Integrative psychotherapy is also powerful in the treatment of phobic disorders which may be associated, or inextricably interconnected with the anxiety.

Anxiety disorders, according to DSM IV (1994), may be considered under the following major six categories:

1 Panic Disorder (with and without agoraphobia)
2 Specific Phobia (replacing Simple Phobia)
3 Social Phobia
4 Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
5 Generalised Anxiety Disorder
6 Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

For more information on this please see our published article on anxiety and sleep disorders.

For an appointment, please ring London Hypnotherapy UK on 0207 467 8564. London Hypnotherapy UK is the specialist partner of London Psychotherapy

London Hypnotherapy UK is now the official specialist partner of London Psychotherapy. If you would like to see a hypnotherapist or a psychotherapist, please ring 0207 467 8564 or e-mail a contact number to:

Dr David Kraft (info@londonhypnotherapyuk.com)

Please ring 0207 467 8564 for an appointment.

Welcome to the new website. Dr Kraft is the managing director of London Hypnotherapy UK. Trained as a hypnotherapist, Dr David Kraft uses integrative psychotherpy in his approach. Although he works as a psychotherapist for some clients, for most, he combines hypnosis with psychodynamic psychotherapy. He is a specialist consultant in his field. He has been trained to help people with a variety of problems including anxiety, stress, depression, phobias, sexual disorders, anger problems, IBS and grief amongst many other problems.

Appointments are still available. 

Dr David Kraft has spent a great deal of time researching anxiety disorders and sleep disturbances. The following abstract is taken from a paper presented at the Royal Society of Medicine on 8 March, 2005 and later published in the Australian Journal of Clinical & Experimental Hypnosis.

Abstract

This paper is based on a world-wide search of the literature focusing on the application of hypnotherapy in the treatment of anxiety disorders and sleep disturbances. The authors review a range of innovative treatment procedures which have been shown to be highly effective for resistant disorders such as OCD, sleep walking, narcolepsy and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  It has been demonstrated that hypnotherapy is a very valuable tool for a wide variety of disturbances and offers an alternative to drug-oriented treatments, with highly successful outcomes. Detailed accounts of the treatment procedures are given so that hypnotherapy practitioners may incorporate these techniques in their consulting rooms.      

Copyright 2006. The Australian Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis.