However, as I mention on my website, eating disorders, whether bingeing, overeating, or anorexic behaviours generally have little to do with food and all to do with a desperate need to numb one’s emotions. The frightening emotions that are buried in the psyche may be just too painful to bring to consciousness so there needs to be some way of avoiding having to think about them. A part of you will then look for a behaviour that helps keep these feelings at bay. Clients can often feel worried that hypnosis will “make” them open up with all sorts of information that they are either not aware of or would rather keep to themselves. But our unconscious mind is there to protect us and is programmed to keep this sort of information safely where it is until we are mentally and emotionally ready to deal with it. What is more, an experienced therapist will only move at the rate a client feels safe and comfortable with.

Letting go of these unresolved feelings is so often key to reprogramming our relationship with food but there are many techniques at the therapist’s disposal that will allow this to be done in a safe and comfortable way, allowing the client to move at their own speed and within their own comfort zone.

If you find yourself forever “yoyo” dieting, repeating the same destructive patterns or eating to make yourself “feel better” then finding out how you can really resolve the issues behind the actions will most likely be the key to turning your life around.

However in a lot of cases taking drugs long term is never going to solve the underlying issues of why a person has feelings or behaviour patterns that they would rather be without. I subscribe to regular newsletters from Dr Mercola in America and they always make very interesting and entertaining reading. This article  from Dr Mercola talks about how he feels that there is an over medicating in America of people suffering from depression and is well worth a read. Although there seems still to be a prevalent view that depression is something that one perhaps just has to live with or at best may take years to overcome in my experience that is not always the case and I have first hand experience, as have many of my colleagues, of being able to help clients make significant changes in their emotional wellbeing in as little as just a few sessions.

As an update to the above this is a recent article on the BBC (health) website  by Dr Joanna Moncrieff where she talks about how putting patients on medication for pschological issues can be just a case of putting them into a “drug induced state” without ever addressing the real issues behind the problem.

This also equates to the way I work in the therapy room. I prefer to offer my clients information as succinctly, practically and as clearly as I can. Any “homework” will be powerful techniques that can make lasting and meaningful changes that can be done easily and quickly. These will also be techniques that one can use for a lifetime but techniques that used regularly can make amazingly empowering changes in one’s life. So KISS!

Anyway, check this out Debramoorhead

One reason hypnosis and EFT can often have such powerful results over such a wide range of ailments is because they will be working with emotional causes that could be behind the development of the problem as well as the emotional difficulties of living with it. Recently there have been some interesting articles in The Times newspaper suggesting hypnotherapy can help with unusual problems such as Hyperhydrosis which is excessive sweating.

There are various causes cited that can be responsible for Hyperhydrosis  but one is anxiety,  for which hypnosis is an ideal treatment. But also when treating anxiety it is important to discover and release the causes an dfor this EFT can be remarkably effective. Another point is that suffering from any inconvenient, debilitating illness brings on it’s own anxiety issues which if left unchecked will most likely contribute even more to the problem.

The word Parasomnia covers a wide range of sleep related disorders.  Once again studies have shown beneficial effects can be obtained using hypnotherapy with positive lasting effects for a good number of patients.

Articles on both of these issues can be found here and here

A few weeks ago I spoke of neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor’s YouTube clip describing her frightening but fascinating tussle with the two sides of her brain as she was experiencing a stroke. Well I could not resist buying her book describing this and much more and I have to say it is well worth a read and very insightful in many valuable ways.

From her experience one thing that she describes is how she now takes responsibility for her ability to make choices in situations where she feels her emotions are taking control of her thoughts and actions against the way she logically knows that she would like to react.

This is a marvelous thing to be able to do but I know from personal experience, having done it myself, that it can take a long time and a great force of will to make certain changes in one’s behaviour patterns just using logic and willpower.

This is where I think back and wish I had known about EFT a long time ago. One of the wonderful advantages of this technique is that it can dissolve (sometimes instantly) the blocks and frustrations that keep us rewinding the same old destructive thoughts and behaviour patterns that are keeping us stuck where we are, in a comparatively short space of time.

It is possible to make these changes by sheer will power but I know I would rather have the opportunity to resolve the issues and the reasons they are there in the first place as easily, quickly and effectively as is possible. If you want to know more play the clip on my home page and go to www.emofree.com If it is heavy and distressing issues or just lots of everyday irritations that are preventing you living your life to the full, as many of my clients will testify, this technique could give you a wonderfully empowering tool for life.

“One of my teachers had each one of us bring a clear plastic bag and a sack of potatoes. For every person we’d refuse to forgive in our life, we were told to choose a potato, write on it the name and date, and put it in the plastic bag. Some of our bags, as you can imagine, were quite heavy.

We were then told to carry this bag with us everywhere for one week, putting it beside our bed at night, on the car seat when driving, next to our desk at work.

The hassle of lugging this around with us made it clear what a weight we were carrying spiritually, and how we had to pay attention to it all the time to not forget, and keep leaving it in embarrassing places.

Naturally, the condition of the potatoes deteriorated to a nasty slime. This was a great metaphor for the price we pay for keeping our pain and heavy negativity!

Too often we think of forgiveness as a gift to the other person, and while that’s true, it clearly is also a gift for ourselves!

So the next time you decide you can’t forgive someone, ask yourself… Isn’t MY bag heavy enough?”

- from www.pravsworld.com