Combat bad habits with the help of multiple embedded metaphors

We all have undesirable behaviours that we wish we could more effectively combat. Let’s imagine, for example, that you’re struggling to stop smoking. If this applies to you, then you might feel helpless as a result of your apparent inability to change. You know that smoking is not socially acceptable and that it damages your health. But you just can’t make the breakthrough – unless you consider a certain element of Opt2xl’s (http://www.opt2xl.co.uk) hypnotherapy seminar in Birmingham.

Multiple embedded metaphors is a metaphor therapy technique that forces the listener to simultaneously listen to several metaphor stories. As embedded metaphors and stories work directly on the subconscious mind, they are suitable for addressing most psychological problems. The technique involves one metaphoric story being wrapped inside another, usually to a depth of three levels. It involves a hypnotherapist starting a story before getting distracted into another one. This is followed by the start of another story, only for this one not to be finished, either. The listener is then left hanging on as the hypnotherapist finishes all of the metaphor stories in the reverse order.

The idea of this technique, as emphasised by our hypnotherapy course in Birmingham, is that the listener is forced to keep the incomplete metaphoric stories in their mind for a protracted period of time. The embedded metaphor remains active in the mind for longer, increasing the likelihood that it will have a therapeutic effect. So to return to our example of the struggling-to-quit smoker, the person may realise all of the aforementioned problems of smoking but be apparently unable to access the resources for change. Analysis of the situation may reveal that there are four areas in need of attention: helplessness, isolation, becoming ill and an inability to change.

This may lead the alumnus of hypnotherapy training in Birmingham to create a therapeutic metaphor for each issue, with each one being embedded into a multiple metaphor story. The first metaphor, then, may be about helplessness, the second metaphor about social isolation and the third one about becoming ill, followed by a direct suggestion relating to the confidence to change. Then, a solution for the third metaphor could be revealed, followed by solutions for the second and then first metaphors. Metaphoric stories are told and allowed to reach a crisis, but left unresolved before they are brought to an end later in the process, with a resource being suggested for removing that crisis in each story.

The embedding of metaphors in this way makes them more powerful than if they had been told as three separate metaphor stories. Once the metaphor therapy is concluded, the client will have greater confidence to resolve their problems, with their subconscious minds making the metaphoric connection to the events in the story. Such a technique helps to bring real improvements for a client over weeks and months, and alongside such techniques as suggestibility tests, convincers and post hypnotic suggestions, is a key part of hypnosis training in Birmingham at Opt2xl (http://www.opt2xl.co.uk).

Editor’s Note: Opt2xl (http://www.opt2xl.co.uk) are represented by the search engine advertising and digital marketing specialists Jumping Spider Media. Email: info@jumpingspidermedia.co.uk or call: +44 (0)20 3070 1959 / +34 952 783 637.

Hypnosis - altering your inner world for a better outer world

Have you ever watched a famous stage 'hypnotist' - we won't name names - and wondered about the process that turns a seemingly introverted and serious person into an uninhibited and extroverted one, literally clucking around a stage like a chicken? And have you ever wished you could, if not exactly think that you are a chicken, at least embrace your outside world with the same decisiveness and lack of fear? If so, then your interest in a hypnosis course in Birmingham from Opt2xl (http://www.opt2xl.co.uk) won't be surprising.

However, you'll need to be freed of a few mistaken stereotypes about hypnosis before you can make the most of it. First of all, being hypnotised does not actually mean losing control of your thoughts and actions, as the popular 'theater show' portrayal of hypnosis would have you believe. To avoid being hypnotised in this way, a person simply has to refuse to follow instruction, as a willingness to follow instruction is required for all hypnosis - which makes all hypnosis effectively self-hypnosis. Actual hypnotism does not involve you doing anything against your normal values or morals. You will not do anything against your values whilst in a hypnotic trance that you wouldn't do in a normal waking state. That person who on stage clucks like a chicken would probably do that after a few drinks on a night out if asked!

One of the difficulties in discussing hypnosis is its wide range of definitions - but at a basic level, all of those running a hypnosis seminar in Birmingham agree on its existence and the help that it gives people to make changes at the unconscious level to get successful  changes in behaviour. By signing up to a hypnotherapy seminar in Birmingham by Opt2xl, you can therefore learn all manner of techniques for using hypnosis to alter yours and others states of mind, so that you and they are more responsive to positive suggestion.

A principle of hypnosis is that anything in a person's inner world eventually becomes part of their outer world. Hypnosis therefore helps a person to change their external behaviour by changing their inner world first. The hypnosis training in Birmingham of Opt2xl, for example, covers hypnotic patterns of indirect suggestion. The forefather of the permissive hypnotic method is Milton Erickson, who introduced radical changes to the Hypnotherapy field like an informal conversational approach with clients, therapeutic strategies and behaviour changing language patterns.

Ericksonian hypnotic patterns include non-directive suggestion, embedded commands and truisms about sensations, all of which are effectively understood by the unconscious mind to bring about change. Indirect suggestions, for example, partly work because they are less likely than direct suggestions to trigger evaluation and rejection by an individual under hypnosis. Also used are affirmative or "Yes" sets that get the agreement of the person to be hypnotised. A "Yes" set is a series of questions or statements that constantly lead a person to say or think "yes", which allows for a positive response when this is followed by a crucial instruction.

When the positive suggestions of hypnosis are combined with NLP and Time Line Therapy techniques, even greater success can therefore be assured for the client, who is subsequently enabled to make important changes to move forward with his or her life towards the outcomes that they want. Contact Opt2xl (http://www.opt2xl.co.uk) today about a hypnotherapy course in Birmingham that can help you to significantly enhance your life and future.

Editor’s Note: Opt2xl (http://www.opt2xl.co.uk) are represented by the search engine advertising and digital marketing specialists Jumping Spider Media. Email: info@jumpingspidermedia.co.uk or call: +44 (0)20 3070 1959 / +34 952 783 637.