Client Stories – Work Anxiety

A person came to see me who runs a largish recruitment company – he was unsure and suspicious of hypnotherapy when he first came along but desperate to find out a way to stop dreading meetings at work with his team. It was the aspect of team leading to do with negotiating that he felt totally disempowered, at a loss with how to bring order to a team that was in disarray. This anxiety would always start on the day before work and not give up for a good few days. He had tried counselling and even thought about trying a different professional role. At the first of three sessions, we were addressing his concern about hypnosis “controlling” him. I explained in our pre -talk about how hypnotherapy works exceptionally well at connecting people with things they are good at and helps them use those resources effectively. Through our discussions it appeared that there were some gaps in his awareness about some hidden resources and skills he has, and the hypnotherapy focussed on underestimate those skills or miss opportunities to use them in self-empowering ways. For example, when asked about a time when this lovely man did feel empowered and able to face negotiating without anxiety, we spoke together about a time when he was with his children of various ages from toddler to 12 years. We all know that even a little toddler can bring us to our knees and almost cry sometimes. The family was at their local park and looking at a huge tree with beautiful branches going in many directions. Skill was needed right there and then, in negotiating with the younger ones about where it is safe and not safe to climb the tree happily together, without spoiling the humungous fun of the moment together. In our discussions he discovered that in that moment that he was superb at setting boundaries with his children whilst making things adventurous and really fun.

The resource of bringing fun and boundary setting together was highlighted during hypnotherapy as an inner resource that was within this person and was made readily accessible at any moment, even at his work with his adult team. He made the connection during hypnosis during the intense focus and suspension of the logical rational mind hypnotherapy that occurs during my science-based techniques of hypnotherapy Through story and metaphor and through breathing techniques this man had a useful “tool kit” to use prior to meetings which he reports he still uses now two years later. It was also discovered that the anxiety was coming from fearing “what might come up” and imagining a lot of catastrophic scenarios. We then worked together in the last two sessions about his irrational fear of ambiguous situations at work, finding that he can now go into meetings feeling that he does not need to have so many assumptions about what may or may not happen. A win-win.