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Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is an umbrella term that covers a number of different therapies that share common elements, such as Cognitive Therapy, Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy and Motivational Enhancement Therapy. Cognitive Hypnotherapy is another approach that fits under this umbrella, which is pleasing having heard the news that the Government is going to spend £170 million on making this approach more available to the public. At the same time our approach has several things that differentiate it from most other forms of CBT, which we think offer useful alternatives. Let’s begin with the similarities:

In Cognitive Hypnotherapy it’s taken as read that the way we imagine our future will influence the future we get.

When we visualise, the same parts of the visual cortex become active as when we’re processing something we’re seeing in front of us. Our eyes and our mind’s eye share the same equipment. One of the consequences of this is that the brain often can’t tell the difference between what we’re experiencing and what we’re imagining. This is why we can awake sweating and breathing heavily from a nightmare – the brain has kicked the body into its fight-or-flight response because you were being chased by the Easter Bunny (sorry, is that just me?).

The same applies when we imagine our future. We’re coming to appreciate more and more how important the brain’s ability to construct anticipated futures is. Every situation that arises for us causes the brain to work out probable outcomes based on our past experiences.