In this episode of “Diary of a Hypnotherapist,” Caroline Cavanagh reflects on a week of diverse client work, illustrating how hypnosis and anxiety‑specialist techniques foster lasting change. She discusses four primary client themes: (1) reshaping subconscious beliefs around food to create healthier relationships beyond dieting; (2) supporting an amputee who fears falling, emphasizing that setbacks do not erase prior progress; (3) helping a client manage anger triggers that arise with close loved ones; and (4) reinforcing a nicotine‑vape abstainer who experienced a brief relapse. A unifying message runs through each case – the notion that one never truly returns to “square one” because every experience adds to a mental database that informs future choices. Cavanagh argues that hypnosis targets root causes rather than applying temporary fixes, making new, healthier decisions easier. She closes by encouraging listeners to view themselves as works‑in‑progress and promises more reflections in the next episode.
Chapters
Hi there, and welcome to the next edition of Diary of a Hypnotherapist, my way of practicing what I preach and using reflection as a way of making the future different to how it has been in the past. And this week has been a really interesting week, a very varied week. I've had a number of people start their process of working with changing their relationship with food. This isn't just about weight management, it's not about dieting, it's very much about understanding about all of the subconscious programming, beliefs, habits that we formed that create a relationship with food that is not conducive to being healthy. I've also worked with a gentleman who is an amputee had a real fear of falling and had made some progress, but something's happened along the way. And also a gentleman who had an issue with anger, finding himself being really triggered, often by people that were nearest and dearest to him, and he wanted to change that behavior. And a common theme with many of these clients and some of the others that I've been working with is that they feel as if they don't want to go back to square one. They have a reference point in the future, they've perhaps made progress, but feel as if they've gone back. And realistically, that is absolutely impossible. We can never go back to where you started in the past, because every day, physically and mentally, We are changing, albeit even just a little bit. Any experience that you have goes into your mental database and informs change. Anything that you learn gives you new decisions, and that's one of the key things therapeutically. Anything that you have learned allows you to make a different choice. Just because you didn't make that choice doesn't mean you're back at square one, because at square one you You didn't even know that choice was available. And today I worked with someone who had been really, really successful in giving up his addiction to nicotine, but he, in his words, had fallen off the wagon. But it was just a fall. He wasn't back at square one because that wagon had already made 4 months of progress with not even wanting to touch tobacco, a vape in any shape or form. New things happen. They can knock you off of a path, but it is relatively easy to get back on that path. And with just a little bit of work today, he is even more committed to never picking up a vape or a cigarette again. And similarly, with the people with their weight loss, they have a different relationship with food now, which may mean that having a piece of chocolate in the future is an option, but they're not going to take that option nearly as regularly. And with the amputee, bless him, he still has a degree of anxiety, but he recognises that things had happened that had knocked him off course, and he's now really committed to getting back on course. So if you find yourself saying, oh, I'm back at square one, remember this. You are never back at square one because what you've learned, what you've changed can never be unchanged. And the work that you have done will make new decisions easier. Perhaps there's just a little bit more work that needs doing. And fundamentally, we're all just works in progress. So I hope something from today has given you a bit more insight into the work that I do. as a hypnotherapist, also as an anxiety specialist. Using hypnosis is such a powerful way of making long-term changes rather than just putting sticky plasters over problems. Get to the root cause and then the choices that you make become so much easier to make. And I look forward to sharing next week's Reflections next week. Bye-bye for now.
