This content was created by Caroline Cavanagh. This content was uploaded by Caroline Cavanagh. This is a YouTube episode titled "Diary of a Hypnotherapist, Episode 22 | @caroline-cavanagh | The Anxiety Alchemist" (uploaded/edited 2026-03-13). It is a diary-style, first-person monologue by a hypnotherapist reflecting on recent client work — cases include grief over a lost cat, phobias (spiders and heights), chronic neck pain, and an entrepreneur’s anxiety about losing success. The speaker explains how hypnotherapy addresses anxiety and the relationship between control and anxiety, describes therapeutic approaches and outcomes, and invites viewers to get in touch for a consultation. The metadata associates the video with Caroline Cavanagh/The Anxiety Alchemist.
Chapters
Hi and welcome to the next edition of Diary of a Hypnotherapist, my way of helping people understand a little bit more about what a hypnotherapist actually does, because it's not all about swinging watches or clucking like chickens. And it's also a way that I can reflect on my week, what's happened, as reflection is a very common technique that all therapists use because bringing in hindsight is a way of informing the future. So my week past has been very varied, as many of them are. I had a lady who I worked with actually quite a few years ago that contacted me and said, I'm struggling with something, can we have just a one-off session? And that's actually quite common. A lot of people realize the power of hypnotherapy and it gives them a lot of tools that they can use, but then life Takes your legs away, as it commonly does, and they think, well, I could work through it on my own, but perhaps with Caroline's help I can do it quicker. She had actually lost her beloved cat, and whilst I'm not a grief expert, again, there's things that we can do using hypnosis that can help process that pain more acutely. I also worked with a lovely lady who was struggling with a phobia, and I love working with phobias, um, because they're really, really successful, um, using hypnosis. And she had a fear of spiders, very, very common one throughout the Western world, but also had a fear of heights. So we dealt with the spiders and she said, that's been really successful, can you now help me with this? Absolutely. And with just one session, because we'd got a strong foundation to build on, we move very quickly into dealing with that one as well. And also working with someone that was experiencing a lot of pain, had a long-term neck injury, but injury can be a real source of stress obviously, especially chronic injury, and she was very aware that that physical pain was starting to really impact on her mental health as well, so we were looking at both of those Because the reality is you can't separate the body and the mind. They both work together. And whilst the NHS, the medical system, is very good at dealing with physical, they don't tend to deal as readily with the emotional impact of physical injuries. So when you tackle them from both sides, the improvement tends to be much more effective. And Another client that I started with last week was a really interesting one because he was extremely successful as an entrepreneur, but it got to the point where he was dreading going into work. And he said, I don't understand it, Caroline, because I am really successful. I should be really grateful that I have now this financial stability, but I am so anxious. And of course, one of the things that often happens when you achieve something, whatever it may be, is then losing it. And that was the source of his anxiety. What if it suddenly just went poof? And so that's been a very interesting person to work with as well. And that's one of the things that I love about hypnotherapy is it is so varied, and there are so many ways that the mind can take people. But one of the very basic tools that we come down to a lot of the time is the relationship between control and anxiety. When you're in full control, there's no anxiety. But when you have very little control, that's when anxiety tends to rise. And of course, most of the time we're somewhere on that scale in the middle. So with all these, we look about how can you take back control. You can't control losing a cat, but you can control what you reflect on, whether it's the loss or whether it's all the love that she had had over those 15 or so years. Again, with a phobia, one of the reasons people are so scared of spiders is because they move so quickly and they make you startled. That instigates the fight or flight response. So again, we can look at how can you take back control. You can't control the spiders, but again, you can control how you see them. They're just little 8-legged phenomenal creatures actually. And by changing that perspective can really help reduce the anxiety. And the same with pain. You can't control the pain, but you can control how you see that pain. And it may sound all very superficial, but actually it's really, really effective. And the power of the mind is utterly phenomenal. And it's one of the things I love about what I do, just harnessing that power of the mind To allow people to experience the world in a very different way. And it's not about getting rid of anxiety because anxiety is a really positive, powerful emotion when you know how to harness and use it. So if you've got something that you're not sure if hypnotherapy could help you with, or something that's holding you back from really enjoying life, let's just have a chat. I can tell you a little bit more about how hypnosis actually works, what hypnotherapy can do. We can relate it to your particular situation and just see where we go from there. I'd love to have a chat, so give me a call. Goodbye for now.
