In this diary‑style video, hypnotherapist Caroline Cavanagh (The Anxiety Alchemist) reviews a varied week of clinical work to illustrate how hypnosis can address severe anxiety and psychosomatic symptoms. She describes four distinct client stories: a woman with an intermittent facial tic whose twitching intensifies with certain topics but subsides under hypnosis; a young woman who cannot retain weight despite eating abundantly, prompting exploration of mental factors when physical causes are absent; a teenager with extreme OCD who received a remote hypnotherapy session via phone because she could not leave her car, demonstrating flexibility of delivery; another teen whose anxiety is tied to social bullying and school changes, where the therapist focuses on internal beliefs that attract hostile reactions; and finally a young child coping with parental separation and controlling behavior toward her mother, where hypnosis is used to access subconscious insecurity. Across all cases, Caroline emphasizes the inseparability of mind and body, the power of subconscious belief work, and her willingness to discuss potential help with viewers. She ends with an invitation for anyone struggling to reach out for a conversation.
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Hi and welcome to the next edition of Diary of a Hypnotherapist, my personal discipline in reflecting back on the week that's gone by as a way of helping make the future week even better. And it's also a way of sharing some of the things that hypnotherapy can be used for, as I often find there's some weird and wonderful ideas about what hypnosis actually is, but also how powerful it can be, because it's not just about clucking chickens on stage shows or giving up smoking or losing weight, both of which are actually— they're really good for. But I use hypnosis and hypnotherapy as a way of helping people with severe anxiety, and this week gone past There's been a couple of clients that have really demonstrated how powerful the mind and body connection is. One of them was a lady who had a facial tic. Some of the time the tic was there, some of the time it wasn't. She's had all of the medical procedures, and as yet there isn't a physiological reason as to why her face twitches, and particularly her eye. And what I noticed when we were talking is particular subjects that we touched on would make that tic twitch even faster, but also under hypnosis the face didn't twitch at all. And we're working through that, and she is seeing some benefits, being able to relax her face more readily and less acutely aware of when it does twitch, which often in itself Is also a trigger. And another young lady who has problems with weight management, but actually in the opposite, she can't keep weight on. She's been examined, should we say, for eating disorders, and absolutely not. She eats as much as she possibly can, but her body just doesn't absorb the energy from that food. So again, physically there doesn't seem to be any reason as to why her body is doing that, so therefore we're exploring the mental side as well. And I come very much from the angle that you can't separate the two. What goes on in here affects down there and vice versa. So whilst it's really important to get the physical side checked out and to go down that medical route, if answers are not created, or equally Alongside that, explore the mind's role in creating many of the symptoms that we feel. And even though I've been doing this for a very long time now, I rarely cease to be amazed at how powerful the mind is when it comes to physical conditions. And this week I've also had quite a few teenagers, being the fact that it was half-term. We had a young lady who had such severe OCD that she couldn't actually come into the house, so we conducted our session from her sitting on her phone on my driveway and me sitting in my workroom talking to her through her phone. I will always do whatever it takes to help someone learn about what hypnosis actually is so that they can make a really informed decision of how it works for them. It was the first time, I must admit, that I'd ever done it remotely in that way, especially because I could look down and see her in the car, but it worked and that's what we needed to do because her severe OCD made it impossible for her at that time to leave what was the safe environment of her car. Another teenager, also severe anxiety, and something that I What I also come across quite often is where anxiety is related to social groups, a natural parental response is, well, let's move schools. If there is bullying and things like that involved, moving schools may be the right idea, but what I also tend to see is that when you move schools, there are other children, there are other bullies, and the cycle tends to repeat itself. So, where I prefer to work is understanding what's going on within that individual that's attracting that kind of behavior towards them. And again, with this young lady, we're starting to make some inroads in her changing her energy, her— what is potential hostility that's causing the reaction in others. And she's a happier young lady, which is always lovely to see. And finally, another fairly young child whose parents had separated, and she was spending a week with one and a week with another. Itself could be quite stressful for many. But her mother was finding that increasingly her daughter was not allowing her mum to live her life. It was like, you're mine. You can't date. You can't see anyone else. You can't go out at night. You've got to stay with me. And of course, the root of that is insecurity. So it's working with this young child, an area that I'm increasingly getting into because the younger brain does work differently from the adult brain. But even so, hypnosis is still such a powerful tool that it allows us to get down below that conscious level to the subconscious to really understand the beliefs, the needs that, that anxious mind has to help it become more confident and feel more secure. It's been a very varied week, and that's one of the things that I love about what I do. But the common factor is the mind is so powerful, and when we tap into that power, the possibilities of what we can achieve still feel to me as being almost infinite. So, if you're struggling with something and you just can't seem to find the right result, let's have a chat. I can't promise I can help, but I'd love to have that conversation and just see if it's worth exploring a little bit more. So until next week, I wish you a wonderful week ahead, and I look forward to sharing my week with you again next week. Bye-bye for now. Bye-bye for now.
