Marta Marsland

Cognitive Hypnotherapist

Ways of Working

There are a range of treatment options that can be used to address an issue.  Cognitive Hypnotherapy utilises some of the most powerful techniques available today, including:

Neuro-Linguisitc Programming (NLP)

We all develop behavioural strategies for coping with life.  These strategies are fed and coloured by our perceptions and thinking patterns, which in turn limit and expand our sense of choice, and our behaviours.  Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) provides an understanding of the connection between our neurological processes (‘neuro’), our language (‘linguistic’) and our learned behavioural strategies (‘programming’).  In other words, it is a framework for understanding how we process our experience:  how we perceive, know, learn and behave.

We generally know that what hurts or hinders us is not what happens to us, but rather how we interpret those events.  NLP provides tools for identifying the processes that lead two people experiencing the same event to interpret and respond to them completely differently.  For example, after experiencing the same robbery, one person may chose to co-ordinate a village patrol association and then incessantly patrol the neighbourhood; the other may chose to add locks and bolts to the door and refuse to leave the house.  NLP can help to understand the processes behind the strategies that underlie these behaviours, as well as provide a wealth of resources for how to quickly and effectively alter unhelpful coping strategies.  By changing how you think, you can transform what you think. 

Time Line Reprocessing (TLR)

Recent discoveries in neuroscience reveal that memory is not static or written in stone as we once believed.  Instead, we now know that memories are plastic.  Each time we remember something, a little bit of the memory is altered.  Standard talk therapy, in which negative memories are endlessly discussed, can make the negative thoughts and feelings stronger each time the memory is accessed.  Instead, TLR allows us to re-visit memories that have been “locked in” to an old problematic pattern for the purpose of re-framing them.  This allows the memories to be processed in a more adaptive and healthier fashion.  In this way, you can change the feelings and understanding of the problematic memory, thereby releasing its hold on you in the present.  

Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)

EFT is based on the understanding that physical and emotional pain are caused by a disruption in the body’s energy system.  It works by lightly “tapping” points on the body along the energy meridian lines while thinking about aspects of the issue or memory concerning you.  These energy lines are roughly the same as those used for acupuncture or where electrodes are attached to measure the body’s electrical (heart) rhythms.  This focused tapping acts to release the blockage.  Once the blockage is reduced or eliminated, the body’s energy system can re-align, allowing the body to return to its otherwise natural balance.  This is something like removing the static and noise coming through the radio or television when it is not properly tuned into the station you wish to hear.  Afterwards, the memory remains, but the negative emotional connection to it is reduced or eliminated completely.  As a result, negative emotions and even physical pain can diminish and fade very quickly.  EFT is gentle, has no ill effects and is very effective on its own or as part of a programme of treatment. 

Wordweaving^TM

The quality of hypnotic language is critical to the success of hypnotherapy.  It is what supports and enables a transformation to take place within some aspect of a person’s subjective reality so that change can take place.   For example, if you wanted to eliminate a panic response to public speaking, some aspect of your subjective reality would have to change so as to more adaptively accommodate an updated view of yourself, of pubic speaking and of the interaction between the two.  Wordweaving is a skilled, powerful and artful method of creating hypnotic language.  It was created by Trevor Silvester, founder of the renowned Quest Institute, to enhance and empower the transformative power of hypnotic suggestion.   Wordweaving “refines the power of words” allowing the therapist to know specifically what the words are intended to achieve and to craft suggestions so that they “act like a surgeon’s scalpel” instead of scattering words generically, hoping that they will hit the mark.[1]

In this way, Cognitive Hypnotherapy and Wordweaving form an approach to therapy that is very different from the standard hypnotherapy approaches.  These tend to utilise “one-size-fits-all” scripts for all “problems” having similar generic components.  Cognitive Hypnotherapy does not deal with generic problems.  In fact, we don’t focus on the problem at all.  We focus on the person and how they “do” their problem – and their unique solution.  Not all people who fear public speaking, for example fear it for the same reasons.  No hypnotic suggestion dealing in generalities related to public speaking will fit any of these people perfectly.  Instead, as a professional Cognitive Hypnotherapist, I work in partnership with you to understand the unique subjective reality that underpins and maintains your “problem” in your experience.  Utilising Wordweaving, each suggestion I use is woven out of the material you provide, so that it is uniquely tailored to your needs, and aimed deliberately and specifically at achieving the particular outcomes you wish to achieve.