Is hypnotherapy the secret to reducing anxiety? Here's my personal experience

Within moments of my preliminary phone call with the hypnotherapist I was due to see for anxiety, he asked me what I was anxious about.

That's quite a broad question and one hard to answer in a quick call, I thought. "Can I get back to you with a list once I've had a think?" I asked, to which he replied saying this was a classic sign of anxiety and not wanting to get something 'wrong'.

Did he have a point? Or was my response fair enough? A little unsure, I arrived at Christopher Paul Jones' clinic on Harley Street, slightly nervous but open-minded (I'd had a form of hypnotherapy before for something else in my life, which did massively help, after all).

Christopher is known for freeing people of their fear or phobia in just one session, with some pretty glowing reviews, though pointed out early on that while the same is possible with anxiety, it's a little more complex and may require more time.

Hypnotherapy at a glance

🧘Health hack reviewed: Hypnotherapy

⭐Celebs who've tried it: Fergie, Lily Allen, biohacker Tim Gray

⏰ Time of treatment: 90 mins (plus a 30-min top up)

💸Price: £300 for one session

✅Pros experienced: Understanding anxiety, working on root causes, more calm, getting in touch with self

❌Cons experienced: Took a while to get into it, a lot to keep up with

📝Rating: 3.5/5

What is hypnotherapy?

While there are different ways to practice hypnotherapy, we're not talking about the type you see on TV where someone dangles a clock and says 'you're under'.

You'll likely be in a relaxed state (through a combination of talking and techniques used), intended to speak more to your unconscious mind (thoughts and feelings you're unaware of day-to-day). However, you are still fully under control and don't have to take on the therapist's suggestions if you don't want to. The session might involve your eyes closed and open.

The hypnotherapist's approach will be based on what you want to work on. For Christopher, his training includes clinical hypnotherapy, cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), EMDR, contemporary psychotherapy, NLP, timeline therapy, EFT and rapid induction therapy – he can use whichever combination is best for the individual.

Also as the author of Face Your Fears: 7 Steps to Conquering Phobias and Anxiety, he weaves this into his seven step approach, which in summary includes:

1. Recognise (understand the roots)

2. Relax the conscious mind

3. Reward (what is the anxiety illogically protecting you from? Identifying secondary gains can help change any blocks that stop us from letting go of fear)

4. Recipe (deconstructing your strategy, i.e. thoughts, behaviours and feelings that reinforce the fear)

5. Release the past

6. Recondition your emotions (including replacing the fear response with something more positive)

7. Realise a powerful future (crafting a future where fear doesn't dictate our choices)

My thoughts

On arrival I opted for the old-fashioned style lift to take me to Christopher's floor, but was quickly alarmed to find myself shut in the dark, the light only momentarily flickering. I couldn't help but wonder if this was part of his methods of 'facing your fears'...

Christopher started our session by asking me about my triggers, what being 'good' at anxiety looks like, what purpose I think it serves me, and understanding why this is illogical. Since our initial phone call, I had warmed to him, he was kind, validating my feelings, and injecting some humour into what can be considered a fairly intense experience.

We moved on to where it may have all started, doing some 'inner child work'. He got me to stand on the spot and focus on various points in the room, moving my eyeline from left to right, and guided me through visualisations from past to present. I answered 'yes' to his questions by leaning forward and 'no' by leaning backwards (supposedly to come from my unconscious mind).

It took me a while to get into it and I felt like there was a lot to keep up with. But after some wandering thoughts, it sunk in more, and I even felt a little emotional at times. When asked how I was feeling now, I said definitely better than I did when entering the room, but I still had some doubts about how I would feel when it 'wore off'.

We worked on a few of my 'what ifs', including apprehension about what I'd be like without anxiety. I enjoyed learning that we are more ourselves when we are at peace.

When asked to explain what being 'good' at anxiety looks like again, I found this harder to do, which I can only assume is a good thing. Christopher continued working on my flickers of doubt with some more techniques that seemed to involve tapping various parts of my body, clenching and releasing fists and saying affirmations out loud.

I left the room feeling lighter, opting to take the stairs this time for not wanting to ruin the moment (he confirmed the lift was just in need of a good fix...). I found myself less irritated by the traffic trying to cross the road and enjoyed the loud music of the busker in the tube – was this part of being more at peace?

Triggered by certain events, the anxiety did creep back in. I suppose while you can't control life, you can try and work on how you react to it. Perhaps my being able to recognise and observe it more was still an improvement. Though it wasn't 'gone', it was very much there.

I took Christopher up on his offer of a top up session a few weeks after the initial one and – due to technical difficulties, as we did this one over Zoom – we had just 30 mins. I quickly realised that hypnotherapy on a video call was not for me. I felt more silly, aware someone was watching me on a screen and couldn't connect.

Nevertheless, it was a useful reminder of what I'd learnt in the previous session – ah yes, when I feel out of control something could go wrong, but I'm more myself when I'm at peace, and what will be will be.

He also touched on how sometimes anxiety can tell you something useful about a situation (i.e. that it might not be right), and so shouldn't always be disregarded. In this sense, getting more in touch with what might be more of a gut feeling can help you know when to act on it.

It's not about fighting the anxiety, he told me, because then you're anxious about that. I also got told off again for using unhelpful language like 'my anxiety'...

Pros experienced:

• Understanding the process of 'anxiety'

• Getting to root causes

• More calm, peaceful

• Getting more in touch with self

• Less anxious

Cons experienced:

• A lot to keep up with, switching between different techniques

• Check ins of how I was 'feeling now' – though not the intention, personally this made me feel pressure to feel a certain way and took me out of the moment

• Zoom less effective (no fault of Christopher's)

Would I do it again?

While I can still feel it under the surface, giving me a prod every now and then, overall my anxiety (sorry, feelings or levels of anxiety) are under control. Is this because the stressful factor in my life triggering it has been removed? Will it rise again? Who knows, maybe that's where I need to keep working on the 'what ifs' and how I deal with it.

I definitely would do hypnotherapy again, and can see how Christopher's work has had a positive effect on me. Though for this particular treatment, I think I may have found spreading out what we did more effective, and less check-ins about how I was feeling throughout a session.

So I think hypnotherapy can reduce anxiety, but I agree, anxiety is complex and takes time.

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