1. WILLIAM (anxiety)
For 3 years, William (14) had refused to sleep alone after something terrified him. Having to sleep with a sibling or parent was embarrassing and frustrating, but he had no hope for it ever changing.
His parents had talked to him at night and calmed his fears many times over, but the underlying problem wouldn’t shift. This is exactly why hypnotherapy works so well – it deals with the subconscious (automatic, emotional), mind – not the conscious (thinking, logical) mind.
Here’s what he wrote afterwards (transcribed below for easy reading):
“Before I didn’t know what (to) expect, I was apprehensive and I did not think that after half an hour my problems would subside even a little. At first I found my brain had gone blank as my life’s experience had vanished as soon as my foot crossed into the room where magic happened. After 2 minutes I found it very easy to open up to Mrs Culver and it was as if she knew me and my problems better than even myself.
After, I found that my fears that had worked up inside me for 3 years had subsided greatly and I would fully recommend her to anybody who wanted a fear to disappear. Come down here to have your fear disappear.”
In fact he called me Ruth, so I enjoyed that he chose to give me a formal name in his ‘report’!
Since then he’s also sent me me a lovely postcard saying:
“I’m now sleeping on my own and enjoying it!
2. ALARA (low self-esteem)
” I went to see Ruth with issues of low self-esteem and guilt which effected my personal relationships, parenting and professional life.
Although I had understood and rationalised my patterns of behaviour they were still causing me frustration and pain.
What was fantastic about her approach was that she almost immediately enabled me to find both insight and practical methods to tackle the issues.
Ruth’s hypnosis and visualisation techniques helped me to really locate emotions that had been bottled up for many years. She helped me to face them and enabled me to begin letting go of the root causes.
Ruth combines professionalism and empathy in equal proportion which made me feel that I was in a safe place to work things out.
She guided me rather than pushed me… and ultimately although I acknowledge that I couldn’t have done it without her, I felt like I had drawn my own conclusions and had found new methods to face life’s challenges.”
3. HELEN (anorexia & emetophobia)
“When I went to Ruth, I was in recovery from anorexia. However the main obstacle preventing me from gaining weight was crippling anxiety: I would feel sick constantly, and struggle to keep anything down. This became a fear of being sick, which made me sick in itself, and my immediate reaction to any emotion at all, was to feel sick.
Ruth was funny, easy to talk to and relaxing. She also seemed to really understand my worries and said the right things to make me feel secure in her presence. I left the first session feeling happier than I had felt in the past ten months.
I still remember what it was like walking out of the door, taking that breath of fresh air and feeling a completely unstoppable, idiotic grin begin to form. For once, I wasn’t feeling sick, and on top of that I wasn’t even afraid of it.
Of course, I wasn’t instantly and totally cured: it took 6 sessions over a few months before I could consistently eat without wanting to throw it up, but I am happy to say that thanks to Ruth, my anxiety-induced sickness is gone.”
