Susanne Ridley
Hypnotherapy

MY STORY​

 

 

Understanding why we feel the way we feel and do the things we do fascinated me from a young age. It is what led me to study psychology, explore philosophy, and delve into a vast range of therapeutic and healing modalities over the years.

 

Relatively early on in my journey I stumbled upon a tool which went beyond questioning and analysing my feelings and behaviours, and actually offered tools to profoundly change it.

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This is when I discovered the technique of self-hypnosis. I was living in London after finishing university, a bit lost and overwhelmed, and faced with constant thoughts and feelings of inadequacy and very low self-worth. The behaviours that manifested as a result of this were harmful, self-sabotaging and fairly reckless at times.

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One day I stumbled across a book called You Are What You Think, written by Tycho Photiou (sadly now out of print). It was a short book, but I credit it with changing my life. What the book outlined was the technique of self-hypnosis. How to enter into a state whereby you could bypass the analytical mind, and plant suggestions directly into the unconscious.

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​The more I applied the technique, the more my life improved. Rather than believing every automatic thought that popped into my head, I began to take control of my beliefs and my inner narrative. And I saw radical changes in my outer world as a result.

 

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Analysis vs Cognitive Therapy

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After my successes using hypnosis and more traditional therapeutic modalities I ended up venturing more in the direction of yogic practices and philosophy. The next wave of really significant change for me came as a result of two yogic practices in particular: meditation and yoga nidra. In fact it was training in these two methods that brought me full circle back to cognitive therapy and hypnosis.

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The reason I chose to study a CBT model of therapy as opposed to a more analytical style was one which took a great deal of consideration and reflection.

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I had always believed in the general rationale of psychoanalysis and acknowledge that there can be value in tracing back our patterns to their origins. But this had only ever felt like half of the story. When I found CBT I felt the puzzle pieces all landing for the first time. Yes, our past informs our future. But CBT asks why. It asks what is at work now, in our psyche, which is actively causing problems in our daily lives? 

 

It is the thoughts and beliefs which have formed as a result of that history which is causing issues in our lives now. Acknowledging their origins absolutely has its place, but it does not necessarily produce change now. Which is, after all, what most people seeking therapy have as an end goal.

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CBT + Hypnosis = The Game-Changer

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Studying both the academic rationale and also the evidence-based techniques of CBT was a game-changer to my perspective of creating change, particularly creating foundational change that actually lasts. Because the central therapeutic process of CBT is “Cognitive Restructuring”, which is the gradual process of transforming negative dysfunctional beliefs into more positive and helpful ones.

 

​Understanding this also made me realise why all of that self-hypnosis had been so transformative all those years ago. Because I had been rewriting beliefs and thought patterns which were, at the time, creating absolute havoc in my life. These changes also matched up precisely with the emerging evidence from the field of neuroscience; that the way you use your mind can have direct and lasting effects on the structure of your brain. Also that the neural networks responsible for our implicit memories are at the root of many of our patterns and behaviours, and that these can be accessed and altered given the correct conditions. 

 

Coming across Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy was one of those moments where suddenly everything just comes together. Here was a multi-model approach to making change that finally made complete sense. Not only did it logically fit together with my own experience, but the evidence backed it up. 

 

Now I am extremely passionate about helping others to achieve positive, lasting change in both a practical and profound way. A key part of my personal approach is making these techniques feel as comfortable, accessible and (dare I say it) as enjoyable as possible. I believe that if doing ‘the work’ can become a pleasurable experience in itself, then this can lead to even greater improvements in even shorter time scales.

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