Cognitive Hypnotherapy in London
Cognitive Hypnotherapy is a modern form of clinical hypnotherapy, informed by evidence and grounded in neuroscience and modern psychology.
Within my practice, it is central to my trauma-informed nervous system approach for chronic pain and anxiety. It allows us to work directly with subconscious patterns that influence how the body responds to stress, perceived threat and physical symptoms.
Cognitive Hypnotherapy forms a core part of the Breath Body Mind Method, my integrated framework for working with anxiety, chronic pain and trauma.
What is Cognitive Hypnotherapy?
Cognitive Hypnotherapy combines principles from neuroscience, psychology and clinical hypnotherapy to help update patterns held below conscious awareness.
Rather than simply talking about change, we work at the level where many stress, anxiety and pain responses are learned and maintained. This approach can also support work with trauma-related patterns, including PTSD.
Cognitive Hypnotherapy utilises the everyday nature of trance to work with the subconscious mind.
What is trance?
Trance is not a special or supernatural state. It is a natural part of everyday life.
If you have ever become absorbed in a book, lost track of time scrolling on your phone, or driven somewhere on autopilot, you have experienced a light trance state.
In therapy, this natural state allows us to work more effectively with subconscious patterns while you remain fully aware and in control.
I don’t require you to be in a ‘deep trance’ state. Think of it more like daydreaming, or the relaxed state you feel when listening to a guided meditation.
In addition to focused subconscious work, I may incorporate Somatic Therapy where appropriate. These body-based exercises support nervous system regulation and can help you integrate cognitive shifts at a physical level.
I offer many useful hypnotherapy audio recordings that you can start to use today, here in my Shop.
How Hypnotherapy can help with Chronic Pain and Anxiety
Chronic pain and anxiety are influenced by how the nervous system interprets signals of safety and threat. When protective responses become overactive, symptoms can persist even when danger has passed.
Cognitive Hypnotherapy can help to update these overprotective patterns, bringing greater flexibility and responsiveness to the nervous system.
This study goes into more details about the benefits of Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy for anxiety, pain, and improvement in health conditions and illnesses.
Why is working with the subconscious important in therapy?
Much of our thinking, feeling and responding happens outside conscious awareness, including the beliefs, habits, impulses and emotional responses that shape how we respond to stress, pain and perceived threat.
These patterns are not deliberate- they are unconsciously learned strategies to keep ourselves safe. If the nervous system has become overprotective, simply “thinking differently” is often not enough. We need to work at the level where those protective responses were formed.
Cognitive Hypnotherapy allows us to gently access and update those patterns, while you remain fully aware and in control. As those patterns shift, your nervous system can respond with greater flexibility and access to safety.
How is Cognitive Hypnotherapy different?
Every nervous system is shaped by different experiences. Because of that, no two sessions are the same.
Rather than following a fixed script, we work within your individual patterns, beliefs and lived experience. This makes the work collaborative and responsive.
As part of a wider nervous system approach, hypnotherapy is used thoughtfully and at a pace that respects your capacity. The focus is not on imposing change, but on creating the conditions in which change feels possible.
As part of our work together, I will write, record and send you a personalised audio file to listen to in your own time, so that our work can continue between sessions.
A brief video I created in partnership with the Hypnotherapy Directory to explain how Hypnotherapy can help with pain management.
Additional Subconscious Integration Tools
Where appropriate, I may draw from additional subconscious integration tools such as Eye Movement Integration (EMI), Havening and Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT).
These approaches can support the updating of emotional memories and protective responses held beneath conscious awareness.
They are used thoughtfully and selectively as part of the wider Breath Body Mind Method.
What can online Cognitive Hypnotherapy in London help with?
When overprotective stress patterns become entrenched, they can contribute to a range of difficulties. Cognitive Hypnotherapy may support work with-
Chronic or persistent pain
Anxiety and panic
Trauma-related patterns
Stress-related fatigue
Health anxiety
Burnout
The NHS recommends talking therapies, including hypnotherapy, as one of their 10 strategies to reduce chronic pain.
Here’s a short video explaining the power of Cognitive Hypnotherapy, by its Founder, Trevor Silvester.
“Her voice is a balm and a guide to bring you to the place where real change is happening, a gift of self autonomy, empowerment and freedom to choose self love over addiction and avoidance”
Want to know more?
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I work with the ongoing effects of trauma and stress. If you have a PTSD or CPTSD diagnosis, this works alongside, not instead of, care from your GP.
Hypnosis and Cognitive Hypnotherapy can support people living with CPTSD, when used in a trauma-informed and collaborative way.
Sessions focus on helping the nervous system feel safer, reducing overwhelm, changing subconscious overprotective patterns and building greater emotional capacity, in a way that’s paced manageably for you.
My work is not appropriate if you are currently in crisis or under the care of a psychiatrist or Mental Health Team.
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Hypnotherapy may help people living with chronic pain by supporting nervous system regulation, reducing fear and stress responses, and changing the way the brain processes pain signals.
It works particularly well alongside Pain Neuroscience Education and somatic approaches such as TRE.
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Yes. Anxiety and chronic stress can contribute to symptoms such as muscle tension, dizziness, fatigue, digestive issues, breathlessness, headaches and pain flare cycles.
This reflects the close relationship between the brain, body and nervous system- and its this relationship that we address when you work with me.
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Cognitive Hypnotherapy can be effective for anxiety disorders for many people, yes.
Hypnotherapy can help all types of anxiety including generalised anxiety, health anxiety, panic disorder and social anxiety.
Cognitive Hypnotherapy works with the upstream subconscious patterns and nervous system responses that drive anxiety, rather than just downstream symptom management.
By updating the underlying beliefs and threat responses that keep anxiety running, many clients experience lasting relief from anxiety rather than just using temporary coping strategies to manage distress.
Sessions are online, making support accessible wherever you are in the UK.
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Hypnotherapy is generally very safe when practised by a qualified, accredited therapist.
Some people experience emotional release during or after a session, which is normal and usually temporary. When working with me, I will ensure that everything is paced and contained to avoid overwhelm.
Occasionally buried memories or feelings surface, which is why working with a trauma-informed practitioner is so important.
Hypnotherapy can use helpful dissociation as a tool, so if you are prone to unhelpful dissociation, its important for me to know, to avoid any adverse reactions.
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Hypnotherapy works best for people who are ready and willing to engage with the process. It requires an open, curious mindset rather than scepticism or resistance.
Hypnotherapy is not recommended for people with psychosis, schizophrenia, suicidal thoughts or personality disorders. I also don't work with people who are currently under the care of a mental health team or psychiatrist.
If you have any concerns about whether Hypnotherapy is right for you, a free clarity call is a good place to start. We can explore whether my approach fits your situation before you commit to anything.
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Yes,, Hypnotherapy can be beneficial if you have low self esteem. Cognitive Hypnotherapy can help address the beliefs, thought patterns and emotional experiences that contribute to low self-esteem- such as having a harsh inner critic, or unhelpful internalised beliefs about yourself.
Sessions aim to support greater self-trust, emotional resilience and a healthier relationship with yourself.
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Many people seek hypnotherapy when stress, pressure and emotional exhaustion begin affecting their wellbeing.
Cognitive Hypnotherapy can help calm nervous system activation, reduce overwhelm and support healthier ongoing coping skills.
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Yes. Cognitive Hypnotherapy is often used to help change unwanted habits and behavioural patterns by working with the underlying beliefs, emotional associations and automatic responses that help maintain them.
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Traditional hypnotherapy typically works through direct suggestion- guiding someone into a relaxed state and offering scripted suggestions designed to create change. It assumes trance is a special state induced by the therapist, and that the right suggestion delivered in that state will produce the desired result. For some issues, particularly simple habits or phobias, this can be effective.
Cognitive Hypnotherapy, developed by Trevor Silvester at the Quest Institute, takes a fundamentally different position. It understands trance as an everyday, naturally occurring state of mind- something we move in and out of constantly, not something that needs to be specially induced. Rather than relying on pre- written scripts, it draws on cognitive theory, neuroscience, and evolutionary psychology to create a highly personalised approach, tailored to how each individual's mind specifically generates their problem.
In practice, no two Cognitive Hypnotherapy sessions look the same. The work is led by you- your language, your metaphors, your specific patterns of thinking and feeling- rather than a script written for a generic version of your issues.
This personalisation makes it particularly effective for complex, long-standing problems, and for people for whom previous approaches haven't worked.
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Anxiety lives in the body as much as in the mind. The racing heart, the tight chest, the shallow breathing, the physical bracing that never quite releases- these are not just symptoms of anxious thinking.
They are the nervous system in a state of protection, holding a pattern of threat response in the body itself.
Hypnotherapy alone can reach the subconscious beliefs and thought patterns maintaining anxiety.
Somatic awareness alone can bring attention to where anxiety lives in the body. But combining the two creates something neither achieves independently - working with the nervous system and the subconscious mind simultaneously.
When we bring somatic therapy into hypnotherapy work, the body becomes part of the therapeutic conversation.
Rather than only working with thoughts and beliefs, we also track what the body is doing- where tension is held, how the breath is moving, what shifts as we work.
This allows change to happen at every level, not just cognitively. And when the body begins to feel genuinely safe, the subconscious mind can become more receptive to new information- each making the other more possible.
This is why the Breath Body Mind Method integrates Cognitive Hypnotherapy with Somatic Therapy as a matter of course, rather than treating them as separate techniques applied one after another.
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Yes- Cognitive Hypnotherapy can be particularly useful for health anxiety.
At its core, health anxiety is a nervous system pattern- the brain has learned to scan the body for danger and interpret normal sensations as threatening.
Cognitive Hypnotherapy works with both the subconscious beliefs driving this pattern and the nervous system responses maintaining it, creating lasting change and relief.
Online sessions make it straightforward to access support from anywhere in the UK, without the added anxiety of needing to travel to appointments.
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Cognitive Hypnotherapy is designed as a brief process. Many people report improvements within the first 4 sessions, and the results tend to build up over time.
If you are dealing with multiple issues, you’ll generally need more sessions. We can discuss your unique situation in more detail when we have a free call.
You can find additional answers to your questions here.