Reading time: 8 minutes
Anxiety can be incredibly frustrating, especially when you understand why you feel anxious but still can’t seem to switch it off. According to Beyond Blue, anxiety disorders are the most common mental health condition in Australia, affecting over 3 million Australians at any given time.
Many people who seek support for anxiety have already done a lot of thinking, analysing, researching, journaling or talking about what they feel. They know their triggers. They may understand where some of their anxiety comes from. They might be able to explain it very clearly.
The unfortunate thing is that insight doesn’t create change.
This is because anxiety is not just a thought. It is a repeated automatic pattern of thoughts. Your mind is anticipating a future threat with negative possibilities and your mind and body respond to these imagined scenarios, no matter how improbable they may be. Your body doesn’t know the difference so it treats these thoughts as if they are fact. Your body prepares for danger, the sympathetic nervous system (your fight or flight response) activates. Your heart rate goes up, breathing increases, muscles tense, attention narrows and your digestion slows. All very helpful if you are about to run away from danger, not so helpful if you are sitting at your desk, cuddling your kids or trying to go to sleep.
As a result you can live in a state of perpetual dread, constantly worried and fearful of something that may or may not even happen.
Anxiety usually does not appear out of nowhere. For some people it may be due to past experiences, prolonged stress, family patterns, trauma, difficult behaviours, perfectionistic personality tendencies, burnout or uncertainty about the future or the current state of the world. For others, there may not be one clear cause.
What the useful question to ask, and what a clinical hypnotherapy approach asks is, what is keeping the anxiety going now?
Anxiety can be maintained by patterns such as:
- Constantly scanning and anticipating what might go wrong
- Needing certainty before taking action
- Avoiding situations that feel uncomfortable
- Replaying conversations or decisions over and over
- Expecting criticism, rejection, failure or overwhelm as a predetermined outcome
These patterns can become automatic. You may not consciously choose them, you may hate them and not want them to play out, but they can still shape how you feel, behave and respond to situations.
Why Insight Alone May Not Be Enough
Many people with anxiety are very self-aware. They may know exactly what they “should” think or do but still find themselves reacting in the same way. This can be after countless medications, months (or even years) of therapy and going down the rabbit hole of Facebook ads promising to cure their anxiety.
This can feel incredibly defeating.
But this does not mean that you are failing. It often means the anxiety is operating as a learned pattern, not just a logical problem for you to solve.
You might know that you are safe, but still feel on edge.
You might know the worst-case scenario is unlikely, but still keep replaying it.
You might know you do not need to overthink, but still feel unable to stop.
Clinical hypnotherapy can be useful because it works with the subconscious mind, the part of you that reacts before you have had time to reason with yourself.
How Hypnotherapy Actually Rewires Anxious Patterns
Many people may think of hypnosis as a loss of control or a stage trick that makes you cluck like a chicken or make a fool out of yourself. For clinical hypnosis, this could not be further from the truth.
In a landmark 2016 study, Stanford University used functional MRI scans to observe the brains of 57 participants while under different conditions (resting, during memory recall and two different hypnosis sessions).
During a hypnotic trance, the brain enters a state of focused attention and heightened suggestibility. Clinical hypnotherapy directly harnesses the brain's neuroplasticity, the capacity of the brain to form new neural pathways throughout life.
The Stanford study observed that the brain during hypnosis:
- Had a reduction in brain activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate.
- An increase in connections between the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the insula
- Reduced connections between the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the default mode network
The combination of this creates a state of disassociation which allows the individual to engage in activities suggested by a clinician. Simply put, hypnosis is the vehicle by which a skilled clinician delivers their therapy. In a hypnotic state the client is more focused, engaged, responsive and in turn empowered to make the changes needed.
What is Strategic Psychotherapy?
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and medication are both valuable and evidence-based tools for the treatment of anxiety. For many people, they provide real relief. But in my clinical experience, clients often find their anxiety returns or persists because the root cause of the thought patterns hasn’t been addressed.
Strategic psychotherapy is a practical, goal focused approach developed from CBT that looks at the patterns behind a problem, rather than only focusing on the problem itself.
With anxiety, the focus is not simply on the content of the anxious thoughts and challenging that content (like CBT), but on the thought processes that keep anxiety active.
For example, a group of people may all experience anxiety but the pattern underneath may be different. One person avoids decisions because they fear making the wrong decision. Another may over-prepare because they feel unsafe with no certainty to the outcome. For someone else they may constantly seek reassurance from others only to find that the relief never quite reassures them.
Strategic psychotherapy helps identify these unique patterns to the individual and gently interrupts them with a more helpful pattern so that the person can respond differently in new ways.
When combined with clinical hypnosis this approach supports change at both the conscious level and the subconscious level of automatic responses, expectations and emotional regulation.
Remember, the goal is not to erase anxiety completely! Anxiety can be very protective. Feeling anxious about driving in a storm encourages me to slow down while driving or even pull over on the side of the road until it passes. The goal is to stop anxiety running the show!
Is Hypnotherapy Safe? What the Research Says
Clinical hypnosis is recognised as a legitimate, evidence-based therapeutic modality by the Australian Psychological Society, the American Psychological Association, and the British Psychological Society. When practised by a qualified professional, research consistently shows hypnotherapy to be safe, with no reported serious adverse effects in clinical practice.
In Australia, all qualified practitioners are registered with the Hypnotherapy Council of Australia (HCA) and hold credentials in professional hypnotherapy training and participate in ongoing continuing professional development.
What to Expect When You Begin Hypnotherapy
It takes courage to start something new, especially when you’ve tried other approaches. Here’s what you can expect when you begin hypnotherapy:
Before your first session:
- Reflect on what you'd like to be different. What would life look like if anxiety no longer ran the show?
- Write down your specific symptoms and any concerns or questions you have about hypnotherapy.
- Know that you can ask me anything before committing! A good practitioner will always welcome questions.
In sessions:
- We build safety and trust before anything else and explore how anxiety is impacting you on a daily basis.
- We’ll identify what patterns and processes are happening automatically that are keeping you stuck.
- You’ll experience hypnosis for yourself and be provided with a recording to listen to between sessions
- Most clients begin to feel changes after the first session and generally 2-4 sessions bring about substantial change.
- You’ll discover that you have more capacity to respond in situations where previously anxiety took over. This process is not just about feeling better, it’s about doing better!
Through the process if you’re currently taking prescribed medication for anxiety please do not stop taking your medication. Hypnotherapy is designed to work alongside medical treatment, not replace it. As your hypnotherapist and Registered Nurse I place a priority on a multidisciplinary care model and I am more than happy to talk to your GP about your hypnotherapy treatment.
Taking The Next Step
If anxiety has been affecting the way you think, feel, parent, work, sleep or move through your day, support is available.
Clinical hypnotherapy offers a gentle but focused way to explore the patterns that may be keeping anxiety stuck and to start creating change from the inside out.
You do not need to have the perfect words for what you are experiencing. You do not need to know exactly where it started. The perfect place to start is to simply notice that something needs to change and take the first step.
Book a session (link to Heather Profile) or ask a question to find out whether this approach may be right for you.
References & Further Reading
- Australian Psychological Society. (2025). How hypnosis can enhance therapeutic outcomes.
- Beyond Blue: Anxiety
- Hypnotherapy Council of Australia: Find A Practitioner
- International Strategic Psychotherapist Association
- Jiang et al. (2017). Brain activity and functional connectivity associated with hypnosis. Cerebral Cortex, 27(8), 4083-4093. https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhw220
- Kirson et al. (1995). Hypnosis as an adjunct to cognitive behavioral psychotherapy: A meta-analysis. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 63(2), 214-220. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006X.63.2.214.
- Valentine et al. (2019). The efficacy of hypnosis as a treatment for anxiety: A meta-analysis. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 67(3): 336-363. Doi: 10.1080/00207144.2019.1613863.
Disclaimer: This blog is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical or psychological advice. Please consult a qualified health professional for personalised support.
