Hypnosis for Anxiety
What to Expect in Anxiety Therapy
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If you're considering therapy for anxiety, you might be wondering: What actually happens in a session? As a therapist who specializes in anxiety treatment and hypnotherapy, let me walk you through the process—so you know exactly what to expect and how we’ll work together to help you feel calm, confident, and in control again. Our first session will be 90 minutes and the first 30-40 minutes we talk.
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Through the questions I identify these types of things:
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Is there is any trauma that needs treating or PTSD
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Are there any childhood feelings of being criticised/bullied/abandoned/worthlessness/not being important
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Do you suffer from anticipatory anxiety
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What triggers you? When we knows your triggers we can track their origins.
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Is there a family history of anxiety or worry?
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What you want to achieve from the therapy and how will we know it's working?
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THERAPY TOOLS I USE FOR ANXIETY
When it comes to treating anxiety, trauma, low mood, and related challenges, a one-size-fits-all approach just doesn’t work. That’s why I use a combination of powerful, evidence-based tools tailored to your unique needs. Here’s a quick overview of the main therapies I work with, and how each can support your healing journey.:
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1.Hypnotherapy
Accessing the Calm Within
Hypnotherapy is a gentle, relaxing process that’s a bit like a guided meditation. During a session, you enter a calm, focused trance-like state where your unconscious mind becomes more open to positive change.
In this deeply peaceful state, I speak directly to your unconscious to help you:
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Release old patterns and limiting beliefs
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Become more flexible in your responses to stress and anxiety
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Cultivate calmness and centredness
Hypnotherapy is safe, evidence-based, and a wonderful tool for helping you respond differently to triggers—making it especially effective for anxiety, phobias, and confidence issues.
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​​​​2. Psychotherapy with Hypnotherapy: Working with Your Inner World
Think of psychotherapy as a conversation with the deepest parts of yourself. Sometimes we do this while you're in a relaxed, trance-like state—where you're more open and receptive to change.
We may explore:
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Your inner critic and whether it’s time for them to retire
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The hypervigilant self you created to stay safe
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Visualizing and “exposing” yourself to anxious situations (like flying or public speaking) while calming your nervous system
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Reconnecting with your inner child to bring healing and safety
This work can be deeply transformative and helps rewire your responses from the inside out.
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Using the imagination and exposing you to the 'anxiety'. So if you have a fear of flying we immerse you in the preparation for a flight, getting on the flight and the flight itself. Through this process of immersion or 'exposure' we are able to retrain the nervous system that it is safe. We also work somatically (read below) while using exposure.
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We grow the confident you and put them in the driver's seat so you have what it takes to meet fear, fearlessly.
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If needed, we can work with your inner child, first finding your wise, strong and powerful adult who can step in and look after you. We use all sorts of techniques to bring the child to a place of safety and healing including narrative re-writing (re-imagine the story so you are more empowered) and finding out what the child needs to feel whole again. We can work with parts of you that feel unsafe and unresolved and integrate them into a place of safety and maturity.
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All of us have a wise inner guide who knows what you need and what's best for you, it's a matter of connecting with him or her and expanding their power. We all have multiple players within us - the child, the teacher, the pupil, the mother, the victim, the healer... By activating and expanding the part of you that is powerful, matured and wise and bringing them into a leadership position within you, big changes can be made.
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3.EMDR For Anxiety & Trauma
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If trauma is part of your story, EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) can be a game-changer. This method helps the brain and body release traumatic memories—so they no longer trigger intense emotional reactions.
I use EMDR to work with:
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Past abuse or bullying
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Accidents or medical trauma
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Breakups, grief, or family trauma
Not everyone with anxiety needs EMDR, but when it’s the right fit, the results can be profound.
4. NLP
NLP helps retrain your brain to think more positively and productively. We might use it to:
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Reframe negative thoughts
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Replace catastrophic “what if” thinking with empowering beliefs
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Visualize future scenarios with confidence
NLP is especially helpful for performance anxiety, social anxiety, and when you're ready to build a more optimistic mindset.
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5.SOMATIC WORK (Body work)
We work through your body while in a trance identifying where you hold your anxiety. We relax these areas (heart, below the heart, stomach) and identify if there are any feelings of tension, terror or anxiety. Is it fluid or frozen, heavy or light? Our nervous system response is reflected in an increased heart rate, nausea and can lead to IBS and other digestive issues. We work with moving toward safe states and unsafe states via the imagination so that you can learn how your body responds. The nervous system is re-trained to relax. You learn how to map your own body and how to truly relax. Clients find this aspect of the treatment very powerful as it opens up their understanding of the body/mind and they often gain clarity and insights that help them move forward.
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​6. PARTS THERAPY
This is very similar to Internal Family Systems work. Under anxiety is generally a trigger and if we go into the trigger through the body we can go on an interesting journey of discovery. Going into your alarm system, where anxiety activates in our body, can bring us to the inner child and where it all began. This is always an interesting and revealing journey and one that can ben intensely profound for clients as old memories are revealed that they had forgotten or had no idea were under the anxiety or panicked feelings.
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7.THE BREATH
We work with the breath - using diaphragmatic breathing to slow down your nervous system. Some call this the switch breath as it is a physiological way of turning the system from activated and stressed to relaxed. It is a standard method of self managing anxiety and not to be underestimated :)
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8.SELF-HELP TOOLS FOR ANXIETY RELIEF AT HOME
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A big part of healing anxiety is learning to live in a relaxed state, not just “managing” symptoms. I’ll equip you with tools to use between sessions, including:
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Breathing techniques to calm your nervous system
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Hypnosis audio tracks to listen to at home
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Journaling prompts and imaginative visualizations
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Mind-body exercises to unwind after a stressful day
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Tapping or EFT
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Understanding anxiety as an alarm and understanding how to move from the mind to the body
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Techniques to let go of worry
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Body based techniques such as yoga, meditation, qigong
Clients who commit to home practices tend to heal faster and more deeply.
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A Client’s Story: From Lifelong Anxiety to Lasting Relief
"I have had anxiety since I was very little. It has felt like a big black rock was stuck in my chest. I had tried some counselling in the past, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and similar techniques, but they had limited effect. For a while, I even tried medication but for me, that didn't help.
I found Diana on the internet and that same week we had booked our first session. I had suffered for so long, and I really needed help, and I really wanted change. That was my first step.
Diana got to the core, the absolute core of my fears, and with her gentle guidance, she was able to help me find my way. I guess she kind of made me realise, the answers I needed most, were already there waiting for me.
That was then...Now..well...the anxiety has gone, and I know who I am. That single experience, has given me back "me", and there is nothing there to be afraid of.
Thank you Diana.
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Diana Joy
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