Solution Focused Hypnotherapy counts on the 'plasticity' of our brains, i.e. the fact that the brain and therefore our thoughts and our personality are only as fixed as we think them to be.

This TEDx Talk by Dr Max Cynader explains how we make associations (good or bad!). This is very important to understand to make the changes we want in our lives!

Based on this talk, it seem Dr. Cynader may well support what we at Clarity Flow Hypnotherapy tell our clients all the time; that the key to a healthy brain is a good night's sleep and positive physical activity!

See video: Enhancing the plasticity of the brain: Max Cynader at TEDx Talks

As we approach “Look up at the Sky Day” on 14 April, we realise that we can use this change in perspective to find the solutions to our problems in life. By looking up at the broad expansiveness of the sky what we are really doing is shifting our awareness from analysing the smaller pieces of the jigsaw puzzle of our life to seeing the bigger picture of the combination of all the puzzle pieces. 

Maral Kojayan, a Solution Focused Hypnotherapist, based in London says that “When we focus on the problems in our lives, we remain trapped in the emotionally negative part of our mind that goes around in circles. But by allowing our focus to widen from the minutia of our issue to the grand scheme of things helps us step out of the grips of the habitual emotional mind and move into the intellectual space that contains the answers and wisdom that we need to be able to move our lives forward.”

Solution Focused Hypnotherapy is a forward looking therapy that focuses on finding the solutions in your life. Maral goes on to add “The solutions to our lives can be found when we are able to detach ourselves from the actual problems that are gripping us. By moving into a detached observer position, we are able to gain some clarity over the situations we find ourselves in and see other possibilities that are available, via external help, resources or inspired ideas that can emerge within the space that opens up when we move out of the emotional mind.”

The brain is divided into two mindsets, the intellectual mind and the emotional mind. The limiting emotions of fear or anxiety are designed to keep us checking out our lives for threats or danger, but as we know we are usually not really in the type of crisis or emergency that our emotional brain tries to convince us of, we are simply not being mindful. “When we move out of the present moment, and what the mindfulness teachers describe as the “higher self”, we get pulled back in to the primitive part of the brain that is constantly on high alert, predicting and forecasting the future with obsessive risk assessment, or tracking back into the past, where previous templates of behaviour and patterns are repeated in order to keep us “safe”. The emotional part of our brain is certainly not exploratory, it wants to stay inside the comfort zone, and is reluctant to allow you to broaden your horizon with innovative thinking.” Maral says.

Solution Focused Hypnotherapy teaches you to move out into this expansiveness and helps you understand that you are not your primitive mind, but you are actually your intellectual mind. That part of your mind that knows calm, knows clarity, knows happiness and knows creativity.

Maral is a member of the Association of Solution Focused Hypnotherapy (AfSFH) and is practicing in the London area. For more information email [email protected] or visit www.clarityflowhypnotherapy.com.

For more information about the AfSFH, please visit www.afsfh.co.uk.