About integrative mind-body therapy:
Integrated mind-body therapy (IMBT) is an approach to wellness that combines physical, mental, and emotional health practices to promote overall well-being. This holistic approach recognizes the interconnectedness of the mind and body, and it aims to address both psychological and physiological aspects of health simultaneously. In my work, I integrate numerous therapeutic modalities such as talk based therapy, hypnotherapy, somatic psychotherapy and neurolinguistic programming. However, the main approach is integration of techniques that target the mind-body connection. This page is intended to give the readers a vignette about these modalities and answer some related FAQs.
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How does hypnotherapy work?
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I like to describe hypnotherapy with this metaphor. If we imagine our life to be an airplane, our subconscious mind can be considered the pilot. The pilot is unseen to the passengers and yet controls which direction the aircraft would take. Similarly, our subconscious mind, controls our behaviors, choices, actions, and the direction in which our lives move while remaining largely unseen and unknown to us. It is estimated to constitute nine tenth of our mind and thus plays a mighty strong role in our day-to-day decisions and actions, all without our conscious knowledge. In our day-to-day life, we give a lot of importance to the logical mind which at it best is only a feeble instrument compared to the vast expanse of the subconscious.
According to the model of hypnotherapy, our actions and behaviors arise from some underlying unseen beliefs. These are conclusions we have subconsciously drawn at some point based on our past experiences. Since each one of us have different past experiences, each of us operates through different beliefs and thus each of us perceives the world differently. Thus, each of us lives in a different subjective reality. It is as though each one of us is wearing differently color tinted glasses and views the world in our own shade. Consequently, a person with a belief that “the world is a happy place” will view the world differently compared to someone with a belief that “the world is an unsafe place.” While the former will be more on the lookout for beautiful experiences in the world, the latter is more likely to spot potentially dangerous things in the same world. In this way, each of us looks at the world in a way that affirms our beliefs.
The process of hypnotherapy allows us to examine the beliefs underlying our behaviors and explore the experiences buried deep in our subconscious mind that led to the formation of those beliefs. Hypnotherapy gives us an opportunity to reprocess the experiences that led to formation of our beliefs. With this understanding we are then able to re-examine our beliefs and reframe them into healthier ones which then translates to changed behavior. Many of us also develop certain behaviors to shield ourselves from feeling some deeper uncomfortable emotions. Hypnotherapy helps to identify and release these defense behaviors that were formed with the intent of protecting us, but are also causing us to remain stuck and stopping us from living a fuller life.
In this way, hypnotherapy helps us understand the deeper origins of our behaviors. While it can be uncomfortable to relook at some of our past experiences, once integrated, the result is truly liberating!
The therapy space is a safe and non-judgmental place to allow all our repressed emotions to surface in order to liberate and integrate the part of ourself trapped there.
How does Somatic psychology work?
At some point as we delve into this mind-based work, it becomes evident how intricately our body is connected to our emotional experiences. Every emotion is linked to a corresponding physical sensation. When we are in a happy and safe place it is felt by our body and conversely when we are in a place that is in some way perceived as a threat, again, it is felt in our bodies too. And in such a situation you can’t convince yourself mentally that you are safe unless you feel it in your body.
Unfortunately, due to some experiences, many of us unknowingly spend a large part of our lives living in a state of threat. And to add to it, over the last few decades, owing to our modern life and the pressures that come along, most of us are unknowingly living in a constant state of low-level stress. We always have some targets to achieve and some deadlines to meet. All these are perceived as threats by our system and our body releases stress hormones to fuel the drive to meet these expectations. Sadly, it has become so common that it almost feels like a "normal" way of living for many of us.
Our brain in constantly communicating with every other cell of our body mainly via the nervous and endocrine systems. Homeostasis is a state of inner harmony and balance where all our internal systems function optimally. When we are stressed or our brain perceives any threat, our sympathetic nervous system is activated, the hormone cortisol is released and the entire body goes into a survival mode. The first and foremost function of our brain is to ensure our survival. And when this primitive part of our brain is activated, most of our energy is diverted to survival while putting the restorative and other housekeeping functions of our body on standby. Once the threat is over, we are supposed to come back to the normal restorative state of our nervous system where our metabolism is restored back to homeostasis. However, with our present lifestyles we seldom come back to the restorative baseline. We remain stuck in a low-level survival mode indefinitely. While we should be spending small amounts of time in the survival mode and most of our time in the mode of homeostasis, we are now spending a lot of time in a dysregulated survival mode. When we have gone through traumatic experiences, we often get stuck in either a hypervigilant state or one of freeze both of which are dysregulated survival states, not knowing how to regulate ourselves back to the baseline.
Somatic or body based practices are aimed to bring our attention to our bodily sensations and cues. Through gentle movements and practices, we first begin to establish a feeling of safety in our body. Gradually with these practices, we restore the felt sense of the restorative baseline state of homeostasis. Once safety is established, we then gradually build resilience and learn to bring ourselves back to this state of harmony after every visit to the fight and flight state, instead of continuing to remain stuck there.
Since the mind and the body are so closely linked, we can start working with either of the two and gradually the effects percolate to the other as well. And at some point the two paths merge. In my practice, I work with both the top-bottom (mind-body) and bottom-up (body-mind) approaches and integrate them. Each one of us needs different approaches and methods to restore our harmony. And you are your own guide. During the process of therapy, we learn to listen to our intuition or our own inner voice that guides us to our path of healing. As we start connecting to ourself, our body tells us what it needs. All we need to do is to teach ourselves to listen. And the therapist is only a facilitator in your self-guided journey.
Apart from these there are numerous other techniques and modalities integrated into the work I do, such as neurolinguistic programming, talk based therapy, energy healing.
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FAQs about hypnotherapy:
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Here I aim to answer some FAQs one might have about therapy; especially hypnotherapy.
Firstly, hypnotherapy has a wide range of applications. The basic crux of hypnotherapy is to address the subconscious programs that lie beneath our conscious behaviors. And hypnosis under the supervision of a trained practitioner is a safe and effective approach to enter the realm of the subconscious mind. Therapy can be useful for a wide range of issues including but not limited to the ones mentioned below.
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To further debunk some of the common myths about hypnotherapy, the state of hypnosis is quite similar to a deep guided meditation. And during the entire process the logical mind is present and available to take over at any point. The therapist in no way can read your thoughts, and you are welcome to share as much or as little as is comfortable to you. Also, hypnotherapy is only one of the many modalities and constitutes only a small and optional part of the process of therapy.
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To further set the right intention and expectations, here are a few more pieces you would like to know about the journey of therapy:
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All said and done, I believe true understanding comes from experience. One may read many a book, hear many a story and yet it is through firsthand experience alone that one can truly understand.
