Welcome to our
private psychotherapy practice

PAIN RELIEF

Pain is the body’s way of telling you that there is something wrong. It is therefore important that the cause of the pain is thoroughly investigated and the appropriate treatment given.
There is a wide range of analgesics available both over the counter and on prescription to counteract pain. However, hypnosis can be used to help relieve pain in those patients where standard treatments have proved to be ineffective. This is particularly evident in the severe pain associated with cancer and in conditions involving bone disease.
It has been found that women who have learnt use self hypnosis require much less in the way of analgesics to control the pain during labour. To learn self hypnosis the patient needs to have a number of treatment sessions during the course of their pregnancy with a medically qualified hypnotherapist.
Hypnosis is widely used in dentistry both for the relief of anxiety and the control of pain and is becoming more widely accepted as an alternative to anaesthesia for surgery.

PANIC ATTACKS

When people suffer a high level of anxiety this may reach panic proportions. Individuals in a state of panic experience a variety of very unpleasant symptoms. They may be subject to overbreathing, palpitations, sweating, and feelings of helplessness. In addition the excessive overbreathing leads to pins and needles in the hands and feet which causes further stress.

As with anxiety the panic attacks are a sign of an underlying emotional problem. It is essential that the cause of the anxiety is investigated and treated by a skilled therapist. This may be achieved either by individual psychotherapy, by the use of hypnotherapy or a combination of these two approaches.  

If panic attacks are left untreated the situation in which they occur becomes associated with the anxiety, if this happens the person may well avoid that situation and become phobic to it. SEE PHOBIAS. 

PERFORMANCE ANXIETY

The anxiety of performing in front of other people may produce a variety of symptoms which are often so distressing that the individual may be forced to give up performing in public altogether. These symptoms may include blushing, excessive sweating, stuttering and feelings of terror. Some actors may be so frightened that they cannot go on stage; highly accomplished musicians may be unable to play in front of an audience and professional singers may have great difficulty singing in public.
Performance anxiety responds particularly well to hypnotherapy.  During the treatment session the therapist asks the patient to rehearse the performance which causes them anxiety.  In the first half of the session this is carried out in hypnosis, where as in the second half it is repeated without hypnosis. For instance a violinist who has difficulty playing in public will actually play his or her instrument first during the hypnosis and then again when they have come out of the hypnosis. In some instances if the instrument if the instrument is too large to bring into the consulting room it is possible to practice the activity in imagination during the hypnosis and the patient will repeat this in real life at home as soon as possible after the session.
This treatment approach has extremely good results for all forms of performance anxiety.

PHOBIAS

The term phobia is used when a person is terrified of an object or a situation which other people would regard as harmless. This leads to avoidance of the feared situation or object which in turn increases the severity of the phobia.

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Treatment is aimed at making it possible for the patient to cope with their phobia and ultimately over come it. Hypnosis can be extremely helpful in the treatment of phobic disorders but not all patients agree to have hypnotherapy, in which case a different approach to treatment is used.

An alternative approach to treatment may involve the therapist accompanying and supporting the patient as they confront the phobia in a real life situation. On the other hand some patients prefer to have individual psychotherapy in which they can explore the emotional problems responsible for the development of the phobia, but even with this form of treatment it is essential that the patient encounters the target of their fears. 

In some cases the therapist may employ a combination of all three of these forms of treatment.

Dr Kraft specialises in the treatment of phobias and has successfully treated a large number of phobic patients. Some of the phobias he has treated with excellent results include:-    
- Animal Phobia
- Arachnophobia
- Balloon Phobia
- Bird Phobia
- Chemotherapy Phobia
- Dental Phobia
- Driving Phobia
- Examination Phobia
- Flying Phobia
- Heat Phobia
- Injection Phobia
- Snake Phobia
- Traffic Phobia
- Wasp Phobia
- Water Phobia

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POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER (PTSD)

After a traumatic incident of some magnitude some people develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). These patients find that they experience flash backs of the original trauma, sleep is disturbed, and some subsequently avoid the site of the original incident and may become phobic to that particular location or situation.
PTSD can be successfully treated with the aid of hypnosis. These patients have been through harrowing experiences and it must be remembered that the effects of this will have made a deep impact on their emotions. For this reason, the patient and therapist need to work together over a number of sessions for a successful outcome to be achieved.
The aim of hypnosis in the treatment of PTSD is to enable the patient to overcome the effects of the original trauma in a safe and supportive environment. It is important that the therapist creates an atmosphere in which it becomes possible for the patient to revisit the distressing experience without feeling the anguish associated with it. In this way it becomes possible for the patient to make a complete recovery from the original incident. 

PSYCHOTHERAPY

Individual psychotherapy is a form of treatment, which helps people understand why they function in the way that they do. It assists people who experience difficulty with particular aspects of their life to cope better, and enables people to improve the way they function as a whole, helping them reach their potential. In keeping with this as the treatment progresses many patients find that there is an improvement in the way they relate to other people.
Patients seek psychotherapy for a variety of reasons, such as Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), phobias, depression, anorexia, anxiety and psychosexual disorders.
Psychotherapy differs from a normal conversation in that the whole of the focus is on the patient. During the sessions the patients talk about themselves and the therapist responds to this, rather than it being a two-way dialogue. It is customary for the patient and therapist to face one another in the first instance but later in long term therapy the patient may prefer to lie on the couch with the therapist sitting on a chair behind. This may help the patient to get in touch with his or her emotions, because the therapist is out of view.

One can divide the human mind into those things that we know about, the ‘Conscious Mind’, and those of which we are not aware, the ‘Unconscious Mind’. The main aim of psychotherapy is to bring unconscious material into consciousness.
One of the important ways of doing this is to interpret dreams. Although patients will often say that they cannot remember their dreams, many find that their recollection can be improved upon by keeping a pencil and pad by the bedside to record the dream immediately on waking. When the therapist focuses on dreams and their interpretation many patients find that they begin to remember their dreams more clearly and in greater detail.  

The main thrust of psychotherapy, is to help people to get in touch with their emotions. This enables them to begin to understand why they function in a particular way.
The problems experienced in adult life often bare a direct relationship to problems experienced in childhood. We tend to forget unpleasant experiences in childhood, this is referred to as “repression”.  
What happens in psychotherapy is that these forgotten experiences are brought into the conscious mind. This may lead to the releasing of powerful emotions. This form of treatment may well be lengthy, and it is not possible to predict the time it will take at the outset.

It is up to the patient to decide the depth to which they wish to explore their problems and also how long they wish to remain in psychotherapy.

Dr. Thomas Kraft