Piece of Mind — Local services in Great Britain

I'm 26 and for the past 6 years I have suffered from severe anxiety which manifested itself in IBS which would flair up especially when travelling. It started of bearable but over the years continually got worse and worse until it got to the point where travelling anywhere became a nightmare. Even a 10 minute car ride would be an anxiety riddled trip searching for a toilet. Eventually it got to the point where I had become a prisoner to myself in my own home. Refusing to go anywhere that required any sort of travel including driving, walking, taxis, buses and trains. Every time I gave in to the anxiety my condition would get worse and worse and my brain would repeatedly play over the worst possible scenario in my head. The anxiety would trigger the IBS. The IBS would show itself, which would reassure my anxiety that it was correct to worry. Which would the create worse IBS symptoms. This loop would play out over and over again until I got to a safe situation. Over the 6 years I have tried every single medication from doctor prescribed IBS tablets to over the counter IBS pills. My morning routine would consist of taking atleast 4-5 different types of medication just to make the 15 minute drive to work bearable. However even after a certain amount of time my brain could outsmart this medication and eventually they would become non existent in helping. I had always thought of hypnotherapy as hocus pocus or complete nonsense, lumping it in the same category as mediums or psychics. However due to some research over time from Meditation Apps and listening to Podcasts which would have guests discussing having mental coaches and hypnotherapy I decided I had exhausted all other means of help so why not give this a try before completely closing the door on it and accepting to deal with these symptoms for the rest of my life. I had tried everything else so I had the mentality that there was nothing to lose.

Putting my scepticism aside I decided to contact Piece of Mind Hypnotherapy and was immediately greeted with sympathy and open arms. Someone who was willing to help and understood the frustration of living day to day with these conditions and symptoms. It was a breath of fresh air to speak to someone who had not just knowledge about hypnotherapy but had overcome problems themselves.

After the first consultation meeting I left feeling at ease. Talking to someone in a welcome environment and with no judgement. Speaking to someone who had an open mind and who clearly sought out to educate themselves about the inner workings of the mind, placebo effect, flow states, the biological breakdowns of why our body and brains react certain ways to certain scenarios and how to go about correct these reactions.

I was sent away with homework, learning trigger mechanisms and breathing excerises to focus on to draw attention to the way I was thinking and try and change it from negative thoughts to positive thinking. Learning to distract my mind and put myself at ease.

After two weeks I returned for my first official hypnotherapy session. Again, there was still underlying scepticism but I guess that would be normal from years of trying to solve this problem with medication.

After my session I left feeling like a different human being. I had new tools added to my tool bag of tricks and tips I could use to put my mind at ease and over the following weeks was able to travel abroad and be put in stressful situations which would usually flare up my IBS but I was completely fine. I was surprisingly shocked at how quick the treatment had worked especially after one session. I was waiting around expecting something bad to happen, but it never did.

Cut to 6 weeks later and I feel like for the first time In 6 years I finally have my life back. I'm able to take long car journeys without any problems. There has been absolutely no signs of my IBS since which made me come to the conclusion that my IBS which I thought was 50% mental and 50% physical. Was actually 100% fabricated by my own mind and it was me who was making...

I'm an artist and have always struggled with issues of self confidence and with a tendency to self sabotage through harsh self criticism. For a long time this has led me to a kind of productive paralysis and has undermined my professional and artistic development. I decided to book a session with Andy to see if he could help me overcome these issues.

I've only had a single session with Andy so far, but I found it very enjoyable and Andy is a lovely and welcoming guy who is very understanding and easy to talk to. It really seemed as though he intuitively understood the issues I was facing and was able to offer explanations for my self destructive tendencies which made sense to me and which suggested strategies to overcome them. The session consisted of two parts. First was a long chat which took the form of a more conventional councilling session, followed by the hypnotherapy part, which was much shorter. I didn't really know what to expect from the hypnotherapy, but it was actually really enjoyable and deeply relaxing.

In the weeks since our session, I have noticed a marked improvement in my mental state as related to my work. I am now far more objective in my self critique - I'm able to see the positives as well as the negatives, whereas before I only saw the negatives. I no longer lie awake in bed, tearing myself to pieces, telling myself that I'm a failure and that I will never succeed. I'm also more sanguine about my failures, and understand them as a necessary part of my development. As a result I have been far more productive in the studio, and I feel as though the quality of my output has improved significantly as well.

I would wholeheartedly recommend Piece of Mind to anyone facing similar issues related to self confidence and their inner critic. Even if you are sceptical of hypnotherapy, as i once was, Andy is a skilled and empathetic councillor in his own right. I can't say for sure how much of my progress is down to the hypnosis part of our session and how much is down to the long talk we had beforehand, but I suspect neither one would have had the same impact on its own. All I can say for certain is that I have observed a huge positive change in my life and work since my session....

Having just completed my Hypnotherapy Certificate training with Piece of Mind Hypnotherapy, I have to say that I completely recommend training with Andy. It was brilliant!

Andy creates a professional but also a warm, fun and friendly training environment and provides lots of opportunity to allow us to apply our techniques practically aswell as explaining techniques and theory in a very relatable way. The course combines not only hypnotherapy but also NLP techniques and coaching questions . To me, this is important so that we can receive clients in a professional manner and deliver the right amount of integrity and care. Andy also teaches us take-aways that we can both use on ourselves and pass to clients.

I’d done a bit of research before choosing Andy and I’m really glad that I did. I was looking for a trainer who is supportive, has integrity, makes it fun and who trains us to deliver therapy to a high standard. Andy has surpassed my expectations.

I feel excited to apply what I’ve learnt and can’t wait to start the diploma course later this...