Rachel Gillibrand

Welcome to the National Council For Hypnotherapy Podcast, where we dive into the fascinating world of hypnosis, lifting the lid on hypnotherapy, sharing insights and tips for change as we chat. So sit back, relax, and enjoy all the wonderful possibilities of hypnotherapy. My name is Tracey Grist, and I will be your host today. Hello. I'm here today with Doctor Rachel Gillibrand, a hypnotherapist and a specialist in neuroscience.

That's right. And all the

things of the mind. So how are you, Rachel? And how's everything?

Great, Tracey. It's so nice to be welcomed to this podcast. I'm really excited to talk today about all things Hypnosis.

Excellent. Excellent. So let's start with the basics. What drew you into hypnosis, hypnotherapy?

Sure. So my background is I'm a psychologist. So my training was in what we might call more traditional therapies. And I started that quite a while ago at the University of Cardiff and trained all the way through to become a doctor of psychology. It was in, gosh, I think 2015 that I decided I was going to focus more on the practice of psychology. I've been in academia all this time and was training other people to become psychologists and really loving that work and thinking, why aren't I doing it? And I thought, right, let's refresh. Let's just update and see what there is. And the hypnosis really appealed to me because a lot of the work that I had been doing was quite protocolized and felt quite rigid in some ways.

I felt that I wasn't necessarily able to really connect with the person. And it might sound strange to say that hypnosis allowed me to do that, but it really did. It's that connecting to the person that I really enjoy about hypnosis, that there isn't a protocol, that there isn't a format, if you like, that the session has to take that we can use indirect suggestion. We can use direct suggestion. We can use little tricks and treats to really help people engage with what it is that is bothering them so, and what it is that they need help with. And, funnily enough, actually, the thing that really put me under hypnosis was a Guy Ritchie movie. And it was an art theft and art heist movie. And there was a woman in it, and she was a hypnotist.

And she was just fabulous. And I thought, yeah, that's gonna be me. This person who is so professional, so cool, but she's got this additional thing. And I, I don't know, it sparked something in me. And next day, I was looking for courses in hypnosis.

Oh, wow. That inspired. It's either a heist or a murder, isn't it? 1 or the other.

I love a Guy Ritchie movie, and, you know, that was just the one. But I think it was something that has always interested me from the kind of magic side of things, you know, growing up. I like Paul Daniels, you know, and kind of enjoying the fun of what he was doing and kind of mesmerizing people and really drawing them in. So magical trick and the joy in me when it was suddenly revealed. So I think it was just a combination of so many different things. And then to understand that it was a real thing, that hypnosis isn't a game or a trick or a stage show, that actually it's something that really works, you know, that it's something that really makes a difference to people.

It's funny, isn't it? I think for if certainly from, I love the subconscious work. I love getting in there. And I'm not sure that with the more linear approaches like psychology, like CBT, there is that working underneath. Do do you mind that?

I do. I do. And I find this this real change when the person can just dig deep and access a part of themselves that they didn't know was there or that was hidden to them or that they had hidden on some level from the past. And the emotional kind of release at times or just that real insight that the person can get when you go deeper into the subconscious. And the person has that kind of Eureka moment that, oh, that's what it is. That is what is happening in my life right now. And the visual element of it, that you can take people on a journey that they can explore a space within themselves. And that space can be what seems at first a blank empty room that then starts to fill up with detail and story and people.

And I just find it still absolutely fascinating. Every day I find it just, you know, extraordinary.

I think we're very privileged, aren't we, and are just lucky, generally, to be able to work in this way. But you've also come the sort of neuroscience way and looking at brain scans of what hypnosis or what words can make a difference. Do you are you happy to touch on that?

Sure. So when I started my training in hypnosis, I was still working in the university and I started talking to a colleague of mine there who was having an absolute fascination in neuroscience. And I said to her, I'm really interested in what's going on here in the brain. And she said to me, well, look, you know, there are ways of looking to see what happens. And her name is Caroline Brown and, and she publishes and teaches and lives kind of neuroscience. She's just. And she said, well, come down to the lab. We've got I'm down to the lab.

To the lab. And of course, it is in the basement, you know, proper, you know, child stuff. And she said, we've got EEG stuff. And we can tell what's happening in terms of the activity of the brain. These headsets, we can pop them on and where we can see what's happening in different areas of the brain during anything. And she was teaching this to students, and they would, you know, attempt various kind of experiments with this to see what would would happen in in your participant. And one thing they had there, which really excited me, was what we might call a perambulatory kit. So it's a wireless kit.

You can pop it on and walk around. And this piece of kit allows us to have somebody in a normal environment. So this is, this is my room. This is where I work from. Somebody here could be sat in a chair wearing this piece of kit and I could be talking to them. We could go into hypnotic trance. And I can see what is happening in real time in the brain. It's pretty cool.

Pretty cool. And that just excited me. And so I was fortunate in the, as I got a little bit of funding from the university for a kind of summer holiday project, got the students involved, trained them up in delivering research with kind of real people, you know, not to other students, but members of the public. And we conducted studies into the effect of hypnosis on the brain. And what we found the most interesting, most interesting to me is the impact on creative thinking. Okay. That when we put something into trance and the trance that I was using was a kind of journey type trance with a metaphor in the middle of it.

So is that like a visual story?

Yes. Sorry. A visual story where you would walk into a place and find safety there and be nurtured in that place, and then start to explore the place and to explore yourself within that story. The story was about kind of looking at things in a new way about seeing the sunrise. It was about really tackling that thing you've got in your mind right now, knowing that you've got the skills and resources to do so and being able to access them and see the sunrise, to see that positive change. There's a beautiful, beautiful pattern of language. Everybody had the same pattern of language. And throughout that, we could see the person visualizing the space.

We can see parts of the brain activate as they walked along this boardwalk and onto the beach and run the sand through their hands. We can see them light up as they got this message. They already had what they needed to solve the problem, if you like, to bring the solution into their lives. And what we saw with these creative areas of the brain just light up. It's almost like a kind of firework going off in the sky. One of those great exploding ones where all the colors kind of shimmer and sky above. It happens in the brain. And the creativity parts of the brain, the creative thinking, lights up as the person goes, I can do this.

And that excited me so much and began my journey into exploring the brain even further.

Wow. So do you think, you know, one of the things that I like about hypnosis and hypnotherapy is the creativity of us working to reframe and talk about something from a different point of view. Do you think that maybe problem solving our issues relies on us being creative? Do you think there is an element of

I kind of think it's the definition

of Woah. I like it.

It's love problem solving in a sense, isn't it?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It's drawing on past experiences. It's drawing on knowledge. If you can imagine there's a wonderful library inside of you that all the books are things that you've experienced, knowledge that you've gained. Solve the problem sometimes in our kind of daily conscious state where we are trying hard to solve them, We almost can't. It's like when you're doing a crossword and you're thinking about it, you're thinking about it. What is that word? What is that word? It doesn't fit. It doesn't fit. If we just keep digging into the library, we might keep pulling out the same book.

It's something about gardening. I've got a gardening book here somewhere. Let's put it out and have a look. Still, I'm not finding the right answer. When we drift and dream, which often is the experience of hypnosis, you know, that lovely sense of daydreaming, we go into a state in the brain, kind of like the default mode network is when the brain starts to relax and just gets on with other stuff. It stopped deliberately thinking about the problem, but work is happening in the background. Then the brain picks a different book from the library, and it opens it, and it shows it to you. And you're like, oh, the answer's in that book.

And do you know what it's like? You can step away from a crossword, go put the kettle on, put the washing on, you know, go for a walk, whatever it is. And you're like, that's the answer. Yeah. And that's what your brain has done, the creative processing that it's been doing, where you were on that section of the library, trying to find the answer in there, the brain went, oh, but you know what? What if we look in that part of the library? And there the answer was. And we need to be able to go into trance, to go into this place of natural kind of daydream and drifting along, allowing the brain to get on with it without us interfering.

Yeah.

So you actually find the answers sometimes. And that's when the most creative solutions come.

I think that's the difficulty, isn't it, in today's society? The pressure to work hard, to work more, to be awake longer, and there is no space for play, there's no space for fun. Or if we do, we feel guilty and that we shouldn't. And I I don't know. I think that we're losing that that part of ourselves over time with this, I get up at 5 AM, you know, and it all becomes really linear and constructive and breaking free from that. Do you find so, so with the Hypnosis, the creativity, do you find that, oh, I've got a menopausal lady blank in my brain NCH. You have a natural

I've got a bit of menopause brain.

So reeling it back in, do you find that people go when they come and see you for a session, do you find that they leave lighter? Because not only are you practicing hypnosis, but they also get a space just to be.

Yeah. Yes. I do. When you're offering hypnotherapy, you aren't just offering hypnosis. You know, it isn't that the person comes in and says, right. I want this fixed. And that we go, oh, tick tock, tick tock. And off you go.

It's fixed now. That isn't how hypnotherapy works. There is the therapeutic space, that space that we hold together, where we can explore feelings and emotions and thoughts, where we have time to talk about the things that need to be talked about, that we can sit to not talk if it's necessary, that a moment can be held where you can feel safe, where you can feel that you don't have to be anybody else right NCH, that you can just be you. And that I think is such a powerful thing.

Yeah. Yeah.

You know, how often are we able to just be us? Yeah. Yeah.

I think or to find out about us as well, You know, and having that space where we can give to ourselves, especially this busy life. As you know, I love it. I'm a convert. I just think it's fantastic. I think it's fantastic that you've got science and evidence to back it up as well. And that to I don't know. I think the more science we pull in, the more evidence we pull in, the further away we get from that pendulum swinging spiral that is hypnosis. And understanding that it's a collaboration with our hypnotherapist.

We come to work, we come to do, to make a difference to ourselves. I went into a bit of a speech mode then.

I appreciate it though, because I do have a scientific mind. Yeah. It is something that I have always loved to know why. And I very much value my education and being able to, I suppose, give me the skills I need to explore this film. Mhmm. Because without it, I wouldn't be able to do this work. But I think it is something that the people who come to see me also really appreciate. You know, I put all my talks, my presentations, my links to this and that on my website.

And I talk about it with the people who come to see me. And they know that they are speaking to someone who has that interest, who knows the importance of language, who knows why they ask a question in the way that they do. They might think some of my questions are a bit strange, but they know that I'm asking it for a reason. Because how often are you asked something like, I don't know. What are your best hopes from us talking together today? Mhmm.

Yeah.

That can stop people at home. Or I might say, what do you think might be most useful right now? NCH. No. And then what aren't you supposed to know? What happens next? And it's, well, what would be good right now? What would help you right now? What is it that you need right now? I might have the questions and the techniques, but the person who comes to see me is the expert in their lives. They are the person who knows how they're feeling right NCH. What needs to happen? I don't have a plan of action for a number of sessions. Yeah. It's what would be useful for you right NCH.

At the end of sessions, was this useful? What are you taking away from this right now? Would it be a good idea to meet again? Would it be something that you would find helpful if we were to meet again? It's very if you like client driven work.

Yeah. I think it's I think it's really important that we're open because there's no point a client coming to see us if they don't feel they're getting the change that they want. You know, everyone's suited to different people.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. We don't

need 1. 10. Well, this is it. And people have a choice who they go and see. And that can be fairly unusual. Particularly in the UK, we tend to, for our health care, go to our GP and they tell us who we see next or what we do to fix the problem. But a service that we offer is a private consultation. And so it is down to the client, the person who comes to see us, to choose the right person for them and to have the right number of sessions for them.

And only they know. That's the thing. We don't know.

We don't know.

Yeah.

Yeah. And also that's okay.

Yeah. So so what sort of client would you see? What do you have a particular interest or focus, or are you open to people who want hypnotherapy? Yeah.

I see everybody. I see everybody. You know, part of my training and teaching at the university was in child psychology. And so I work with children typically from the age of 6 upwards. Yeah. And that involves a lot of play and really getting down to their level. They are still very self directed. When there's a problem that they're facing right NCH, together, we find their solution to that problem.

You know? And I get to know them and their world and help them find what would be useful for them. I work with teenagers and teenagers are incredible people to work with. So articulate and so clear as to what needs to change. And I really feel that sometimes that that's really where my legacy lies because they are now entering adulthood with the tools they need. And that is something that I feel very proud of, working with those lovely teenagers.

And sometimes there's a gap, isn't there, with the NHS and treatment from where children go from being a child into adult services. And I think as a private practitioner, I find it's really nice to hold their hand through that transition.

Because we can go at their pace. Yeah. It doesn't matter what the number is in the age box on the piece of paper. Yeah. You know, we meet the person as they are. And in fact, my doctorate was all about transition into adulthood. And so it doesn't happen at a set age. I know.

I don't even know. Still waiting. But isn't that lovely though in our work that really we have no requirement based upon us at all other than to meet the person?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that that I I think that yeah. We're we're just so so lucky, really. What have been significant moments on your journey into where you're at, or where do you want to go in the future?

Significant moments for me have been particular clients who have really, really gone through so much and shown such incredible courage and strength. And it reminds me of how powerful we actually all are inside. Yeah. You know, you may not feel like it in your first appointment with a therapist or a hypnotherapist, but we are sat in awe. We are truly sat in awe of every single person that comes through our door because to come and see us somebody they've never met before, someone that they just don't know who, you know, kind of what you might be thinking of them, you know, like you think, oh, gosh, is this person going to change the way they think about me if I tell them this? Make them do this? Will they react to that? Will they, you know, the effort it takes to knock on the door to open up Zoom should never be underestimated because this work has really shown me the power of these people to ask for help.

Yeah. And I I think, you know, as as you know, I'm with the NCH in that we advocate ethics, we've got a call of conduct, and when you're an NCH member, you're providing a safe service, and I think that's so important for, and I'm not doing it as an advert break, but doing it because I'm passionate about it. That people know that if they're coming to see an NCH hypnotherapist, they're safe. We follow the code.

Oh, I agree, Tracy. I agree. In psychology, we are heavily registered as practitioners and you know we have to complete CPD, continuing professional development activities and reflect on our practice and be supervised in our work. And the NCH really gives us that place. We can't just join the NCH as a hypnotherapist. Right? You know, we have to be a certain standard of hypnotherapist before we can join. And then a commitment to being the best practitioner we can be. Yes.

Power. Yeah, continuous

professional development matters, supervision matters, but doing reflective practice, all of those things are really core cornerstones to being a good therapist.

Yes. And you are, you know, approaching a professional Hypnotherapy when you are registered with the NCH. Right? Yeah. You know, if you're looking to talk to someone and you don't know where to start, we get it, we're in the biz and we get it. We get it. It's tough finding somebody to work with.

Especially if you're looking for your child, especially if you're looking for somebody that you care for, nobody knows where to begin. Actually, knowing that you've already there are so many people who say they're Krishna is looking for someone who's safe and good as William Henson. Yes.

Yes. And, you know, it's important to remember too, that through the NCH, we get our DBS clearance. Yeah. And that is enormously significant. If you are to trust a therapist to work with your child, your team, then you want to know that that therapist is practising safely and that they are cleared through the DBF and the Disclosure and Barring Service because that is a check Yeah. About your Yeah. Criminal status. Right?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, very serious now. We're

gonna say very serious.

But cover it. I'll take some more that. Have you got any favorite books, favorite films? What's been a good read? Like, what about Rachel?

What about Rachel?

What what fills you with

Rachel is an enigma. She's confusing. She can be very high brow and say things like the book that speaks to her is Up in the Time of Cholera. It's one of my favorite books. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, it's one of my favorite books. That is me being highbrow. This is as far as I go. Yeah.

My favorite film, This is the Other Side of Me, Deadpool. And I have wicked sense of humor and I love that kind of completely kind of bonkersness. I just love it. Yeah. That's me. If you know me, I can, you know, misquote many, many books, laugh hysterically at Deadpool.

The scale is a scale.

And the full spectrum of everything and everything that I do. You know, I yeah. People often ask about, you know, favorite this or favorite that. It's difficult. Right?

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, totally. Totally.

The thing I last read is my favorite book. But actually, that one is one for me. It is a beautiful book. I love it.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm and I'm a little bit resistant about asking for favorite, but knowing that it does change, like, depending on what day of the week we're in, what hour of Yeah. But, anything else that you'd like to add that you'd like

to say? I mean, I love hypnosis. There are levels of it. It's most people might have a glimpse in hypnosis through the TV or through speaking to others. As a practitioner, a skilled practitioner, you learn so much about what it actually means. And the very lightest level of trance that you might go into as you potter around the house, to carefully guided deeper emotional, practical, investigative kind of work that you can do with a skilled therapist. It's the full range and it delivers the most extraordinary change. It really does. And I think if anyone is watching those thinking about maybe whether they would like to give it a try as a therapeutic style, I would say, just try it, take the leap.

Yeah. It might sound strange, hypnosis or what's that, But the change it delivers. And you'll notice change in the moment, and you'll notice change later that night, and you'll notice change tomorrow, and your notice change the week after. Hypnosis delivers on so many levels that if you're considering it really seriously, take the leap.

Love it. Love it. Thank you so much for today, Rachel.

Oh, it's been a blast.

It's been lovely talking. I just think it's so important for people to know, like, we're human, we've got training, we're trained in this area, like, don't be don't be afraid to come and talk to any of us, really. We're not scary and all of that stuff. Exactly what you said. Thank you very much, doctor Rachel Gibram.

Thank you, Tracy.