I have seen and helped quite a few people from very different walks of life with my NLP and Hypnosis skills.   Even though each and every one of my clients had different personalities, came from different backgrounds, had different coping techniques and viewed their own little worlds very differently from each other, the one thing that was the same for all of them was this.

The original reason they made the appointment was not the real issue they needed help with.

This was just a symptom.

So how did I know the cause was something completely different?   Consultation – it’s so important to have a very good talk with your client beforehand to establish if they know:

1. The real reason they seeking help in the first place; and
2. How they know when you’ve helped them achieve what they want.

In some cases clients have known exactly what the problem is, they’ve just not known how to achieve what they want, or indeed how they would feel when they got it i.e. a smoker who wants to quit smoking cigarettes.  Peoples’ habits can be funny things, and they can be unique to that person.  It’s essential to get to bottom of their individual perceptions and beliefs in order to move forward and help them.

A smoker once came to see me – she had already decided she no longer wished to smoke, however, when she just “stopped” smoking cigarettes, although the physical act no longer happened, her habit was still in place she felt she was “missing” something and consequently was thinking about smoking most of the time.  In this case, after speaking with her at some length, she offered the information that she valued her family and spending time with them.  She described feeling lonely and cold when outside her home smoking a cigarette watching her family carrying on inside the house without her.  With this information it was then easy to implement the correct tools to help her achieve what she wanted.

Another case study came to see me a few years ago because she drank too much alcohol.  She was married, and had two children.  I could very easily have used say the swish technique to break the habit, and/or some guided imagery under hypnosis to stop this.  However, upon sitting down with this lady and chatting to her, it became apparent that she was still living her life as “someone’s daughter”.  For whatever reason (and I think this happens quite a lot with people in general) the context shift to “Mother” and “wife” had not happened.  It was as if she had not “grown up” in her head.   So, as she was still trying to live her life by her parents values and not her own she became unhappy.  I think on an unconscious level she knew there was something that needed addressing, but wasn’t sure what – she began staying in the house as much as possible, and then as a further consequence of this, began drinking which then became a crutch or a coping technique for her.  Once I had this information, and once she realised this herself things became very easy.