Begin Your Path to Self-Exploration with Lighthouse Therapy Group.
Solution Focused Hypnotherapy
This isn’t a weight loss programme. It’s about understanding why food has come to mean what it does for you, and changing the way your mind thinks about food and about yourself.
● Usually 8 to 12 sessions
● Not a diet or weight loss plan
● A little neuroscience every session
Is this for you?
Maybe you find yourself in the kitchen after a hard day without quite knowing how you got there. Maybe you’ve tried diet after diet, done well for a while, and then felt back at the start, only more fed up with yourself.
For a lot of people, food has become tied up with comfort, reward, boredom, stress or loneliness. And often, the way we feel about food is tangled up with the way we feel about ourselves.
None of that is a failure of willpower. It makes sense once you understand what your brain is trying to do.
Understanding it
When life feels like too much, the oldest part of the brain shifts into a state of stress, often called fight or flight. It wants relief, and it wants it quickly.
Food, especially sweet or rich food, gives the brain a quick reward. It releases dopamine, a chemical that makes us feel good for a moment and teaches the brain to come back for more. Over time, eating can become the brain’s go-to way of calming that stress, whether you’re hungry or not.
Rather than fighting that with more rules, we help your mind find other ways to settle, so that food can go back to being food.
How it works
Every plan is shaped around you, but this is how things usually go.
Step 1
You can book your first appointment through our website. This first consultation is paid, and there’s no pressure to commit to anything beyond it.
Step 2
We’ll talk through what’s brought you here and explain, in plain English, how stress, food and the way you see yourself are connected in the brain. We’ll go through how the sessions work, and you’ll experience a light, gentle trance so you know what it feels like. If you’d like to carry on, we’ll invite you to book, and suggest a relaxation track to listen to at home to help prepare your mind.
Step 3
We start with what’s been good since we last met, because noticing what’s working matters. We’ll ask you to rate where you are on a simple scale, and explore what would be different if the change you want had already happened. Then you’ll settle into hypnotherapy, and each time we’ll add a little more understanding of your own relationship with food.
Step 4
There’s no fixed number. We carry on until you’re high on that scale, or until you feel the change is enough. The relaxation track is yours to keep using for as long as it helps.
What can change
The changes people notice are often quieter than a number on the scales, and they tend to matter more.
Noticing the difference between real hunger and the urge to settle a feeling.
Having more than one way to calm down after a hard day.
Less of the running commentary about what you’ve eaten and what that says about you.
Stepping off the loop of strict rules, slipping up and starting again on Monday.
Eating with less guilt and more pleasure, including with family and friends.
Because the work looks at stress as well as food, many people feel calmer overall.
Good to know
That isn’t what we promise, and we’d be wary of anyone who does. Some people find their weight changes as their relationship with food changes, alongside the everyday choices they make about eating. Our focus is on how you think and feel about food and about yourself.
If you’re living with an eating disorder, please speak to your GP first, as specialist support is the right place to start. If you’re not sure, get in touch and we’ll talk it through honestly.
No. Hypnosis is nothing like the stage shows, and nobody can make you do anything you don’t want to do. Most people describe it as being deeply relaxed, a bit like the moments just before you drift off to sleep. You can hear everything, you can move if you need to, and you can open your eyes whenever you like.
If food has started to feel more complicated than it should, you’re welcome to get in touch.
