Anxiety

As a licensed psychologist and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner® (SEP) who has been using hypnotherapy for anxiety for over 20 years, Dr. Dyan’s specific training and experience addresses many different manifestations of anxiety. These include:  

• Generalized anxiety,
• Social anxiety,
• Specific anxieties/phobias/fears, including performance anxiety, fear of flying, test anxiety,
• Panic attacks,
• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD),
• Agoraphobia,
• Anxious or ruminating thoughts,
• OCD,
• Anxious habits

Research has shown that anxiety can impact sleep, the immune system, pain, mood, including depression, thought patterns, and more. Dr. Dyan has worked with many different types of therapeutic interventions to help clients with anxiety.  In addition to psychotherapy, she has found Somatic Experiencing® to be extremely effective in working with the fight, flight, and freeze responses that are often stored within the nervous system, causing ongoing anxiety and fear reactions. Certain methods can safely and gently help clients to release residual trauma and complex trauma that is being stored within the body. Various types of conversational hypnosis, as well as formal hypnotherapy, have proven to be extremely therapeutically valuable with Dr. Dyan’s clients. She has taught continuing education for professionals on the use of hypnosis for anxiety, self-hypnosis for anxiety, and using relaxation hypnosis as part of a larger anxiety treatment strategy within the scope of other psychotherapeutic and somatic approaches. People often ask:  

• Does hypnosis work for anxiety?
• Can self-hypnosis for stress and anxiety really be learned?
• Can self-hypnosis for sleep and anxiety be easily practiced as a sort of daily meditation?
• What’s the difference between self-hypnosis and meditation?

Dr. Dyan views anxiety as an unpleasant, involuntary state. She has found that, when people learn how to use specific self-hypnosis techniques, they can change their naturally occurring anxious states from negative to positive. The simple, self help hypnosis strategies that Dr. Dyan likes to teach people, can be empowering and can make a difference in improving anxiety symptoms. In Dr. Dyan’s opinion, hypnosis and meditation differ in the nature of their ultimate goals. The goal of meditation is to cultivate an inner stillness, and be present in the moment. While hypnosis may also be built on inner stillness, with hypnosis, there are specific goals for treatment outcomes and suggestions are given to help reach those goals. Dr. Dyan has found that, when people set a goal to use self-hypnosis for relaxation, sleep, depression, and to alleviate anxiety, they can easily learn to use self-hypnosis strategies as part of their daily routine.