Why is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) used with hypnotherapy - and what is it?

CBT is often used in conjunction with hypnotherapy, and it’s designed to give some space away from our negative thought patterns. We are all used to having thoughts a lot that seem to go down the same route, for example “she won’t like me if I do that”.

With CBT we learn how to catch ourselves and to question the thought before it grips us and sends us into upsetting spirals.

CBT is commonly used in anxiety and depression hypnotherapy, but it has other applications including:

-              unpleasant physical symptoms,

-              irritable bowel syndrome

-              chronic pain

What are negative thought patterns?

One of the first people to talk about CBT, Aaron Beck, taught how thoughts working the same way over and over is useful to us as humans, such as we wouldn’t want to have to re-invent the way we tie our shoelaces each time, it’s good to have a system.

In 2006, the Clinical Psychology Review published a study covering 9,995 subjects across 332 studies.  The researchd concluded there is strong evidence to support CBT as effective in treating depression, anxiety, certain phobias and panic disorders, and post-traumatic stress.

Negative thought patterns are known to CBT professionals as “cognitive distortions,” a concept proposed by psychologist Aaron Beck in 1976.

But some systems or shortcuts our minds come up with don’t serve us well at all, for example take the following hypnotherapy client’s recent call for help:

“I tend to always jump to the unhelpful conclusions about things I’m afraid of such as spiders - I’m afraid of spiders therefore I won’t travel anywhere, they could be anywhere “.

Which cognitive distortions, or negative thought pattern would this be?

All-or-nothing thinking: Seeing the world in absolutes, missing the greys between the black and white.

(Maybe she does not Always jump to the unhelpful conclusion, maybe it’s just when she is feeling insecure.)

Overgeneralisation: A negative event taints your whole existence. It's part of a “never- ending pattern of defeat.”

The negative thought pattern, or cognitive distortion, of “overgeneralisation” could be applied to the fear of spiders too?

Here are some other cognitive distortions:

Mental filtering:

You fail to see the positives, focusing only on the negatives.

Catastrophising:  

Blowing things out of proportion so that things seem like they are going to be a huge disaster.

Together we see how stepping back and realising that cognitive distortions aren’t the essence of our being – they are not “who we are” but just mental habits.

After

-              chatting about some pretty meaningful to you and in-depth topics,

-              seen which negative thought patterns are getting in the way of the problem that you have come to see me about.

you are assigned some short pieces of mind-set activities to delve into before the next session. 

Studies have concluded that doing the work in between sessions could mean a 80% increase in effectiveness, and it may be just spending some time each time we have those negative thoughts, stepping back and challenging those thoughts.

Why do many of my hypnotherapy sessions combine with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy?

Combining evidence-based CBT and hypnotherapy can be a powerful tool in breaking habits (Kirsch et al., 1995)

Combining the two techniques have been found to make positive realisations much more reinforced as a result of inwardly focussing on hypnotic trance.

In 1995, the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology published a ground-breaking paper,

comparing CBT treatment without hypnosis

to the same CBT treatment with hypnosis…

It showed that “the average client receiving CBT hypnotherapy benefited more than at least 70% of clients receiving the same treatment without hypnosis.”

 Sources:

The empirical status of cognitive-behavioral therapy: a review of meta-analyses.
Butler AC, Chapman JE, Forman EM, Beck AT.
Clinical Psychology Review  – 2006
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16199119/

Hypnosis as an adjunct to cognitive-behavioural psychotherapy: A meta-analysis. 
Kirsch, I., Montgomery, G., & Sapirstein, G. (1995).
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 63(2), 214-220.
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1995-26166-001