Can we really change our patterns of behaviour and thoughts?

Change your thinking

Change your Life!

Your thoughts create your reality

Practice positive thinking.

Act the way you want to be

and soon you will be the way you act.

Les Brown

One of Solution Focused Hypnotherapy’s (SFH) main foundations is neuroscience, and this is an amazing area of constant advancements and new knowledge on how the brain works.

Neuroplasticity is relatively new and was found in 1948 by Jerzy Konorski, a Polish neuroscientist, but wasn’t really focused on until the 1960’s. It shows how the brain can change, adapt, and grow. It was previously thought that once we reached adolescents our brains did not change, we were formed. With the ability to do brain imaging, scientists have found that this is not the case and it means that we can and do change our behaviours and actions throughout our whole lives.

Making these brain changes is the fundamental process that SFH supports and develops. It is where the client or individual must want to change and work towards a new set of behavioural patterns or reactions. Something that I am always saying to my clients is ‘repetition’ and that is what is most important when we want to change a pre-formed set of neurons or an established circuit within the brain. These have been programmed with one set of behaviour that we now want to change, so we must rewire and fire them in a different way.

In SFH we use metaphors to explain new concepts and ideas, here is one to describe how we change the behaviour and thought patterns in our brains.

It is similar to going for a walk in the woods, you have an option of paths, you know that the first path to the left is the one you always take and its well-trodden, you could follow it in your sleep. You know where it ends up, but that is not where you want to be anymore, it is not exciting or helpful, it just leads to a barren field. You know that there is a waterfall and lake in the other direction which would be so much better. But how do you get there? You have to 'repeatedly' change the path you take and you have to keep changing to that new path until eventually it is well-trodden and moulded by your footsteps and the old path has become overgrown and impenetrable.

As we can see we have to practice a new way of being to make it become the preferred reaction or action.

This is where Solution Focused Hypnotherapy really can help you to make those changes, with your commitment and determination for change we can learn how the brain works, why we behave the way we do sometimes and how we can make positive changes in our lives.

If you want to know more about brain plasticity here are a couple of good Ted Talks,

“Thinking to Doing to Being” by Dr. Joe Dispenza


“After Watching This, Your Brain Will Not Be the Same” by Lara Boyd


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