Rehearse It

In hypnotherapy, we frequently use mental rehearsal. For example, when someone comes to see me say to stop smoking, they will often have a few scenarios that they believe will be the most difficult ones for them in which to not smoke.

These might include when out socialising, with a particular person, with a glass of wine and so on. As part of the treatment, I might get them to imagine being in those situations and not smoking. I will ask them to go right through an evening say of socialising and to run it through in their minds until they feel absolutely comfortable not smoking in that situation.

I find this little technique can be quite revealing for the client who until then, has never imagined they could be any other way in a particular situation. Often, they will come up with quite spontaneous ideas about how that situation could really work for them.

Unfortunately, most of us have not been encouraged to use the imagining part of our minds to our benefit. When we are anxious about something, we are in fact imagining a negative outcome. So we could use our imaginations more often to imagine more positive or realistic outcomes.

Mental rehearsal is an effective technique for all sorts of situations. It is well known that athletes at all levels use it to improve their performance, for example.

Another effective way in which mental rehearsal can be used is for upcoming events such as negotiations and meetings. Imagining something going well. Seeing yourself in that situation behaving the way you would like. There is of course no guarantee that you will get what you want, but what you are doing is tapping into your internal resources and encouraging them to come to the fore in the actual situation.

Sometimes I encourage a client to run through their day before sleeping and replay any event where they didn’t perform in the way they wanted to but this time with their preferred behaviour. In this way over time, the preferred behaviours become more accessible.