Walton Associates (E.U.)

London Harley St. Coventry  Dublin

                                          HYPNOTHERAPY

                                            &  HYPNOSIS

Would You permit yourself to be treated by an Unqualified doctor or nurse if you were physically ill? Nobody would! Then if you have psychological issues, don't let yourself be treated by anyone who isn't a Qualified Psychologist. These days, Universities train sufficient graduates for the public not to have to rely on less extensively educated and entirely unregulated 'hypnotherapists'  to treat their Anxieties, Compulsive Habits and Phobias. (Click this link to be warned why!)  Applied Hypnosis is a tried and tested technique in trained hands, that works very effectively with most people. Be wary of attending newspaper advertised 'Clinics' to be treated by some self-publicist who you've never heard of, can't feel sure about, and have no idea what his / her qualifications mean, offering to cure everything from anorexia to zoophobia! (Often in his / her spare time.) In Coventry and Warwickshire there are no advertising 'hypnotherapists' who are as properly University qualified or experienced as Mr. Walton. He is the only properly recognised (BUPA Consultant) and accredited practitioner who is both a Registered Psychologist as well as a hypnotherapist, bringing a far broader range of assessment and therapy skills than any other practice in the region.

Here on this link, you can email to arrange a consultation: 

A Philip Walton BA(Hons); DHP; Reg.Psychol; AFPsSI; FRSH; Cert.CH.                   

Philip is a fully qualified psychologist as well as having been a qualified hypnotherapist for well over twenty-five years. He was born and educated in Coventry at Bablake School then Universities in London and Warwick with professional qualifications from Dublin and the USA. For Public Assurance, he has the highest Enhanced CRB clearance. His successful clients have included celebrities from the worlds of Music, Performing Arts and Sports as well as many satisfied local residents. (Read what our clients say, below.)

Some FAQs..

1) Does it Really Work?  Let New Scientist answer that one:- 

2) Why isn't hypnotherapy available on the NHS?   Hardly any Psychiatrists or Psychologists now learn how to do it, since it relies on the personality of the therapist as much as how it is practised. Your GP can however, refer you either as a BUPA patient or via what is called an ECR (Extra Contractual Referral) funded by the Primary Care Trust. Although our costs are kept extremely competitive, if you need NHS assistance, ask your GP. If you or your employers contribute to a BUPA private medical policy, you should only need your GP to write a note of referral to me for you to access out-patient psychological therapy.

3) Why shouldn't I just use a Hypnosis 'download'?    Because research shows they don't work unless you've had an initial personal contact with the therapist. Otherwise there is no vital 'rapport'.

4) Why is Nicotine Replacement Therapy or Drugs the NHS's way of helping patients stop smoking?  On 30th July 2006 BBC News reported, Nicotine Therapy Benefits 'Hyped'. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5211296.stm Yet the NHS endorses this treatment, which according to research from the University of Geneva (1-4 year study) only works at best for seven out of every hundred smokers! The biggest winners (needless to say) are the companies who promote the products and fix their own research findings - making them millions in profits. Interestingly, research from the University of Iowa (1992) showed Hypnosis to be the most effective way of giving up smoking. (Journal of Applied Psychology 11/92)

5)  What is the Orthodox Medical View of Hypnotherapy? ( from Peter Naish of The Open University and FIH)

Hypnotherapy is a commonly used term, but it is in fact a little misleading. The word suggests that hypnosis itself has a therapeutic effect, when in fact in most situations it probably has relatively little direct impact. Am I saying that hypnotherapy doesn't work? No I am not, but let's do a little unpacking and try to see what is going on when people are hypnotised. I will explain some of the underlying mechanisms of hypnosis, and show how these processes can account for therapeutic effects.

Is hypnosis 'real'?

Until recently there was a good deal of debate as to the true nature of hypnosis, with some theorists adopting a very sceptical stance. They pointed out that many people prefer to go along with what's expected of them (a tendency called compliance by psychologists) and suggested that hypnosis was an extreme form of compliance – effectively an act, so as to appear hypnotised and do what the hypnotist expected. In his 1981 book, Hypnosis, Compliance and Belief the British psychologist Graham Wagstaff argued just this position, even suggesting that the apparent ability of some hypnotised people to tolerate pain was not all that it seemed.

Brain scanning and hypnosis

By the end of the Twentieth Century brain scanning techniques were being used to try to see what was going on in the head of a hypnotised person. The results have not dispelled all debate, but it is now clear that people who are susceptible to hypnosis are able to influence their brain activity in unusual ways. For example, Stewart Derbyshire, at the University of Birmingham, has shown that activity in parts of the brain termed the pain matrix (this matrix becomes active when we are in pain) can be increased and decreased by suggestions in hypnosis.

The treatment of pain

From the above it is not surprising that hypnosis is a valuable vehicle for pain control, and it has been used successfully in treatments, ranging from helping children undergoing painful medical procedures to eliminating intractable pain following amputation. I mentioned that hypnosis doesn't have a great deal of direct impact, but the treatment of pain is perhaps the closest it comes to being 'direct'. Even here, simply to be hypnotised is unlikely to be very effective; it is necessary for the therapist to give appropriate suggestions, for example that the painful area is becoming numb.

Hypnosis and imagery

Hypnotic suggestions are often accompanied by instructions to form rich imagery. For example, a pain sufferer could be asked to imagine sitting by a pure mountain stream, and to feel the cool water gradually taking away the pain. We could all imagine such things, but in hypnosis the experience often feels far more real than simply imagining. In 2000 Stephen Kosslyn and colleagues published research in the American Journal of Psychiatry, which used brain scanning to see how the brain behaved during a hypnotic hallucination. It turned out that brain activity during the hypnosis was far more like the activity observed when a person really looked at something compared with than when the person simply imagined it.

Making the imaginary real

Even without hypnosis, when we imagine something the resultant pattern of neural activity (i.e. the active brain cells) has a good deal in common with the pattern when we actually have the real experience. However, we obviously know that we are just imagining, and there are some crucial differences from reality in the activity of some of the frontal regions of the brain – the regions associated with the directing of attention and being conscious of our experiences. Hypnosis seems to be achieved by letting these frontal regions behave as if imaginings were real events.

Treating phobias

Being able to imagine so vividly is very useful in the treatment of phobias. The usual (non-hypnotic) approach is to give the phobic person gradually increasing exposure to whatever frightens them; this is called desensitization. If they are afraid of heights they might start with standing near the edge of somewhere not very high, and with good solid railings. Once they felt at ease with that, they would be taken to somewhere just a little more adventurous, and so on. That's not too difficult to arrange for a height phobic, but what about arachnophobia - fear of spiders? We'd have to get a set of spiders of carefully graded scariness! That's where hypnosis is useful; the person can picture their own phobic objects so realistically that the phobia is overcome as effectively as with real-life desensitization.

The ability to generate a realistic make-believe world can be useful for treating more complex issues than phobias. For example, a person might return to an event in the past that had unresolved issues, or they might picture themselves as they would like to be in the future.

Combining with conventional therapies

You will appreciate that these uses of visualisation are not producing cures through hypnosis. It is merely a useful vehicle to facilitate processes that could have been carried out by more conventional means. The conventional therapy of choice for many problems with psychological elements is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). There is evidence (much collected by Irving Kirsch and co-workers) that combining this with hypnosis can result in enhanced efficacy (see for example the work of Schoenberger, published in the journal Behavior Therapy, 1997).

Is hypnosis safe?

Hypnosis is safe – it's what people do with it that may not be! The clue here is to be found in the fact that hypnosis is generally used as a vehicle for other treatments. Anyone can quickly learn how to get someone to feel hypnotised; it takes years of study to become a GP or a Qualified Psychologist. Since these more medical procedures are the real substance of the hypnosis session it follows that one should choose a therapist who knows how to use them. This is likely to be a GP or Psychologist who has gone on to receive training in hypnosis, rather than a lay person who has done a course on hypnotherapy, including some medical information.

Wrongly used, hypnosis might conceal a pain that should have been treated as a serious medical symptom and it can re-traumatise someone hoping to get over an earlier traumatic incident. A notable danger is the generation of false memories. Some misguided therapists become convinced that current problems are the result of material from the past that has been 'repressed' out of memory. They set about 'recovering' the material. This approach should never be used. The vivid visualisation of possible (but not true) past events easily produces material that feels like a genuine memory. So beware of therapists claiming to, 'get to the root cause'.

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Which problems do you need help to overcome? :-

               1)  STOP SMOKING ?

NEW! Stop Smoking CD by Andrew Walton now on Special Offer! £7.99 + p&p.(£2.50 in UK & EU £5 US/Aus) Order via PayPal  a.p.w@btinternet.com

                                          2)    LOSE WEIGHT ?

                           Try the NEW Gastric- Hypnoband CD which convinces your subconscious you have undergone a real op to shrink your stomach to egg-cup size! Order thru PayPal    a.p.w@btinternet.com  now just £24.99 inc. p+p! (Live sessions can cost far more!)

                                                       3)      BE CONFIDENT     ?       

Hypnosis can make a really big difference to how confidently you face the world!

Personal Individual Hypnotherapy is available for Smoking, Weight and Confidence yet has many more applications, e.g. Anxiety; Phobias; Eating Disorders; Irritable Bowel Syndrome; Alcohol & Drug abuse; Exam / Driving Test nerves; Compulsive habits; Ante-natal / Obstetrics; Sexual Dysfunctions etc.

If you wish to attend personally, the usual first step is to book an Initial Consultation.  This gives Mr. Walton the opportunity to make a proper in-depth assessment and afterwards, he can recommend the best course of action to follow. This consultation lasts 45 minutes and carries a fee of GBP 95. ( nb, Anywhere offering free consultations simply use the time for high-pressure selling.) Telephone 07767 831540 to make an appointment, day or evening. You may need only to consult a hypnotherapist once, select the very best...

Remember: A Philip Walton is an acknowledged expert when it comes to dealing with delicate matters of the mind. No other Coventry practitioner enjoys anywhere near the same level of experience or expertise in this regard. Be safe, not sorry! Call 07767 831540 first!

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Testimonials.

"I went to one of those group sessions advertised in the paper but didn't feel that they hypnotised me at all AND then I ended up smoking far more cigarettes! Now I'm seeing Mr. Walton to sort out their mess and he's much better!"   Mrs. J.A.  (Bedworth)

"Thank-you for your help, for without it I would still be fat! Hypnosis really did help. I had no problem in losing weight. It was great!"   Mrs. K.G.  (Foleshill)

"Success! I have stopped smoking after 23 years at 40 a day! It works!"  Mrs. G.G. (Westwood Heath)

"When I first saw you I was extremely nervous, depressed and frightened. Now after your therapy I feel 100% better and my business and social life have improved greatly."    Mr. F.R.  (Rugby)

"I cannot find the words to thank you enough. Your help has changed my life completely. I now no longer drink alcohol of any kind."   Mr. N.A.    (Canley)

"Thank-you. You have given me the strength to achieve."    Miss K.M.L.  (Allesley)

For Hypnotherapy Sessions that you can be assured are Properly Conducted, book your place with Consultant Psychologist A. Philip Walton. ( Qualified/Registered Nurses (female) can be in attendance, if requested.)

                                             Telephone:  07767 831540