Pattern-Hunting

I first came across the word and the idea of repatterning when I trained as a Cognitive Hypnotherapist, almost 15 years ago now.

Pattern hunting is the art of identifying the unique ‘problem patterns’ that underlie my clients’ issues. Instead of treating the surface symptoms – or following a one-size-fits-all approach – I was trained to listen deeply to uncover the structures of thought and trance that sustain that problem.

To this end I don’t really pay too much attention to rigid diagnostic categories such as ‘anxiety’ or ‘depression’, instead I want to know how you DO your ‘anxiety’, or how you DO your ‘depression’. What are the specific ways that the problem that is making you uncomfortable in your life are showing up.

Because everybody runs their problem in a unique way, and a generalised label means that we could be discounting a whole heap of useful information specific to you. One person’s anxiety is different from the next, and so on.

Why hypnosis is so useful for working on these problem patterns, is because trance is how we maintain them. We are literally in a trance state when we are doing our problem. So, therapy becomes about de-hypnotising you so that you can be out of that limiting state of mind.

This means that once your problem pattern – how you DO your problem – has been uncovered, I can choose which of the interventions I have in my toolbox to reframe and prime your unconscious towards a new pattern – the solution state – a lived experience of life without the problem pattern.

In short, pattern hunting is about uncovering the unique trance-driven logic your subconscious is running, so that we can disrupt it and guide it towards a more resourceful pattern.