Life

You are feeling sleepy... Hypnotism can really help

Anne Hailes

Anne Hailes

Anne is Northern Ireland's first lady of journalism, having worked in the media since she joined Ulster Television when she was 17. Her columns have been entertaining and informing Irish News readers for 25 years.

Alan Gilchrist has been using hypnosis in a theraputic way for more than 26 years at his Belfast premises
Alan Gilchrist has been using hypnosis in a theraputic way for more than 26 years at his Belfast premises Alan Gilchrist has been using hypnosis in a theraputic way for more than 26 years at his Belfast premises

Anne – I’m confused about bus lanes. Driver.

NOTHING has changed – just don’t use the bus lane during the restricted times, shown on the roadside signs (usually during rush hours). If you do you’re in trouble.

Be careful – many bus lane restrictions in the city centre cover most of the day.

Outside these times you can drive in the bus lane.

The Power Of Suggestion

DOES hypnotism scare you? It did me after seeing entertainer Barry Sinclair in the Arts Theatre many years ago. His was a stage act, though, unlike Alan Gilchrist’s approach to this ‘therapeutic aid’.

As Northern Ireland’s leading hypnotherapist, Alan has been dealing with clients for more than 26 years and has had remarkable results, be it for overcoming smoking, over-eating, blushing or stress – among a host of other things.

Barry Sinclair, on the other hand, is a magician and a hypnotist who mixes stage entertainment with more serious clinics. One trick he performed involved bringing members of the audience on to the stage and telling them they’d lost their belly button – panic, everyone running round looking for their belly button!

When he brought them back to reality they were fine, went back to their seats complete with belly button. Except one man. Next morning he arrived at the theatre very distressed still looking for this important part of his anatomy. Thankfully it wasn’t long before he realised he was intact.

That image lasted with me. I found it disturbing and I shunned away from the practice.

Then I met Alan Gilchrist who doesn’t employ stage craft with clients at his Lisburn Road clinic in Belfast where for for 26 years he has been successfully treating thousands of people for a wide variety of conditions.

He was just establishing himself when he came on my programme Ask Anne and a young actor appearing in the Lyric Theatre volunteered for a ‘stop smoking’ session. It worked well and Brendan Coyle stopped smoking for over eight months. Sadly, he's back on them – witness Mr Bates in Downton Abbey – that’s our guinea pig!

I was a smoker yet today I think it’s really horrible to see young women done up to the nines with a cigarette sticking out of their mouths. We used to call them cancer sticks – perhaps we should return to that expression.

Back to Alan Gilchrist. With his special Fast Track technique he tailors his treatment to the patient, be it to quit cigarettes, loose weight, stop blushing or overcome stress or be fitted with an imaginary gastric band. I decided to put him to the test.

“You don’t need the gastroband,” he told me with confidence. “That’s only for obese people.” How does it work? “Hypnosis and visualisation techniques are used convince the subconscious mind the person has had a gastric band operation, tricks the mind into believing the body does not require as much food to feel full up. That’s not for you,” he added. “All you need a weight loss session. Jump up on the couch.”

Then came a mask and earphones, Alan talking me through relaxation and ways to overcome bad eating habits, all the time with patterns of coloured lights via the mask.

Alan’s clinic is very restful; the waiting room is shades of lavender and grey, Nina Simone singing softly, coffee on hand and a chance to read many of the letters from satisfied clients delighted that their lives had improved since their visit for many and varied reasons.

In his therapy room, Alan had asked me about my eating habits. I admitted to digestive biscuits; he told me I was a nibbler and a grazer but that through persuasion he would make me face my problem and overcome it.

Treatments such as smoking, slimming, gastroband and relaxation normally require one 30-minute session costing £95. Difficulties such as anxiety, phobias, confidence and insomnia will probably require more than one visit, with the fee £85 per session. These fees include a tape which reinforces the treatment and ideally should be played once a day – although never when driving.

It’s fascinating talking to this man. Born in Carrickfergus, childhood in Belfast, studied phycology, found it long-winded and boring, he looked beyond it to hypnotherapy where he delves into lifestyles to work out the whys and wherefores of the current situation and then treats it.

“But you can’t change the past,” he said. “However, you can change the future. If you want a plant to grow, why pull up the roots to look at it?”

So his message is positive and sometimes surprising. Take the client who suffered dreadful insomnia. It turned out that his mother liked repeating the children’s prayer at bedtime:

‘Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep,

If I shall die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take’.

The result? He always kept the light on and believed if he didn’t sleep he wouldn’t die. Of course he did sleep but not a lot.

Turned out a heavy smoker had been allowed to light his grandfather’s cigarettes, an unwise party trick when he was eight years of age that lead to chronic problems. A young woman, sexually abused in childhood, ended up severely anorexic. In all these cases Alan helped them overcome their distress.

As for me? I’m doing really well. One of Alan’s visual aids concerns two mirrors. The left one shows me and my rolls of fat! The right one shows me as I’d like to be – thin, toned and ultra happy! Positive mental attitude and a good dollop of hypnosis – as Alan puts it: “A state of relaxation with a state of heightened awareness induced by suggestion.” Doesn’t matter how you put it, if it works that’s the main thing.

:: More at alangilchrist.com.