Tayma Wallbridge, Hypnotherapist – Practitioner in Focus

Tayma Wallbridge is a solution-focused hypnotherapist from North Wiltshire, England.

How long have you been practising?

I am in my fifth year of practice.

Do you see clients from home or in a clinic?

Until this year I only saw clients from home but my new year’s resolution was to expand, so I now also work in clinics in Cheltenham, Cirencester and Swindon. It’s been a steep learning curve – I had to leave my comfort zone – but I have gained immeasurably by doing it.

What problems/issues do you treat most frequently?

I see clients for phobias, smoking, childbirth, sports/work enhancement but the main issue that I work with are those linked to anxiety whether panic attacks, constant stress or associated physical problems such as pain, IBS etc.

What are your biggest frustrations running your practice?

My biggest frustration is the need to spend so much time on marketing myself – having to be thinking as a business woman when my real talent is being a therapist.

What do you find hardest about your daily work?

I don’t really find anything hard about my hypnotherapy work – I love the variety of people I see and the difference I can make. If I had to pick one thing about the work itself it would be the challenge of the occasional client who prefers to answer my questions with yes, no, don’t know while imagining I will wave a wand and fix them with a bit of hypnosis, aka a stage hypnotist.

Do you find your professional body supportive and helpful? Do they help you create connections with fellow therapists?

I belong to the Association for Solution Focused Hypnotherapists (AfSFH) and the National Council for Hypnotherapy (NCH). The AfSFH is very supportive – they have a really positive energy – and definitely helps create connections with fellow therapists through their closed Facebook group. The NCH gives clients reassurance that I belong to an identifiable professional body, but the support is not quite as apparent.

How do you balance work and life? Stress management/avoiding burnout…

I create balance at work by limiting the clients I see to six a day, because I want the final client of the day to receive the same amount of professional energy as the first client of the day. Where possible I have a short gap between clients to enable me to recharge a little. I attend a monthly supervision group which is invaluable in keeping me up to date, and I undertake CPD – I am currently doing the Uncommon Knowledge Depression Course. In January I am attending a Happiness Course at the Clifton Practice in Bristol and am planning on running my own Happiness Course.

To create work/life balance I ensure that I exercise each day (I walk early each morning), relax regularly (I like the Uncommon Knowledge Four Seasons relaxation CD), have family/friend time/events ahead so that there are always things to look forward to, and finally each night I think about all the good things in my day.

What frustrates you most about the way mental health is dealt with in your country?

What frustrates me most about the way mental health is dealt with is that I know how effective hypnotherapy is (as long as it’s solution focused)and yet it is still not available on the NHS other than in a few trials (childbirth and IBS I believe).

So many of my clients have been prescribed anti depressants, even when they didn’t really want them, because this is often the easiest course of action for the GP. Of those who receive talking therapy, I often see clients who have previously received a course of counseling through their GP, but who have felt worse at the end of the session than at the start.

Can you tell us about your most uplifting experience treating a recent client? (anonymously of course!)

I have had so many uplifting experiences including the 9 year old girl who stopped bedwetting in 3 sessions; the 17 year old teenager who felt life wasn’t worth living but is now so busy seeing friends she can barely fit hypnotherapy in to her busy life; the young woman with a spider phobia who is now working as a nurse in Africa on VSO, feeling unaffected by spiders; countless ex smokers and more.

However, one particularly uplifting experience is of a client called Emma, a 27 year old woman, who came to me at the beginning of the year with depression and following an attempted overdose. She was very clever and had a good job as a programmer with one of the large companies in Swindon. She lived alone in her own small house near to work and found it difficult to make new friends due to her extreme shyness.

I saw her for 8 sessions and over that time saw her blossom in confidence from a 2 to an 8 on her ‘confidence’ scale. At the start she would sit and wring her hands when asked what she might do if she was one point more confident (miracle question) and respond ‘well I might say hello to colleagues when they arrived in the morning rather than wait for them to say hello to me first’.

At the end of our 8 sessions she had decided she wanted to live in Bristol where there was more going on, despite this being an hour’s commute to work. Her confidence had improved to the extent that she responded to an advert to be a fourth house mate at a rented house in Bristol, rented out her own house and started living the life she had barely been able to envisage at the beginning of living with a vibrant group of other young people.

Pictured above: Tayma’s therapy room.

You can read more about Tayma’s work by visiting www.accreditedhypnotherapy.co.uk.

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