As I run training courses both in therapy and business communication skills all around the UK and Europe, I meet a lot of new people. And that’s a lot of curious people from a complete range of different backgrounds.

One aspect of my work that I really wanted to get across on my Website was the question I’m most frequently asked.

‘What happens in a Cognitive Hypnotherapy session?’

I’m not sure I’ve ever managed to explain it sufficently no matter how many years and edits the website can go through.

Sure, I could outline the basic format. We start with a conversation about what you’d like to change or improve in your life. Then, we’ll work through a therapeutic exercise together and the session will usually finish with some relaxation work.

This seems so vague though – and that’s the challenge. As the sessions are bespoke for the individual who comes to see me, no two sessions are the same.

There’s often overlaps – there’s certainly patterns and behaviours that some people repeat where i’ve seen many similar before. Yet, no matter how many clients I see and work with – there is always something new. And that’s what makes us so wonderful as human beings.
We don’t fit into a manual or a textbook. There isn’t a magic formula – it’s only through a process of engagement that is two ways that your life can really change.

I frequently get phone calls/emails ‘My friend came to see you and you did X and Y, will we do the same thing?’ And the most honest, congruent answer I can give is ‘I don’t know.’

It’s not until we’re in the therapy office, having a conversation in which you outline what you’d like to change and how you’d like it to be different – that I’ll be able to determine the best course of action that will help.

There’s not one magic formula for working with people with confidence issues or low self esteem, every phobia is different. Our anxiety or depressions are unique to us and we all cope with stress in different ways.

Cognitive Hypnotherapy takes the best elements of different therapies such as CBT, NLP, Pyschotherapy, Jungian Theory, Gestalt work and I find the right combination to get the most effective results at the fastest rate possible for you.

I believe strongly in a dialogue during our time together – to find out how you’re finding the experience both in and out of the therapy/coaching room during our work together.

So I’m still not there in explaining it quite as succinctly as I’d like – but I think we know why. It’s very much something that talking about can be limiting, but actually for the benefits – it’s there to be experienced.

Zack Polanski is a Cognitive Hypnotherapist and NLP Trainer working at 1 Harley Street, London. He works with a variety of issues ranging from building confidence to low self esteem.Dea ling with stress and anxiety, phobic reactions and performance improvement.
To find out more about his unique mix of formal therapy, a conversational style and hypnosis – please call on 07738088632 or email at info@zackpolanski.com

The Master and his Emissary by Ian Mcgilhurst.

To any therapist – I would suggest this book will vastly enhance the way that you work. I frequently get emails asking for suggestions, and for the forseeable future, I shall point people in this direction.

I do have a caveat here – that the book is heavy. It’s certainly not light reading and will require absolute engagement. When the lightbulbs do start to flicker though and jigsaw pieces fall into place, to mix metaphors, it really is a wonderful moment.

The basic premise of the book is about the hemispheric differences in our brain and how these are represented in society. Simplistically, in this blog, the left hemisphere representing logic, reason, specificity and more recently – our business/commerical brain.

The right hemisphere representing creativity, wholeness and an entry point into the wider world. The artistic brain.

Traditionally, there was a balance between the two hemispheres – with information entering through the right, being assessed by the left and returning to the right for consideration. This, the book argues, is the healthiest way in which our mind/brain can work and is conducive to a balanced existence.

Over the past hundred years, mainly since the industrial revolution, the left side of the brain has gradually crept up and placed it’s influence on our thinking. This has resulted in short sightnedness, unfettered individualism and a rise in selfish greed. The book goes on to wax lyrical about political philosophy and tracks the differences in our ‘culture’ through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Reformation – tying in with neuroscience and the different implications this can have in how we percieve our world.

For the therapist, frequently when we work with issues whether it be phobias, lack of confidence or self esteem, depression or anxiety – more often than not, the underlying problem is that of hemispheric dissonance (or in other terms, a misalignment between the conscious and the unconscious mind) – although the book is not targeted at therapists, it’s clear where the dots can be connected and the future of our industry can be percieved to outline where we would like to go next.

If anyone would like to discuss any areas of the book with me, I’m always more than happy to recieve correspondence – on info@Zackpolanski.com

Zack Polanski is a Cognitive Hypnotherapist working in Central London at 1 Harley Street. He works both as a therapist and delivers training programmes to companies. Specialising in issues around confidence and self esteem, Zack also works utilising hypnosis and NLP around issues of anxiety and depression. Get in contact on 07738086632.

I make it clear on the site – and always whenever people phone me for an appointment – that Cognitive Hypnotherapy is not a magic bullet. It’s not a miracle cure yet it can do incredibly, effective things and has helped countless amounts of people move on in their lives within that parameter.

Often it can look like magic,and change can more often than not feel effortless and people are amazed at the results – it does require work from the client, though. Or at least their attention and effort in bringing about the changes they want on an unconscious level.

This might make it sound a little less cool or sellable – I have no problem with that, though. It’’s honest; and it doesn’t take anything away from the fact that it’s still an incredible tool for change.

This isn’t unique to Cognitive Hypnotherapy. In other areas I have worked, studied and researched – whether it be more traditional modes like pyschotherapy, counselling or CBT – there’s often this parallel between really great results emerging not from the therapist,but the client. The therapist acts as a guide to reach the areas that the client didn’t even know were accessible previously.

This is particularly prevalent with something like ‘Stop Smoking.’ People phone me up and want a success rate percentage. That’s easy,I say. It’s 100% of the time when the person is committed to the work, and 0% of the time when they’re not. It sounds playful -  I also think it’s fair, honest and ethical.

Cognitive Hypnotherapy is made up of truly effective principles and techniques to ensure that people get the result they want especially when it’s important to them. I don’t just not guarantee because it’s more ethical – I do it because it makes me life easier as well.

How? Well, I generally only want someone in the room with me during treatment who genuinely wants to make a change – and is willing to take responsibility for that change too. This is how truly transformational change happens.

Sometimes someone has the absolute desire to change but doesn’t quite believe it can happen – this is completely different again. If the desire is there, then we can find the how and we can move to engage and work together. The belief is helpful, but not necessary for a positive outcome.

And those positive outcomes when they’re met are often far and beyond what the individual thought could happen in such a relatively brief amount of time – and it’s lovely because they’ve always been met in an ethical way, which emphasised not the skill of the therapist alone, but the autonomy of the client and the inner resources available to them.

Zack Polanski is a Cognitive Hypnotherapist working at 1 Harley Street. He works with a variety of issues including confidence, self-esteem, phobias, smoking cessation, addictions, public speaking, PTSD and body disorders. Sessions must be booked 7 days in advance. Phone: 07738088632 or E-mail: info@zackpolanski.com

The most startling example is that of Relationships. I’m sure most people know someone, or have been there themselves, where they are in a partnership that doesn’t feel entirely equal. There’s the dangerous ground of playing a symetrical game of assuming that A does something for B, and then B has to reciprocate before A does something else.

This seems so cold and cynical, and rarely does the relationship operate like that in terms of what’s actually said – but frequently, much more telling is the deeper lying structure of how the dynamic organises itself.

I was struck by a small story printed in the Boston Globe on March 20th 1987. It’s about a lady called Susan Butcher. (With thanks to Mary Catherine Bateson for the story came to my attention in her marvellous book, Composing A Life.)

The Iditarod, the 1,157 mile dogsled race across Alaska has been won repeatedly by Susan. This gruelling course was originally set up to be run to save lives at a time when serum was desperately needed in Nome to combat an epidemic.  Now, as a  race, this mode of caring and service has been converted into a straight out compeitition. Yet it is clear that even in this competitive framework, Butcher excells at taking care of her dogs.

At every rest stop in the 1987 race, her rival Rick Swenson left early, while Butcher gave her dogs the full four-hour rest time; she was so busy caring for them that she had only fifteen minutes of rest for herself. By the end of each lap, her dogs were forging ahead of his. They seemed to gain in power the further along they got.

At the last rest stop, the rules of the race determined that you had to give your animals the full rest time. Butcher’s lead became unbeatable. Where he was willing to overtax his dogs, she was willing to overtax herself, organizing her efforts around caring for her dogs. After the race, care for herself: a glass of wine, a hot bath and a sleep. It has been observed that in womens’ athletics, the women will stop playing when a team mate is injured, until she has been attended to, while male athletes will more quickly resume their competitive combat. Slowing down for caretaking is obviously a losing strategy in the short run, but a winning strategy in the long run, whether in a two week race across Alask or the life and survival of the human species on a planet that must be cherished for it can never be replaced.

Zack Polanski is a Cognitive Hypnotherapist working from 1 Harley Street, London. He also has a clinic available in both North and East London depending on your individual requirements. He works with confidence, self-esteem, depression, anxiety and stress. Alongside this work, he also has experience as  a business coach and a skills trainer.

I also work at several drama schools coaching actors 1-1 on things like confidence, performance anxiety or anything that might crop up in their personal lives (from depression to just wanting to be better at something.)

Similarly, I train therapists and practitioners, coach politicians and consult for various institutions (including a nightclub and a youth offending institution.)

My most common work is working with members of the public. Whether it’s preparing someone for their audition at drama school or working with someone who’s experienced trauma – 1 on 1 work is something I really enjoy.

I like to keep busy -  people who know  me are often bemused how many different hats this entails. I don’t really see it that way, though. For me – they’re all under one umbrella of  working with people.

So why this blog? It’s not intended to be an advertisement for ‘Zack Polanski Hypnotherapy Services’ – it’s intended to suggest a wider point about versatility.

So often I meet people who feel really stuck in their lives, their relationships or their careers. They can’t see a way out or they feel really tied up in their story. Frequently, learning a new skill set is a big jump.

I’d still encourage people to do it sometimes, even if it’s a leap – yet in the meantime, you may not even have to move off the spot. Sometimes you can look at your feet, turn yourself around and just face in a different direction. This alternative perceptual position can be enough that you can begin to see new angles and ideas upon your perspective – something that can have seemed so difficult or impossible, can come within your reach.

As a therapist, a communicator, a philosopher, a mentor and a coach -  guiding you to find that new position and encouraging you to take that leap is often my specialist area. I’d love to help.

Zack Polanski is a Cognitive Hypnotherapist at 1 Harley Street, London. W1G 9UD.  07738088632 or info@zackpolanski.com

In both my private client work, various work with businesses and corporations and counselling at drama schools – i’ve noticed a real trend of reflectivity at this time of year. As we reach the half way point of 2011, people thinking about where they’ve come from since January and where they would like to be by December.

I’ve seen a variety of people for confidence issues, people who have previously been suffering from anxiety – and a few unusual phobias too. The common theme though has been that clients this month, even more than usual, have been in a place where they just feel stuck.

It’s interesting that idea of being ’stuck’ and how do we know when we are? It’s almost invariably a feeling. It might be an uncomfortable feeling in our stomach, or the heavy weighing down of our shoulders – something that just lets us know that not all is as it could be.

In many ways though – that feeling is helpful to us. It’s an excellent calibration mechanism between the start of treatment and the conclusion. It’s a good way of checking in with ourselves on how we’re feeling – the absence of the feeling of being stuck, or the replacement with an opposite feeling – just confirms that we’re starting to move on with our lives and find new choices.

It’s a little bit like the weather – we only notice the rain because it’s been so sunny or vice versa. It’s all news of difference.

So here’s the question – if you wanted news of difference in your life, how would you notice? What would it be? What differences would you be making from today?

And the most powerful question – how best can you being to implement those changes so you don’t have to feel stuck any longer?

Zack Polanski is a Cognitive Hypnotherapist working at 1 Harley Street. His work with NLP, Hypnosis and Pyschology is powerful in working with peoples confidence, anxiety, phobias, depression, self-esteem issues, relationships and coaching. You can call on 07738088632 or info@zackpolanski.com

Harley Street is just by Oxford Circus Tube and is accessible from North, South, East, West and Central London very easily.

I’ve become increasingly curious about factors that promote change in a person. Whether it’s because they want to quit smoking, be less anxious, stop being phobic of something or to just live a relaxed life – to find the commonality that is often the straw that breaks the camels back.

There’s an (apparently) old adage I heard this week – ‘The roads not crowded along the extra mile.’ It really resonated with me in terms of those clients who make incredible changes – there’s often an internal congruency that they bring to our work together which just allows them to push through those barriers that may have been there before.

Often though, clients will come to see me because they can’t break through those barriers and they feel stuck. They feel like they’ve tried every logical thought pattern they could think of – they could write a thesis around their issue(s) yet they can’t seem to quite let go. That’s where I become really interested in knowing not only how I motivate people through our session work together but what is it that finally clicks in a person – that keeps them more effective and happier once our sessions are over.

It’s definitely an area to consider as we create a field that is absolutely not about codependency but the empowerment of each and every individual. There’s nothing codependent necessarily about seeing help for change – it’s just ensuring the help is short term to get the individual on to their feet and moving again in a relatively short amount of time.

Zack Polanski is a Cognitive Hypnotherapist. Based at 1 Harley Street, London – he regularly sees clients from Central London, North, East, South, West and the rest of the UK and Europe.

He works regularly on issues such as lack of self esteem, confidence, depression, phobia and anxiety. Call 07738088632 or e-mail at info@zackpolanski.com

An elderly Chinese woman had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a
pole which she carried across her shoulders. One of the pots had a crack in it
while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water.
At the end of the long walk from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived
only half full.

For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only
one and a half pots of water. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its
accomplishments. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own
imperfection and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been
made to do. After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it
spoke to the woman one day by the stream. “I am ashamed of myself,
because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house.”
The old woman smiled and said, “Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path,
but not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I have always known about your supposed flaw,
so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you water them.

“For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate
the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this
beauty to grace the house.”

Zack Polanski is a Cognitive Hypnotherapist working at 1 Harley Street, Central London. He deals mainly with issues relating to stress, confidence, anxiety, phobia and life coaching. A unique mix of hypnosis, cognitive therapy and NLP – for more information, just call 07738088632 or e-mail info@zackpolanski.com

It had some really interesting ideas; I don’t want to simply reguritate them on this blog as i’d be depriving people of having the experience of themselves.

What it did do though, was spark some similar thoughts within me to related topics.

I left really considering how cool is hard to define. It’s this idea that it’s unknowable, unattainable and unanalysable – but none of that is necessarily true. As soon as you put those blocks in the way, then of course it is all of those things.

I’m much more interested though in the intention of someone being cool. What are we working to achieve? What are we wanting? What are we hoping for?

How does being cool in that circumstance help us rather than being flustered? Or being energetic? Or dare i say it…being uncool?

Of course in terms of behaviour or state, then cool is suprassed by a New Code NLP Intervention. In working towards a high performance state, the state of ‘cool’ isn’t even recognised. It could be contained within the greater state – and it’s just not given a label.

How does this work out in practice? Well, if i’m working with an actor or an athlete – rather then working on being ‘cool’ or being ‘focussed’ – we work on a higher intention. We essentially hand responsibility over to the unconscious and ask it to use all the resources inside to choose the best possible response within the contextual situation.

This is different to what many people refer to as NLP or Classic Code NLP in which we consciously choose a behaviour and decide we always want to be ‘confident’ or ‘relaxed.’ This is taking things a step further.

And that’s cool.

For more information, I invite you to give me a call on 07738088632 or just drop me an e-mail at info@zackpolanski.com

I work with people for performance coaching, depression, stress, phobias and anxiety. I also work a lot with issues around confidence and self-esteem.

Fantastic in it’s provocation of ideas even if I don’t entirely agree with all it’s content.

It’s a whistle stop tour of various philosophical ideas of the mind featuring particularly on materialists vs dualists.

It can get a little bit introspective at times and the geek in me enjoys the logical loops; but we”ll leave that to another day. I much prefer to blog how specifically it can give the therapist an insight into how they work with people and the client or potential client an insight into how they can run their own lives.

One of the first things it got me thinking about is the difference between Observer Independent Phenomena and Observer Dependent Phenomena.

The former being anything that would happen without human behaviour or interaction. It’s the whole “If a tree fell down in an empty forest, does it still make a sound?”

The latter being anything that we’ve created in society or in our perceptions.

So what are examples of independent phenomena? Well gravity would happen whether we influence it or not, so would the solar system and photosynthesis.

So, what are observer dependent phenomena? These are essentially our social constructions. Our family, the Government, Money. Things that whilst they exist in most of our lives, would not happen if we didn’t create our perceptions of them either individually or within the small or larger community.

So, all very nice but how is this useful or helpful?

Well, when someone has a problem for instance.; Consider maybe they’re depressed, anxious or just not feeling as confident as they can be? How much of their problem is related to Observer Independent Phenomena and how much on Dependent Phenonema?

In the possible but unlikely event someone is anxious about gravity, or photosynthesis – you have a problem on your hands and that’s for another blog.

But how often do we allow ourselves in life to get hung up on  family issues? How often do we place anxiety within our relationship to someone or something? And the biggie, how often do we create a world of difficulties around money?

It doesn’t mean these things can just go away; but it does mean that when you start to consider that they were only observable dependent phenomena in the first place- you have a few more choices.

You could choose not to observe them.

This is the ‘bury your head in the sand’ approach that’s coveted by millions all over the world. It’s a great, economic and clever solution. There’s a problem, though. It rarely works for a long period of time.  It’s going to come back, sneak up and bite you some time. Sometimes not quite in the same form, but it will find a way.

A good example is someone who wants to lose weight. If they take the run away approach- sure, they’re not going to notice for a while their ‘problem’ but they’ll certainly notice if they run into health issues or self-esteem issues projected on them by other people in the long run.

So what else is there to do? Well we know they’re observable…so how about changing the way we observe them? We often talk about ‘positive thinking.’ This is one way of observing things differently. Again, though forcing a positive tint to everything can often be a little similar bury the head in the sand/run away approach.

So what’s left? Well we don’t have to positive think (all the time) but we could choose to think differently. If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got – so it’s time to do something different.

If it’s weight loss- maybe it’s to exercise more or change your relationship with food; for anxiety- working on what makes you anxious in the future and what’s worth your energy and time and for depression- sometimes it can be about reassessment of perceptions. Changing how we observe those dependent phenomena.

Isn’t it about time rather then you being dependent on them, they start to depend on you? After all, they only exist in your perception anyhow.

So maybe the real question is ‘If a tree falls in the forest and does or does not make a sound, how much does anyone care?’

And, how much time and effort do we all give to the things in life that are dependent and/or independent of us?

Zack Polanski is a Cognitive Hypnotherapist, Master Prac and New Code NLP Practitoner at 1 Harley St, London.

For more information, call on 07738088632 or e-mail info@zackpolanski.com