Hypnotherapy and Fertility
Julie Cleasby BSc(Hons), RN (Child Health), RHV, D.C.Hyp, HypnoBirthing Educator, MSCHA
Infertility can affect every aspect of your life, from your relationships with your parents, family and friends to your career. Going through many months and / years of infertility can leave you feeling out of control and believing that your situation is hopeless.
Our minds have such a powerful effect over our bodies, yet most people don't know how to use them intentionally to effect desired changes in their bodies. Unhealthy beliefs, which can result in negative emotions, over time, will disturb the natural balance in the body. When the body’s natural balance is disrupted the reproductive system will be affected. If these beliefs, emotions and physiological responses are not addressed fertility may be negatively affected. Our thoughts affect our emotional state and our emotional state affects our health. For example for every thought, feeling or emotion there is a physiological repose in the body.
Fertility is a state of heath and well-being. When the mind and body are in a state of health balance the body naturally produces the hormones needed for reproduction. Hypnotherapy can help to restore this body and mind balance.
Hypnotherapy can help in the following ways:
Decrease the emotional effects of infertility by Reducing Stress, Anxiety and Depression that can result from being unable to conceive.
Increase fertility by:
- Reducing stress and depression
- Increasing self-esteem and return a sense of control to you
- Work with and challenge any unhealthy beliefs you may hold
- Restore balance, health and vitality (including hormonal balance)
- Lower blood pressure and increase immune function
- Help you make positive changes to you lifestyle e.g. diet and exercise
- Resolve issues such as abortion, and birth trauma.
- Increase the pleasure of sexual intimacy
- Help you prepare for fertility treatment
- Help couples prepare for pregnancy, birth and parenthood
- Provide you with support and teach you self help tools.
Hypnotherapy can help increase the likelihood of conception either naturally or in partnership with medical fertility treatments, and has been shown to increase conception by up to 30% and can double the rate of success of IVF treatment.
You will learn to balance your body and mind and create the perfect environment for you to conceive a healthy baby. Hypnotherapy will help you to create a climate in which conception is encouraged to take place, so that you can give nature a better chance. You have the power to reawaken this innate intelligence and to restore balance and health to your life.
What the experts say
In an article by Suzy Greaves entitled Can Hypnosis Help to Make You Pregnant? Dr. Elizabeth Muir, a clinical psychologist working with hypnotherapy for infertility explains that hypnosis affects the hypothalamus—the neural centre at the base of the brain linked to the pituitary gland—and controls the flow of hormones in the body. The hypothalamus is sensitive to stress and acts as a bridge between the emotional and physical, turning emotional messages into physical responses that affect hormone levels. Muir believes that the psychological issues surrounding pregnancy are not sufficiently well addressed for many women with fertility problems.
Studies conducted by Alice Domar, PhD, director of the Beth Israel Deaconess Behavioral Medicine Program for Infertility in Boston support Muir's theory that unresolved issues about having a baby can be removed with counselling and mind/body techniques such as hypnotherapy. In the first study published in 1999 in the Journal of the American Medical Women's Association 42% of 132 infertile women in the program conceived within six months of completing it. In the second study, published in 2000 in the journal Fertility and Sterility, 55% of the previously infertile women who met regularly in a mind/body program conceived, compared with 20% of the control group who used no mind/body techniques and who did not attend meetings.
What is hypnosis?
Hypnosis is a natural state of relaxation. This naturally relaxed state allows you to establish appropriate new beliefs and act upon them, resulting in you breaking unwanted habits, changing your behaviour patterns and overcoming limiting beliefs, restoring a sense of overall balance to the mind and body. During hypnosis you remain in full control and are not unconscious or asleep.
What does hypnotherapy for fertility involve?
The initial consultation will last approx 1.5 hours. This session will be spent asking you relevant questions so that I can ascertain the best possible approach to treatment for you. At the end of this session we can decide how many sessions will be needed, over what period of time. This can vary from 3 sessions to 10 sessions, 4-6 sessions is the average length of treatment. The treatment plan will be tailored for you and your partner so that we can take the briefest most effective approach to help you to achieve your goals.
The initial session costs £65 and subsequent sessions will cost £60 and will last around 1 hour.
Session can be arranged at Unit 4 or from Julie’s Therapy Room in Hove. During the course of your treatment, telephone and email support is also offered by your therapist.
HypnoBirthing
Julie also teaches HypnoBirthing to couples to assist them though a natural and normal childbirth Individual and group sessions are available at Unit 4 or in your own home. Further details about HypnoBirthing can be found on www.begintolive.co.uk/hypnobirthing.html or www.tobabyandbeyond.com
Practitioner Fees
The Initial consultation is no £70 and last approx 1 hr and 20 mins
Subsequent sessions lasting 50-60 mins cost £60.
HypnoBirthing Fees see above websites for details
Contact Details
Julie Cleasby 07900 883618 or email:
To find out more about Julie please visit the profiles page