Understanding Anxiety: What Triggers It and How Hypnotherapy Can Help
Anxiety is something many people live with, often silently. It can affect sleep, concentration, confidence, and even relationships. Anxiety causes people to do less, achieve less and avoid more. Behind every anxious response lies a a trigger often rooted in past experiences or unprocessed emotions. Hypnotherapy for anxiety and getting to the root cause is one of the keys to change.
As a clinical hypnotherapist and psychotherapist with over 20 years experience, I have worked with hundreds of people who thought anxiety was something they simply had to live with. The truth is: it’s not. Once we identify and address the root cause with hypnotherapy, healing is possible.
Types of Anxiety
Anxiety can show up in many forms. Understanding the different types can help you recognise your own experiences and begin to see that you’re not alone, and that support is available.
Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
This is a constant feeling of worry, nervousness or dread, even when there’s no obvious reason. People with GAD often describe a mind that “won’t switch off,” especially at night. They regularly say things like “I’ve always been a worrier” or “I worry about everything”.
In therapy, we work together to uncover the underlying beliefs or past events fuelling this constant sense of unease. Hypnotherapy is particularly effective for calming the nervous system and creating a sense of inner peace.
Social Anxiety
Social anxiety goes beyond shyness. It can create intense fear of being judged, embarrassed or rejected in social settings. This can hold people back from friendships, work opportunities and everyday interactions.
Clients often tell me how they’ve avoided social situations for years. Through a combination of enhanced CBT psychotherapy and analytical hynotherapy, we gently explore when these fears first began, often during the developmental years of childhood. Hypnotherapy helps rewire those responses and build new confidence.
Panic Attacks
Panic attacks come suddenly and can feel terrifying with a racing heart, shortness of breath, chest pain or dizziness. Often, there is a fear of the next attack, which creates a cycle of worry and avoidance. Many people describe how they call an ambulance feeling so certain that they are going to have a heart attack, stroke or faint. The aftermath is to live in fear of a panic attack reoccurring and then the fear of an other attack causes even more anxiety.
With the right support, I’ve seen people go from panic attacks and fear of having a panic attach to a sense of feeling in control. Together we identify the original source of fear stored in the mind and body and use regression hypnotherapy to resolve it at its core.
Phobias
A phobia is an intense fear of a specific object or situation—like needles, flying, spiders, or enclosed spaces. Often, people know the fear is irrational, but it feels impossible to control.
In sessions specific techniques to understand where the phobia began, often a forgotten or childhood event. Hypnotherapy helps replace the fear with calm and rational responses.
Health Anxiety (Hypochondria)
This type of anxiety is marked by persistent worry about health—even when medical tests offer reassurance. It can be exhausting and impact daily life.
Health anxiety often arises from a fear of loss, illness, or a past traumatic event. Together we trace the emotional root, work with it gently through health anxiety enhanced CBT tools to restore a sense of safety in the body.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
OCD involves intrusive thoughts and repetitive behaviours (like checking or cleaning) that are difficult to stop, even when they cause distress.
OCD is often a way the mind tries to gain control when life feels unpredictable. I help clients understand what the compulsions are trying to protect them from and use tailored hypnotherapy techniques to break the cycle and ease the mind.
Post-Traumatic Stress (PTSD)
PTSD can develop after a person experiences or witnesses a deeply distressing event, such as an accident, assault, loss, or childhood trauma. It often includes flashbacks, nightmares, heightened alertness, and a sense of emotional detachment. Many people with PTSD don’t always connect their current symptoms to the past experience.
In my practice, I’ve helped many clients gently process traumatic memories using a blend of hypnotherapy and psychotherapy trauma-informed protocols. We create a safe space to heal the emotional imprint of the trauma.
The Power of Finding the Root Cause
In all forms of anxiety, the symptoms are messages from the body and mind, signalling unresolved emotions, unmet needs, or past traumas. Hypnotherapy is not just about managing the symptoms. It’s about healing what lies beneath.
Over the past two decades, I’ve learned that the most lasting change comes when we stop asking, “What’s wrong with me?” and start asking, “What happened to me?”
Using a combination of analytical hypnotherapy, psychotherapy and mind-body techniques, we gently explore these roots in a safe, compassionate space. Many clients are surprised by how deeply these sessions unlock emotional insights and bring lasting relief, even after years of suffering.
You Don’t Have to Live with Anxiety
If you are experiencing anxiety, whether it’s constant, situational or something you can’t quite name, know that there is a reason for it, and more importantly, a path out of it.
Hypnotherapy offers you the space to understand yourself more fully, heal what hurts, and rediscover calm, confidence and clarity.
I’m here to walk that journey with you.
Contact Sinead Duffy to find out more.
Clinical Hypnotherapist and Psychotherapist, Monaghan and Online