Carla Marcos López is a clinical hypnotherapist who practises solution focused hypnotherapy, helping her clients use their mind to their advantage so that they can find their unique balance and bring more of what they want into their lives.
Alongside her passion for hypnotherapy, Carla is also a lawyer and a qualified nurse. Being a qualified nurse, her delivery as a hypnotherapist combines her knowledge of how the mind works, together with a caring and holistic approach that takes into account the interconnection of body and mind.
This, taken together with her lawyer’s solution-focused approach, drives Carla’s enthusiasm to work with clients and help them achieve their goals so that they can start living their best lives as soon as possible.
Carla is a firm believer that improving a person’s emotional state also helps improve the lives of those around them. She absolutely loves to see her clients not only finding their unique balance but also becoming an example of positive change for others; their families, friends, co-workers, and ultimately an inspiration for the wider community.
Carla speaks several languages and offers hypnotherapy services globally online.
Carla Marcos López, Clinical Hypnotherapist – Solution Focused
What exactly is solution focused hypnotherapy?
Solution Focused hypnotherapy is a modern psychotherapeutic approach based on the latest research in neuroscience and the most effective psychotherapeutic techniques.
The use of hypnosis is what makes it so very effective and quick. I believe it is the best tool to help people make significant positive changes in their lives in a relatively short period of time. It is also a pleasant experience because whilst in a trance state our minds relax, and can focus on thoughts and suggestions that can be extremely beneficial.
I get great satisfaction from seeing my clients improve their state of mind, overcome their difficulties, and start to enjoy life in ways they never thought possible.
How can you help your clients?
I help clients suffering from a wide range of conditions such as anxiety disorders, low mood, depression, insomnia, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), chronic pain, fears and phobias.
I also help many clients who are very functional in their lives but want to work on themselves because they are not happy with just surviving. They want more from life. They want to live well and thrive. They might also want to learn how to better manage their stress levels or their weight, build their confidence, be ready for peak performance (at work, performing arts or sports), unleash their creativity, find their purpose, reconnect with themselves, quit bad habits, reduce procrastination in order to achieve their goals, or make significant changes or decisions in their lives.
So I would say that my work has two main branches. The first is treating specific conditions and the second is more focused on personal development. More often than not they tend to be interlinked. For example, sometimes we can see that the stress response which is obscuring a client’s talent from shining through in the workplace is rooted in a certain fear. In such cases, by neutralizing this phobic response we are helping improve their work performance as a result.
What does a solution focused hypnotherapy session look like?
The standard sessions are divided in two main sections. During the first part of a session we focus on mind training and discuss the positive aspects of our life to reinforce the neural pathways by which higher thought can control emotions, never falling into the toxic positivity that is so unhelpful. We also focus on psychotherapy and psychoeducation, learning about the brain and neuroscience, scaling the client’s progress and goal setting. It is in the second part of a session that we conduct hypnosis.
There are a lot of preconceptions that people have about hypnosis, and they might wonder whether it is a safe state and whether they will remain in control. What is hypnosis?
Hypnosis or trance state is ancient. Since the dawning of human awareness we have been using trance states. Nowadays there has been a resurgence in its use for self-improvement and for healing because it is a wonderful tool that helps open up our minds to new levels of awareness. From this vantage point we can shift our perspective and tap into our inner resources so as to help ourselves.
Trance is a natural state. We all naturally go in and out of trance many times during the day - when we are driving, reading a book, out for runs. In this relaxed state, we experience changes in our conscious awareness, almost like being in a day-dream.
Whilst in trance state our unconscious mind is more aware and able to focus on helpful suggestions and thoughts. This can be extremely beneficial for us when we are looking to improve our emotional state and make positive changes in our lives. Trance is a safe state. Contrary to that sometimes seen in films, on television, or during stage hypnosis shows, trance cannot control your mind. During hypnosis we are still in control and can decide whether the information that we are hearing is useful to us or not. We would not accept or do anything against our will.
If we take as a reference point the stage hypnosis shows that take place in theatres as a spectacle, it is no wonder that some people entertain doubts as to what hypnosis is really about. They might think that it is mind control and that they could end up leaving their session talking like Donald Duck! But as funny and entertaining this depiction may be, it is nothing like this when we conduct therapeutic hypnosis.
All hypnosis is self-hypnosis and nobody can make us do things that we do not want to do. It is a deep state of relaxation, which offers us the perfect context to rethink old patterns of thought and behaviour and think about where we want to go in the future.
Hypnosis is no more than a very effective psychological tool which can help those who choose to use it to achieve excellence in the attainment of the goals they have set themselves.
What do you mean when you say that the therapeutic approach you use is solution focused?
It means that we are not problem focused and that we don’t need to dig into the past, because dwelling on a problem is not always necessary to find a solution. More often than not what we believe to be ‘the problem’ is not the problem itself but a mere coping strategy that is helping us cope with ‘the problem’. Therefore, my sessions are mainly focused on where we are now, our current life situation and where we want to get to in the future.
We might throw little glances back into the past so that we can understand how we developed certain behaviours, how we acquired our values, beliefs, etc., because to let go of unhelpful thoughts and behaviours, it helps to understand where they came from. But we don’t stay there too long because this can reinforce the unhelpful thinking and behavioural patterns which gave rise to the problem in the first place. This is because the situations which initially gave rise to the patterns may no longer be relevant, but we might still be using some of these old strategies from the past in maladaptive ways today.
You mentioned that you work online. It seems rather extraordinary that you are able to do that with such excellent results. How does this work?
Online hypnotherapy is just as effective, and in some cases can be even more effective than face-to-face therapy. For example, with clients suffering from depression or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Some clients experience panic attacks when they are outside the house. In such cases online hypnotherapy is a life saver until they are able to venture outside. Sometimes just leaving the safety of their bedroom can be a challenge.
Many of my clients travel regularly for work or leisure and for them it is great to be able to log on from wherever they are in the world and not miss their session (time zone allowing!). It also helps them relax by allowing them to be in a comfortable and familiar environment of their choice. Also, if they don’t have any immediate commitments after their session they can choose to go to sleep straight after trance. This is particularly beneficial for clients suffering from insomnia.
Clients also avoid the stress of having to drive or use public transport to get to a clinic, and some would rather be discrete about the issues they are working on and in this way they don’t have to run the risk of meeting a neighbour in a clinic waiting room. Furthermore, clients suffering from travel sickness, for obvious reasons, are very pleased that they don’t have to travel to see me!
Finally, it allows clients keen on working specifically with me to do so. Thanks to the remote element, language and time zone allowing this can be a reality. I wouldn’t go as far as talking about other countries in which I work regularly, but also since I live in a semi-rural town in the North of England, I often see people who live in the countryside who want to work with a good hypnotherapist but who are very happy to avoid travelling into town every time they have a hypnotherapy session. I also have clients in London who are very happy to have a session with me at Northern prices rather than at London prices!
Why did you choose a new career as a clinical hypnotherapist?
For me it was more like professionalising my hobby. I had been toying with the idea of having my own business for a while and had a wish list of it being purposeful, sustainable, creative, enjoyable, something that could make a difference, give me independence and flexible working hours, and give me the ability to use my skills.
So, after a career as a lawyer working for the pharmaceutical industry I decided to retrain as a Clinical Hypnotherapist. I come from a family of mental health professionals and I have always been interested in the study of the human mind and behaviour. I am also a qualified nurse, and so I have a medical background.
As I said, the mental health professions are disciplines very familiar to me. In my family we have a neurologist, a psychiatrist and two psychologists. My father worked as a clinical psychologist and had a vast library on the subject. I really enjoyed learning about the workings of the mind from an early age. So, you could say that it wasn’t a radical change for me. I suppose that I had reached sufficient maturity which helped to ignite the dormant potential already within me. I really enjoy the job. The transformations that I witness in people every day never cease to amaze me, I feel very privileged to be part of such a beautiful process.
What would you say makes the work you do different and so effective?
I practise Solution Focused Hypnotherapy. One of the main reasons this therapeutic approach is so effective is that it combines psychotherapy and hypnosis. As well as using hypnosis and neuroscience research I use anything else that works from the various theories of psychology, such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), systemic psychology, interpersonal, psychodynamic, humanistic-existential, evolutionary psychology, human givens approach, and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), as well as many tools from Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT).
The client is a key element of the process since the therapeutic alliance is a collaborative effort. I believe that education plays a very important role. It helps people to understand themselves and why they feel as they do. This automatically reduces some of the anxiety experienced from feeling out of control.
I help my clients to tap into their inner resources, giving them tools for the future so that they can self-regulate emotionally. By helping them to access areas of their brain that often remain unused, they can also rediscover their potential.
Hypnotherapy is a very pleasant experience of self-discovery where science meets art. I use a lot of stories, metaphors and case studies, which our subconscious mind loves, and we often remember these better than the scientific data they illustrate.
Hypnosis is the perfect culmination of the whole session structure, allowing us to make all the necessary associations and providing the ideal context to rethink old patterns of thought and behaviour, and focus on how we would like things to be going forward.
The whole structure of a hypnotherapy session is carefully planned. I trained with the gold standard of hypnotherapy schools in the country, which provided excellent training. When I was a student I had the fantastic opportunity to see what happens in the brain through electroencephalogram imaging (EEG) whilst a session is being conducted, and that’s why I know what will happen in my client’s brain at each stage of a session. I do a lot of work behind the scenes, thinking about where my client wants to go and how to get them there fast but solid. So I do prepare, but I improvise a lot too, because you never know what’s going to happen, and perhaps something that your client says or needs changes the whole direction of that day’s session.
I use what are called ‘non-voyeuristic techniques’, since ‘voyeuristic techniques’ can often retraumatize a client and keep them stuck, as they involve negative introspection about themselves or their past, which will increase their anxiety. So I work with what my client gives me. Some people are very open, whilst others are more private, but I can still help them, since this approach works especially well with those who are less used to sharing their emotions, as we do not focus on the problem but rather on the solution. Solutions always come to mind easily, especially when we are nicely relaxed, and not consciously focusing on the problem.
We are talking brief therapy here and I always offer the service that I would like to receive. So, although I always give an estimate of the number of sessions that might be required after an Initial Consultation, the number of sessions is always the decision of the client, as we scale their progress every week and they can regularly assess how they are feeling. I believe that clients know what they need.
You could say that I am not doing myself any favours, as I do all that I possibly can to get my clients back on track, independent and empowered as soon as possible, leaving them with built-in tools for the future that they will be able to access again and again when they need to. But this is what I believe in and how I want to work. I get a lot of referrals from happy clients for doing a good job, so we could say that it has worked pretty well for me! There’s nothing I like more than to see my clients achieving their goals and living a happier and healthier life.
Are there any particular conditions that you like to treat or a particular type of client that you enjoy working with?
I am happy to work with any type of client. Due to my corporate background and my other professions, and being a business owner myself, I often see clients who are legal or health professionals (including other therapists), corporate clients and business owners. Very frequently these corporate clients are also business owners who are experiencing the pressures of balancing their day job whilst at the same time trying to find the time to focus on their businesses or consultancy services outside of the day job, and their families.
I also see many clients who want to achieve peak performance, whether in the performing arts, workplace or in sport. For example, actors or musicians who have developed stage fright, or writers who want to reconnect with their creativity.
I love diversity, and I really enjoy working with clients from all backgrounds, occupations and ages. The thing that I enjoy the most is to work with those who want to do the work and who are willing to make positive changes in their lives. I would say that this is the main thing necessary for a successful outcome and for a fantastic therapeutic alliance. This enables us to build new, healthier and more satisfactory paradigms so that my clients can achieve the fulfilling and joyful lives they desire.
To find out more or book a session please visit my website.
