Hypnotherapy for Erectile Dysfunction

Sexual problems, both male and female, are becoming more and more common for me, as a hypnotherapist, to treat. Therefore, I felt it was time to post up one of my case studies. I tend to keep my case studies fairly brief for a couple of reasons, one is that I don’t want to go into great detail about techniques used in case someone with a limited knowledge of hypnotherapy tries to use the information to treat clients in an area they are neither qualified, nor experienced in. Secondly, they make easier reading!

The erectile dysfunction case that I’m going to describe here is a fairly typical one. The client had three sessions, which is about average for me. He also had no physical reasons for the dysfunction.

This particular client found that he could gain an erection during foreplay but would be unable to maintain it long enough for intercourse. The problem started in his early 20’s, he was 30 years old when I treated him.

As with most people in this situation (including women with vaginismus), the problem had become progressively worse with time. As well as the embarrassment that most non-sufferers would imagine, he also felt that he let his partners down, wasted their time, worried they might think he didn’t find them attractive, worried about living up to their expectations.

He had some success using Viagra and often found that once he had intercourse successfully in a relationship, the problem would lessen but the anxiety and worries of it happening again would always be there. When he booked in at my Manchester hypnotherapy clinic, he had recently started a new relationship and was concerned this would become physical soon.

The first hypnotherapy session was aimed at combatting the problem from two angles. First of all, leaving the client with a post-hypnotic anchor that could be triggered consciously to reduce the anxiety. Secondly, to start work on the subconscious part of the problem, again predominantly regarding the anxiety.

At the second session, the client reported improvements in the anxiety and that he had oral sex with his partner but then the old nagging feeling kicked in but by then it was so late at night they were both tired anyway so she was not aware of the problem. The client also opened up more about the earliest instances of the problem. The hypnotherapy techniques used in this session were a combination of self-esteem techniques, along with age regression back to the earliest negative sexual experiences. His girlfriend was due to stay with him the following weekend and we agreed that he would contact me on the Monday.

This time the client reported that the old anxiety had disappeared completely. Without Viagra, he had intercourse twice per night over the weekend and said that it felt “completely natural” and that it no longer felt like a hurdle that he had to overcome in the realationship.

My client, did however, decide to have a third session “just to make sure the changes remain permanent”. This hypnosis session was designed not only to do this but also to boost his confidence that the change had been made and was permanent.

As with most of my case studies, I don’t post them up until at least twelve months after the client was treated. I don’t class the treatment of any problem or condition as having been successful until the client has been free of the problem for at least a year.

If you are reading this and have the same, or a similar, sexual problem then please be aware that drugs are not always necessary to solve it. Any suitably qualified, experienced and reputable hypnotherapist should be capable of achieving these results. There are also other complementary therapies that can help and of course, the information doesn’t end up on your medical record.

Gastric Band Weight Loss Hypnosis

Gastric Band Hypnosis is probably one of the most talked about procedures in hypnotherapy at the moment. Elite Clinics in Spain have had a lot of press coverage here and abroad which is part of the reason for this but there are many hypnotherapists offering this type of treatment, myself included.

So, why do people use this treatment? First of all, unless you are able to get a NHS referral, the cost of the surgery is in the region of £4,000. Second, why have surgery when there is another option?

The subconscious mind learns from imagined experiences in the same way that it learns from real events. Under hypnosis, and as long as the sessions are carried out properly, the subconscious mind believes the surgery has been carried out, and therefore the client/patient’s stomach capacity has been reduced. Consciously, the client knows that he or she has been sitting in a hypnotherapists consulting room during each session.

There are drawbacks with this type of treatment, usually when the therapist relies solely on this procedure. First of all, it isn’t suitable for everyone. If someone is eating small quantities of junkfood regularly throughout the day, then having a smaller appetite “per sitting” isn’t going to make much difference. Also, if the person is eating the wrong foods and not exercising, then just lowering the total volume of food may or may not make much difference to their weight and certainly won’t make a great deal of difference to their health.

Therefore, it’s important that the Gastric Band Hypnosis techniques are combined with other weight loss hypnotherapy techniques to ensure the whole of the problem is addressed. These techniques cover areas such as making healthy eating choices naturally, avoiding junk food, not eating for the wrong reasons such as comfort eating, boredom etc. In some cases it is necessary to address things the client was told about food and eating when they were a child, “you must clear your plate” being the most obvious of these.

When carried out in this way, the results of this process are often staggering. Imagine how easy it would be to lose weight if you no longer ate junk food, fatty foods etc but also didn’t miss them. Combine this with a smaller appetite and no longer feeling a need to eat large portions, or clear your plate, and you’re well on your way to losing weight. With added motivation for a reasonable level of exercise, the weight should not only be lost fairly easily and quickly but the body will be healthier and more toned.

Weight Loss Hypnotherapy in any form is a long-term solution. For some people, the weight really does just drop off. For others, the weight loss is more gradual but the important thing is that it is also permanent. By changing your perception of food, the cycle of punishment and reward that is often associated with weight loss diets shouldn’t happen and because you have changed the way you eat, rather than temporarily eaten low calorie foods, the weight shouldn’t come back either.

Oke Hypnotherapy offers Gastric Band Hypnosis and Weight Loss Hypnotherapy on a session by session basis as well as on a scheme basis. Although the clinics are in Manchester, Glossop and Sheffield, Oke Hypnotherapy has clients who travel from as far away as London, Brighton, Bristol, Birmingham, Stafford, Glasgow and Liverpool.

September 19th Coaching Seminar

Really short notice on this one as I completely forgot to blog it!

September 19th 2-5pm is a free coaching seminar. A brief description is below but for full details and to attend, please join Manchester Hypnotherapy and Self-Improvement Meetup Group:

Finding Your Passion
Where are you in your life now and where did you dream you would be when you were a child?
Identifying your true potential.

Limiting Beliefs
What are those negative things that you have said to yourself, or heard from others, that limit you from reaching your true potential?

Planning the Journey
How to start mapping the territory we call life so that you can achieve your passion in life!
This will also include tips on how to continue this process on your own, with or without a Life Coach.

Realising and Achieving your True Potential

This is a Life Coaching workshop to be held in Manchester City Centre on Saturday 26th September 2009,  and will cover the following:

Finding Your Passion

Where are you in your life now and where did you dream you would be when you were a child?
Identifying your true potential.

Limiting Beliefs

What are those negative things that you have said to yourself, or heard from others, that limit you from reaching your true potential?

How can you free yourself from them?

Planning the Journey

How to start mapping the territory we call life so that you can achieve your passion in life!

This will also include tips on how to continue this process on your own, with or without a Life Coach.

This workshop is open to everyone and is free of charge. However, you must book a place as numbers are limited. Details of the venue will be supplied when you have booked.

Alternatively, you can join Manchester Hypnotherapy and Self-Improvement Meetup group where I run these workshops and seminars every month (except for August due to other commitments such as teaching and taking part in a TV show!).

For more information on Life Coaching, please visit:

Oke Coaching, Manchester, Glossop & Sheffield

For more information on Hypnotherapy, please visit:

Oke Hypnotherapy, Manchester, Glossop & Sheffield

Free Introduction to Hypnotherapy Seminar

Are you interested in finding out more about hypnotherapy?
Perhaps you are interested in training for a career or part-time vocation as a hypnotherapist?

This seminar will dispel the myths and detail the benefits of hypnotherapy, including what it really feels like to be hypnotised.

You will also learn self-hypnosis techniques and witness a short hypnotherapy session.

This seminar is completely free of charge. You will not be under any obligation to sign up for one of our hypnotherapy training courses or for treatment sessions, although you will have the opportunity to do so at a specially discounted price.

The seminar is being presented by Robin Oxley and Gary Oke of BEST Coaching, further information can be found at the BEST Training website.

The seminar will be held in Manchester city centre on Saturday 25th July at 2:00pm and will last approximately three hours. Although the seminar is free of charge, you must pre-book by emailing gary@okehypnotherapy.co.uk or info@bestcoaching.co.uk   Alternatively you can book by calling (freephone) 0800 197 2775.

Further information on hypnotherapy and hypnotherapy training can be found at:

BEST Hypnotherapy Training

Oke Hypnotherapy
BEST Coaching

We look forward to seeing you there!

Finally!……………..

So, after starting this blog several months ago, I finally got round to adding to it!

Although there are only a few case studies posted so far, it’s beginning to grow slowly but surely. I have selected several other cases ready to post up, I ‘m just struggling for time at the moment with it being my busiest time of the year. In addition to this, I am now teaching hypnotherapy at British Ethical School of Therapies.

If there is any information or particular types of case studies that anyone would be interested in reading then please let me know and I will do my best to accommodate.

Once I’ve caught up with the posts I have already planned to make on this blog, I intend also starting a Life Coaching blog but at my current rate of posting/amount of time available, it will most likely be a couple of months away.

Hypnotherapy Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is the best way to find a reputable hypnotherapist?

A: Where possible, personal referral from someone who has received hypnotherapy treatment. Of course, not everyone knows someone in this situation in which case it is advisable to find a therapist who is a member of a professional body and therefore is bound to abide by their professional ethics and code of conduct. Many of the most reputable organisations are themselves regulated by the United Kingdom Confederation of Hypnotherapy Organisations (UKCHO), giving you the security of a second tier of regulation.

Since January 2008, the UKCHO now lists the individual therapists as well as the organisations. If you visit the UKCHO website (see the links page), you can search using the therapists surname to see if their training and regulating body is recognised by the UKCHO. Until we have government legislation to regulate hypnotherapy, I feel this is the most effective way of checking a therapist’s credentials.

Q: Do you offer free consultations?

A: No, but sessions are priced “per session”, not per hour and usually last between 50 and 90 minutes. In many cases, the first session will last up to 90 minutes due to the time taken up by the consultation. Some hypnotherapists do offer free consultations, from what my clients who have attended these tell me, it seems some of these therapists are using the time to convince the client they need a large number of sessions and offer a discount if a long course of treatment is paid for in advance. This is unethical and anyone who comes across a hypnotherapist carrying on in this way should report them to the regulatory body they are a member of (assuming they even are a member of any!).

Q: What does it feel like to be hypnotised?

A: Hypnosis is simply an altered state of consciousness during a pleasant relaxation. Everyone experiences altered states of consciousness every day. Examples of this would be reading a page of a book and then realising the words did not register as your attention had drifted. Driving along the motorway thinking about something else and then realising your junction is coming up having not noticed the amount of time or distance you travelled while you were thinking these things.

Many people would describe the hypnotic state to be similar to pressing the snooze button on the alarm clock in the morning, becoming very dreamy but not actually asleep, while be aware of sounds such as the telephone, the postman calling etc.

Q: Will I be ok to drive after a hypnotherapy session?

A: Yes.

Q: Can children be treated with hypnotherapy?

A: Yes. From the age of about six upwards as long as they have a good attention span and are accompanied by a parent or guardian.

Q: Do you offer out of hours appointments?

A: Yes, until 8pm and some weekends. However, these are the most popular times and often book up well in advance.

Q: Do you offer home visits?

A: Only in exceptional circumstances eg: extreme cases of agoraphobia. If you feel a home visit is essential then please contact me to discuss the situation.

For further questions about hypnotherapy and what it can treat, please visit my website. There is also a long list of faqs at http://www.hypnotherapyfaqs.com

Case Studies

I will be adding case studies to this section as often as possible, using the studies to build up a greater awareness of the range of conditions that can be treated with hypnotherapy. Initially I will be focussing on the more interesting or exceptional cases. I will keep these as brief and to the point as possible for ease of reading. Obviously, personal information is removed or changed to protect client privacy.

Smoking Cessation

I’ve been asked a few times why, in the various mediums I have published case studies, I have never posted or published smoking cessation or weight loss case studies. The short answer is that these two treatments are extremely common and are usually among the easiest sessions a hypnotherapist is likely to come across. However, a few people have asked so I’ve selected case studies in these areas that might be more interesting or more difficult than average and will be among the case studies that I am adding over the coming week.

I selected this case for the smoking cessation study as it was a group session consisting of an age range from 24-74. Within this range are different habit patterns, different reasons to quit etc, making the session far more difficult than treating each case individually.

A basic profile of the five clients (a family) and their tobacco habit:

The two youngest in the group were a young couple aged 24 and 27, the next two were the lady’s parents and then 5th was her 74 year old grandmother. As with the majority of smokers, all five reported that stress was the major trigger for smoking and the most difficult time to go without.

Male aged 24: Smoked 20 per day and started at age 11. Didn’t smoke in his home, had to have a cigarette first thing in the morning or he would be grumpy. Longest previous quit time was three days and described it as “hell” and felt a constant tension in his jaw.

Female aged 27: Smoked 10-15 menthol cigarettes per day, started at age 17. Didn’t smoke in her home, would go without a cigarette often until mid morning. Smokes more when overweight and said that she smoked partially to keep her weight down. Disliked the taste of cigarettes and as well as smoking menthol, always had to have some kind of drink with a cigarette. Longest previous quit time was two days, started again as she found that she had replaced smoking with alcohol.

Female aged 44: Smoked 20 “Superkings” per day, started at age 11. Very grumpy until she had her first cigarette in the morning and would smoke in her kitchen at home and found that driving was a time when she would smoke a lot. Longest previous quit time was 10 years with hypnotherapy, unfortunately the other hypnotherapist obviously hadn’t done his job properly as she reported being “angry for the whole ten years” until starting again.

Male aged 57: Originally smoked 80 per day but after having a stroke, had reduced it to 20-30 per day as a mixture of cigarettes and rolling tobacco. He started at age 10 and when he was growing up, everyone he knew smoked. He would smoke four cigarettes in the first hour of waking up and had previously smoked up to 40 cigarettes in a single three hour car journey. Longest previous quit time was 3 years but started again through stress.

Female aged 74: Smoked 10 low tar cigarettes per day having gradually cut down over the previous six months (from 20 per day). Started at age 11/12. 1st cigarette of the day was not until after she had walked her dogs, she only smoked indoors. Smoked heavily while watching TV in the evening and always with a cup of tea or coffee. Longest previous quit time was a few months but started again after witnessing an air accident.

So, as you can see, a mixture of ages as well as a mixture of success with previous quit attempts. The father (male 57) was quite difficult to work with due to his previous stroke and I felt that he was likely to need a further session on his own. I heard from the family several months later. The young couple had given up easily, the mother had given up but this time without the anger, the grandmother had also given up easily. The father was the only one who did not give up, I offered the further session (free of charge, see my website for details) but his wife informed me that they didn’t really expect him to in the first place and that he had cut down considerably and not to worry.

The session, including consultation, lasted just two hours the same as an individual session. As well as the obvious health benefits, the four who gave up completely have so far saved over £9,000 between them and to my knowledge have remained quit (I have treated other family members since then who confirmed this).

Compulsive Spending

Although I have titled this case study “compulsive spending”, a further part of the problem was a compulsion to apply for more credit cards.

When I was first approached regarding this case, it was the client’s wife who contacted me, completely at the end of her tether with her husband’s spending problem. At this point in time, the client was renting a flat and living separately from his wife and children as a result of the problems. Their marriage was hanging by a thread and it was basically the last attempt at fixing this problem.

A brief summary of the first appointment/initial consultation:

The client had existing credit card debts of a little over £1800. This may not sound like much but as far as he and his wife were concerned, it was the start of the next wave. The previous wave of credit card debt had reached nearly £30,000 until family members bailed him out. In total, he had been bailed out to a total of over £50,000. Much of this was card interest and there was very little to show for any of the money. The only large purchases were holidays, the rest of the spending was a total of multiple small amounts and cash withdrawals. The problems could be broken down into a few parts.

1) Impulse purchases when bored. By this I mean buying unrequired items of clothing because he was in town and bored, buying gifts such as expensive perfume for his wife, for the sake of spending rather than for any romantic reason (and to help his conscience).

2) Withdrawing cash by credit or debit card for no other reason than an impulse to do so if he wasn’t carrying much cash. In this instance, he would withdraw £50  or so and then because he has cash, spend some or all of it. It was as though he had a compulsion to spend cash if he had it as well as the compulsion to be carrying cash!

3) The old trap that so many people fall into – yes, those lovely 0% balance transfer offers that drop through the letterbox! Using a card to pay off a card balance and then continuing to use the old one whilst only making minimum payments on the other cards. Of course making minimum payments on time on multiple debts actually enhances your credit rating and brings the offer of more cards, loans etc.

Points 1) and 2) were always worse when stressed or anxious.

During this first session, I treated the problem as a compulsive habit using a combination of hypnotherapy and NLP techniques. Although I was concerned about the stress/anxiety factors, with a problem like this I felt the first thing to do was to put the brakes on the spending and then deal with the underlying problem. By treating in this order, it would save the client money and probably his marriage as it would leave a noticeable change in his behaviour.

Session 2:

On his return (two weeks later), the client reported that he had been more relaxed in general and had only been buying items that were genuinely needed. His wife was impressed with the change and they had put their house on the market to move closer to family members. However, he was still living in the rented flat and his wife still had trust issues. After years of his compulsive spending, the trust wasn’t going to be coming back after just one session and understandably so.

During this session, we worked on removing/controlling the underlying stress and anxiety factors as well as focussing on the long term future.

Session 3:

There was a one month gap between sessions two and three. The client reported that his spending was now down to “the bare minimum” and that he had actually been putting money away towards the new house. He was also spending more time with his wife and children and had transferred to a different job within his company. To quote some of the content of this update “everything is going the way it should have been ten years ago” and instead of thinking “I can afford it” the inner voice had changed to “I don’t need that right now”. He needed new shirts for his job and instead of going round the town and coming back with a dozen designer shirts as he would have done previously, he bought half a dozen from Asda for a fraction of the price.

It was obvious from here this should be the last session. The session focussed on keeping the changes permanently and upon the client becoming more and more enthused by his successes. In addition to this, the new “inner voice” that had changed to question whether an item was needed rather than affordable was further reinforced.

The result………… this is the email received four months later (edited to remove personal details):

Just a quick email to say “thanks very much for your with with your therapy”, it has helped me no end. My wife and I have just come back from a holiday in Gran Canaria. We are moving home shortly after the New Year as we have bought a new property in our home town, needs a lot of work doing to it but we can’t wait to get stuck in.

Thanks again.

Have a very Merry Christmas and a Fun filled Prosperous New Year.

Total cost of hypnotherapy £180.00, total financial saving £????? – another £50,000? A saved marriage…….. PRICELESS!

Oke Hypnotherapy – Manchester, Glossop & Sheffield