The Hypnoband Sessions

There are five hypnoband sessions in the full system, although practitioners will often combine the first and second sessions into a single session.

Session 1 – Intake

The purpose of this first intake session is to determine your most common eating ‘triggers’, the times of day or specific experiences you have that lead you to eat food when you don’t actually need to.

This is also when your practitioner will discuss your personal circumstances, your target weight, what you have tried in the past and a brief discussion about any medical conditions that may make weight loss more difficult, for example, Thyroid conditions.

The main purpose of this session is to help you begin to develop a conscious awareness of the way you think (cognition) and how that thinking might lead to eating habits (behaviour).

This process is a component of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy or CBT.

Your hypnoband practitioner will also provide you with eating charts for you to record the food you eat throughout each day and the emotions you experience during those times.

You will be filling out these charts each day throughout the hypnoband process.

Session 2 – Changing Eating Habits

In this session you will formulate some new responses to your eating triggers that will be incorporated into your first session of hypnotherapy.

You will also learn how to use the power of positive visualisation in the form of the ‘slimming mirror’ in which you create an image of yourself at your target weight.

You will be given a CD or MP3 download to play each night during the next two weeks. This is designed to help you develop the necessary mindset to take control of your eating and manage your emotions more effectively.

Session 3 – Preparation for Surgery

Session 3, like the previous sessions, examines your daily food charts and the emotional experiences you have recorded over the last two weeks.

By this satge in the process, you will almost certainly be managing your eating more effectively and, on the basis of that, have already seen some weight loss (our normal expectation is a loss of around 2lbs (1 kg) per week).

Your second session of hypnotherapy involves a virtual meeting with your nominated gastric band surgeon and anaesthetist who will explain the process to you and what you can expect.

Session 4 – Virtual Surgery

As with conventional gastric band surgery, your surgery session may depend on your progress to date.

We normally suggest that the surgery session does not take place until you have already lost 4 to 6lbs, so your practitioner may suggest delaying the session until you have hit this target.

If your hypnotherapy session does go ahead as planned, you will find the experience quite realistic (but pain-free of course!) as the session uses specially recorded operating theatre sounds to help you vividly imagine the fitting of your gastric band.

Following your surgery session, you will be given a new CD or MP3 download which is designed to help you consolidate your new eating habits and gain benefits from your hypnoband going forward.

Session 5 – Re-assessment and Band Adjustment

This final session is normally held two weeks after your surgery session so that you have sufficient time to experience the reduction in your appetite and the new portions sizes that you have become satisfied with.

Once again, in keeping with the actual gastric band process, you will get the chance to have your band adjusted, either tighter or looser, according to your needs.

Process Variance

All of our licenced practitioners are professional therapists, many of whom have years of experience of working with the Hypnoband process.

This means that your own therapist may have made some minor adjustments or changes to the standard procedures in order to suit their own way of working with clients.