This altered state has been known for thousands of years but the term 'hypnosis' taken from the Greek word 'hypnos', meaning sleep, was only coined in around 1840 by a Scottish physician, Dr James Braid. But 'Hypnosis' is far from sleep and although Dr Braid realised this and tried to use a different term it was too late, the term 'hypnosis' was already in common use. The hypnotic state in most respects is entirely dissimilar to sleep, being a state of heightened awareness and concentration.

Hypnosis is a state of mind, enhanced mainly by mental and physical relaxation. During this state the subconscious is able to communicate with our conscious mind. This state of mind can be brought about unaided, which is known as self hypnosis or with the help or aid of another person. If this person is a trained professional, who utilises this state of mind to encourage a beneficial change to occur, then this process is referred to as 'Hypnotherapy'.

Psychological therapy is the treatment of emotional and psychological disorders, usually unacceptable or undesirable feelings or unwanted habits, using the psychological techniques alone. The aim of such therapy is in finding meaningful alternatives to their unacceptable ways of thinking, feeling or behaving.

Most psychological therapies tend to be classed as long term with the client often in therapy for months, if not years. Hypnotherapy, however, is generally considered to be a fairly short-term therapy, with a beneficial change occurring within a person within a relatively few sessions. In fact, using a technique called suggestion therapy clients are often cured of their particular malaise with just one session. This particular technique is extremely successful for people wishing to give up smoking or who wish to loose some weight.

Analytical therapy can also be employed to uncover problems which may lie in the clients past. These problems may be causing anxiety in the client's current life. This could manifest itself as a fear or phobia of some sort or another. Analytical therapy is, therefore, a technique of alleviating the clients current anxiety created by events from the past and is usually dealt with in 8 to 12 sessions of therapy.