Hypnotherapist Spreading Confidence

Ironically, the peace and quiet that Barbara Carey so desperately desired had transformed into her biggest headache.

“This voice started screaming in my head,” Carey explained. “It said, ‘Do you realize that if you get rid of these migraine headaches, you will never have alone time?’ And it made me realize that because my life is so hectic, because my kids come to me so often, my spouse, all my volunteering, the only way I could escape was by getting a migraine.”

“When I got a migraine everyone would just leave me alone.”

Barbara Carey is a certified hypnotherapist in Malibu, known by many for her Web television series, The Confident Mind.

And since her own encounter with the subconscious mind, Carey has made it her life's work to assist those who cannot get over the hump in relationships, in their careers, in every facet of their lives.

Carey explained how years ago she asked a professor and colleague at the Hypnosis Motivation Institute if she could consider hypnosis to treat her migraines. The professor then asked if she could perform hypnosis on Carey in front of one of her classes.

“I go up to have her work on me and when I stand up—and this is going to sound so weird—but this voice in me started screaming in my head,” Carey said.

The professor explained that when Carey would incur migraine headaches, that was her subconscious mind’s way of giving Carey an escape route from her daily pressures.

“Look how that was self-sabotaging,” Carey said. “Yet the subconscious mind thought that it was protecting me.”

According to Carey, her migraines soon disappeared and it was after this treatment that she decided to pursue a career in hypnosis.

Now, Carey, who has practiced hypnotherapy since 2006, is the owner of The Confident Mind Center in Malibu. She has appeared on KTLA, The Learning Channel, Channel 9 News, and The History Channel, preaching the effectiveness of hypnotherapy.

“People have such a misconception about what hypnotherapy is and what hypnosis is,” Carey said. “Most people consider hypnosis as stage hypnosis, where people get up there and they start quacking like a duck or barking like a dog or doing something that they’re being forced to do against their will.”

“There is nothing further from the truth.”

Carey explained that hypnotherapists step in when a particular aspect of a person’s life is going awry, blocking them from fulfilling their desires.

Weight loss, sports performance, schoolwork, relationships, public speaking, and job performance were areas mentioned by Carey in which the subconscious mind plays a large role.

In fact, according to Carey, the subconscious mind plays a large role in everything we do.

“There’s so much stuff going on in our life as we move forward, that when something may be blocking us, we just don’t know what it is,” Carey said. “But our immediate thoughts, that’s all conscious stuff.”

Carey said that 12 percent of our everyday actions are conscious. The other 88 percent are subconscious.

“We have to figure out what it is that on the deeper level is not allowing us to reach our goal, and that’s where the subconscious comes in,” Carey said.

Similar to Carey’s encounter with migraines, the Malibu entrepreneur explained that in a number of cases the barriers preventing a person's success are unimaginable.

Carey explained one case in which a client of hers was struggling to lose weight. After being treated, it was determined that the patient had a subconscious fear of losing weight, believing that she would attract more men if she were in shape, therefore negatively affecting her marriage.

“We have to get into that subconscious mind and we have to reframe it,” Carey said. “We have to let it understand that what’s happening is ... although it’s trying to protect you, let’s give you a different action. The subconscious mind, that’s its job, to keep you alive and to keep you safe.”

Rather than simply telling the patient’s subconscious mind what to do, Carey explained that the hypnotherapist must instead plant suggestions.

“If we’re going to remove that behavior, we have to sit there and allow the subconscious mind to realize we need its protection, but just need to replace that behavior,” Carey said.

“When someone is put into hypnosis, they’re conscious of what you’re saying,” she added. “It’s almost as if they’re just in a deeper state of relaxation. A lot of people don’t even feel like they’re hypnotized, which is fine.”

At this point, Carey explained that using subtle techniques, asking specific questions, implores the patient, in their hypnotized state, to reveal truths suppressed within their mind.

Contrary to popular belief, hypnosis is not accomplished by waving a pocket watch in front of a patient’s face and repeating the phrase, “You are getting sleepy.” Carey explained that there are hundreds of methods that allow her and other hypnotherapists to access a patient’s subconscious mind.

And once she has entered that subconscious mind, Carey has found things that shock and surprise not only her, but her patients.

“I’ve had someone speak French that has no idea how to speak French,” Carey said, laughing. “And even after I taped the session and they hear it, they still can’t speak French.”