Guidelines for Helping Sex Addicts Recover
The older brain system, the one that works Memory Rejuv on instinct and generates our habits is our unconscious self which tries to keep us safe and away from what we perceive as a potential danger and discomfort. It uses past experiences to give context to present situations and is the part of the brain that controls our behaviour during times of strong emotional response. Hence in simple terms, if experiences from when you were younger led your unconscious to believe that eating chocolate was a good thing because it made you feel safe or loved, then no matter how much you consciously try to stop over eating it, your unconscious will motivate you to eat it in order to feel those positive feelings. This can explain why we continue to exhibit specific behaviours even though we know that they reduce the quality of our lives.
Cognitive hypnotherapy uses light trance states just like daydreaming to comfortably uncover the feelings, thoughts and memory patterns that led to the unconscious connecting either a positive or negative response to a certain stimulus. A good example of this, and one that many of us will identify with, is eating that chocolate bar to feel safe or loved, or conversely, avoiding public speaking because we felt humiliated when we stumbled over the words of a poem in front of the class at the age of 7 and everyone laughed. Our unconscious will move us towards pleasure and away from pain;