Orla Kirby Therapy

22/07/2025

I think this is a really helpful metaphor for understanding what's truly happening when you release and let go of trauma, and what it is exactly that makes this do-able and possible.

Let me know in the comments what experiences you've had when it comes to releasing trauma via therapy or via other means.

21/07/2025

Something I learned in my English literature degree that helps me hugely in my work as a therapist....
It's.... The Death of the Author!!!
No not about anyone actually dying, but about shifting from ideas of intention, and people always knowing exactly what they're doing, being fully aware of what they're doing and extremely honest about what they're doing...
To the murkier, shifting and at the same time more true world of motivation and the unconscious mind, unreliable narrators and heavy cultural underlying causations.…

19/07/2025

If you grew up in a family like this, you will probably know what I mean!

Families or other groups that are operating in a narcissistic, controlling way are deeply intolerant of / towards someone within the group saying ‘no’. To the extent that generally there are strange impacts of understanding and on memory when someone says no to what is being demanded or enforced or strongly suggested (directly or in code) by the dominant power or powers in the group.

19/07/2025

Have you read it?
I absolutely love this book, 'Full Catastrophe Living: how to cope with stress, pain and illness using mindfulness meditation' by Jon Kant-Zinn.
In it, there is a description of how the author was inspired by observing his patients who knew they were nearing the end of life and who reported extraordinary changes in their sensory experiences and their sense of the world and themselves.
It goes on to teach and discuss meditation /hypnosis practices in detail, and give a detailed account of how these practices have been taught to many people, as a means of approaching something like this same vivid, clarified state.

10/06/2025

10/06/2025

10/11/2024

I've been reeling this week from the election result in the US, as I expect many of you have been.
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America being no longer a safe space to live for so many people....
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for gay, q***r or trans people
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for immigrants
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for anyone not 'white'
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for Disabled people
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for anyone who doesn't have huge amounts of money and has the potential to get seriously unwell (and yep that last part is everyone)
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for women
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And I mean maybe America was not exactly the safest place for a lot of those groups of people before.....
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But now?
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That level of danger has just increased significantly, and I feel like all the signs are, that this level of danger is going to increase and increase at an incredibly steep rate.
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And then there's all the huge increased danger to the entire planet....
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the impact on Ga3a (because sure, yes, maybe Harris wouldn't have overseen anything particularly ethical when it comes to the gcide being carried out by the Isr government, but what happened last week is what Mr N wanted and for good reason...)
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the impact on Ukraine
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the impact on the whole world via disastrous impacts when it comes to climate change.
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the sense that the cultural change in the US is not just in the US but in loads of other places too (here with Brexit etc, and the recent racist riots, in many places in Europe etc etc) and that this is going to perhaps continue and lead to even more terrible impacts again.
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If you are struggling to process all of this, as I am, and would like a space to process your feelings, and work with your anger or sadness or grief or fear in a useful way, in a way that can lead to useful real world actions, and to taking those actions more easily, then I'd like to invite you to an 'Election Grief and Emotional Engagement for Useful Purposes' session this Wednesday coming. I'll be holding it at 6pm UK time (10am PT / 1pm ET), but if you can't make that time, I'm happy to send you out a recording afterwards.
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It will be for around an hour....
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And fyi I'm not going to be instructing or encouraging anyone to do any particular action. Everyone is in a different situation and has different capacity, and also different 'right now' capacity too. I will be sharing what I will be doing in response to my own feelings and thoughts in the wake of the election... and I will be sharing a process for you to connect deeply first with your own emotions and then, in a connected way, with what you feel are your own right best next actions - which for some people might be resting and recovering, for others might be something connected with your community, for others might be something political etc etc....
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Please comment here or message me with the words 'ELECTION GRIEF AND PURPOSE', or just 'ELECTION' or just 'GRIEF' and I'll include you in the email I send out with the zoom info.

For this particular event, I won't be adding you to my email list - just sending you the link and the recording afterwards.
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Wishing you much healing and recovery in this frightening time.

10/04/2024

Some people with severe Anxiety or with OCD never or almost never consciously experience anger….

Other folks with severe Anxiety or with OCD find themselves becoming suddenly very angry here and there in ways that don’t quite make sense to them or that they really dislike….

Some thoughts on this….

10/04/2024

I believe that people with Anxiety, Depression, OCD or cPTSD are currently badly served by the NHS. They're often offered only one form of therapy, and only for a very short amount of time. When really there ought to be:

a) Much better state / free provision of therapy for as long as someone needs it for full recovery.

b) A range of different kinds of therapy modalities on offer to suit different people, different situations, different needs, and different neurotypes.

I also believe that in the meantime - if and while this free state provision of therapy is not the case - there ought to be honesty and proper full information for people when they seek help.

Even if it isn't covered on the NHS, people need to be told 'yes, there is a way / many ways for you to recover - it's just not paid for on the NHS'. Because at the moment, sometimes people are coming away from their GP with the impression that their anxiety, their depression, their OCD is some kind of impossible-to-solve problem, some kind of lifelong, necessarily ever-worsening condition, when this is not the case. This is not fair and can contribute to further hopelessness.

AND people need to be fully informed that there are different forms of therapy and different kinds of therapists. So that people don't end up trying their recommended 6 sessions of CBT, finding that this does pretty much nothing for the severe Anxiety they've been dealing with for 20 years, and conclude that therapy is not something that's going to work for them, because they are not being given information about the other options that exist.

They may go away from this experience blaming themselves for not 'doing therapy well enough'. They may go away from this experience thinking that therapy is a load of nonsense, which would not be an unreasonable conclusion to arrive at, at all, if all the therapy that was available for severe Anxiety / severe depression / severe trauma / OCD was a strictly limited number of CBT sessions, or in some cases a strictly limited number of psychotherapy sessions.

Imagine if the first time someone when to see a GP about their severe Anxiety, their severe depression, their OCD, they were given a full overview of all the different types of therapy - CBT, counselling / psychotherapy / body psychotherapy / hypnotherapy / NLP / EFT / EMDR and all the others - along with an idea of how much of these it generally takes a person to reach full recovery. That way, even if what they wanted or needed was not immediately available, they could make a plan, start saving up, ask to borrow money from relatives. Or if there isn't the money there, they could - or we could as a society more easily - start pushing for better therapy options to be available on the NHS

Imagine if they were also given access to a full range of really great free / low cost resources of many different kinds... podcasts, videos, books, audiobooks....

I think even this amount of change would make a huge difference.

09/04/2024

Want information, help and free resources to help move away from experiencing panic attacks, reduce your anxiety, and shift away from repeating negative thoughts?

Subscribe to my YouTube channel for all of the above:

Welcome to Imagination versus Anxiety! Orla Kirby here, therapist, trainer, hypnosis expert and general mental health and personal development enthusiast! I ...

09/04/2024

"I wanted to have hypnotherapy to help me with confidence at work. I’ve struggled over the years with a sense of not being good enough and struggling to believe in my own ability. Even though I am a high achiever, at times I would easily slip into a pattern of negative thinking which undermined my ability. I experience quite a lot of stress at work and also wanted to figure out some good ways to deal with this, as previously this had brought on feelings of anxiety.

I am really surprised and pleased at how quickly the hypnotherapy sessions with Orla have made such a difference. Orla created a warm and safe space to voice my insecurities and I was so pleased to constantly put into practice the helpful tools and tips that Orla recommended. I feel so much more confident now, particularly when contributing to meetings and discussions at work."

(Michelle, 32, Higher Education Professional)

This is a past client reflecting on the outcomes of the work we did together. You can read the rest of her story here: https://www.orlakirby.com/michelles-story/

It's interesting to me that for many people stress is interpreted purely as a negative. I think we hear so much about the potential negative impacts of stress that it can definitely seem this way. And of course there are definitely situations, working conditions, and so on, that can be causing too much stress for anyone, or too much stress for a particular person.

At the same time, too low a level of stress can actually have a negative impact too, as we are actually designed to be handling stress to a certain extent, and stress is not inherently bad. (Of course bearing in mind that different types of things cause different amount of stress for different people and that people have different 'optimum' levels of stress.)

Coming at the idea of stress from the point of view of wanting to 'find your optimum level' of stress, and type/s of stress, and having ways of responding to all stress which use hypnosis as a means to access your own resources more quickly, easily and fully, can be transformational. This is what this particular client was able to do, and she found that it changed everything, including - but not limited to - massively reducing her experiences of anxiety.

I wanted to have hypnotherapy to help me with confidence at work. I’ve struggled over the years with a sense of not being good enough and struggling to believe in my own ability. Even though I am a high achiever, at times I would easily slip into a pattern of negative thinking which undermined my ...

09/04/2024

Hypnosis is like zooming in on tiny bird eggs….

So, here's one metaphor often used to give people some idea of what hypnosis is.... Imagine....
...that you’re going for a lovely walk on a spring morning through the park…
...and being in your regular way of being / existing is something like going along noticing different things, saying hello to different people, noticing a tree over here, and a pond over there, and that person you know over there….

And then going into hypnosis, deep hypnosis anyway, is something like noticing that there is a tree, and then really getting interested in the tree, and the shapes of the leaves, and the colour of the leaves, and the sound the wind makes moving the leaves and the branches, and then going over to stand right by the tree, and noticing there is a nest in the tree, and then noticing that within the nest are several tiny, tiny eggs, that you can only see because you are focused in to that degree, and you have slowed down and become quiet within yourself in a particular kind of way. And if someone walked past who you knew, you might not even notice them, and certainly you are paying no attention to the pond behind you or the trees to either side.

Hypnosis, at least deep hypnosis, is a ‘zooming in’, a slowing down…

You are still absolutely in charge of yourself, and you can choose to shift and change your focus at any point, and to any extent….

It’s something your mind and body deeply need, and need plenty of, in order to be able to operate the way they were designed to operate…

Have you ever deliberately practised hypnosis or meditation?

And if so, does this ‘tiny bird eggs’ metaphor feel right to you? Let me know in the comments!