Because every woman wants to experience her pregnancy and the birth of her child in the most peaceful way possible, different types of support can be considered. Among them, perinatal hypnosis stands out as a gentle therapy focused on self-awareness and self-confidence. After “Ericksonian Hypnosis: A Tool for Better Approaching Motherhood,” discover the second part of our fascinating interview with Ingrid Regorsek, experienced hypnotherapist.
CONTENTS:
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Embracing Prenatal Hypnosis
- Hypnosis in Perinatal Life: For an Inner Change
- Emotional Release
- Letting Go to Support Conception
- As Part of a Fertility Treatment Journey
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Seeing a Hypnotherapist During Pregnancy
- Gaining Confidence in Maternal Abilities
- Reducing Pressure, Managing Emotions, and Increasing Well-being
- Reconnecting With Your Intuition
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Perinatal Hypnosis to Heal Past Wounds
- Breaking Free From Transgenerational Patterns
- Addressing Family Relationship Difficulties
- Exploring Maternal and Paternal Ambivalence
- Hypnosis and Perinatal Loss
Embracing Prenatal Hypnosis
Did you know? For your well-being and your baby’s, you can reach out to a perinatal hypnotherapist even before your pregnancy. Whether you are experiencing difficulties conceiving, or simply feel the need to “unpack” certain emotions, feelings, or a specific life experience, one or several sessions will help you approach motherhood with more perspective, calm, and serenity.
Hypnosis in Perinatal Life: For an Inner Change
Some women become pregnant easily, without even planning it. Others choose the best moment and plan their pregnancy happily. But for others, conceiving a child can be a true obstacle course.
Indeed, when infertility is medically confirmed, if there’s a block or a fear, and even more so when no cause is found for the conception difficulty, acceptance can be hard, and the decisions involved, tough to make.
Hypnosis can then help stimulate your inner resources to better accept the situation and adapt to what is beyond your control.
Emotional Release
Exploring unconscious blocks so they can shift may encourage a state of acceptance or free you from a fear (such as not feeling good enough, or repeating an old childhood pattern, etc.). This approach can help set up a more favorable emotional environment for pregnancy to begin.
Letting Go to Support Conception
“Marie comes for a session as she begins her third IVF. Over time, she has developed, unconsciously, anger towards her infertile husband. This anger generates guilt. In addition, a sperm donation is being considered. This thought deeply disturbs her to the point where she feels like she’s betraying her husband by accepting the donation, while at the same time preparing herself to welcome a half ‘unknown’ newborn.”
Since she feels very drained, the hypnotherapist starts with what is called a hypnosis bath, meaning a moment of deep relaxation with suggestions of calm and well-being.
Once recharged, Marie chooses on her own to release her anger through a specific session focused on accepting the baby that is to come, conceived with a donor’s sperm, as their child—hers and her husband's.
As Part of a Fertility Treatment Journey
Starting a fertility treatment journey (Assisted reproductive technology) takes a lot of courage and requires the future mother to dig deep to endure hormonal treatments and their side effects, the uncertainty at every stage, waiting, a sense of injustice, lack of understanding, isolation, and sometimes, guilt as well. Living this experience is both a major physical and psychological challenge.
Perinatal hypnosis can help women and their partners move beyond medical challenges, let go of negative feelings, and ease the emotional roller-coaster that is specific to assisted reproduction experiences.
Seeing a Hypnotherapist During Pregnancy
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” said psychiatrist Carl Jung.
Passing on life brings about a deep identity upheaval. It is an extraordinary moment filled with vulnerability, revealing the strengths and weaknesses of each person.
The issue, summarized by Drs. Luis Alvarez and Véronique Cayol in their book “Psychology and Psychiatry of Pregnancy,” is of great importance: “(…) How parents handle the evolutionary crisis constituted by pregnancy, birth, and meeting their baby will partly shape the child who becomes a citizen and a parent in the future.”
Thus, thanks to perinatal hypnosis, moms-to-be can choose, in advance, to prevent their vulnerabilities and strengthen their emotional and psychological balance, building a solid foundation to fully experience their desire for a child. This practice fits perfectly into the period of “matrescence.”
Gaining Confidence in Maternal Abilities
Pediatrician Donald Winnicott, a specialist in attachment, wrote a book on the “good enough mother.” While we all have a biological mother who gave us life, not everyone receives the same emotional nurturing. That’s why, as adults, we may feel we lacked a maternal or paternal role model.
In those cases, hypnosis can help activate other resources and build confidence in your ability to carve out your own role as a parent, different from previous models. Mobilizing these positive memories to restore confidence is one of the core applications of therapeutic hypnosis.
Reducing Pressure, Managing Emotions, and Increasing Well-being
What woman has never questioned her desire for motherhood? What will my daily life as a couple be like? What about my own and my partner’s desire? Will I love my son or daughter unconditionally? Will I know how to give them what they need? Will I be able to breastfeed? Will I choose a bottle over breastfeeding? And when it comes to preparing for delivery, will I do well?
With all these questions, lowering the pressure is very beneficial for approaching your pregnancy in the best possible conditions.
“Angélique schedules a session with her hypnotherapist. She’s been suffering from repeated insomnia since she and her partner decided to start a family. She isn’t pregnant yet, but already fears the mental load that will fall on her after the birth. As she talks, she realizes her main worry is having to get up several times each night. By realizing that her baby will sleep through the night after just a few weeks or months, that she can pump breast milk so dad can help feed the baby and let her sleep, and that she can ask for help if needed—this soothes her anxiety and resolves the insomnia that began with that stress.”
Taking time for yourself, letting go of overwhelming emotions, welcoming what arises without trying to anticipate or letting go of limiting beliefs. Also, visualizing each stage of pregnancy, delivery, recovery, and welcoming your baby… Often, a single prenatal hypnosis session is enough to restore sleep and serenity.
Reconnecting With Your Intuition
Everyone has a rational picture of the world around them. This conscious and logical representation helps categorize things and provides a sense of control that makes us feel secure.
Hypnosis makes it possible to shift those sometimes rigid perceptions and to believe in this form of intuitive wisdom—which can be truly helpful throughout life, and especially during motherhood.
Perinatal Hypnosis to Heal Past Wounds
The desire to have a child and pregnancy can bring up emotional and physical pain (both conscious and unconscious) from the past. Using deep relaxation and visualization techniques helps release accumulated tension and promote a return to an inner state of calm.
It’s true, perinatal hypnosis allows for better handling of stress and anxiety related to pregnancy and childbirth—and also for processing the emotional aftermath of sometimes traumatic past experiences, providing holistic well-being and a peaceful preparation for parenthood.
Breaking Free From Transgenerational Patterns
Every future adult is shaped by those around them. We internalize and repeat the behaviors and beliefs of our environment—sometimes we rebel, but either way, we develop our psyche largely from this transgenerational material.
Some families successfully foster kindness and self-confidence, but sometimes a family history carries more pain. This happens when a parent often repeats how difficult or constraining having a child is, when women tell traumatic birth stories, or when unspoken things pile up.
Through visualization and/or symbolic approaches, hypnosis can help you break free from blocks that keep you from approaching conception, pregnancy, motherhood, or your ability to give your best with a calm mind.
Meanwhile, for about 20 years, geneticists have shown that beyond the genetic code inherited from our parents—which changes over a long period—each person passes on some epigenetic information to following generations (modifications in gene expression), which depends more on our lifestyle, habits, and emotional state.
Thus, everyone has the ability to positively influence gene expression by caring for both physical and mental health. This is truly a gift not only to yourself but to your children—especially through emotional release work made possible with hypnosis.
Addressing Family Relationship Difficulties
How do you manage a teenager and a baby? How do you find balance with older children who are only there every other week? How can you give each child all the attention and love they need? Among siblings, future parents are right to question their ability to find their place and create space for each family member.
Finding your inner harmony thanks to one or several hypnosis sessions—and using this to peacefully build your family structure—can make future pregnancies feel much smoother.
Exploring Maternal and Paternal Ambivalence
Becoming a mother or father can happen naturally… or not. At some points in your parenting journey, you may feel totally at ease, and at other times, not at all. Maybe you feared getting pregnant, but then had a fulfilling pregnancy. Maybe you dreaded your child’s teenage years, only to see them go by smoothly.
Becoming a mother or father is an amazing adventure, but it’s also one of life’s biggest changes. And the only “school” is those around you. It can help to address some difficulties in advance.
“Cynthia comes to therapy with her husband. They strongly wish to become parents, but both realize they can’t picture welcoming a child of the opposite sex. Cynthia wants a girl; her husband, a boy. Hypnosis helps free them from these negative fixations, so both can simply feel ready to welcome their baby, no matter what.”
Hypnosis and Perinatal Loss
Expecting a child is among the deepest joys. But sometimes, a pregnancy cannot be carried to term, or complications arise—a miscarriage, a voluntary termination, or birthing a stillborn child are all traumas that may require hypnotherapy support. In these moments, pregnancy and birth are painfully linked to a separation no one expects.
Yet many women suppress their suffering just to get through it. That’s often why they find it hard to grieve. Sometimes, they stop believing in their ability to carry a healthy child to term.
In such situations, hypnosis can help restore self-confidence and/or start a healthy grief process.
“Hannah, 35, comes for a session in her fourth month of pregnancy. She lost consciousness the day before and was taken to the hospital for observation. Both she and her baby are fine, but she’s very anxious. She’s afraid it will happen again and doesn’t want to lose her child. In our conversation, she recalls a previous pregnancy, two years earlier, that did not come to term. She acknowledges she has remained deeply shaken by that, and that yesterday’s incident brought back that traumatic memory.”
During her hypnosis session, she realizes she needs to say goodbye to her lost baby. Taking this step frees her from an emotional burden full of guilt, sadness, and fear that was still very strong. After also taking the time to activate her resources, she finishes her session calm and confident in her ability to see this current pregnancy through.
Perinatal hypnosis thus proves to be a valuable tool, providing essential emotional and psychological support. By working through past hurts, emotional blocks, and relationship challenges, this gentle method supports a smooth preparation for the arrival of your baby and helps create a softer environment in which to fully experience this unique time in your life.
