IMAGINE a therapy system which within just a few sessions could banish the most terrifying of phobias.

Or help cope with a seemingly insurmountable issue in your life - and you might not even have to breath a word out loud about it in order to achieve this.

Essex-based hypnotherapist and psychologist Terence Watts has developed a style of therapy which promises to do just that and its increasing in popularity by the day and.

And he says not only could it cure you of such addictions as alcoholism within a few meetings, someone could even go on to drink in a social setting without setting off a chain of events back into dependency.

It is a bold claim but one Terence, who has practised and taught across the county for the past 30 years, stands by.

Having started out as a dance instructor, running his own school, he then became a hypnotherapist, having increasingly observed the behaviour of his students and getting more and more interested in how the mind works.

“I realised from watching people that there are three different types of personality.

“And everybody is a mix of these.

“There is a person who want to be in control, one who wants to be nice and the person who want to have fun and enjoy life.

“These three personalities fit into every way of being,” he adds.

Terence studied in Harley Street to become a Hypnotherapist and after 11 years of successful practice founded The Essex Institute of Clinical Hypnosis in 2000, training thousands of students in his methods.

“It just grabbed me as soon as I started learning and I was increasingly successful, training and mentoring others as well,” he explains.

In 2016 the lease ran out on the school premises and rather than renew Terence decided to continue his teaching online to reach a wider audience.

"It was already quite a big business and we trained people from all over the world including South Africa, Russia, Italy and France as well as in Essex and the UK generally," says Terence.

Five years ago he began to develop a new type of therapy - Brain Working Recursive Therapy and the method was presented at the World Psychiatrist Conference.

Terence says it is achieving amazing results worldwide and he is again mentoring students far and wide to be able to use the therapy themselves.

These include Essex-based therapist Claire Gaskin, this newspaper’s resident agony aunt.

“It was born out of a moment of inspiration while reading about some experiments carried out in 1983 which appeared to show that we don’t actually have free will in the way we usually think of it.

“More than that it showed that decisions were made and acted upon by our mental processes before we become consciously aware of them.”

He says it was immediately clear to him this process accounted for a large number of the psychological difficulties so many people have to put up with.

“It was obvious too that with some research it could provide the basis for a profound therapeutic intervention, something more powerful and effective than anything that existed before.

“It allows us to access the earliest part of the brain so it can be re-directed.

“So it can help without clients having to talk about what they have been through which is obviously very different to other forms of therapy.

“I have helped people with a whole range of anxieties, fears and addictions using the process, which is based around the work of Benjamin Libet who did the original research and tests I looked at.

“BRWT looks at the neural pathway and creates new ones based on our preferred way of responding to old triggers.

“So as well as being able to help with fears it can also cure people who are drug addicts, gambling addicts or alcoholics,” he explains.

And it can take a relatively short amount of time too.

“Things like stage fright, or a fear of spiders or birds, can be dealt with in a single session sometimes.

“With drugs or alcohol it can be four or five sessions and with alcohol they could even become a social drinker again.

“With drugs obviously we are not going to be encouraging social taking of that but with alcohol you are going to be able to have a drink now and then when you are out and about without it triggering that addictive side of the brain.

“Because it has re-set the brain not to be triggered into become dependent again,” says Terence.

Two years ago the Secretary of State for health approved the use of Institute on the grounds of the scientific research the organisation undertakes and Terence says the therapy has also received support from the NHS.

In 2015 he established the Institute for Brain Working Recursive Therapy and in 2016 founded the British Brain Working Research Society.

“You have to get permission from the secretary of state to call yourself an institute so it is a real seal of approval,” explains Terence.

With the method really taking off Terence has appeared on South African television to talk about his work as well as in front of the worlds psychiatric experts.

n Visit BWRT.org for more information.