Relaunching Advanced Hypnosis Training…

I thought long and hard before reaching the decision to bring Advanced Hypnosis Training back. 

A few years back, with my passion for the hypnosis profession beginning to wane, having already ceased or mothballed all the training I was offering (more on both that later), and with most of my one to one client work primarily being marked as a coaching service that complemented the consulting work I was offering (and which was proving more palatable to my target demographics), I decided to take a break from the business side of hypnosis altogether.

Taking a break from hypnosis meant also giving away the UK Hypnosis Convention, the event I had spent three years building from scratch to become the biggest industry conference of it’s kind in the country and possibly the world (outside of North America). I had taken it as far as I felt I could and bowed out in 2018 on a high, having sold out my third and final event in charge. I am incredibly proud of the UKHC, not only what I achieved personally achieved with it in such a relatively short space of time, but in seeing how it has continued to mature year on year, raising the bar and giving people in the industry a place to learn from and network with others. 

I loved my time running the convention and it blessed me with a number of treasured and enduring friendships along the way, but running it certainly took it’s toll. Organising any event singlehandedly requires a lot of focusing on a lot of moving parts and in the case of the hypnosis profession, this included the unavoidable consequence of having to deal with the disproportionate amount of unwarranted ego and delusion it seems to perpetually attract.

You see, the hypnosis world (being the unregulated environment it is) is blighted by more than it’s fair share of noisy and often harmful idiots preying on badly trained hypnotherapists (often educated by them) and a misinformed public (ditto) and a good convention, can be prime hunting ground. The reason they gravitate to hypnosis conferences is because most of their money is made ‘selling’ the illusion of the quick fix rather than in the fixing itself, and a conference, especially a fledgling one, can provide them with easy pickings. In getting it off the ground, I initially had to be less selective when it came to choosing who I wanted to contribute, and even though by the third year, I had successfully managed to create an event where the worst elements were no longer welcome, by then I had laid with enough dogs that I was constantly itchy. 

Any irritation I had towards others however, was being compounded by the annoyance I had felt with myself and in the quality of the poor training that, I too had provided in the past. By offering what, I had considered at the time to be a decent standard of training, but had subsequently proved to be outdated and incongruent with anything I was doing, I felt I was little better than anyone else. So training was the first thing to get put on indefinite ice.

So disillusioned was I feeling at this stage, that even the words hypnosis and hypnotherapy had begun to irk and make me feel uncomfortable, so I decided that the remaining hypnosis being offered would be lumped in with the coaching services that I was happily gaining more traction in and the words dropped altogether from any marketing, websites, social media etc.

Dropping hypnosis and hypnotherapy certainly didn’t seem to have any negative effect on a large section of my existing business, those individuals and professionals who find the word ‘coaching’ far more agreeable than ‘therapy’ or anything beginning with ‘H’and I when I did mention hypnotherapy in relation to any help I was offering pro-bono, I no longer felt fraudulent or dirty.

But there were elements of the work I did miss. I missed the sheer randomness and variety of enquiries and the odd eccentric client and their fascinating issues and histories. I missed days where I could be working with an octogenarian in the morning and goofing around with a ten year old in the afternoon, and even though I continued to work with the coaching client’s imaginations, missed the sheer wonder and surprise a hypnosis session often would bring. 

I knew I wasn’t done with the hypnosis profession entirely and hoped the profession wasn’t done with me, but it had been full on for a number of years, and with other interests and ongoing concerns proving more than enough of a distraction, it was right to step away when I did, knowing my appetite would be whetted again at some point.

Ironically, it was through consulting, that the opportunity to get back into hypnosis work presented itself. In early 2020 I was asked by a client to arrange a team building event for the whole company and given creative carte blanche to organise something that would put the Chairman’s message across in an engaging and entertaining way. I had a shortlist of one, with whom I would want to collaborate on a project of this nature and approached my friend, the award winning magician (and in my opinion, best performing hypnotist around) James Brown.

Together we wrote and devised a pretty incredible and perfectly pitched event (even if I do say so myself), slickly presented in a way only  James can and one which reignited the passion for hypnosis and educating that I hadn’t felt in quite some time. I decided I had missed the magic and began mulling over ideas to bring the hypnosis business back to life.

Two weeks later covid struck and the World shut down, along with any notions I had of reopening Advanced Hypnosis Training.

Covid brought out the best, but also the worst in people and the worst elements from the worlds of hypnosis, NLP and ‘life-coaching’ seemed to relish this new opportunity to peddle pseudo-nonsense, tell fibs and exploit the shit out of others. My apathy for the profession and contempt for the dickheads returned almost overnight.

In the ensuing years, I have stayed in touch with the good connections in the industry, always continued to help people using hypnosis (especially those in dire straits or who had little or no success elsewhere) and patiently waited for the right time to do it all again, only as a better, wiser and more congruent version of myself.

I was poised to pull the trigger last year and relaunch AHT, but there were a few things that were not right and I have been keen to make sure that I am personally at the top of my game, to give clients (and if all goes to plan future students) the absolute best service I can, with no incongruences and my full attention and commitment. UKHC 2023 and the calibre of people presenting and in attendance, certainly had a positive effect in addressing some of the nihilistic feelings I have towards the profession and the last few months have been spent refining practices and getting ready for the relaunch of Advanced Hypnosis Training.

I learned much during the previous incarnation of Advanced Hypnosis Training, but somewhere along the way I forgot the two most important lessons of all and I do not intend to forget them again.

The first of the lessons is that ultimately, helping others is what this job should really be about and being on the inside looking out, will do that better than being an outsider looking in. Don’t be distracted by others and if you are, then be vocal and visible in challenging the professional impropriety you see and if you can’t, don’t let them detract from your own game.

The second lesson is what as therapists we should be telling many of our clients – there are no shortcuts. In the early years, I rushed to become a better trainer than the bad ones I saw, and ended up being little better myself (though perhaps a little more trustworthy and ethical). I rushed to invest in the next big thing offering the ultimate panacea or quick fix, but have learned that adopting reflective practices and refining my own knowledge is second only to listening and learning from the client, in becoming the best therapist or coach you can be. Take as long as you need to get to where you want to be, but be congruent at all times.