It’s been a bit quiet on our social media channels and via our usual broadcast outputs for the past 10 days, but there has been a great deal going on in real-life terms; we’ve been very busy and lots has been happening.

Last week, I ran our advanced hypnotherapy diploma. I got to welcome a number of qualified and experienced hypnotherapists to my classroom for some advanced hypnotherapy training, as the course name would suggest.

One challenge I had before the course, was to ensure that all those returning to this college having studied with us before at diploma level or with our cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy course, was to ensure there was nothing being rehashed, revamped or regurgitated. When I was putting this course together, it was essential to make sure that the college ethos remained, but the content was completely new. The feedback was wonderful and some of my former students and graduates actually said how challenging they found it and how good it felt to be really stretching themselves in a classroom with us again.

The course does comprise certain important learning outcomes proposed by the GHSC in order for our own course to meet their standards and for us to officially offer the term ‘advanced hypnotherapy diploma’. However, there is much that is unique to us, as well as a lot of drawing upon my own research experiences.

The week examined how to think critically, use logic and reason within our hypnotherapy work and within our own individual approach to hypnotherapy, this included academic argumentation, highlighting cognitive bias, heuristics and logical fallacies.


We also looked in great detail at applying the scientific method to the field of hypnotherapy, we explored research (methodologies, statistics, dissemination and more besides) and the importance of empirically supported treatment criteria within the field of research, and we also offered up an effective and robust critique of the research, and how to effectively appraise research.

We explored a full, thorough range of models of hypnosis and hypnotherapy, looked at factors that contribute to and impede change, as well as a number of models of change that are very relevant to hypnotherapy, we explored ethics, challenging client scenarios and much more, and we are not even halfway through the course yet! It was a great week spent with a wonderful group who really embraced it, supported each other and were open to the intensity of this course.

With that over on the Friday, on Saturday morning, I was right back in class. This weekend just gone, was module 10 of the most recent monthly diploma group. It was our final weekend together and as usual, their final Saturday night is also our annual Summer Party night.


I have been sent clips and photos of the shenanigans and I am delighted that I keep my personal Facebook account so private so that I cannot get tagged in any of it!! There was a lot of eating, drinking, dancing and then shenanigans into the early hours, lots and lots of fun and laughter. I had aches and pains the next day and my voice was on it’s way out….

On Sunday, it was wonderful to finish the last bits of teaching for this diploma course, present some certificates to those exceptional students who had met our very exacting standards and qualified by the end of the diploma, then share many a warm embrace with those students before going our separate ways.

There were a number of people in tears which got my chin wobbling too! They were sad because the course was over, yet those who emailed me since have said they are all framing this as the beginning of something exciting, not just the end of their hypnotherapy practitioner diploma course. It was so lovely to see how much this group of people all meant to each other and they have been fabulous to work with; we have had an incredible amount of fun together, but they’ve really embraced the study and the in depth way we approach the subject matter here too. The world is going to be an incredibly better place as a result of them working in it for the good of their fellow men and women.

Since then, for me, it has been a case of resting, catching up with my sleep, spending some quality time with my wife and children, and getting back into some shape to enjoy Summer and get ready for the new academic year that will soon be upon us. I do have some R&R time planned this Summer, but there’ll be lots and lots going on here in coming weeks and months, I look forward to sharing it with you all.