Some of you that regularly read my main hypnosis blog on my personal website will know that I had quite a bit to say on the subject of why I believe hypnotherapists require more advanced training. I recommend reading this article as to why I think it is such an important subject to me: Hypnotherapy Training: I’m Frothing at the Mouth About Why Hypnotherapists Need More Advanced Training.

Back in 2015, I was very proud to announce that we, the Anglo European College of Therapeutic Hypnosis, became one of just a very few UK based schools in the world to have our advanced hypnotherapy diploma formally approved by the GHSC (General Hypnotherapy Standards Council), and the first ever validated advanced diploma course with the PHN (Professional Hypnotherapy Network) and of course it is accredited CPD with a range of professional hypnotherapy organisations.

It means that anyone who attends, achieves the expected levels of attainment with the learning outcomes, the coursework and the vignettes will be able to add the title of ‘Advanced Hypnotherapist’ to the list of stuff they already add to their email signature, website bio or business cards. I know, I know “woooo-hooo!” but that is not all…. Graduates of this course can also use the letters ‘Adv.Hyp.Dip” after their name, and also we give them a golden cape upon graduation from this course and it is compulsory that they wear that golden cape to their therapy room office each day. (Just in case you do actually demand that from us at a later date, that was a joke about the cape)

Since this happened in 2015, I have tweaked the course in response to the feedback we have had, I have enhanced the content, I have adapted according to the most up to date research and I am incredibly proud of it. It is two five day long blocks of tuition and I am delighted to announce we have dates for running this in 2018 available now.

NEWSFLASH:
Until the end of this month (July 2017) I am offering a 25% early bird discount on fees for this course. You can read about my Advanced Hypnotherapy diploma here at this page of the college website where you can also download a prospectus if you wish.

What’s more if you take that early bird offer, you’ll also be given a year-long access to our full online hypnotherapy practitioner diploma course. I’ll explain why…

One of the reasons I sometimes turn some hypnotherapists away from this course is that their initial training was simply not comprehensive enough. That is, a lot that gets taught on our hypnotherapy practitioner diploma course is simply not covered by that many hypnotherapy training schools. The adherence to evidence base, the variety of clinical applications, the specialist knowledge about a range of clinical issues as well as being taught more than just one singular model, we teach the critique of those models. So as I say, I have turned numerous hypnotherapists away from applying for this course due to my feeling that they would not enjoy this advanced training as I believed it assumes and presupposes a certain degree of knowledge. For anyone taking up this early bird offer then, regardless of your background, I will welcome you to this course because I will also give you a year-long access to our online hypnotherapy practitioner diploma course. That is, you will be able to study (without necessarily taking the full qualification, you can simply study it to fill in any blanks in your existing knowledge and ensure you are fully prepared for our advanced course) our online hypnotherapy practitioner diploma course.

Finally, in addition to the 25% discount, the year-long access to our online hypnotherapy practitioner diploma course to prepare you for this course, I am also offering every single individual who takes this offer up a free hypnotherapist business development mentoring session with me following completion of the advanced diploma course. This will give you some major insight into how to develop your hypnotherapy business, we’ll audit how you run your business, get a clear idea of the vision you have for your life and your hypnotherapy business, I’ll advise on systems you may benefit from engaging within your business, I’ll talk to you about branding, marketing, creating expertise, nailing social media and internet marketing, creating passive income revenue streams and whatever else is relevant and pertinent to you and your hypnotherapy business.

END of NEWSFLASH

With or without the afore mentioned formal approval, accreditation and recognition though, there are other reasons that this advanced hypnotherapy diploma course is something I am so keen to deliver, have invested a lot of my heart and soul into and have spent so much time putting together. You see, my profile and engagement with the hypnotherapy community, my lecturing for Bournemouth University and the Royal Society of Medicine as well as getting to discuss my own research with renowned academics and researchers such as Irving Kirsch http://www.adam-eason.com/take-adage-never-meet-heroes/ highlights to me a great need for advanced training.

Advanced Hypnotherapist Diploma Training:

Just look at the psychological professions in the mental healthcare fields; psychologists undergo many years of training, studying, researching and practice, psychiatrists attend medical school and then many subsequent years training, researching and studying, mental health nurses undergo many years of training and the vast majority of other talk therapies tend to require more intense, prolonged amounts of study, research, practice in order to work with the general public using their chosen modality of therapy than most hypnotherapists have. Most hypnotherapists have 10 months of training (though many do not even reach the minimum number of classroom hours recommended by National Occupational Standards that our diploma courses eclipses massively), gain a diploma and then are sent out into the world as a professional. The truth is that the vast majority of hypnotherapists that I meet are struggling to make a living and are ill-equipped to do so.

Of course, there are lots of marketing ‘gurus’ and business development experts who claim to have answers, systems, gimmicks that you apply universally, but are often simply attempting to make more money for themselves to supplement their own ailing therapy practice. Those that seek out the answers in this way are often left wanting.

My answer has long been that the best way to develop one’s business and professional standing as a hypnotherapist, is to become better at what you do. I’ve written about this before:

1. The Best Business Advice For Hypnotherapists Is Astonishing.
2. Why It Is Dangerous To Tread Water As A Hypnotherapist.

Of the masses of hypnotherapists that I encounter, many of them have attended courses that did not even match national occupational standards for a minimum number of classroom hours attended, and many are being taught the same perpetuated nonsense, pseudoscience and myth that their teachers spew, who were taught the same and who perpetuate the nonsense without applying any critical thinking skills. The truth is that many hypnotherapists simply are not good enough and their clients do not get long-term benefits from their investment of time and money.

When a hypnotherapist is genuinely very good, knowledgeable, skilled with great interpersonal skills, they get better results in their therapy rooms. When they get better results in their therapy rooms, their business flourishes – they get referrals, people talk about their good experiences, and a foundation of success, competence and credibility is forged. Of course, there is more to developing a successful business, but this point I make is key.

Hypnotherapists who do not think in those terms are often looking in the wrong direction for answers and solutions. They invest their limited budget on attempting to find the answers in systems, social media marketing, SEO, swish websites, and all sorts of other gimmicks promoted by “gurus” who cannot prove how busy their own therapy rooms are, when instead hypnotherapists should be investing in their single main asset – themselves (their ability as a hypnotherapist).

As a hypnotherapist, you offer a service, you offer hypnotherapy, and you are offering that delivered by yourself. You need to be a viable and outstanding option in the eyes of your existing and potential clients. So hypnotherapists read, they research, they learn how to develop themselves in a wide variety of ways and this is important. Being able to apply ourselves in accordance with Stephen Coevy’s “7 Habits of Highly Successful People” and learning how to be productive, and developing your soft skills, sharpening your brain, being fit and healthy; all these things are going to do us good…. Yet so many hypnotherapists get their diploma, then learn EFT in two days, learn to become a Reiki master in a few days, and tack on a number of add-ons they can list on their bios, email signatures and business cards, and assume they never need to train in any more hypnotherapy.

They think they have got it nailed. They invested a lot of time and money in that initial diploma training, it does not need to be built upon!

That line of thought is exactly why hypnotherapists DO NEED advanced hypnotherapy training. Primarily because they clearly need critical thinking skills. Critical thinking skills equip you to examine the field and become more effective as a result. I have heard individuals glibly suggest that much of what I am about to write is purely academic, yet evidence suggests that the client derives more benefit and gain from an in-depth, correct understanding of our subject and will perceive the hypnotherapist as far more credible – when a hypnotherapist is perceived as credible by the client, that perception and belief will also advance the efficacy of the treatment. Again, I’ve written about this a fair bit before:

1. The Cult of Anti-Intellectualism and Ignorance In the Field of Hypnotherapy and Hypnosis.
2. Why Are Most Hypnotherapists Unaware of The Stroop Effect and It’s Importance To The Field of Hypnosis?
3. Why Prominent Hypnotherapists and Hypnotherapy Training Schools Need To Know How To Take Criticism.

The Elements of Advanced Hypnotherapy Training:
One of the elements of our advanced hypnotherapy training course that enables the hypnotherapist to engage with more challenging academic literature in hypnotherapy, including hypnotherapy research it critical thinking skills. Critical thinking and a scholarly mindset also develops credibility with medical professionals and creates an attitude that advances the professional and personal life of the hypnotherapist. Some of the elements included are as follows:

– Being a sophisticated listener and reader: How to critique claims made in hypnotherapy circles, especially on training and by peers.
– Logical and academic argumentation: How to recognise logical fallacy and how to debate effectively.
– Academic referencing: How to employ and understand APA, Harvard and Footnote referencing.
– Levels of analysis and levels of abstraction: How hypnotherapists work at various levels.
– Challenging received wisdom: A critical examination of much of what is taken for granted in our profession that have not been proven, in order to develop a practitioner’s critical thinking.
This includes:
a) ’rapport is essential for effective therapy’ (although it is pleasant, other professionals help us without rapport, some clients find success despite low rapport and others do not, despite good rapport).
b) ‘We should only take on motivated clients’ (isn’t motivation a presenting issue worthy of our attention?).
c) ‘A long-standing issue requires longer-term therapy’ (solution-focused therapists take issue with this).
d) ‘All hypnosis is self-hypnosis’ (where is the hypnotherapist in this dynamic? Why are we making our influence invisible? A culture increasingly suspicious of power?).
e) ‘Your unconscious mind is a wonderful intuitive resource’ (cognitive theories do not generally entertain the concept of the ‘unconscious,’ is there really such a thing?).
f) ‘You will always be in control’ (what about falling asleep, spontaneous or induced amnesia for posthypnotic suggestions, being forced to think of something due to questioning, or abreaction? Is it ethical to say this?).
g) ‘It’s good for clients to cry and get it out of their system’ (‘catharsis’, ‘abreacting’ or ‘purging’ can make matters worse, retraumatise, cause embarrassment, possibly even waste time. Feeling better afterwards is hardly surprising and not great evidence!).
h) ‘Smoking should be a single session formula’ (this is a very common model in hypnotherapy, yet most other presenting issues are more sessions and evidence clearly shows that more sessions for stop smoking results in higher success rate. Why are single session stop smoking programmes so popular?).

The Need for Advanced Hypnotherapy Training:

If I return to my main point here today though, it is that many hypnotherapists do not believe they need advanced hypnotherapy training, so is there truly a need for it? Why do hypnotherapists need an advanced training? What is the point?

My belief is that an advanced hypnotherapy training is not just something that is helping the hypnotherapist to be more successful with clients and build a better business, but is also developing the entire field of hypnotherapy and the perception of it. The field of hypnotherapy is very much on the fringe (at best) of therapy and psychological fields still today, and an incessant belief that you have all the training you need with your initial diploma is a popular one, and one that is potentially keeping the field of hypnotherapy on the fringes! Some of the needs for advanced hypnotherapy training are as follows:

– Improve standards and service to the public.
– Engage newly qualified hypnotherapists with quality CPD and to see its value.
– Invigorate and inform the practice of experienced practitioners.
– Encourage higher level, academic and critical thinking.
– Instil the importance of better quality reflective practice.
– Promote new perspectives, build a diversity of approaches.
– Properly understand the the evidence base of the field of hypnotherapy.
– Know the literature well – it underpins our practical skills and advances them in turn.
– Embed core training concepts by revisiting them in a new light.
– Patch in important knowledge and skills that initial training may have missed or where understanding is poor.
– To become a more successful hypnotherapist whose clients derive greater gains and successful benefits.

Hypnotherapists are not the only ones who benefit from this, by becoming better at what they do, they get to raise the standards of the field in general terms, this is good for us all because the perception of the public becomes better and rosier and it is better for clients who derive more gain, more professionalism, better results.

The raison d’être of an advanced hypnotherapy training programme is to offer the hypnotherapist a clear advancement on the original hypnotherapy training. It needs to be substantive, wholly distinctive and healthily challenging, not simply offering ‘more of the same’ that was taught on an initial diploma course. it provides new knowledge, new skills, new philosophies, new approaches, new techniques and encourages a considered, respectful and healthily critical exploration of hypnotherapy research.

To revert to an earlier point, an advanced hypnotherapy diploma course needs to have a good return on investment (ROI). That is, it needs to help the hypnotherapist develop skills, knowledge and abilities that will grow the hypnotherapist’s business in an effective fashion.

Therefore, go and read about our course by following the links given on this page. Just come and download the course prospectus immediately from this very college website, I think you’ll be pleased you did, we have 2018 dates available now and I’ll repeat my message from earlier:

NEWSFLASH:
Until the end of this month (July 2017) I am offering a 25% early bird discount on fees for this course. You can read about my Advanced Hypnotherapy diploma here at this page of the college website where you can also download a prospectus if you wish.

What’s more if you take that early bird offer, you’ll also be given a year-long access to our full online hypnotherapy practitioner diploma course. I’ll explain why…

One of the reasons I sometimes turn some hypnotherapists away from this course is that their initial training was simply not comprehensive enough. That is, a lot that gets taught on our hypnotherapy practitioner diploma course is simply not covered by that many hypnotherapy training schools. The adherence to evidence base, the variety of clinical applications, the specialist knowledge about a range of clinical issues as well as being taught more than just one singular model, we teach the critique of those models. So as I say, I have turned numerous hypnotherapists away from applying for this course due to my feeling that they would not enjoy this advanced training as I believed it assumes and presupposes a certain degree of knowledge. For anyone taking up this early bird offer then, regardless of your background, I will welcome you to this course because I will also give you a year-long access to our online hypnotherapy practitioner diploma course. That is, you will be able to study (without necessarily taking the full qualification, you can simply study it to fill in any blanks in your existing knowledge and ensure you are fully prepared for our advanced course) our online hypnotherapy practitioner diploma course.

Finally, in addition to the 25% discount, the year-long access to our online hypnotherapy practitioner diploma course to prepare you for this course, I am also offering every single individual who takes this offer up a free hypnotherapist business development mentoring session with me following completion of the advanced diploma course. This will give you some major insight into how to develop your hypnotherapy business, we’ll audit how you run your business, get a clear idea of the vision you have for your life and your hypnotherapy business, I’ll advise on systems you may benefit from engaging within your business, I’ll talk to you about branding, marketing, creating expertise, nailing social media and internet marketing, creating passive income revenue streams and whatever else is relevant and pertinent to you and your hypnotherapy business.

END of NEWSFLASH

If you have any problems downloading the course prospectus, then let me know and I will email it on to you directly. If you want to take me up on the early bird offer contained in this article, just email me and I will organise it all for you.