Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy in York and online

Stop living on autopilot. Step into the after.

You're the one who's holding it all together, and you've done it for so long that nobody notices what it costs, including you.

This is hypnotherapy for women starting again later in life who'd like their nerve back: in their own body, in a room of strangers, at work, and at the networking morning they keep finding a reason to miss.

Book your FREE 15 minute call

You'll know if this is you if....

It's twenty past nine and you're in the car outside the venue with the engine off, doing the sum. How long you have to stay for it to count. Who'll be in there. Whether the top was a mistake. You'll go in, because you always do, and you'll spend the next two hours watching yourself from just behind your own shoulder.

Or it's a Tuesday meeting, and you know the answer, and you let somebody less sure of it say it first. Or it's the swim you used to love, and you've said no to it for three summers without ever once deciding to.

None of that looks like a problem from the outside. You're capable, and you're the one people ring. But somewhere along the way you stopped choosing and started managing, and you'd like to know how to get back.

That's autopilot. Your brain built it to keep you safe, and for years it did. The trouble with a protective habit is that it has no way of knowing when the danger has passed.

Where your nerve goes missing....

Confidence doesn't disappear all at once. It goes one way at a time, and the women I see have usually lost it from one or two of these places:

In your body

You used to be able to rely on it. Then an illness, or the menopause, or a few years of not listening, and now you plan around it. You dress to hide, and you take the photograph rather than be in it. Managing a body you don't trust is a full-time job, and nobody thanks you for it.

In a room full of strangers

The wedding, the coffee after the class, dinner with people you've met twice. You go, and you spend the evening running a commentary on yourself. By the time you're home you can't remember a word anybody else said, and you're worn out from a conversation you never had out loud.

At work

You have the answer and you wait, and somebody with half your experience says it first. The conversation with your manager has been on the list for three weeks. You're good at this job. It just hasn't felt like it for a while.

Out networking

You run a business, and your client is in the rooms you don't walk into. Or you do walk in, and you find the tea urn, and at the first polite moment you leave, and in the car afterwards you have the conversation with yourself that you've had after every one of these events for years.

What cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy does with this

Underneath each of those is a response you never chose. The heart rate before you speak. The pull towards the door.

The sentence that starts I'd better not.

In a session we work out what sets it off, and what you say to yourself when it does, which is usually shorter and harsher than anything you'd say to a friend. Then we use hypnosis, alongside a couple of practical cognitive behavioural techniques, to rehearse the situation going the way you'd like it to, so that when it comes round for real your body has already been there once. You take the techniques home and you use them. I'm the guide. You do the work, which is why it holds.

Nobody is going to turn you into somebody who loves a room, and you'd hate it if they tried. The aim is that choosing becomes possible again in the moment, before the old reaction gets there first.

How I Help

A free 15-minute call.

Fifteen minutes on the phone. You tell me what's going on, I tell you how I'd work with it, and we decide together whether it's the right thing. If it isn't, I'll say so and point you somewhere better. Nobody has ever been sold anything on this call.

Book your FREE 15 minute call

The Reset Session, £99

One session on one pattern. The talk you've been dreading, the event, the decision you've been circling since the spring. Around 90 minutes in York, or online from your own kitchen table.

How the Reset Session works

Confidence Connection

Not ready to book anything? One essay every Sunday evening, for women who are capable and doubting themselves. Sign up and I'll send you the confidence developing audio straight away, 12 minutes of it, before you've read a word.

Mind Your Guts

Living with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)?

Then you're in the right place, but not quite on the right page.

The IBS work has a home of its own at Mind Your Guts, where I write every week about the gut and the brain and the conversation going on between them, and where you can get 12 Minutes of Calm, a free relaxation recording, by joining my Gut Feelings email.

Everything about working with me on IBS, and how to book a call about it, is over there.

Go to Mind Your Guts

Get 12 Minutes of Calm

Who is this for?

Mostly women, mostly over fifty, starting again after a divorce, a redundancy, an illness or the last child leaving. You've been successful before and this feels different. You'd rather have a change you can keep than a dramatic reinvention, and you'd like the person helping you to be straight with you. I am. It's the thing people mention.

If that's you, the call is the place to start, and it costs nothing but fifteen minutes.

Book your FREE 15 minute call

There's a dog

Alfie is an ex-rescue who sleeps under my desk during sessions and makes himself known when your shoulders go up round your ears. A fair number of people spend the first five minutes scratching his ears instead of talking. That counts as starting.

Meet Alfie

Questions people often ask

Will I be out of control?

No. You're aware the whole time, you can open your eyes and stop whenever you like, and you only take on suggestions you choose to. Most people say it feels like the drifty bit just before you fall asleep, except that you're listening.

What is cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy?

Hypnosis is a practical way of working with thoughts, habits and automatic responses. We look at what's underneath a pattern, then use hypnosis to rehearse a calmer version so it's there when you need it. You leave with techniques you can use on your own, which is rather the point.

How many sessions will I need?

Some people get what they came for in the Reset Session and I don't see them again, which is how it should be. Others want to carry on. We talk about it at the end and you decide. Sessions are booked one at a time and there's no package to sign up to.