Frequently asked questions
Twenty-six questions, answered properly rather than reassuringly. Several of the answers are “no” or “it depends”, which is generally a better sign than a page where everything is promised.
The basics
What hypnotherapy is, and what it is not.
Hypnotherapy is the therapeutic use of hypnosis — a state of focused attention and physical relaxation in which the usual running commentary of critical thought quietens somewhat. The hypnosis is the setting; the therapy is the work done in it: examining a pattern, rehearsing a different response, and reinforcing it until it is available outside the room.
You are guided into the state rather than placed in it. Nothing is administered, and it depends on your willing participation throughout.
The honest answer is that it helps some people, as one part of a broader approach, and that the research base is smaller than anyone would like. Reviews of the available trials generally report modest additional benefit when hypnosis is added to behavioural or cognitive-behavioural methods, while consistently noting small sample sizes and variable study quality.
What hypnotherapy is better suited to is the behavioural layer: awareness of triggers, response to cravings, emotional eating, and consistency. If anyone guarantees you a specific weight loss, treat that as a warning rather than a reassurance.
No. Despite the word “hypnosis” deriving from the Greek for sleep, it is not sleep and not unconsciousness. You remain awake and aware, you hear everything, and you will remember the session afterwards.
Many people describe it as similar to being deeply absorbed in a film, or the state just before falling asleep — relaxed and inwardly focused, but entirely present.
You remain in control throughout, and you cannot be made to say or do anything that conflicts with your values. Suggestions you disagree with simply do not take effect — this is a well-established feature of hypnosis, not a reassurance invented for websites.
If you decided mid-session to open your eyes, speak, or stand up and leave, you could. Stage hypnosis creates a different impression because it uses volunteers who have chosen to perform in front of an audience and are selected for responsiveness.
No. If the session were interrupted or the practitioner simply stopped talking, you would either return to ordinary alertness on your own or drift into normal sleep and wake up as usual. There is no mechanism by which the state could persist against your intention.
They overlap but differ in purpose. Meditation typically cultivates open, non-judgemental awareness as a practice valuable in itself. Hypnotherapy uses a focused state instrumentally, to work on a specific behavioural target agreed in advance.
Meditation is generally self-directed and open-ended; a hypnotherapy session is guided and has a defined objective. Both are relaxing, and skill in one often makes the other easier.
No. Counselling and psychotherapy are broader and usually longer-term, working through experience, relationships and meaning. Hypnotherapy for weight management is narrower and more targeted at a specific behaviour.
They are complementary rather than competing. Where the underlying need is clearly psychological — unresolved trauma, depression, an anxiety disorder — counselling or clinical psychology is the more appropriate primary route.
Sessions and practicalities
What actually happens, how long it takes, and what it involves.
The first session is mostly conversation: your history with weight and eating, what you have already tried, your typical week, and what you would like to be different. Only then is any technique applied.
Subsequent sessions usually begin with a review of the past week or fortnight, followed by guided relaxation and then the therapeutic work — largely description, suggestion and mental rehearsal of a different response to a specific situation. You finish with something particular to notice before next time.
Typically 60 to 90 minutes. The initial consultation runs longer because it is predominantly conversation and needs to cover ground properly.
It depends on the pattern, and you will get a considered estimate at the first consultation rather than a package sold to you in advance. A single, well-defined habit may need only a few sessions. A long-standing pattern tied to stress or emotional history usually needs more.
You are free to stop at any point, and if hypnotherapy does not appear to be helping after a fair trial, the right recommendation is to say so rather than continue booking.
Yes. Online sessions work well for most weight-management goals, provided you have a private space where you will not be interrupted, a reasonably stable connection, and somewhere comfortable to sit for the duration.
Practically, it also removes travel time, which for many people makes regular attendance considerably more realistic.
Very little. Wear something comfortable, avoid arriving in a rush if you can, and give some thought beforehand to when the eating you want to change actually happens — the specific situations rather than the general problem. If you take prescribed medication or are under a doctor for anything relevant, please mention it.
People vary in how readily they enter and use a focused state, and this is a normal individual difference rather than a measure of intelligence, willpower or strength of mind. Most people can reach a state useful enough for therapeutic work.
It is also worth knowing that not feeling dramatically “hypnotised” does not mean nothing happened. Many people who report feeling merely relaxed and slightly sceptical still find the work useful.
Yes. What is discussed stays between us. No session content is shared, quoted, published or used as marketing material, and nothing you say will appear on this website in any form.
The narrow exceptions are those that apply to any responsible practice: a serious risk of harm to yourself or another person, or a legal requirement to disclose. These would be discussed with you wherever possible.
[SESSION FEES AND PACKAGE DETAILS TO BE PROVIDED]
Fees are discussed openly before you commit to anything, and you will not be asked to buy a long package before it is clear that this is a sensible approach for your situation.
Weight, eating and outcomes
What it can address, and what it cannot promise.
No, and any practitioner offering a guarantee is describing a sales position rather than a clinical one. Outcomes depend on the pattern, on engagement between sessions, and on factors well outside a therapy room — sleep, workload, medication, medical and hormonal factors, and circumstance.
What can be offered is an honest assessment of whether hypnotherapy is a reasonable tool for your situation, and a straightforward conversation if it turns out not to be helping.
Emotional eating is one of the areas where hypnotherapy is most often applied, because the pattern is largely learned and automatic. Sessions work on widening the gap between a feeling and reaching for food, and on making an alternative response genuinely available rather than theoretically available.
Individual experiences vary. More on emotional eating.
The aim is not to eliminate cravings, which is neither realistic nor necessary, but to change what happens when one arrives — reducing the felt urgency and rehearsing a response other than immediate compliance. Many people report the intensity dropping before the frequency does. More on cravings.
Hypnotherapy does not prescribe meal plans, calorie targets or macronutrient ratios — that is a dietitian’s expertise, and it is not this. Sessions address why an agreed plan stops being followed on a difficult Wednesday evening.
That said, nobody should be told that weight management requires no attention to eating or activity at all. Anyone claiming otherwise is not being straight with you.
No. It is likely to be a poor fit, or the wrong first step, where an eating disorder is present or suspected; where weight change is unexplained and warrants medical investigation; where there is untreated severe depression, psychosis or active substance dependence; or where someone is attending because another person wants them to.
If any of these apply, you will be told and pointed towards a more appropriate service.
Most people who come here have. Repeated attempts that started well and faded usually indicate a plan that required conditions your life does not reliably supply — which is a design problem rather than a character one.
That history is genuinely useful information rather than a mark against you: it tells us which situations broke the plan, and those are exactly the situations worth working on. More on mindset and motivation.
Safety, health and boundaries
When to involve a doctor, and where hypnotherapy stops.
Tell your doctor that you are considering hypnotherapy, and tell me about the condition and any medication at the first session. This is not a formality — some conditions and medications affect appetite, energy and weight directly, which changes what is realistic and what is appropriate.
Hypnotherapy does not diagnose, treat or cure medical conditions, and should never delay medical assessment.
Yes, absolutely. Hypnotherapy is intended to sit alongside medical and nutritional care, not to replace any part of it. Please do not stop prescribed treatment, alter medication, or discontinue dietetic input because you have started hypnotherapy.
Where it is helpful and you consent, working alongside your other practitioners usually produces a better result than working in isolation.
For most people, hypnotherapy is a low-risk intervention. The most commonly reported effects are pleasant — deep relaxation, occasionally drowsiness afterwards. Some people find that relaxation brings up unexpected emotion, which is discussed and worked with in the session.
Caution is warranted for anyone with psychosis, dissociative conditions, or significant untreated mental-health difficulties, where the appropriate clinical professional should be involved first.
No. Anorexia, bulimia and binge-eating disorder require specialist clinical treatment, and hypnotherapy is not a substitute for it. If eating episodes involve a sense of loss of control with marked distress, or are followed by compensatory behaviours such as vomiting, laxative use or extreme restriction, please speak to a doctor or an eating-disorder service.
If that emerges during an initial consultation, you will be told plainly and directed to appropriate care.
Relaxation-based work is often well tolerated, but weight management during pregnancy is specifically a matter for your doctor or midwife. Please seek their advice first, and let me know if you are pregnant so the approach can be adjusted appropriately.
[QUALIFICATIONS, CERTIFICATIONS AND PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS TO BE PROVIDED]
You are entitled to ask any practitioner about training, professional membership, insurance and supervision arrangements, and a reasonable practitioner will answer without hesitation. Questions worth asking before choosing anyone.
If your question is not on this page
Ask it. There is no scripted sales conversation waiting on the other end of the phone, and questions asked before booking are considerably more useful to everyone than questions asked afterwards.
Sceptical questions are particularly welcome. Anyone considering hypnotherapy ought to be asking what the evidence actually shows, what happens if it does not work, and why the practitioner is qualified to do this — and a practice that becomes evasive at that point has told you something useful.
Still deciding? That is reasonable.
There is a great deal of reading on this site precisely so that you can decide without speaking to anyone. When you are ready, an initial conversation carries no obligation.