Interested in Hypnosis Training and Courses?
Hypnosis can be a rewarding profession, but it's also useful to learn hypnotic principles and techniques even if you aren't planning to do hypnotic work for a living. But you have to be careful: as noted elsewhere on this site, there are no real standards for hypnosis training or certifications. This means that the quality of hypnosis instruction is extremely varied, from outstanding to worse-than-useless.
When you are looking at different training options, consider the following:
- Does the trainer have a track record of helping their students become successful active hypnotists? Ask them if they can provide you with the names of several people (not their family members and friends) who have taken their courses and who actually make a living doing the work.
- Does the trainer have personal experience building an active and profitable full-time practice, primarily working with individual clients --- or do they try to earn most of their income by selling products and services to other practitioners? Because most certified hypnotists find that they are unable to work with real clients on a regular basis, many set themselves up as "instructors" and turn to selling certification courses instead!
- Will the training provide you with significant value beyond what you could learn from a book, DVD, or audio program? In this field, you should not make the assumption that in-person training, or training that is more expensive, is automatically going to be better.
The point is: be careful out there. Just like there are no real standards for becoming a certified hypnotist, anyone can purchase the right to call themselves a "certified instructor" and resell training materials, even if they have almost no practical experience working with real clients or running a practice. Because of this, it can be difficult to figure out what really is worthwhile training in the hypnosis field.
It Pays to Get the Best Training
I had to learn what was worthwhile by spending a lot of money and time, in order to find the courses that stood above the rest of the pack, and which had practical use in the real world. I also discovered that the best training is often not the most expensive!
There is one course that I recommend for anyone interested in learning hypnosis: Igor Ledochowski's "The Power of Conversational Hypnosis"
At first, I avoided Ledochowski's course because of the over-the-top marketing style (you can see what I mean on his website). But, because this was recommended to me by other hypnotists who I trust and respect, I gave it a try.
It turned out to be one of the best investments I've ever made. The quantity and the quality of the material is amazing, especially considering that it is one of the less expensive courses out there.
So, if you can get past the cheesy marketing, I highly recommend this course to anyone who interacts with people on a regular basis, and who would like to develop advanced skills in persuading and influencing others.
Click this image or this link to view information about
"The Power of Conversational Hypnosis":
The great thing about Ledochowski's course is that it has many real-world exercises for you to practice in daily life. True story:
Shortly after I got the course, I was at my local UPS store renewing a mailbox for another term. Because I was late with the renewal, the clerk was about to charge me a $25 late fee according to their policy. I decided to practice some of the covert hypnosis techniques that the course teaches, just for fun.
So I cast my best hypnotic stare upon the clerk and said, "You don't have to charge me that late fee."
The clerk looked confused for a moment. Then he rang up the purchase, without the late fee.
Who knows what happened there... I have no idea whether he was "hypnotized" into saving me $25. But I know for sure, before that course, I probably wouldn't have even considered asking for a break, and now, I was telling him not to charge me the extra fee.
It's just an example of the kinds of curious and interesting things that this course will help you learn to practice in daily life.
I think Ledochowski's course is the best introduction to hypnosis; however, if you're planning to work with clients and want to learn advanced techniques for helping them change, I would also look into Cal Banyan's 5-PATH® training program. Banyan's program is not so much about "how to hypnotize", it's more about what to do once you get someone hypnotized, in order to help them.
Banyan's material is very well-organized and systematically presented. This is really important for a beginner because otherwise you can end up confused by a random jumble of scripts, anecdotes and techniques. For me, learning 5-PATH® was absolutely essential to successfully building an active hypnosis practice.
Other Recommended Books and Other Resources
If you just want to learn about hypnosis by reading, then I recommend that you check out the following books, they should be on Amazon. This is just a list to get you started. There are many other good books, but in reality they are only useful if combined with actual experience.
- "Trancework" by Michael Yapko
- "Training Trances" by John Overdurf and Julie Silverthorn
- "Deep Trance Training Manual Vol I" by Igor Ledochowski
- "Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy Basic to Advanced Techniques" by Banyan and Kein
It is difficult to sort out the good stuff from the immense pile of hypnotic junk on the internet. Be careful who you learn from. There are so many "masters" out there whose main experience consists of arguing on hypnosis message boards while sitting in their office cubicles.
Here are some worthwhile names for you to Google for further research. These are true experts who may have different approaches and philosophies, but I have found them to be very knowledgeable, and not just in an academic or theoretical sense.
- Cal Banyan (Southern California)
- Brian David Phillips (Taiwan)
- Gerald Kein (Florida)
- Dave Elman (deceased)
- Gil Boyne (deceased)
- Celeste Hackett (Texas)
- Joe K. Fobes (New Jersey)
- Jonathan Chase (U.K.)
- Barry Thain (U.K.)
- Anthony Jacquin (U.K.)
But Hypnosis Training Is Not Enough!
The following message is intended for people who are hoping to do hypnotic work for a living, not people who are mainly interested in learning hypnotic skills and techniques for their own personal development.
Before you get into this field, it's important to understand that even the best hypnosis training is not going to enable you to build a successful, profitable practice.
It is troubling to see people led into this field with promises of making "$100/hour working part-time from the comfort of your home!", or people who think that getting a certificate will be the start of an exciting new career or job. This is not a job or a career, it is a self-employed profession that requires sales and marketing skills.
See for yourself: go to Monster.com, the largest employment website out there, and do a search for job titles "hypnotist" or "hypnotherapist". Last time I checked, both job titles returned zero results in the entire US.
If you are the type of person who is afraid of sales and marketing activities, and are unwilling to develop skills in those areas, you should expect very little success in this field. And no matter how much or what kind of training you get, or how many certificates you collect, without consistent exposure to real-world clients, you will never develop the experience necessary to become a competent hypnotist.
This is not meant to discourage people from becoming hypnotists. In fact, what I am saying is that, as long as you focus on the important things, you can become an excellent hypnotist and help a lot of people --- and pursuing certifications will not do that for you.
There are too many people who are led into this field thinking that buying a certificate will solve their financial or career problems. So the majority of "certified hypnotists" struggle because their training did not prepare them --- and usually, their instructor is unable to help them develop a successful practice, because most instructors have never been successful as practitioners either!
So they dabble in it once in a while, spending more time chatting about hypnosis on the internet than working with real-life clients. They get a thrill from telling family and friends and people that they meet: "I'm a certified hypnotist." There's nothing really wrong with that, but these folks should be open and honest with potential clients about the nature of their practice.
If you are serious and committed to hypnosis as a means of helping people and helping yourself, go for it! If not, if you just heard it was a way to make extra money or to "be your own boss", and if you think you need to make stuff up about your credentials and experience just to get people in the door, why bother?
Check out my articles in the Hypnosis.org e-zine for marketing tips for hypnotists.
Once in a while I meet up privately with people who have been trying to get started in this field. Often they describe being frustrated by their discovery that so much of the hypnosis field is geared towards practitioners trying to sell each other workshops and seminars --- while it seems like hardly anyone is actually working with clients. This discovery is usually made after investing thousands of dollars in training programs.
These people are frustrated because their main desire is to make a difference in the lives of individual clients; for them it's not about developing passive income by selling vitamins and CDs, or making some extra cash on the weekends by running a workshop and selling certificates. The advice they hear in the field seems directed to people who want to run a Tupperware-style* business ("call your friends and have a home hypnosis party!"). They start to wonder if it's even possible to do this work for a living.
I have to tell them: yes. It's possible. But be careful who you take advice from, and be careful where you spend your resources. Remember that the folks who promise you that they can teach you "5 Easy Steps to Success... Guaranteed!" are mainly in the business of selling you the promise of success --- they usually have no actual experience in accomplishing what you want to accomplish (unless your primary goal is also to become a marketer of that sort of thing).
Many, if not most, trainers in this field are unable to provide effective practice-development support, because they have never done it themselves. Their advice typically consists of things like: "hand out business cards", "join a networking group", "give free talks at a community center", or "visualize abundance and prosperity".
Barry Thain, a genuine expert and hypnotist who works for the National Health Service in the UK, and who also has an active practice, says that in order to make it in this field you need to be: 1) a good hypnotist, 2) a good businessperson, and 3) a good marketer. You will notice that being a good hypnotist is necessary, but not sufficient.
To that end, I highly recommend that you learn the principles in Michael Gerber's book "The E-Myth", as it is very relevant to the idea that being a good "technician" is not enough, if you are serious about doing this work.
In general, the worst people to take advice from about how to grow your hypnosis business are other hypnotists, because most of them have more experience giving advice on hypnosis internet forums and attending workshops rather than actually doing anything. Once you learn basic hypnosis, then focus on learning marketing --- as that is the only way you will gain real experience anyway.
Be very careful about spending big money on advertising before you understand marketing! That is doing things totally backwards. That is a common trap that many beginners fall into, because they are encouraged to spend lots of money on advertising campaigns by people selling advertising space. You must understand marketing before hoping to profitably use advertising.
So in addition to Michael Gerber, I would highly recommend studying (not just reading) the works of Michael Port, Seth Godin, and Dan Kennedy.
*By the way, no disrespect is intended towards Tupperware and similar business models, which do a good job of meeting certain social and economic needs.
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The link to Ledochowski's and Banyan's sites are affiliate links, meaning that if you decide to buy any products those sites, I receive a commission. But that is not the main reason I recommend these specific programs. The reason I recommend superior training is that too many members of the public are having less-than-satisfactory experiences with poorly trained hypnotists who think that reading a relaxation script to a client will somehow solve their problem. It is in my interest to help improve the quality of hypnotists out there in the field!
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