We have received a number of inquiries regarding hypnotherapy training standards. When this site was under development we did consider a section covering just that, however we decided against it in order to maintain impartiality. One of the reasons for this is that we offer hypnotherapy training ourselves and could never therefore be judged to be impartial on this particular issue. Impartiality is vital to the success of this site.
There is some good general advise though that we are happy to print.
Hypnotherapy is practiced under common law in the UK. That means that there is no legal requirement to follow a particular form of training or to take a designated training course before setting up in practice. Some of the professional membership organisation's do publish their own standards that you must achieve before they will admit you to membership, but then again there is no requirement to register with a professional body so this may or may not be a consideration for you. It is not known how many hypnotherapists there are in the UK because a certain number remain independent, and have not registered with any of the professional bodies.
You do not have to be registered with a professional body in order to benefit from professional indemnity insurance. This often surprises people but it is perfectly feasible to insure yourself and your practice independently of any professional memberships. That said however it is fair to point out the premiums are nonetheless cheaper if you are registered due to the ability of the larger professional bodies to negotiate discounts and other benefits for their members.
When considering training as a therapist it is important to do some research so that the course (or courses) that you select is/are right FOR YOU! In practice most hypnotherapists complete a number of different training courses during the course of their career so it is worth looking around. The following web sites all have lists of training providers that you can contact for more information.
Together the above organisations provide contact information for a large number of trainers. They do not include all UK based trainers however. There are trainers who have elected not to have their training recognised/validated or otherwise scrutinized by outside accrediting agencies. This is their choice and nothing should be read into that regarding the quality of their training courses, which must be judged on their own merits against your own personal criteria.
So, do your research, get as much information as you can and make an informed choice. If any of the trainers that you contact could benefit from the advice regarding professional comportment that is contained elsewhere on this site then that should give you some indications about whether or not you really want to end up working with them.
It is a buyers market - there are many courses, so chose well. And finally, the majority of hypnotherapy trainers in the UK are a decent bunch and work hard to give you value for money. As always, our image is tarnished by a very small minority...
