I believe your healing should be as unique as you are. While my practice is guided by modern neuroscience and tested techniques, I always seek to tailor the treatment to your personal situation and needs. Simply put, if you’re not comfortable with an approach, we’ll change it, or we’ll find an alternative. You can expect to be at the centre of your healing journey.
This is about how you understand your problem, and what you feel like you need.
That being said, this is what you can usually expect from your initial consultation, and first session.
What to expect from your Initial Consultation
- I will ask you to fill in a short information-gathering and permission form beforehand
- The consultation usually lasts around 30 minutes and is held either on Google Meetings, Whatsapp Video, or Phonecall (depending on what you’re most comfortable with).
- You can talk as much or as little as you like. Some people find it helpful to go into detail about the problem. Some people don’t want to talk about it at all. All needs are 100% valid and respected.
- I’ll explain the science behind the treatment, how it applies to your situation, and roughly how long you can expect the treatment to last.
- You can ask as many or as few questions as you need to. If you need to take some time to think, you’re welcome to email me with questions at a later date.
- After the initial consultation, I will send you some free self-care resources, including video tutorials and self-hypnosis tracks to help manage difficult emotions between sessions.
What to expect from your first session
- I endeavour to make the first session easy, constructive, and hopeful. I’ll seek to explain things in greater detail, help you practice the exercises that we’re most likely to be using, and address any nerves you might have. This means we’ll get a chance to tailor the exercises to your own unique needs without ‘diving in at the deep end’.
- I generally wont try and treat your worst ever trauma in session one, unless you insist that’s what you want to do. The first session is for us to build a good, trusting relationship. It is rare for us to achieve that by immediately trying to deal with our biggest challenge.
- I want you to have whatever will let you feel safe while we work together. We can get as creative as you need with this. In the past, I have allowed clients to play video games, look at pictures of dogs, have music playing, doodle on notepads, go for a walk with me, have friends/family members present for emotional support, take breaks every 15 minutes, and much more. If there’s a realistic adaptation that will make things easier, I’m happy to put it in place.
- We work with whatever you bring into the session. If you’re already feeling a difficult emotion, we’re going to start by calming you down, or getting you as clear-headed as possible. You do not have to ‘play through the pain’ here.
- I will respectfully interrupt any unhelpful patterns. It is quite usual for people to get ‘stuck in a loop’, where they continually rehearse their problem and work themselves up into an anxious state. If I notice you doing this, I am trained in a number of effective ways to interrupt the pattern and move you to a more constructive mindset. I will do this gently, and explain the mechanics at the beginning of the session. What’s quite interesting is that even though I’m very open about what I’m doing and why, clients sometimes don’t even notice it!
- I will give you a better understanding of how trauma works, and you will start getting a clearer idea of how your past has affected where you are now. If there is time, I like to start treating trauma as soon as it’s comfortable and safe to do so. That doesn’t always happen in the first session. No matter what your own journey looks like, we will address any trauma in an effective way that does not put you in any undue emotional stress. No matter how bad something may have been, there is always a safe way of working with it, and I will only begin doing so when you’re ready.
- We will start to get an idea of what success looks like. Often people will come into therapy saying “I want the problem to stop”. That’s a wonderful attitude to have! What helps our work even more is to ask the following question; “how will you know that the problem has stopped forever?”. Sometimes this is not a question with an immediately obvious answer, but once we begin to ask it, we start to create a criteria that will let us know when our work has succeeded. After all, if you’re running a race, you need to know where the finish line is.
The first session will give us a chance to discuss and agree on how the rest of the treatment needs to proceed.
Still have questions? Check out my FAQ’s or contact me to find out more.
Ready to start your healing journey? Get in touch to book your FREE initial consultation.
Featured in the Sharpscot Best Hypnotherapy Clinics In Edinburgh list.
