Which is the best hypnotherapy course in London UK

Maybe you’ve Googled recently, looking for the ‘best hypnotherapy course in London‘ or the ‘best UK hypnotherapy training‘ or something similar. The results that you may have received from Google might have been valid and useful, or they might not have… I know some people who’ve signed up to courses that were the ‘number one hypnotherapy training school’ on Google, yet, the course itself didn’t seem to deliver that ‘#1’ kind of quality….

Though Google is generally pretty helpful and great, when it comes to hypnotherapy training courses, it doesn’t always give you results that tally up with actual real-life reviews and testimonials from past students. You’re more likely to receive Google results based upon how good the webpage is (and how compliant they are with Google’s SEO instructions). Google ranking is more about compliance, keywords, content and website usability, as opposed to giving a 100% truthful reflection on the services being offered. That’s not to say that most of those courses at the top of Google aren’t good…they might be… I mean, we’re fairly high up there ourselves, but sometimes less reputable hypnotherapy trainers and schools sneak up in the ranks of Google (or pay to), which means that people who don’t exactly know how Google works (thinking that a high Google rank equals high quality hypnotherapy training) can end up signing up to a less-good course by mistake.

Before you read further, if you want to become a professional hypnotherapist or upskill, we recommend you check our award-winning HypnoTC Hypnotherapy Diploma course.

Find out more about our Hypnotherapy Diploma course

So, how do you really know which hypnotherapy course is ‘the best’? Obviously, anyone who’s selling anything will say that their product/service is the one that you need.. but how do you (the customer) know who to believe? Well, to get the best hypnotherapy training for you, you have to define what ‘best’ means for you. This comes down to a few different factors, such as;

Who are the trainers?

Some courses are taught by people who’re highly qualified and experienced, others are taught by people who’re probably not experienced enough to even be running their own practice, let alone teaching others! Both of these types of trainers can be at the top of Google searches. So, check out the trainers properly before you sign up to any hypnotherapy course, because you need to be sure they’re the right trainers for you. What experience do they have? Are they actually seeing clients currently? Do they appear professional? Do they seem to know what they’re talking about (call and speak to the trainers personally and judge for yourself). Are they experts in their field? If your trainers have a high profile and have their own hypnosis books or published articles (assuming they’re of good quality), generally that’s a good sign. If you can’t find them anywhere else on the internet, then maybe steer clear and look for a trainer with more ‘social proof’ and testimonials. You need to ensure you’re trained by the best and not just settle for any Tom, Dick or Harry calling themselves a hypnotherapy trainer, because on a course, you’ll only be able to learn what they’re able to teach!

How long is the course?

Some courses are short (or ‘intensive’) and others are long (even up to 3+ years). The duration of a course doesn’t necessarily define how good a course is, but obviously it needs to be long enough to cover most of what you’d need in order to practice hypnotherapy professionally. In the UK, the ‘Core Curriculum‘ states that minimum training for professional hypnotherapists should be 120 classroom hours (which is 15 x 8-hour days…with no breaks!). So really, you’re looking at a minimum of 18 days training (including breaks) in order to cover all that needs to be covered in full detail. As well as the classroom training, the Core Curriculum suggests that hypnotherapy students should engage in home study alongside their course… quite a lot of home study. 330 hours is the minimum required amount of home study in the UK (that’s just over 41 x 8 hour days doing homework). As a hypnotherapy trainer, let me just say, that amount of homework or self-study is definitely needed.

So, as you can probably guess from reading the last paragraph, many short or ‘intensive’ courses do not meet these standards, which generally means that people attending such courses do not leave with enough knowledge and practical experience to practice hypnotherapy safely and effectively… However, a good quality intensive course can still be a great place for some people to start their hypnotherapy journey, as for some a longer course is too much of a commitment. It can also go the other way too… A course that takes too long can cause people to ‘lose momentum’ or can go into unnecessary ‘theoretical detail’ where a highly practical course might be a better option (as hypnotherapy is a practical subject). A good balance of time (not too long and not too short) can boost engagement and definitely helps provide the best hypnotherapy learning environment.

Find out more about our Hypnotherapy Diploma course

What does it cover?

Some courses teach just ‘Ericksonian Hypnotherapy’ others provide ‘Cognitive Hypnotherapy Training’, ‘Hypno-Counselling’ or ‘Clinical Hypnosis Training’. These are just a few examples of ‘types of hypnotherapy training’ out there. Creating a ‘niche’ is a way to make your product/service more specific in order to sell it to people. Though the previous 4 niches of hypnotherapy training are all valid (and a well trained hypnotherapist would use aspects from all of them), if you’re only learning one of them, you’re likely to be limited in your practice. Look for a hypnotherapy diploma course that will teach you as many different theories and approaches as possible, so that you have a tool in your hypnotic toolbox for any occasion. Some clients will respond well to one ‘school of hypnotherapy’, others to another. For example, direct hypnotic suggestions can work for one smoker, whereas a more ‘talking therapy’ approach might work better to stop another client from smoking. Conversational hypnosis can help to rid people of phobias, whereas other people with phobias can respond better to a more hypno-NLP approach, such as the ‘fast phobia cure’. When choosing your training, don’t limit yourself from the start by choosing a training that is too specific or limited. Remember, ‘hypnotherapy is hypnosis + various different psychotherapy techniques’ …and there are a lot of different psychotherapy techniques out there! To put it another way, would you prefer to see a barber/hairdresser that could only do 1 type of haircut, or do you think you’d get a better outcome if they could do 15 haircuts (and had an idea about even more besides)? I know which I’d choose…

What’s the training course structure/ delivery like?

Are you going to be sat in a classroom just listening to lectures? Are there going to be demonstrations of techniques? Do you get the opportunity to interact and ask your own questions or participate in discussions? Do you get to work in various sized groups and individually throughout the course? Do you get individual 1-on-1 feedback from your tutor(s)? Are there extensive course notes? What about any supplementary training materials (such as books/videos/references)? Is there homework (students who engage in homework often do a lot better than those who don’t, or who don’t have that opportunity)? Do you have ongoing support throughout the course from your tutor(s)? Is there a way to communicate with current/past students for support whilst you’re learning? Is supervision available after the course is over, so you can continue to grow and develop as a therapist? Are there exams at the end of the course, so the tutor(s) can check that you’ve learned and understood everything taught on the course?

All of the points I’ve just mentioned should be present in a high quality hypnotherapy diploma course. If they’re not, you might want to ask why they’re not!

Find out more about our Hypnotherapy Diploma course

What is the cost in comparison to other courses?

Managing your money and getting the best deal is smart. Paying too much for something that delivers less is not smart. For example, our course (as of 2022) is £3795, which is for 20 full days of training (and includes a nationally accredited certification). Our course covers various different therapy approaches (behavioural, cognitive, analytical, Ericksonian, talking therapy, NLP, mindfulness, regression) as well as covering business set-up, marketing, website creation, creating hypnosis products and much more. It covers all of the (structure/delivery) points from the previous section and it easily exceeds the UK Core Curriculum in every aspect. Our course is also limited to 18 students max with 2 trainers teaching on every day of the course, so that we can monitor all students progress and give individual feedback.

In contrast (having just had a look online at a different course, randomly selected from Google), for £2500 (so less than our own course), you get just 5 days training (which basically means that by spending around 30% less, in fact you’re losing out on 15 additional days of training!!! ) Pictures from this other training course suggest there might be up to 50-60 students on each 5-day course, with just one trainer (so you probably won’t get much, if any, individual feedback about your own individual learning and performance). A 5-day course can not meet the UK standards for hypnotherapy training in any way, shape or form.

So be aware that sometimes you get what you pay for, but other times you can get much less. Also, some courses are massively overpriced. If a course is £5,000… £7,000… £10,000+ find out why they cost so much in comparison to others… (and yes, there are some courses out there that cost that much. Some hypnotherapy training schools separate their courses into ‘modules’, which means you’d need to sign up for a number of different courses in order to get the full qualification). Conversely, if you sign up to a course because it’s super cheap, consider why it’s super cheap. Decent quality hypnotherapy training won’t be ‘cheap’. Cheap training is cheap because it’s not as good as other training, and they have to lower the price to get people to sign up.

So course cost can be a minefield, just ensure that you know exactly what you’re going to get for your investment, and that you know exactly how much of an investment it will be in order to complete the full training. Then, once you have that information, compare it with other hypnotherapy training companies that you like the look of, and choose the best fit for you.

What do you get at the end?

There are many different types of qualification that you could get for hypnotherapy, however as hypnotherapy (and hypnotherapy training) is unregulated in the UK, you’re better off looking at what skills and experience you leave a course with, rather than what your certificate says on it. Whether it’s a ‘certificate’, a ‘diploma’, a ‘degree’, a ‘clinical diploma’ a ‘super mega ultra diploma’, or whatever title the trainer has chosen, doesn’t matter as much as what you can actually do with the information you’ve learned on the course. That said, it’s obviously nice to have a certificate to confirm that you’ve undertaken your studies and passed your exams (and it’s something that clients will look for when they come into your office), but really, your certificate is only worth as much as the quality of your training. Some cheap online hypnotherapy courses, for instance, will send you your certificates along with your course materials (so you don’t even need to study the material in order to get the certificate!) …which makes it a completely worthless piece of paper. That’s exactly the opposite to our own hypnotherapy diploma certificate, which you only receive once you have successfully completed the entire course, handed in all of the homework and passed your exams…

Some courses (even ones that cost thousands of pounds) will give students a certificate ‘just for attending’, no exam required. Again, you’ve got to think in terms of whether that piece of paper means anything to you. The best way to judge the true value of a certificate (unfortunately), is after you finish the course. If you feel you had to work hard in order to earn your certificate, then it’s probably worth its weight in gold. Ours certainly is!

Find out more about our Hypnotherapy Diploma course

Where is it held?

Obviously, the location of a hypnotherapy training course is a factor. There are courses all over the UK. Some people make their decision of who to train with simply based on how close the course is to where they live. Unless you live in a large city (or near one), this is generally not the best idea. Similar to if you wanted to go and see a ‘show’. You could go and see whatever’s happening in your local theatre, however, it’s likely that there is less to choose from and what is there may not be quite the right fit for you. It also might be of lesser quality, with a smaller budget, simply because less people will attend it due to the location. However, if you were to travel to a city, you’d have many more shows to choose from and the budget and quality of the performances will often reflect the fact that it’s worth investing your time, money and effort in travelling to a different city to see this show in particular.

Our hypnotherapy training, as well as many others, is based in central London. This is because people who are looking for the best training will travel to get it (and it’s also why those who’re willing to settle for less, simply because it’s ‘closer to home’, will generally get lesser quality training!). We chose to offer our hypnotherapy training in London, the largest transport-hub in the UK, not because it’s easy for us (I personally live over 100 miles away from London, and drive to and from London for each training weekend). No, we chose London because when people choose to travel in order to get the best hypnotherapy training, it’s made easy because there are plenty of trains, buses and planes that can take you directly to London… all roads lead to London! We’ve personally had students travel from all over England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland to train with us. Not only that, but we have also had students attend our courses who’ve flown in from all over Europe and Asia, even America, Canada and Australia!!! Ensure you get your priorities right. If you need to travel across the country (or even to another country) in order to get top-quality hypnotherapy training, the effort is easily worth it, because getting top-quality hypnotherapy training will set you up for life.

…but in the end, it’s your choice

At the end of the day, only you can choose which hypnotherapy training company you want to study with, so it’s important that you do your research. If someone is on Google stating they’re the ‘best hypnotherapy training school‘ or that they’re offering the ‘best hypnotherapy course in London’, don’t just take them at face value. Make sure they can prove it!

We (HypnoTC) don’t go around shouting that ‘we offer the best hypnotherapy training in the UK’ (even though we know our training is definitely among the best), because as you’ve learned by reading this blog, what’s ‘best’ can depend on a lot of different factors. That said, if you’d like to know exactly why we believe our hypnotherapy training is amongst some of the best in the UK (and even the world), then take a look at this short video:

We hope that this blog on choosing ‘the best hypnotherapy training course‘ has been helpful to you. If you have any more questions about this topic or anything else for that matter, do please get in touch, because we’re always happy to help!

Find out more about our Hypnotherapy Diploma course

– written by the HypnoTC team