Continued professional development is an important consideration for the aspiring hypnotherapist to grow and develop, not to mention the fact that many accrediting bodies require a certain amount of “CPD” from their members annually. So as well as running your own hypnotherapy practice and actively seeing clients, what else can you do for hypnotherapy CPD?
Gaining hypnotherapy CPD from courses & workshops
When you have successfully completed your hypnotherapist training, you need to go out and practice, focus on seeing clients and the like… This doesn’t mean you should stop learning. You must remember, the more tools you have in your toolbox, the better equipped you will be to help your clients.
Whether you attend a couple of hypnotherapy CPD workshops a year, branch out into utilising another type of discipline (such as NLP, ACT, REBT, Mindfulness, etc.) or even take an evening class on business management or marketing, these are all applicable as CPD, and are certainly a great idea moving forwards as a professional hypnotherapist. To get updates about our own CPD courses and workshops, subscribe to our mailing list at the bottom of this blog post … easy!
Books as a source of CPD information
You can learn a great deal about hypnotherapy, psychology and the mind by reading relevant and related books. There are thousands of books on the subject of hypnosis and hypnotherapy (take a look at our READING LIST [click here] for an overview of some of the books that we personally recommend).
As well as reading books related to your hypnotherapy practice, there’s nothing from stopping you from writing your own book on the subject, whether as a whole or relating to a specific issue, practice, technique or approach… This is equally CPD-worthy, and can be a great way to get more clients or improve your standing in the hypnosis industry.
Using videos for hypnotherapy CPD
YouTube is a great resource for many different disciplines, with hypnotherapy being one of them. Of all the videos online, there will be some that are highly insightful and useful, and others that may be less so… all count towards your hypnotherapy CPD, assuming you actually watch them (and don’t just have them on in the background while you’re doing the ironing and checking Facebook). Obviously the HypnoTC Youtube channel is a great place to start…
Blogs & newsletters add to professional development
Both reading and writing blogs and newsletters can count towards your hypnotherapy CPD (assuming it is related to your hypnotherapy business), and if you are writing your own this can be something that you can send out to your own fanbase/list to create additional engagement.
Some blogs are prone to featuring “guest bloggers” so this could also be something to consider if you have a knack for writing stuff that people enjoy reading. As a matter of fact, if you are one of our students/graduates we’re happy to consider featuring blogs, so contact us directly for more information on that…
Delivering relevant talks
As a professional hypnotherapist, you are free to put yourself forward to talk at public or private events on the subject of hypnosis. Public talks aren’t for everyone, but they can be a wonderful way to boost your confidence, attract new clients, build on your own presentation skills, and of course, they count as hypnotherapy CPD too. So if you think you would be able to keep people engaged with a talk, then it’s definitely something you can consider looking into.
The power of networking, conferences & practice groups
Spending time talking and practicing with your peers is a great way to improve your own skills, learn new skills and to find out what other therapists are doing… (they may give you ideas that you hadn’t even thought about). There are many hypnosis conferences all over the world, some of the main ones being The UK Hypnosis Convention (London), The NGH Convention (Boston, USA), Hypnothoughts Live (Vegas, USA). Expos and conferences, as well as being highly useful for networking and business building, are great hypnotherapy CPD builders too!
Conducting research as a source of hypnotherapy CPD
You don’t have to be a scientist to do “research”. The hypnosis industry is crying out for more research into key areas, and as a practicing hypnotherapist you are more than able to participate… So if measuring and comparisons are your thing, research could be a great way to further your standing in the industry, get recognition, improve your own practice and to build your CPD hours.
We hope that this brief blog has helped you to realise that to meet your CPD requirements, you don’t have to pay through the nose… in fact you can do it for pretty much free if you want to! Continue to learn, continue to expand your horizons, continue to improve… There’s no good reason not to!
– written by the HypnoTC team
