I was wondering do hypnotherapy and the therapy profession in general attract people into it with psychological problems.

What do I mean by this? Lets explain I come from a working class background and have
worked in a number of jobs. One
job I had was mainly working with men though we did have a few women, it was
probably the best job that I have ever had; and I spent 11 happy years doing
this. During this job I attended
many training courses and exercise sessions basically we worked hard and played
hard. We were a team that looked
after one another with no petty backstabbing.

I went on to do my training as a hypnotherapist.
While training I came across a number of students who seemed quiet
sensitive, emotional. There tended
to be more women on the course than men, I noticed from time to time it quite
often became bitchy and backstabbing.
And not long before, that green-eyed monster came along called
jealousy. I also understand
that from my training as a hypnotherapist that one puts ones self through a
course of therapy. Which most
training schools recommend and is part of the course. The idea behind this is to sort out a
lot of your own personal psychological problems.

Anyway once trained you hang your magic diploma on your consultation room wall and away you go. Must of us start out working part time while continuing on in
our current professions? After a
number of years working as a hypnotherapist, one to one with clients and out
running various groups. As well as
working in psychiatric services. I
kind of started getting or feeling after spending day in and out working with
peoples problems, that I needed to do something for me, which I found
enjoyable. I ended up putting the
hypnotherapy slightly on the back boiler, still remained working within the
psychiatric services because I enjoy the work and it pays a stable income. I went back to college to study
photography for 4 years on a part time basis. And you know what it was great! Fantastic, I met a great
bunch of people we worked together as a team, just like that job I once
had. I now do a certain amount of
photographic work, and we don’t have this emotional backstabbing and nor did I
experience it during my photographic training.

However working in psychiatric services one is not going to earn good money on a hypnotherapy diploma. You need another even more of a magic piece of paper, which
say’s Psychologist Chartered even better you, could orgasmic with excitement
with that one or a counselling/psychotherapy diploma. As for some mad reason I have a desire to work in this field
I went back on to college for another three years. Well the mind boggles and bubbles, I have never come across
so many people with some quite serious psychological problems. Going into this would be another
story. It felt like I was in a
class with a lot of miss fits, to be fair there was some ordinary people in the
class. Now what worries me I have started
getting involved with other therapists; going to peer supervision groups for
hypnotherapy. In some of these groups I feel that I am working with what I
experienced at college, miss fits.
From the many hypnotherapist and counsellors that I have met, there is
only a low number that I would actually trust. It also concerns me with therapist who seem to put loads of
letters behind their name, spending longer training than helping clients, what
is that about? Does the profession draw in people who have psychological
problems?

Tags: Hypnotherapist

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Comment by James Faulkner on June 8, 2010 at 1:21pm: Once again I would like to thank you all for your comments. You may ask your self, why did this guys ask this question? I was out one afternoon running a workshop on Past Life Regression, this workshop was designed for the qualified Hypnotherapist. I run this session as a group give everyone a chance to experience PLR in a mediative State. Well, it happens now and again, someone in the group experienced an adverse reaction. Dealt with the situation and continued on working, everyone in the group seemed to be enjoying the experience and we had what I thought was a nice day. Secondly we were all budding hypnotherapist, and as professionals I feel we should support each other in our work and offer what I would call constructive criticism. It wasn't until a few days later a hypnotherapist which I am a shamed to say, did nothing but write some very liable slander about my workshop so much so that I almost went to my Lawyer over what this person had written about me in order to get their money back from the course. I thought to my self I am really glad that I am not in the armed force's and had to rely on a person like this who could instigate destruction, and mistrust amongst colleagues. I fully agree with what you say Jason, I believe it is very important to have on going therapy your self as a trained therapist. I still continue running my groups and all that has changed before we start the PLR I will tell people straight, that if you cannot handle this group, before we start I would suggest That you leave. I would always say to people you can not investigate PLR or the Paranormal and not expect to have a slight bad experience at some point. I have been running these sort of groups for over 20 years now and have lots of experience. Anyway thanks for your comments,may get some more from this one.
James!

Comment by Jason Newland on June 5, 2010 at 2:54pm: MMMM. This is a difficult yet interesting question. I find it even more interesting the answers you have recieved. I think people expose themselves a bit when they answer these type of questions. The old prejudices and opinios pop out one by one. My main job these days is counselling. In the UK anyone can call themselves a counsellor or Hypnotherapist regardless of qualifications, but I choose to be a member of the BACP, which is the nationally recognised association for counselling. As part of the training, therapy is enforced for at least 12 sessions, (depending on the training course). After that a qualified counsellor can choose whether or not to seek private therapy or not. Also the BACP make all counsellors have regular supervision. During my training I saw a counsellor for 22 months. I could see the difference in those people on the course who had the 12 sessions because they had to and those few who embraced therapy and stayed for much longer. I personally found it helped my own mental states and also to look at myself and my own processes, as this how I am will no doubt have an affect on my client work in some way. The reason i am telling you this, is because alot of UK hypnosis/hypnotherapy tyraining courses don't insist on private therapy for particpants nor continued supervision. I'm no way a sorted person, some would even say, "a bit odd" in some ways. But I am very aware of how I am feeling when I'm with a client. I am constantly reflecting on my actions and what i say during sessions, whether its counselling or NLP or hypnosis. I definately got involved in the therapy world due to my own life long issues, no doubt. Doe this mean I'm a mental case? Maybe. But am I effective? Do I help the client? Is my intention honest, honerable and ethical? Thses are the questions that I'm most intersted in when dealing with vulnverable people who have chosen to ask me for help. I'm waffling on a bit, woops! I will leave you with one observation. I have noticed that those people who say that counselling or hypnosis is a load of crap, seem to me to be in real need of some of that crap.--- I was only going to write one sentence. Jason x

Comment by James Faulkner on June 4, 2010 at 12:53pm: I would like to thank you all for commenting on my blog. Everyone of you have giving me something to think about, I will need a few days to digest my thoughts.

Comment by Kathleen Hanover on June 2, 2010 at 9:55pm: Having worked with a number of folks in the mental health professions over the years (on a therapeutic basis and in the course of my job), I would say that four of them are geniuses who have their own "stuff" handled, which is what makes them geniuses at helping people...a tiny minority were truly evil, twisted, sick creeps, and about half are people who function at a high level, but have their own issues with codependence, which is why they make very bad helpers. They use their clients for their own emotional purposes, and have a vested interest in their clients' failure to heal. The rest of the sample are moderately healthy people of moderate skill levels, doing average work.

I don't think mental health professionals are more mentally ill, but I do think more of them have codependence issues than the general population.

Comment by Taylor Sherman on June 2, 2010 at 8:26pm: The short answer is: Yes. I have met many psychologists who are not quite right mentally. And I knew a lot of people who admitted they took psychology in college to figure out their own problems.

However the profession of hypnosis certainly seems to attract healthier people to it than some other fields. All in all, the hypnotists I have met have been wonderful people. That said, there are definitely some who are off-balanced.

In my area (Washington DC / Northern VA), I'm really pushing for the professionals who are helping others to be getting regular work done on themselves. It's not to offend anyone, but lets be honest there are a lot of fat hypnotists out there, and we have all seen the smokers at the hypnosis conventions.

We are all expending our own karma, so in the big picture there's nothing to worry about. Most of us who are sensitive to it know who the off-balanced people are. The hypnotists with higher "vibrations" will be attracted to each other and will naturally attract better clients.

Comment by Kelley Woods on June 2, 2010 at 6:40am: Hello James,

You pose an interesting question here, one that will most likely lead off into all kinds of directions. I do believe that when your attention is focused on any particular subject, that is exactly what you will notice! You can choose to notice those "miss fits" or you can choose to notice and associate with the non-misfits. Perhaps your foray here on HypnoThoughts will help with the latter!

In the end, we are all perfectly imperfect and that's what provides us our human abilities to offer empathy and creative solutions to not only our clients, but to ourselves.

Best wishes,

Kelley

Comment by tc_Burt on June 2, 2010 at 6:27am: Culled Post? or Slip of the mouse?, I don't know. It wasn't going to be a popular comment. Personally I don't really like many women, they are competitive, deceptive and I find it hard to relate to them as many have no honour when in battle. I have seen more than one stereotype of woman who repressed in her own home environment is going to be determined to leave her "stamp" on a situation whether justified or otherwise. She is determined to "stamp" the outside world with her "self worth" (which is otherwise found under the bed she didn't make this morning). Women are often harsh judges of others and have little concern for any damage they may cause, only focussing on their own self merit in other's eyes, they need to be seen to be doing something, whether postive or otherwise. Ego is ego. I have come across more than my fair share of female counsellors and psychologists who are at best batty, and the worst absolute fruitcakes. To temper this, we also see, but to a lesser degree the same in males. BTW I am female

Comment by Kipp A. Opperman on June 2, 2010 at 3:16am: how bout this, everyone has issues, alot of them work, some work with me.

Comment by Mohammed Magsi on June 1, 2010 at 8:29pm: Most places I have worked at have had at least one backstabber either it be IT or hypnotherapy. In regards to people attracted toward psychology or similar fields having problems of their own is common then we realise. When I trained as a hypnotherapist, people's problems gave me the experience and confidence I needed to push start my self-believe that I can do this and I have not looked back since.

Comment by Richard Nongard - NLPBoard.com on June 1, 2010 at 5:28pm: ALmost all members of the helping profession are drawn into it at some level to meet their own needs. And I also think a small segment of truly evil people are drawn ot where subconsiously they think they will not bee seen- pastoring, counsling, nursing, teaching.
This is why professionals should themselves seek wise counsel, so they can meet their own needs apart from the therapeutic relationship.