Frequently Asked Questions

In the short video below, Andy explains what to expect from the free 20-minute consultation before you book any sessions.

In the short video below, Andy talks through the range of issues his treatments can help with.

In the short video below, Andy describes the type of clients he works with.

In the short video below, Andy answers whether the effects of hypnotherapy tend to be long-lasting.

The first thing I want to do is understand what you’re currently experiencing. When did it start? What’s been happening in your life? Have there been significant events? And importantly, what do you actually want? That last bit is really important to me. I need to understand how you want life to be different. What would that look like? How would you know things had changed? Sometimes we get there through a fairly short conversation. Sometimes it takes longer. That first appointment is really about getting underneath the bonnet, figuring out what’s actually going on and understanding where you want to get to.

Most people don’t. You might just know you feel anxious. A bit down. Uncomfortable doing certain things. Maybe you don’t feel like yourself anymore. That’s enough. You don’t need to arrive having figured yourself out. That’s partly my job. Quite often, the thing somebody initially comes to see me about isn’t really the thing underneath it. We’ll figure that out together.

That’s completely understandable. One of the key things about my sessions is that we don’t spend hours talking about the problem. You already know the problem inside out. You’ve probably spent weeks, months or even years thinking about it. You don’t need to explain every detail to me. Give me as much information as you’re comfortable giving me and I’ll work with that. I can also work content-free, which means there are situations where I don’t even need to know the specific details of what happened or what you’re thinking in order for us to work with the process behind it.

Only if you want to. Understanding your past can sometimes help me understand what’s happening now, but I don’t need every detail. If you’re comfortable talking about something and it’s useful to the therapy, we’ll talk about it. But you’re not going to spend session after session going through everything that’s ever happened to you. That’s not how I work.

No. You tell me what you’re comfortable telling me. I’m not going to probe you or try to force you into revealing something you want to keep private. There are also ways of working where I don’t need to know the content of something at all. You stay in control of what you share.

Then there’s a box of tissues sitting there for exactly that reason. People sometimes feel embarrassed or ashamed when they become emotional. But we’re humans. We’re meant to experience and express emotion. Getting emotional doesn’t mean anything has gone wrong with the session. You’re in a supportive environment. There’s no judgement and there’s absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about.

There are so many things that influence whether therapy works for somebody. One of the biggest is the relationship you have with the therapist. You need to feel that there’s a connection. That they understand you. That you can work with them. A lot of people who come to me have previously tried CBT, counselling or other forms of therapy and haven’t got what they wanted from it. I’m interested in understanding what you’ve already tried and what happened. I want to make the therapy fit you rather than trying to make you fit the therapy. Because I’m trained across different approaches, I have different ways of working. I’m not trying to strong-arm everybody into the same model.

Trust your gut. Do your homework. Look at my reviews. Look at how I work. And that’s exactly why I offer a free 20-minute consultation. You get the chance to speak to me, ask questions and get a feel for whether I’m somebody you could work with. I’m doing the same thing. If I don’t believe I’m the right person to help you, I’ll tell you. There are some things I don’t work with and, where I can, I’ll point you towards somebody more appropriate. There’s absolutely no pressure to book.

I’m a clinical hypnotherapist and psychotherapist, and I use a range of different approaches. That can include hypnotherapy, EMDR, Brainspotting, NLP, coaching and other psychotherapeutic approaches. But the important thing isn’t the list of techniques. It’s you. My sessions aren’t stuffy, formal therapy where I’m sitting there analysing you. It’s two humans working together. I adapt what I do based on the person sitting in front of me and what they’re experiencing.

No. If I don’t believe hypnotherapy is the right approach for you at that point, I’ll tell you. With some fears, phobias and confidence issues, hypnotherapy may form part of the first session. With trauma, significant anxiety, PTSD or CPTSD, I may choose not to use hypnotherapy initially. There’s a reason behind everything we do and I’ll explain that to you. So hypnotherapy may be part of our work, but you’re not automatically getting hypnotised because you’ve booked an appointment with a hypnotherapist.

Absolutely not. You retain control. Hypnosis is a collaboration between you and me. You can hear what’s happening around you. You can open your eyes. You’re not unconscious and you’re not under my control. I tend to describe it as a state of focused attention combined with mental and physical relaxation. I don’t really see myself as hypnotising you. I’m guiding you through a process that you participate in. And before we do anything, I’ll explain what’s going to happen so you feel as comfortable as possible.

That’s really common. Lots of people arrive wondering whether they can be hypnotised. Some have even tried hypnotherapy previously and felt nothing happened. I don’t force it. If I think you’re too anxious, too vigilant or simply not ready at that point, that’s okay. There are plenty of other ways we can work while helping you become more comfortable with hypnosis. Some people respond to it very easily. Others need a little more time. We work with where you are rather than trying to force you somewhere you’re not.

You don’t need to arrive as a complete believer. Plenty of people come to me sceptical. What I do need is for you to be willing to engage with the process. If you’ve already completely decided it’s nonsense and spend the whole session internally trying to prove it doesn’t work, that’s obviously going to make things more difficult. I spend time explaining what’s happening and I’ll often demonstrate how powerful some of these automatic processes are before we even get to hypnosis. You can be sceptical. Just be curious enough to give it a go.

Absolutely. Most people don’t know exactly why they’re anxious. Once we start looking at what’s happening, things often begin to make more sense. People start recognising moments in their life, patterns and experiences that connect some of the dots. A big part of my work is helping you understand what your anxiety may be trying to do for you. That awareness can be incredibly useful because otherwise it can feel like you’re fumbling around in the dark fighting something you don’t understand.

This is actually one of the areas I particularly understand because I spent a significant part of my own life struggling with panic attacks and panic disorder. Panic attacks can feel as though they come completely out of nowhere. Often, when we look underneath them, there has been something building beneath the surface. One of the first things I work on is helping you understand what’s happening and giving you ways of responding differently when you feel panic building. Because when you stop being terrified of the next panic attack, you’ve already removed a huge amount of fuel from the cycle.

I completely understand. I’ve had my own experience of intrusive thoughts and OCD-type patterns in the past. And importantly, you don’t necessarily need to tell me the content of your thoughts. We can work with the loop. We can understand what your brain is doing, what keeps the cycle running, the anxiety underneath it and the behaviours that temporarily give you relief but keep pulling you back into the loop. We can work with the mechanics without you having to tell me something you’re not comfortable sharing.

My approach is not about throwing you straight back into a traumatic experience and making you relive every detail. For me, readiness matters. Before processing difficult experiences, I want to know that you have the capacity and resources to do that work. There are ways of helping people process trauma without requiring a detailed retelling of everything that happened. Your psychological safety matters throughout that process.

Yes. I work with lots of different fears and phobias. Flying. Driving. Public speaking. Animals. Needles. Claustrophobia. And plenty of others. The frustrating thing about a phobia is that consciously you may know the fear doesn’t make sense. But the response isn’t necessarily being generated by the logical part of your mind. When we understand how that response has been learned and maintained, we can start working with it differently. Some phobias respond quite quickly to therapy, although everybody is different.

Yes. And again, I understand this personally because I used to be a massive overthinker. Trying to control thoughts generally doesn’t work very well. The more you desperately try not to think something, the more attention you give it. My work is much more about changing how you respond to your thoughts and where you put your attention. Overthinking can also be a symptom of something else going on underneath. When we work with what’s driving it, the overthinking often starts settling down too.

I see this all the time. You’ve analysed it. You’ve read about it. You understand where it came from. You can probably explain yourself brilliantly. And you’re still stuck. Sometimes the analysing itself becomes part of the problem because you’re trying to consciously think your way out of processes that aren’t being driven purely by conscious thought. Understanding is useful. But understanding something and changing it aren’t always the same thing. That’s where the type of work I do can be particularly useful.

There’s very little you could tell me that’s going to shock me. After years of working with people, I’ve heard all sorts. You can give me as much or as little detail as you want. And sometimes I’ll share something from my own experience if I think it’ll help you realise just how strange our brains can become when we’re struggling. A thought feeling embarrassing doesn’t mean there’s something fundamentally wrong with you. It means you’re human and your brain has been doing something you don’t understand yet.

It doesn’t automatically mean you’re stuck with it. The underlying principles of working with something can be similar whether you’ve experienced it for months or years. The difference is that if you’ve been responding in a particular way for a long time, you’ve had a lot of practice doing it. Those responses can become conditioned and habitual. Part of the work may therefore involve repeatedly practising different responses so your brain gets better at doing something new. You’re not just understanding the old pattern. You’re learning a new one.

Typically, people I work with may have around two or three sessions, although this depends entirely on what we’re working with and the individual. Some specific fears or phobias may only require one session. More complex anxiety or trauma-related work may involve several sessions. Sometimes we also uncover something along the way that needs a little more work. I don’t sell you a predetermined block because I don’t know how many sessions you’ll need until we start working together.

That varies enormously. People learn and change at different speeds. Sometimes somebody experiences a very obvious shift during the therapy session itself. More often, I think change is subtler than people expect. You might suddenly realise you did something without thinking about it. You went somewhere you normally avoid. Something happened and you responded differently. You slept better. You suddenly realise you haven’t thought about something for three days. Sometimes you notice change after it’s already happened.

Tell me. I’m constantly checking in and looking at what’s happening outside the therapy room. I want you to go out and test drive the work we’re doing. If something isn’t changing, I want to know. Then we can understand why and decide whether we need to work differently. No therapist can honestly guarantee they’ll help every single person. If I don’t believe we’re getting where we need to get, I’d rather have that conversation with you than keep booking appointments for the sake of it.

Possibly. It depends on what we’re working on. A lot of people arrive without many useful coping strategies, or they’ve developed coping strategies that help temporarily but create other problems. I may give you simple things to practise between sessions. I’m not interested in giving you hours of homework. I want to give you things you can actually use in normal life. The aim is to empower you, not make you dependent on a therapist.

Therapy is confidential and protecting your privacy is incredibly important. There are, however, limits to confidentiality. For example, if there were serious concerns about your safety, somebody else’s safety, safeguarding issues, or another situation where I have a professional or legal obligation to act, I may need to share relevant information with an appropriate person or service. Wherever possible, I would discuss that with you. I’ll also explain confidentiality and its limits when we start working together.

Yes. I don’t make people commit to a predetermined number of sessions. I’ve personally experienced being asked to commit to a certain amount of therapy and I don’t work that way. Sometimes somebody gets what they need quickly. Sometimes it takes longer. If you’re starting therapy, I’d encourage you to come into it prepared to engage with the process rather than judging everything from the first hour. But you’re not buying a block of appointments. We book as we go.

Most sessions are around an hour. I allow some flexibility because human beings don’t always fit neatly into a 60-minute box. Sometimes we might run 10 or 15 minutes over. I’m also constantly thinking about whether we have enough time and space left in a session before opening something significant. If something does come up towards the end, there are ways of safely containing or parking it so we can return to it. I’m not going to open something huge with two minutes left and then shove you out the door.

As of September 2026, my standard therapy sessions are £70. If you book online, there’s a £20 deposit to secure the appointment. After that, you pay for sessions as you go. You don’t have to pay for several sessions upfront. Some specialist sessions, such as stop-smoking work, may be priced differently and occasionally I offer specific packages. But standard therapy is generally pay as you go.

Yes. I work face-to-face and over Zoom. I have worked with clients across the UK and internationally. Many therapeutic approaches can work very effectively online, so being unable to come to the therapy room doesn’t automatically mean we can’t work together. We can talk about whether online or face-to-face feels most appropriate for you.

Absolutely. That’s exactly why I offer a free 20-minute consultation. We can do that face-to-face, over the phone or on Zoom. It gives you a chance to ask questions and gives me a chance to understand what’s happening and whether I think I can help. At the end I’ll normally say something along the lines of: “Look, there’s no pressure from me. Take some time to think. If you want to book, you can book online or drop me an email.” If you’re happy to book there and then, we can put something in the diary. But there’s genuinely no pressure from me.

This happens. Sometimes the very thing somebody wants help with makes coming to therapy feel difficult. The key thing is communication. Tell me. We might already have discussed it during your consultation and have a plan. If getting through the door feels too much initially, we might even consider starting online. Don’t disappear because you’re anxious about being anxious. Let me know and we’ll work out what makes sense.

Absolutely. They can bring you and wait outside or in the waiting area. Or, if it would help you, there may be situations where they can come into the session with you. Just let me know beforehand. That way I can structure things appropriately and make sure their presence is supporting the work rather than getting in the way of what you need.

Yes. I generally work with children from around eight years old upwards. But age alone doesn’t tell me whether therapy is appropriate. That’s why I ask for a consultation first where I can speak with the parent and, where appropriate, the child. Engagement is really important. If I don’t believe I’m able to engage with a young person in the way that’s needed, I’ll be upfront about that.

Usually, yes, but exactly how that works depends on the child, their age, what we’re working on and safeguarding considerations. Some young people communicate very differently when their parent is sitting beside them. There may therefore be times when having some space to speak privately is useful. That would be discussed with you. I’m working with the young person, but I’m also working collaboratively with you as their parent or carer where appropriate. The aim is for everybody to understand the boundaries from the beginning.

In many cases, yes. Lots of people who come to me are taking medication or have previously or currently been involved with CBT, counselling or another form of support. If you’re under the care of a psychiatrist, specialist mental health service or structured care plan, I may recommend that you discuss working with me with the professionals already involved in your care. We want the different pieces of support around you to work together rather than against each other.

Absolutely not. You don’t need a diagnosis to come and see me. And my role isn’t to diagnose you. We look at what you’re experiencing, how it’s affecting your life and what you want to change. That’s what we work with.

That’s okay. We start with what you want to change and what’s getting in the way. I have a phrase I use a lot: “The thing is never the thing.” What you initially think is the problem isn’t always what’s actually driving it. My job is to help figure out what’s really happening and then explain what I think might be the most appropriate way of working with it.

No. I’ve had plenty of my own struggles over the years and I understand that when people are struggling they can think, feel and behave in ways that don’t feel like them. I’m not sitting there grading your life choices. We’re trying to understand what’s happening and help you move forward.

This happens more often than you might think. I’ve had people suddenly stop halfway through talking and say, “Oh my God. I’ve never told anybody that before.” Sometimes they hadn’t even planned to tell me. They just realised they felt safe enough to say it. Being able to finally acknowledge something you’ve carried privately can feel significant. What you share is treated confidentially, subject to the professional and safeguarding limits I’ll explain to you. And if what you’ve shared is relevant to the work, we’ll use it to help understand what’s been happening rather than judging it.

That’s a completely understandable concern. Talking can be incredibly helpful when it’s done at the right pace and in the right way. But I don’t believe endlessly talking about painful experiences is automatically helpful. There’s a balance. I want enough information for us to understand what’s happening and do the work without unnecessarily overwhelming you. Part of my job is watching that balance.

Absolutely not. I’ve personally experienced that style of therapy and found it incredibly frustrating. My style couldn’t be more different. Of course we’ll talk. But there comes a point where we’ve talked enough about the problem and need to actually start doing something with it. We’re getting under the bonnet. We’re doing the work.

No. There are no pocket watches. I’m not going to stare into your eyes and tell you you’re getting sleepy. My therapy room is comfortable and informal. You’ll normally sit in a comfortable chair. I’ll be sitting opposite you. Think less stereotypical therapist’s couch and more two people having a proper conversation over a cup of tea.

That’s okay. In therapy we sometimes call this holding space. A silence isn’t necessarily empty. You might be thinking about something. Feeling something. Deciding whether you’re ready to say something. I’m not going to deliberately sit there staring at you through what feels like three hours of awkward silence. But sometimes there are little bits of gold in those moments. We don’t always need to rush in and fill them.

Then you don’t cry. Crying isn’t a benchmark for whether therapy is working. Some people cry easily. Some don’t. Some people have become disconnected from their emotions and that might form part of what we’re working with. Other people simply process things differently. I’m not waiting for tears before I decide we’ve achieved something.

Welcome to the club. I adapt my style to the person I’m working with. If you occasionally swear, I’m not going to clutch my pearls. And humour can be a brilliant therapeutic tool when it’s used appropriately. Sometimes people use humour because they’re uncomfortable. Sometimes it’s simply how they communicate. I’m not going to sit there frowning at you. I’ll meet you in that space while still keeping what we’re doing therapeutic and useful.

Again, welcome to the club. Human beings can become incredibly good at performing “I’m fine.” A lot of people who walk through my door are functioning on the outside while something completely different is happening underneath. You don’t have to announce to the world that you’re struggling. But in the therapy room, we can put the performance down for an hour and look at what’s actually happening.

Then tell me. You will not offend me. The relationship between you and your therapist matters. I want you to feel you’re in the right place with somebody you can work with. And that works both ways. If I don’t believe I’m the right therapist for you, I’ll tell you as early as possible and do it in a way that doesn’t leave you thinking you’ve somehow failed therapy. Sometimes two people simply aren’t the right therapeutic fit. That’s okay.

Welcome to the club. Most people don’t arrive with a beautifully constructed therapeutic objective. They normally arrive knowing one thing: “I don’t want to keep feeling like this.” That’s enough. We’ll work out the rest together.

This is actually something we start talking about in the first session. I want to know what life would look like six or eight weeks from now if you looked back and thought: “Do you know what? Coming here was one of the best decisions I’ve made.” What’s different? What are you doing? What aren’t you doing anymore? How do you feel? If I don’t understand the outcome you’re looking for, it’s very difficult for me to know what we’re aiming at. We start with the destination in mind.

Yes, when it’s useful to you. I don’t believe I need to pretend I’ve floated through life completely untouched by anxiety or struggle. I’ve had my own experiences. If sharing something from my life helps normalise what you’re experiencing or helps you realise you’re not the only person whose brain has done something like this, I’ll use it. But there’s an important distinction. The session is still about you. I’m bringing my experience into the room when it helps your therapy, not turning your therapy session into a conversation about me.

I can really only speak about my own approach and my own experiences. I personally didn’t get what I needed from counselling or CBT when I was struggling. What I do now is different. Talking has a place. Understanding has a place. But there’s only so much talking about the problem I find useful. At some point we stop talking about what’s happening and start working with the processes that are keeping it going. That practical, flexible approach is much closer to how I work.

Think about going to the gym. You could use the treadmill. You could lift weights. You could use the rowing machine. Which one makes sense depends on what you’re trying to achieve. Therapy is similar. I might use hypnotherapy. EMDR. Brainspotting. NLP. Psychotherapeutic techniques. Coaching. Sometimes I’ll combine approaches. I’m not sitting before the session thinking, “Today everybody gets EMDR.” First I need to understand you. Then I choose and adapt the tools around the person sitting in front of me.

No. That’s my job. I’ll explain what we’re doing and why we’re doing it in normal language. I don’t want you sitting there thinking: “Why the hell am I doing this?” You should understand enough about what’s happening for it to make sense. I’m not interested in burying you in clinical terminology. I’ll explain it in layman’s terms as we go.

That’s okay. I’ll give you enough information to understand what we’re doing. But sometimes that highly analytical part of somebody is actually connected to the problem. It can be about control. Certainty. Needing to completely understand something before allowing yourself to experience it. If I think your need to analyse everything is starting to get in the way of the therapy, I’ll point it out and we might actually work with that. You don’t have to switch your brain off. But you also don’t have to intellectually solve every part of therapy for it to help you.

Not really. I have a free download on my website that talks about preparing for therapy and what you should expect from your therapist if you’d like something to read beforehand. But don’t turn preparation into another thing to worry about. Come prepared to tell me a little about how life has been for you, what you’ve been experiencing and, if you can, how you’d like life to be different. That last part can really help. And if you don’t know yet, we’ll work it out.

Don’t overthink this. You don’t need to arrive in some perfect zen-like state. If you’re tired because you’ve been working all week, you’re tired. That’s real life. You don’t need to dramatically change your caffeine habits just because you’re coming to see me. I would, however, advise you not to consume alcohol before your session. Otherwise, just come as you are.

We’ll have a plan. Quite often, I’m sending you back out into the real world to test drive what we’ve done. That’s where we find out what’s changing. Some people like to put their next session straight into the diary because they prefer knowing it’s booked. Others want to go away, do the work, see what happens and then book online when they’re ready. Both are fine.

Yes. I talk about this with clients because I don’t want you sitting at home wondering what you’re supposed to do if something comes up. Depending on what’s appropriate, you can contact me through the usual channels and I can provide brief guidance around the work we’re doing. That doesn’t replace a therapy session and it isn’t an emergency or 24-hour crisis service. But therapy doesn’t have to mean I disappear completely for several weeks and then magically reappear at your next appointment. If something relevant comes up between sessions, communicate with me.