my name is Nick Evans and I am the founder and lead trainer here at Active NLP Ltd.
It's important to realise that NLP and Hypnosis are not therapies in themselves and you don't need licences and permissions to use them per se.
Yes, therapists use NLP and Hypnosis BUT so do life coaches and managers, performers and sports people, doctors and and nurses, dentists, soldiers, small business owners, bankers and CEOs.
And that's because NLP and Hypnosis are safe, positive and natural ways of harnessing the power of the mind and imagination making them work for us and not against us.
NLP has many strengths, but a clear and helpful name is not one if them.
I'd love the opportunity to talk to you about what we do here at Active NLP so please get in touch.
Even if you decide we are not what you're looking for, I'll still share my top three tips with you for spotting a novice NLP or Hypnosis trainer. You can then carry on your search safe in the knowledge you'll pick a good one.
Or to discuss a tailored program for your business or organisation contact Nick direct using the contact details above.
Technical consultant to TV and media productions,
His love of learning is not only for his own personal development but he firmly believes that it is only by understanding each other’s ideas, customs, motivations and values that the peace and prosperity we all want will become commonplace, as it should be.
Nick is currently running accredited NLP & Hypnosis courses in the UK & Spain. Plus an online project in the Czech Republic in collaboration with Brain Tools CZ who are one of the leading online learning providers in Europe.
By Nicholas Evans. © Active NLP Ltd
To provide accurate information to potential students about NLP and Hypnotherapy regulation so they can choose a course based on fact not fear & reason not rumour.
The trouble is they all look credible. I know of one very successful training company who promotes their courses as being accredited by the Association of Integrative Psychology (AIP), which sound sounds very impressive until you visit the AIP website and realise they are a very small outfit based in Hawaii. I believe this company is using the idea of ‘accreditation’ to justify charging
that’s £300 per day for what is normally a Foundation Level Course. This problem is exasserbated when you include Hypnotherapy and the dozens of other disciplines that make up what is known as Complimentary and Alternative Medicine (CAM). Anything classified as a CAM outside of Osteopathy and Chiropractic is completely unregulated by the government or statutory body. The CAM market as a whole is worth millions of pounds and so it is no surprise that market forces have been the dominant mechanism by which CAM training companies succeed or fail. If people want online courses that certify them as ‘Clinical Hypnotherapists’ then there are a plenty of providers willing to offer such a product.
The potential risk to the public was the primary motivation for calls of tighter regulation of the whole CAM field. This is a noble idea, but regulating CAM therapies is a complex matter. If you regulate them by law then you confer legitimacy on them when none may exist, if you do nothing then you leave it all to market forces, and quite rightly we are cautious of putting vulnerable people into the hands of market forces.
The latest scheme promoted in the 2012 Health and Social Care bill is called Assured Voluntary Regulation (AVR). You may have seen the logo, a purple icon with Professional Standards Association (PSA) Accredited Register written over it. This scheme has caused quite a stir, especially in the hypnosis community, with professional bodies, training providers and individual practitioners stampeding towards inclusion. I have spent considerable time and effort examining the pros and cons of the AVR system by going directly to government sources and even searching through the minutes of select committee meetings. My findings are available in a separate article, too big for inclusion here.
What follows for now is a summary of the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) I respond to on a daily basis from people looking for NLP and Hypnosis courses and who are confused about which course they should take. It provides an accurate map of UK regulation today and I hope it helps you to do the right thing and choose a course based on fact not rumour.
Whenever I tell people that Hypnotherapy is not regulated by the government they don't believe me. They assume that clinical hypnotherapists, counsellors and psychotherapists undergo the same level of training that is required by doctors, nurses and other health professionals. They point to the logos and strap lines used on websites as evidence of ‘government endorsement’ and quality assurance. They are not happy to learn that these 'government schemes' are all run by private companies for profit and can require as little as 10 days face to face training to join. Potential hypnotherapy students are also often misinformed as to the true nature of the UK hypnotherapy market. Many have felt pressured to buy courses and training packages based on misleading information. Decisions they have regretted at leisure once reality hits home. Remember, a suggestion in trance doesn't need to be true, just plausible, and providers will legitimately use their hypnotic skills to sell courses as well as teach them.
In order to help potential students make informed choices I have put together a set of FAQs based on documented evidence. Whether you choose to train with me or elsewhere they will help you ask the right questions of your training provider.
Q1. Can anyone advertise and work as a counsellor, psychotherapist, CBT therapist or clinical hypnotherapist without any qualifications or experience whatsoever?
Yes. The whole area of professional standards in Complimentary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) is still a mess and getting messier. As it stands anyone can call themselves a counsellor, psychotherapist, CBT therapist, clinical hypnotherapist or clinical anything because they are all classed as CAM therapies and there is no statutory regulation governing CAM therapies in the UK. There have been several attempts to bring CAMs under government control (statutory regulation) but the system promoted in the 2012 Health and Social care act is one called 'Assured Voluntary Regulation (AVR). The job of getting people and organisations to sign up to an AVR scheme fell to a QUANGO called the Professional Standards Authority (PSA). You may have seen adverts by therapists and training schools claiming they are regulated by the same 'government organisation' that regulates doctors and psychiatrists. This clever use of words disguises the fact that they are no more regulated by the British Medical Council (BMC) than a private security guard is regulated by the Ministry of Justice. They get away with this blatant misrepresentation because the 2012 Health and Social Care act gave the PSA an advisory role that covers both conventional and alternative medicine. A profusion of private companies are willing to pay the PSA 12,000 pounds a year to be part of the AVR scheme. These private companies know they can attract membership fees of many times that from individual practitioners who are either fearful of not being part of the scheme or desirous of the apparent stamp of official approval and legitimacy it gives them.
