Conference 2021

Kathy Carter is a neurodiversity advocate, and worked in business coaching before developing her interest in hypnotherapy. Author of the recent Hypnotherapy Journal article, ‘Becoming a neurodiversity-affirming hypnotherapist’, Kathy is passionate about busting some of the myths surrounding neurodivergent people – that is, people who processes information differently to the majority, in a given population. Neurodiversity is considered to be the diversity of the human brain and mind, and includes autism, ADHD, dyslexia, sensory processing disorder, dyspraxia and many more neurologies and conditions. Author of the book ‘Autism from A to Z’, Kathy is especially keen to help spread awareness of the needs of autistic hypnotherapy clients. An autistic individual herself, as well as a consumer of talking therapies and hypnotherapy over the years, Kathy has lived experience that may be helpful to any therapist wanting to learn more about autistic clients’ experiences, within that working alliance. Kathy works as a cognitive behavioural hypnotherapist with global social enterprise Thriving Autistic, as well as under the banner of her own practice, Arrive Therapy.

The talk ‘Embracing the neurodiversity-affirming hypnotherapist ethos’ aims to shed some light on some common myths surrounding neurodivergent and especially autistic clients – including so-called challenges with imagination and empathy, and the widely-held view that autism doesn’t define a client. Looking through a neurodivergent lens, Kathy aims to introduce some of the modern neurodiversity concepts, including language and labels, as well as some key facets of the autistic experience. These include the ‘double empathy’ problem; monotropism, which recognises and even celebrates interest-based brains; and the breaking down of unhelpful stereotypical viewpoints of autistic people and clients, especially concerning empathy, imagination, and how neurodivergence defines individuals, and shapes their identities.
Kathy will also introduce some discussion about the medical versus social model of disability – as well as how holistic, autonomic nervous system-based concepts within talking therapy position the autistic experience, in terms of individuals’ social engagement systems.
The talk will feature lots of practical tips about how a therapy room can be physically adapted to suit neurodivergent clients, how telehealth sessions may be affected, and what modality adaptions may be useful, from a neurodivergent client’s perspective.

Dr. Robert McNeilly was in a suburban Melbourne general medical practice for 10 years, had the privilege of learning directly with Milton Erickson, was inspired by his human approach to therapy, and created his own interpretation to assist clients in a respectful, dignified way with the human dilemmas that affect individuals, couples and families.

He founded the CET in l988 to introduce Ericksonian Hypnosis and the Solution Oriented Approach to hypnosis, counselling and coaching in Australia. For more than 40 years, the contribution he brings in his teaching style, writing and unique approaches to learning and therapy allow for a ready application into everyday living and are recognised locally, nationally and internationally, including repeated invited presentations at the Milton H Erickson Foundation’s International Congresses in USA since 1980 and workshops in Singapore, Denmark, Finland, Brazil, Ireland, England and The Czech Republic since 1999.

He is co-author, with Jenny Brown, of “Healing With Words”, “Healing the Whole Person” was published by Wiley, republished as “Doing Change” by St Luke’s Innovative Resources, and Crown House have published a series of DVD demonstrations of counselling and hypnosis. Tandava Press have published “Creating Connections in Ericksonian approaches to hypnosis and therapy Vol 1 & 2”, “Learning Hypnosis” and “Just Do Good Work”.

Students comment on his easy, respectful manner and his elegant ability to make complex issues approachable while retaining their essence.

1. This presentation focuses on practical applications rather than theories.
2. You will learn about a simple, respectful way of inviting anyone into hypnosis to help them to access and utilise missing resources so they can resolve their problem easily and permanently.
3. You will take away an ability to incorporate this approach into your clinical work, adding to your effectiveness and personal satisfaction.

Steve has been a full-time Hypnotherapist in East Yorkshire, England and Norway since 1992 and in that time has completed over 15,000 one-to-one therapy sessions. He is an internationally acclaimed therapy trainer, running courses for a variety of organisations around the UK and in Norway. Steve is a former Vice-Chair of the UK Guild of Hypnotist Examiners and he is accepted as an authority on hypnotic regression, with one of his specialisations being past life regression. He has completed many thousands of past life regressions with his clients and his book ‘Famous Past Lives’ describes some of his experiences in past life therapy. He has appeared on Sky One TV, GMTV and Yorkshire TV, has been regularly featured on BBC Local Radio and his work has appeared frequently in a variety of publications. He now works almost exclusively online and has clients in many countries around the world.
Steve’s websites www.lionheart-training.com and www.hypnoblogpod.wordpress.com give more info about his work. He has a YouTube channel ‘Hypno4all’ featuring free hypnotherapy recordings.

In recent years Past Life Regression has attracted a great deal of positive publicity and those therapists who use it regularly know that it is one of THE most powerful therapeutic interventions in the therapists’ arsenal of techniques.
The causes of a wide range of stress-related and emotional problems, as well as many dysfunctional behaviour patterns, can often be traced back not only into this lifetime but also back to events and traumas which have occurred in past lives.
These include:

• Fears and phobias
• Anxiety states and panic attacks
• Addictions
• Physical illnesses and pain
• Weight problems
• Skin disorders
• Lack of confidence
• Sexual problems
• Migraines
• Depression
• Obsessional behaviour
• Anger issues
• Emotional Imbalances
• Relationship problems etc, etc, etc.

By allowing our clients to recall and explore the dramas of past lives we can help to:

• Treat effectively many issues presented in therapy.
• Stimulate increased self-knowledge and reduce or overcome fear of death.
• Reveal the karmic causes of physical illnesses and heal them.
• Dissolve the negative aspects of the past which hinder growth and contentment.
• Discover a greater meaning and purpose in life and enhance spiritual awareness.

The benefits to the client are immense and quite often life changing. Past Life Regression can also be used as a means of bringing resources from the past into the present in order to help the client enhance his or her current life. Past Life Regression is also good for business – it invariably attracts publicity and can stimulate a lot interest in your therapy practice.

Steve Burgess specialises in using regression with many of his clients, working on the emotional root causes of their issues to heal them. Many of his regression sessions involve going back into previous lives, and Steve has facilitated many thousands of past life regressions over his 29 year career. His presentation will focus on the incredible healing power of past life regression, illustrated with some of his client’s past life experiences whilst in trance.
Steve will also discuss the importance of past life regression as a therapy process, and why, in his opinion, past life therapy should be treated as a mainstream therapy process, instead of being side-lined as New Age alternative therapy.

Steve has developed his own regression system which uses Ideo-Motor Response signalling to allow the client’s subconscious to not only diagnose the causes of their issue but also to lead both therapist and client into the previous lives and release the traumas which are causing the issue. Often the client also becomes aware of understandings and learnings that they bring back into their present life to give greater understanding of their life.

Steve’s presentation promises to be lively, controversial, thought-provoking and given with his trademark sense of humour!

Alicja Heyda, PhD, is a psychotherapist, clinical psychologist, psycho-oncologist, psychotherapy supervisor, breathwork practitioner, and researcher with a PhD in medical biology. During the last 20 years, she has been working at the Maria Sklodowska Curie National Research Institute of Oncology in Gliwice, Poland. In her psychotherapy practice, she focuses mainly on bodywork, breathwork and integrative psychotherapy, treating mood disorders, psychosomatic and somatisation issues, supporting recovery, and adaptation in chronic and auto-aggressive diseases. Her main areas of research include psycho-oncology and psychoneuroimmunology.

Cancer is a great challenge, both for the patients, and their families. Breathwork methods of various origins based on different rhythms and embodying awareness can be very helpful. According to research various breathwork methods quickly reduce pain, fear, panic and depression.

Polyvagal theory setting is helping to understand how the human being may self-regulate with various breathing patterns causing optimal vagal stimulation. There are many types of breathwork – faster styles which activate sympathetic (fight-flight response) and the slower of 6 breaths per minute or less which activate ventral vagal parasympathetic response related to safety and safe social connection. Slow rhythmic breathing (coherent breathing) of 6 bpm is known for its beneficial effects on regulating the peripheral nervous system through vagal nerve stimulation, improving heart-rate variability, oxygenation and reducing hypertension. Various cancer types and their treatment very often cause facial and bodily disfigurement, fatigue, pain, speech problems, and depression. Slow type breathwork is easy to introduce and helps the patients immediately to self-regulate and calm down symptoms like prolonged nausea, anticipatory nausea, panic attacks, pain, PTSD, claustrophobia during chemotherapy, radiology and radiotherapy procedures.

The presentation will include clinical cases of different breathwork interventions as a part of the psychotherapy process of cancer patients undergoing treatment.

Dr Olivia Remes is a Programme Director and researcher at the University of Cambridge, author, speaker, and life coach. Her work has been featured by the BBC and USA Today.

At the University of Cambridge, Olivia is the Programme Director of “Leading Mental Health in the Workplace” programme, focused on increasing participants’ knowledge about: anxiety, depression, and other mental health conditions; how poor mental health affects people in the workplace; and helping participants learn how to take back control of their life and bounce back.
https://www.mollerinstitute.com/team/dr-olivia-remes/

Over the past decade, Olivia Remes has developed a system of coping strategies that help people thrive and flourish in spite of obstacles; attain mental wellbeing; and overcome anxiety, depression, and stress. All of this work has gone into her book, The Instant Mood Fix, which contains 50 strategies for anxiety, stress, indecision, procrastination and common mindsets or patterns holding people back. She has delivered seminars and talks on mental wellbeing to organisations around the world. Olivia is also a coach helping people to overcome anxiety and achieve their goals in life.

Her website is: https://www.droliviaremes.com/

Anxiety is high and we’re looking for new ways to take back control of our lives. New ways to become resilient and bounce back. Whether you’ve been dealt a good or bad hand in life, now is the time to take charge and bounce back to get closer to the life you want. Cambridge University researcher, Dr. Olivia Remes will be sharing tips on overcoming anxiety, as well as obstacles in life and becoming resilient, based on research. This is especially important now that we’re going through the pandemic and our mental health has been affected in more ways than one.

The other aspect that this talk will touch on is the link between anxiety and stress, and how to achieve work-life balance. A bit of stress is good for us, because it motivates us to get things done. When stress becomes out of control, that’s when our mental health and wellbeing start to suffer. When does stress become associated with anxiety, and how can you recognise the signs of stress in yourself? In this talk, Dr. Olivia Remes, will reveal the key to this, and will teach the audience actionable strategies for taking better care of ourselves when the stress gets to be too much – it will show how you can feel in greater control and get closer to the life you want.

Kaz Riley is an award-winning and leading international clinical hypnotist, sex educator and hypnotherapy trainer. Her work with clients to overcome sexual difficulties has earned her an international reputation for excellence and innovation in the field of sexual freedom therapy, and she received the award hypnotist of the year 2019. Kaz was the first UK hypnotherapist to be a coalition partner of the National Coalition for sexual freedom in the USA. Kaz is the creator of sexual freedom hypnosis and the author of the book, Woman, how to find, understand and embrace your sexual pleasure. www.kazriley.com www.kazrileywoman.com

The study of female sexuality and the understanding of female sexual function is a relatively new science. This talk will outline the latest research and how that applies to the therapeutic setting. Many therapists shy away from sexual issues, but with 80% of women currently classified as having a sexual dysfunction, even if you don’t work with sexual issues directly you will be working with clients that have sexual issues, those issues will impact on every area of their lives. This talk will highlight why we need to educate ourselves and our clients and how to do that. This talk will be extremely frank and open, if you are offended easily, this talk might not be for you.

Miriam has a Master’s in International Development, but became a university teacher and student coach. After a burnout she reoriented towards supporting personal development with magic truffles (legal in The Netherlands) as a vehicle. She founded Guided Tripping which now has 8 guides working one-on-one with people wanting to improve their quality of life through self-exploration and empowerment.

The psychedelic renaissance is a thing to behold. There are many opportunities for people’s increased wellbeing, but also valid concerns. This talk will be give a quick overview of the workings of psychedelics, developments in the global field, and the Dutch situation specifically. Then we’ll focus in on the personal: the skills and attitudes needed by guides, how to decide who are suitable trippers, and how to create the best possible circumstances for lasting positive change.

Qualifying as a QCH Practitioner™ with the Quest Institute in 2007 led to something of an unexpected change of career for Cathy after many years in Investment Banking IT, and although working in the City may sound a bit dull, it provided an exciting focus for her work with drug use and addiction.

From the word go Cathy has always been passionate about supporting other therapists.

So, after working with some of the best heart-centred business and marketing specialists around, it was a natural (and almost inevitable) progression for her to shift focus towards helping specialist therapists build and sustain a flourishing business doing what they love.

Using a unique combination of Business Architecture, Business Therapy and the Psychology of ethical Sales and Marketing, she continues to help and support specialists, therapists, and trainers to design their practice and business for success and growth.

Winner of APCTC Therapist of the year, contributing author to The Hypnotherapy Handbook, and experienced NCH Supervisor

Cathy talks about a way of offering your services that has already transformed the practice of many therapists. A path to higher and more consistent income as well as one that gives you the confidence that your clients will get the results they crave.

We will cover how bringing your uniqueness into your practice and programmes can offer magical new ways of reaching the clients you love to work with most, even if you aren’t wedded to a niche, so your favourite clients will say ‘Yes’ as soon as they see what you offer.

You will learn the 3-sweep approach to designing client programmes that serve and sell, which has never before been shared outside of her group coaching and online programmes,
and how to quickly and easily apply this to your practice without sacrificing any flexibility.

You’ll find out why the therapy side of your business need not be completely separated from the business side, and how combining the two can even make your marketing easier.

And take away a framework you can use over and over again, with lots of new and exciting ideas.

So come and listen to some great advice and learn a strategy that can easily apply to your practice and business whatever your level of experience.

It’s time to say goodbye to the feast and famine of the uncertainty of session-by-session work.

Antonietta Angelina Viola has personal experience of mental toughness and mental resilience, over many years.

She’s a Registered Dietitian with a Masters in Public Health via research.

And is the Lead Fitness Consultant for the Casting Days & Fitness Assessments of the well-known UK TV production “SAS Who Dares Wins” for the last 6 years.

With over 20 years experience, initially working in Rural & Remote Australia, within 9 Indigenous communities; and was also the Lead Project Manger for the first Community Capacity Building project in Australia measuring community resilience.

Her experience, ranges from working in the Fitness Industry from a young age to Public Health research projects, Corporate Organisations and Professional Football Clubs in both Australia, United Kingdom & Malta and now has her own private consultancy business in the UK.

Whether you are in a group or doing a 1:1 session, Antonietta Angelina is high energy and gets you taking action fast. Her simple tools and tips on health, fitness and mental resilience will help you make changes stick. Small changes for big results, Antonietta Angelina makes it so easy you will wonder why you didn’t make the changes sooner.

Mental toughness is a valuable skill in today’s challenging world. Most people are familiar with building physical strength, but there is a lot more ambiguity when it comes to building mental strength, especially mental toughness.

Mental toughness is not always taught. It is two-fold:

1. How you perform under pressure
2. How you deal, cope and handle adversity, setbacks and challenges

Antonietta Angelina will address the skills needed to build mental toughness and resilience, answering the following questions:

1. Why is mental toughness important?
2. What is mental toughness?
3. How mental toughness and resilience is measured.
4. How to build mental toughness and resilience.
5. The science of mental toughness in Health, Work and Life.

She will look at the research, theories and applications of mental toughness, to facilitate you and your clients to succeed, even more!

Alison Knowles is a practising emotional therapist, author of the Ollie and his Super Powers series, creator of the Ollie Model, public speaker and award-winning NLP trainer. Ali’s strength is the unique way she views the world and her intuitive ability to empower you or your child to find the solutions from within.

Ali trained to be a cognitive hypnotherapist purely out of interest in the subject. Ali’s passion for learning led to further training and development in NLP and CBT, giving her an extensive toolbox of techniques and schools of thought to help just about anyone who came to her clinic, except children. Ali realised all her training, the language and the science behind it was just not suitable.

This led to the creation of the Ollie Model. – a simple therapeutic model empowering the individual to take back control of their emotions rather than being controlled by them.

The new model started with Ali as the only practitioner. It quickly became apparent that she could no longer handle the workload and a growing waiting list of people from across the UK.

Ali was hindered by her dyslexia and left school with no qualifications and therefore very few job opportunities. Still, despite those adversities, she has become a successful therapist, and consequently, she thought, why couldn’t others like her also become therapists with the proper training.

The opening of the Ollie School in 2018 has been a dream come true for Ali. Ollie Coaches are trained personally by Ali and her team, blending the best of online and classroom methods.

Ali and her Ollie Coaches are now working in numerous organisations including schools, adoption and foster agencies, county councils, charities and are particularly successful when working with children and people with special educational needs. A core belief of Ali’s is that there are no bad children, they are a result of their environment. All work that Ali and the Coaches undertake ideally include the family and professionals doing prevention and intervention work 1-2-1 and in group environments.

Ali and the Ollie model has received various awards and shortlisted for many more. The most recent being the international award NLP for Education and Ali has been shortlisted for the Positive Role Model (age) National Diversity Awards 2021.

Children are the result of their experience and the reality tunnels they are born into. They learn from us in a good way and sometimes not in a good way.

We will be exploring the lovely saying ‘apples don’t fall far from the tree’ and so consequently share the same root knowledge as the parent tree. And how to just give the young samplings the tools to create their own realities full of self-worth, resilience and self-belief by working with the whole orchard.

We will be looking at
– why working in isolation with a child to deal with their issues can often be very long winded and only create change in the context of a given situation
– how to engage all the influences in that child’s world to create meaningful and lasting change.

In order to do this, we need to look at and will be discussing how you engage those influences without breaking rapport so that that they can take on the role of therapist for the child so we can move towards children needing a lot less therapy.

Finally, all of us as committed therapists, intervene to help once a problem state has been identified. To me, this is necessary, but it is just firefighting. We will be considering how we can use our skill sets to become the fire block so that we can decrease the amount of intervention through prevention.

Director of the award-winning movies “Miracle of life-force” and “Self healed”. Webshop-Owner. Speaker. Author “The power of visions”. Inventor of the “Self healed code”.

In the last century I travelled the world to find the strongest healers, teachers, gurus, and holy people who are able to transfer the live of others quickly and lasting by working on the level of the soul. The principles how they work are explained in the talk.

But this is limited to a few participants or disciples, so I developed a self-healing-technique while producing my second movie, which uses the highest inner wisdom for making it extremely easy and effective to transform a topic.

Based in Montrose in Scotland (the home of James Esdaile), Bob Burns is regarded by his peers as one of the finest trainers in the world of Clinical Hypnosis.
He is the creator of The Swan, which is now recognised and used by therapists and healers in over 85 countries around the world and is believed to be one of, if not the finest procedure ever invented in the world of hypnotherapy.
Although still working as a full-time therapist Bob trains and mentors other therapists around the world. Specialising in teaching them The Wall (His Full Consultation).
(enquiries at: Bobburnshypnotherapy.com)

This talk will look at the world of hypnosis through evidence based and anecdotal beliefs, and the work of Bob Burns and his main protocol: The Swan.
It will ask who we human beings ARE or indeed MIGHT BE. It will investigate what we are capable of and whether or not some of us might be aware of ‘what we are capable of’.
Bob Burns will touch on the meaning of life (ouch!) and not just how our brain works, but how many brains we actually have and the importance of knowing which one we need to trust!
He will look at psychosomatic illnesses and the amazing potential of psychosomatic cures, including placebos, the pendulum and how and why they work.
If there is time he will touch on a couple case studies and if possible (live audience?) will give a demonstration of his work.

Professor Peter Whorwell, MD BSc PhD FRCP, is director of the Neurogastroenterology unit at Wythenshawe Hospital in Manchester. His unit undertakes research into the clinical, aetiological, epidemiological and physiological aspects of Irritable bowel syndrome and other functional gastrointestinal disorders as well as receiving referrals of complex cases from all over the United Kingdom and abroad. He personally sees approximately 400 new patients with irritable bowel syndrome every year and has over 380 publications in a variety of books and peer-reviewed journals. He has also published a book for sufferers from Irritable bowel syndrome called ‘Take control of your IBS’ that has received excellent reviews from readers. Many years ago he developed a hypnotherapy programme for IBS which has proved to be highly effective for both IBS and other functional gastrointestinal disorders. The unit continues to use gut focused hypnosis for treating patients as well as undertaking research into this phenomenon.

An introduction to functional gastrointestinal disorders, their impact on sufferers and how they are treated conventionally. There will then be a discussion on how hypnotherapy can be used in these conditions and the science that supports its use.