How experienced are most hypnotherapists?

This pie chart below is based on original research which I conducted in December 2019. Data was gathered from public registers of the British Society for Clinical Hypnosis, the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy, the National Council for Hypnotherapy, and from the Hypnotherapy Directory website. Further research on specific areas of the country suggests that between them these registers and directory cover about 60% of all hypnotherapists advertising on Google. Where not stated explicitly on their website, the age of each practice was estimated from the earliest capture of their website on the Wayback Machine. Comparison with my ongoing survey of all new hypnotherapists appearing in my own area since 1993 suggests this is a valid means of approximating the age of a site, although the Wayback Machine may take a year or so to find a new site.

The most striking result of this survey is the very large percentage of hypnotherapists who have been in practice for only a short while. For instance, we see that 44% had been in practice less than 5 years and 72% for less than ten years.

This is due to a very high turnover in the profession, with most new hypnotherapists going out of business within a few years. Obviously a therapist who’s only been in practice for a few years will not have built up much experience in helping different types of client with different types of problems. Even the best hypnosis training is only a beginning- we learn most of what we know by actually doing the job. This is the same for every profession.

I began my practice in 1994 although already I saw a few clients in London in 1993. So you can see from the chart that only about 3% of hypnotherapists have as much experience as I do.

From the same database I have also created a map showing the distribution of hypnotherapists in different parts of the UK, which you can see HERE. This may be of interest if you’re thinking of training as a hypnotherapist yourself.

This chart may be copied or linked to on any website so long as a link back to my own website is added.