“Use your experience of the past to become a great hypnotherapist”
There are many clichés to help motivate us as we get older; many a good tune played on an old fiddle for example. In many cases, there is a lot of stigma with regards to getting older, where people discriminate on the assumption that an older person is less capable. In fact, the experience of our lives makes us more mature, and allows us to work more effectively in certain situations and in particular as hypnotherapists.
In this day and age we are living for longer, and the age at which we associate with an older person is in fact getting much younger. Unfortunately discrimination occurs so often with older people, as there is often always someone much younger ready to do the job, and do it faster, and cheaper.
Many larger companies, like call centres are known for employing younger people, mainly due to their lower pay and fresh approach. But they often give young people a poor image of customer care and empathy. Young people certainly don’t lack care or compassion, it’s simply that they don’t have the life experiences to understand and empathise effectively with people.
Empathy is something that develops over time. It’s the ability to relate to a client’s situation based upon previous relevant experiences. So unless you have experienced the death of a loved one, grief, illness or hardship in any other way, it is almost impossible to expect a person to empathise and work compassionately with a person. Therefore it doesn’t matter how much training, whether theory or practical you undergo, it is unlikely that a younger person with less experience or understanding could provide hypnotherapy effectively.
Young people definitely do not have a shortage of enthusiasm, dedication and a refreshing sense of moral purpose in terms of our culture and environment. But when it comes to treatment appropriate to helping people with sensitive issues, older people with a lifetime of experience and their development of empathy skills, is always a better option.
Paul White is a lecturer at The Surrey Institute of Clinical Hypnotherapy in Surrey; he helps people to change careers, to start a new life, and to feel good because they enjoy what they do. There is only one thing better than being helped, and that’s helping someone else.
The prospect of starting a new career is daunting for anyone. But there is nothing better than using life experiences to help others and further that ambition. It is always best to be able to consider life from the client’s point of view. Your client doesn’t really want to be greeted with someone who perhaps claims to be a life coach, yet has only recently graduated from college.
Experience and maturity certainly matter when it comes to a career as a hypnotherapist. And in this case, older is often better.
Paul White has been a practising hypnotherapist for many years, training at the Hypnotherapy Training Institute of Los Angeles and with the Canadian Institute of Hypnotherapy.
He is currently a Director of the Surrey Institute of Clinical Hypnotherapy and Chairman of the National Council for Hypnotherapy, the United Kingdom’s premier association for qualified hypnotherapists.
Paul works at The Surrey Institute of Clinical Hypnotherapy in Wallington, Surrey, UK.
Interesting article. I certainly agree that as you get older you have more life experience, and are able to empathise with clients as you have often been through many different situations such as bereavement. The one time it may help to be a younger hypnotherapist is perhaps when seeing younger clients such as students.