As someone looking for hypnotherapy training, you may have searched Google for ‘hypnotherapy training courses’, or you may have searched for ‘hypnotherapy certification courses’. Now, whilst you may have gotten similar search results, maybe even seeing some of the same hypnotherapy training companies appearing, there’s a key difference between hypnotherapy training and hypnotherapy certification…
‘Training’ focuses on learning how to do what you want to do, so with hypnotherapy training, you will be learning the skills required to become a hypnotherapist. ‘Certification’, on the other hand, focuses more on the ‘piece of paper’ (certificate) that you get at the end of the course, rather than the training that the course offers. There are many courses out there that offer good training as well as certification at the end of it all. There are also many courses that offer great training without the need for certification at the end (look at the majority of our short online courses for example). In contrast to those courses that offer great training, there are also some really poor-quality training courses out there, some of which offer really professional looking certificates, that actually aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.
So, as a hypnotherapy student, what do you need to look for? Well, sure, having a certificate that says ‘Certified Hypnotherapist’ on it is great. It gives you a nice feeling inside, and it looks good for your prospective clients. However, if the course you take doesn’t actually train you to do hypnotherapy properly, and you’re left thinking ‘how do I actually help people?’, how much is your shiny new certificate going to help? (Unfortunately, not much.)
When I personally started out in the hypnosis world, I took an online ‘diploma’ course… To pass this online diploma, you’d have the difficult task of reading a single book, and re-wording sections of the book as answers on your exam paper. That was it. The people running the course didn’t give a flying fart whether I actually knew what I was doing by the end of the ‘course’ (I didn’t). Nobody cared whether I could actually do the techniques from the book (I couldn’t), but I passed anyway, and I got a certificate to say I knew all about something that in fact I absolutely sucked at!
(I subsequently went and got more, better quality training! lol)
The key thing that you want to look for with any course, is the training content itself. What will you actually get from taking the course? What skills will you learn? How will you be able to help your clients? Will it give you all that you need in order to do what you want to do? If your course gives you all that you need, then your results will speak louder than any certificate ever would.
Another thing to consider, is that not all hypnotherapy courses need to offer certification. For example, with a hypnotherapy diploma or hypnotherapy certificate course, it’s likely that you would expect to get a certificate at the end. However, with a foundation or ‘introduction’ level course, you probably wouldn’t expect a certificate, as you’d just be learning ‘the basics’, and so a certificate isn’t really required. Similarly, with a course that teaches you a specific hypnotherapy technique (such as the ‘XYZ negative belief removal approach’), you might expect to become a certified ‘XYZ negative belief removal approach practitioner’, in which case you’d likely get a certificate. However, if you did a broader (non-branded) course that teaches you the same thing, working with negative beliefs (such as our course, ‘working with beliefs‘), you might not expect a certification, as the course is more for continued professional development, meaning you’re developing your skills beyond where you’re already at. So, you’re not qualifying as being able to do something new, but simply adding to your pre-existing skill-set.
No matter what you’re looking to learn, or whether you’re just starting out or you’re already a seasoned professional hypnotherapist, don’t be blinded by certificates – they are not what’s most important, not for you, and not for your clients. Look for the deeper meaning. Look for the benefits, the skills and the positive take-home points that a hypnotherapy training course gives you… and if you get a nice shiny certificate too, think of it as an added bonus!
We hope you’ve enjoyed this quick blog about hypnotherapy training vs hypnotherapy certification, and if you have any more questions about this topic, or anything else for that matter, do please get in touch, because we’re always happy to help!
– written by Rory Z Fulcher
(Hypnosis-Courses.com Trainer)
