Gentle, Trauma-Informed Hypnotherapy for Real Change
Clinical hypnosis is a safe, supportive way to access the deeper parts of your mind where healing, insight, and lasting change can happen. If you’re looking for clinical hypnosis in Ottawa, this approach is designed to help you reconnect with your inner resources in a calm, respectful, and empowering way.
Your unconscious mind is naturally creative, intuitive, and responsive. Through hypnotherapy, you can learn how to work with this inner wisdom to reduce stress, build resilience, and let go of old patterns that no longer serve you. Many clients also learn self-hypnosis, which can support ongoing growth between sessions by reinforcing feelings of calm, confidence, and emotional balance.
How Clinical Hypnosis Works
During a clinical hypnosis session, you enter a relaxed, focused state that feels right for you. Everyone experiences hypnosis differently — there’s no “right” way to do it. Some people relax quickly, while others stay more alert and aware. Both are completely normal and effective.
You are always in control during hypnosis. You can talk, ask questions, shift your level of awareness, or stop the process at any time. Hypnosis is a collaborative experience, guided by the therapist to help access your creative unconscious mind in a way that feels safe and supportive.
Myths
Clinical hypnosis focuses on helping you to access and heal parts of your mind or bring to consciousness new and better ways of interacting with yourself and the world. Error messages – often from childhood - can be healed and changed through new insights. You cannot be asked to do anything that your unconscious mind doesn't want to do.
Myth: You lose control under hypnosis. You are always in control and cannot be made to do so anything against your will or moral judgment.
Myth: It is a state of sleep or unconsciousness. You are fully aware and conscious of your surroundings and remember what happens during a session.
Myth: It can recover forgotten memories. While sometimes used for this purpose, hypnosis can increase the risk of creating false memories, making it an unreliable method for memory retrieval.
Myth: You can get ‘stuck’ in a hypnotic state. This cannot happen. A person can exit a hypnotic state at any time and will naturally come out of it if the session is interrupted.
Clinical Hypnosis vs. Stage Hypnosis
Clinical hypnosis is very different from stage or television hypnosis.
Clinical hypnotherapy is:
- Individualized and client-centered
- Trauma-informed and clinically appropriate
- Focused on healing, not performance
- Based on therapeutic language, metaphor
Sessions are tailored to your goals and readiness, especially for clients working through trauma, anxiety, or long-standing emotional patterns.
What to expect in a Hypnotherapy Session
During hypnosis, brain activity gently slows from a busy beta state into alpha or theta, supporting deep relaxation and focused awareness. Sessions are conversational and customized to your needs. Therapeutic suggestions, imagery, and metaphor may be used to work through challenges, and you may be given simple at-home practices to reinforce progress.
Some concerns may benefit from a series of sessions to help strengthen results and support long-term change.
Clinical Hypnosis in Downtown Ottawa
Free 15-Minute Consultation
If you’re curious about whether clinical hypnosis is right for you, I offer a free 15-minute phone consultation to answer questions and talk through your goals.
📞 613-295-9987
📍 Downtown Ottawa, Ontario