About Me
Finding the Right Therapist Begins with Feeling Comfortable
Hi, I’m Ailsa, a hypnotherapist, psychotherapist and BWRT® practitioner in Northwich, with 26 years’ experience.
Meet Ailsa
Choosing a therapist is a personal thing. Qualifications and experience matter, of course, but you also need to feel comfortable with the person sitting opposite you.
So this page is less about therapy and a little more about me and how I work. Like most people, I’ve had my own difficult periods and things I’ve had to work through, so I understand how frustrating it can be when you know logically that you’re okay, but your mind or body seems to have other ideas.
Life is messy. We all have our difficult bits, blind spots and things we struggle with, and I’m not convinced there really is such a thing as “normal” anyway. I certainly don’t have everything perfectly sorted. For me, therapy isn’t about becoming some permanently calm, polished version of yourself. It’s about understanding what gets in the way and finding better ways to deal with it.
My Approach
My approach is straightforward, practical and tailored to the person in front of me. I don’t use a one-size-fits-all method or follow the same script with everyone. I use hypnotherapy, psychotherapy and BWRT® depending on what seems most useful for you and what you want to change.
A lot of my work looks at the automatic patterns behind anxiety, panic, fears, habits and emotional reactions. Understanding why something happens can be useful, but sometimes knowing why still doesn’t stop it happening. That’s often the point where we need to work differently.
I’m interested in what actually helps, not in making things more complicated than they need to be. Sometimes that means looking at how you think about something, sometimes at how your body reacts, and sometimes at the patterns that seem to kick in before you’ve had time to think.
The aim is always the same: to help you understand what’s getting in the way and find a way forward that feels realistic and useful to you.
Qualifications
26 years’ experience, supported by extensive training
My background includes the following qualifications, alongside specialist training and professional development.
- Diploma in Advanced Ericksonian hypnotherapy & NLP (Peter Delves Associates)
- Diploma in Hypnotherapy and Pure Hypno-Analysis (IAPH)
- Diploma in BrainWorking Recursive Therapy level 1
- Diploma in Hypnotherapy BSY
- Diploma in Kinesiology BSY
- Diploma in Systematic Kinesiology (Northern School of Kinesiology)
- Diploma in Soul Retrieval (AHH)
- Practitioner of the Re-connection (Eric Pearle)
Specialist Training
My specialist training and professional development have included:
- ‘Thrive’ Changing Limited Belief Systems – Advanced Level
- Easy Smoking Cessation
- BWRT Level 1
- Effectively Assessing, Engaging and Motivating Clients
- Understanding and Helping Survivors of Sexual Abuse and Rape
- Hypnosis Suggestion and Influence
- Relaxed Childbirth Therapy
- Hypno-analytical Techniques and Successful Free Association – Advanced Level
- Secrets of Successful Hypno-analysis
- Successfully Treating Childrens Problems with Blowaway Technique
- Forensic and Investigative Hypnosis
- Body Language and Non-Verbal Communication for Professionals
- 8 week Mindfulness course
Professional Memberships
- BWRT Professionals — Registered Practitioner Member
- General Hypnotherapy Register (GHR)
- International Association for Evidence Based Psychotherapy (IAEBP)
A Little About Me
My route into therapy has been anything but conventional. Somewhere along the way I went from riding cross-country for the Army in inter-services competitions, to working on super-yachts, to driving Class 1 HGVs, with drag racing motorbikes thrown in for good measure. Therapist probably wasn’t the obvious ending to that sentence.
But looking back, it all makes a strange kind of sense. I’ve spent time around very different people, in very different worlds, and I think that’s shaped the way I see people. I’m not easily shocked, I don’t expect anyone to fit neatly into a box, and I’m usually more interested in what’s really going on than in what things look like from the outside.
I’m naturally curious, fairly direct and I have a dry sense of humour. I don’t think therapy needs to feel stiff or overly clinical, and I’m very much myself in the room.
Wondering If I’m the Right Therapist for You?
The best way to find out is to give me a call and let’s have a chat. If you’d prefer me to call you, just send me a text. I offer a free 20-minute phone consultation, with no pressure to book anything afterwards.