It’s not that you want to keep your clients in treatment longer than is helpful to them, of course. But we’ve all experienced a client who makes an appointment and at the end of a really good session says, “Wow, that makes me feel a lot better. I’ll call you if I ever feel like coming in again.”

Retain the Clients That Come to You as a Long Term Investment

Such an individual may be a little short sighted, and probably could benefit from more sessions. Perhaps she feels embarrassed about what she revealed, and wants to avoid facing you again. Perhaps she has low self-esteem, and doesn’t value herself enough to feel deserving of spending the money on her own healing. Perhaps she has prosperity anxiety, and is afraid to invest the money in this way. Whatever the reason, in most cases they are actually presenting issues for therapeutic intervention – and the ethical therapist will bring that to the client’s attention with an invitation to continue in therapy long enough to adequately address them.

It is not only ethical but also humane to discuss treatment outcome goals with your client from the beginning of your time together. Ask your client to complete assessment checklists on codependency, addictions, and anxiety, and then use the results to establish treatment goals. When you have short term and longer term outcome goals set up, it provides the framework for discussing not only current successes but also the unfinished work that remains to be completed. If your client says to you one day, “Wow, I feel a lot better. I’ll call you if I ever feel like coming in again,” you have their uncompleted goals to refer to. It would be unthinkable for a dentist to accept that statement from a patient who had a toothache resolved but still had teeth with cavities. We are dealing with the identical situation.

Hypnotherapists are offering more than repair of a damaged psyche. The individuals who come to us want that, of course. But many or most of them also want to live their life more freely and their relationships more intimately, liberated from self-imposed inhibition and achieving mastery over the obstacles that have been interfering with a fulfilling life. And these are life skills that we can assist our clients to develop through the power of hypnotherapy.

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