Advanced Diploma in Transpersonal
Hypnotherapy (Spiritual Hypnosis)

(Adv. Dip. Trans. Hyp.) 

A specialist distance learning course for experienced hypnotherapists.
Revised version June 2011 - fee now reduced.

   College accreditation: International Association for Distance Learning.
   Course accredited by Institute for Meridian Psychotherapy for professional development
    purposes                               

Total recommended period of study: approx. 6 to 9 months or less. Continuous enrolment. No time limit. It is possible to complete the course more rapidly if several lessons per month are taken.

Cost: £365.00  (365 Pounds Sterling - for currency conversion see www.xe.com )

Textbooks are not included in the tuition fees. This major course will require 10 textbooks, though many hypnotherapists will have some of them already. Students will normally buy their books from on-line bookstores.

Method of study 

Textbook study.  Written assignments based on textbooks and exercises. Assignment questions are issued by email and students return their written work by email. Grades and feedback are issued by email. Students may incorporate techniques learned into their private practice and Unit 11 will involve presentation of case studies.

Course overview

Spiritual and Transpersonal Hypnotherapy recognises that the use of altered states of consciousness to access other realities has a long history. This history is swept under the carpet by those who insist that hypnotherapy must be a medical or psychological specialism and those who insist on “evidence-based” approaches to hypnotherapy.  Such mainstream approaches are valuable when providing treatment for issues such as stress, smoking cessation, psychosomatic conditions and to aid recovery from physical illness in conjunction with conventional medical care.

However, looking at the human being from a holistic perspective, we are not just mind and body but also spirit. “Spirit” means different things to different people but general consensus points to a connection with something beyond the individual, present-mind ego identity. This connection can go inwards – to meditative states, and states in which we access experiences of previous lives or other dimensions – or outwards, to feeling a connection with humanity as a whole, with nature, with the world of animals, with the universe, or with God.  We can also add spiritual or psychic encounters with departed loved ones, and encounters with beings perceived as angels, spirit guides, or other-worldly presences.  Another meaning of “spirit” is that we are part of and surrounded by a network of energy fields which science cannot reliably measure – traditionally referred to as non-physical “bodies” of different levels, and that according to that view, our consciousness and our emotions are partly located in those fields.

Spiritual hypnotherapy is thus the use of hypnosis to help access to a portion of this wide range of beyond-the-present-ego experiences and beyond-the-physical energies.

Such experiences can be extremely significant and meaningful, and in some cases they can bring about some form of healing, though this cannot be guaranteed. But those experiences do not fit into a conventional medical model of hypnotherapy.

People will argue about the “truth” of inner experiences.  There are no definite answers and each person – therapist or client – must make up his/her own mind about what these experiences mean and how “real” they are. Some of them may be archetypal – that means, rooted in ancient patterns and myths that are part of universal human consciousness at a deep level and which can express themselves through personalised experiences such as a past life regression.

Some of these experiences may be metaphoric, in other words, healing stories that contain symbols of the present-life problems, so that a resolution can be found using the subconscious mind’s dream-like thinking instead of the conscious mind’s thinking patterns. From this point of view, the client is his/her own spontaneous metaphor therapist. Some experiences may reflect the reality of other dimensions and planes and the progression of the soul.

Increasingly, the interest in experiences suggesting reincarnation and life after death has moved from spiritualists and psychics to open-minded doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists and other helping professionals or academics who have written many books about evidence for survival after death, reincarnation, near-death experiences, and so on.

Also, a new paradigm has emerged within the field of bereavement counselling – instead of encounters with deceased relatives being viewed as hallucinations (a view stemming from Freud) – some more enlightened bereavement experts have said that encounters with departed loved ones are natural and are not to be discouraged.  Instead of telling people to withdraw emotional investment in the relationship with the departed, one modern view is that it is helpful and even healing to integrate their presence into our lives including the times when we see or feel their spirits and even talk to them.

Spiritual or transpersonal hypnotherapy can include: 

• Past life regression therapy

• Future life progression

• Meditative states and states of higher consciousness

• Experiences of being between lives

• Encounters with spirits and other beings

• Releasing any unwanted spirit attachments or influences

• Working with dreams (dream recall or hypnotic dreams)

• Helping the client build his/her own model of spiritual realities

• Helping the client to active self-healing

• Manipulating energy states through symbol, metaphor and ritual to block unwanted influences and create a sacred space in which healing can take place (otherwise known as “psychic protection”)

The student will learn many tools and techniques for spiritual enhancement of sessions and to work in a holistic, multi-dimensional way with clients.

These subjects are often not covered extensively in hypnotherapy training courses, and sometimes offered in quick one-weekend courses that purport to make you into a competent past life regression therapist.  Such brief coverage cannot teach you the full complexity of this type of work.  If you are a practitioner fascinated by the possibilities of spiritual hypnotherapy and would like to learn about it in depth, or to upgrade your previous training in the subject and find out how much more there is to know, this course is for you.

No previous knowledge of these topics is necessary as the concepts that you will need will be explained in the textbooks as part of the relevant modules.

We recommend that every hypnotherapist has some acquaintance with past life therapy techniques, because spontaneous past life regressions can occur in any session – whether you believe in past lives or not – and it can be extremely disconcerting or even traumatizing for the client if you cannot handle them or if you react in an insensitive and rejecting way.  If you use any form of regression to childhood, eventually you will have a client with an anomalous regression experience of the sort that can be called a “past life”.   

These techniques can be very powerful whether or not the therapist – or the client – believes that the experiences are “real” (whatever that means).

Syllabus:

Module 1: Transpersonal and Archetypal Hypnotherapy

Module 2: The Waking Dream: Hypnotherapy and Gestalt Dreamwork 

Module 3: Hypnotic Facilitation of Spirit Guide Contact

Module 4: Transpersonal Regression Therapy

Module 5: Modern Psychic Self Defence

Module 6: Readings in Transpersonal Hypnosis

Module 7: Healing at the Soul Level

Module 8: Therapy for Spirit Attachments

Module 9: Neo-Ericksonian Approaches to Cosmic Consciousness

Module 10: Spiritual Hypnosis: Connecting with the Universe through the Subconscious

Module 11: Presentation of Case Studies

Course textbooks (we reserve the right to substitute books or create substitute units if a book is  unavailable)

Elias, Jack. Finding True Magic: A Radical Synthesis of Eastern and Western Perspectives and Techniques. Seattle, WA; Five Wisdoms Publications, Second Edition, 2006.   

Churchill, Randal. Become the Dream: The Transforming Power of Hypnotic Dreamwork. Santa Rosa, CA: Transforming Press, 1997.
Goldberg, Bruce. Spirit Guide Contact Through Hypnosis. Franklin Lakes, NJ, USA; New Page Books, 2005.

Tomlinson, Andy.  Healing the Eternal Soul.  New York, USA and Winchester, UK: O Books, 2006.

Goldberg, Bruce.  Protected by the Light.  Hats Off Books (an imprint of iPublisher, Inc), 1998. 

Leskowitz, Eric, M.D.  Transpersonal Hypnotherapy: Gateway to Body, Mind and Spirit. Transpersonal Publishing, 2010.
Goldberg, Bruce. Soul Healing. St. Paul, Minnesota, USA:  Llewellyn Publications, 1998

Ireland-Frey, Louise.  Freeing the Captives: The Emerging Therapy of Treating Spirit Attachment.  Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc., 1999.

Havens, Ronald A.  Self Hypnosis for Cosmic Consciousness.  Bancyfelin, Carmarthen, Wales, UK: Crown House Publishing Ltd., 2007.

Modi, Shakuntala. Memories of God and Creation: Remembering from the Subconscious Mind. Hampton Roads Publishing Co. Inc., 2000.

Entry criteria and suitability 

Applicants must normally be qualified and experienced hypnotherapists and members of a professional hypnotherapy association. If you do not meet this requirement and are interested you are invited to contact us with details of your background for advice.

Qualification

Successful graduates will receive the Advanced Diploma in Transpersonal Hypnotherapy awarded by UK College of Holistic Training which is a private UK qualification. The college is accredited by the International Association for Distance Learning. Course graduates may use the postnominal designation
Adv. Dip. Trans. Hyp.

The course is accredited by The Institute for Meridian Psychotherapy (which is linked to UKCHT) for professional development purposes (see societies page for explanation).

This diploma is accepted by Calamus International University (a non-UK, private distance university with private accreditation) for credit towards a degree. Several hypnotherapy-related degree programmes are available.

Further information

Please see our FAQs page for general information.

We reserve the right to change the syllabus and other details of any course at any time.

To apply for this course now, go to our Application page