Lyn Davis learned first-hand from renowned hypnotherapist Andrew Newton how to help people with everything from anxiety to weight loss. She tells Cityscape what’s involved.

How did you come to be a hypnotherapist? What did you do before that? When I left school I went to work in a bank, and one evening I went to see hypnotist Andrew Newton and we got talking at his show. We kept in touch and a year later, when he was back in New Zealand, he asked me to do some work for him, and I’ve never looked back.

What inspires you to do what you do? I’ve always been a people person. I take after my mother, I love helping people – it seems natural – and I thought that hypnotherapy would be a good way of helping people. I read in the UK news about gastric band hypnosis and that really caught my interest. So having spoken to Andrew, I put my own programme together and I could hardly believe it worked so well. So with Andrew’s guidance, I started seeing individual clients and within a year I was totally booked out as people came to see me mainly on recommendation. Now I’m a member of the International Institute of Clinical Hypnosis.

What have been some of the highlights of your practice? I get to travel a lot in New Zealand and I’m now starting to work in Australia. I fly to Brisbane maybe four or five times a year, which is great because it means I catch up with my bestie of 49 years and can always grab a few days in the sun while I’m there. The main thing is that I get to meet a lot of people and hear their stories.

How can hypnotherapy help with personal wellness? There’s a whole list of things hypnotherapy can help with, including stress, anxiety, eating disorders, weight loss, smoking cessation, motivation, fears and phobias, self-esteem, depression, confidence, addiction, panic attacks – the list goes on.

You studied under Andrew Newton – how was that experience? If you’ve seen Andrew on stage, you will see he’s a very dynamic person with a really sharp sense of humour, but he’s totally the opposite in real life. He’s very quiet and hates doing interviews especially, he goes out of his way to avoid the limelight. When I toured with him, I found out he knows a lot of stuff about all sorts of things and he’s done some amazing things in his life and accomplished a huge amount. The main thing is that I’ve watched him work with groups of people over 100 times now and that’s where I’ve really learned – you can’t buy that sort of training.

Many would know Andrew only from his stage shows. How much of his work is in therapy? In London, Andrew has a hypnotherapy practice in Harley Street and employs another hypnotherapist and a psychotherapist. Andrew is actually very highly qualified – he is a member of the Royal Society of Medicine and travels all over the world lecturing at psychology conferences and universities on hypnosis and hypnotherapy.

You specialise in gastric band weight loss hypnosis – how does that work? Under hypnosis, we take clients through the whole procedure as if it was happening for real. Along the way, we implant certain ideas in the mind that change the way people think about how much they eat, what they eat and why they eat, so they automatically become more mindful.

Is it all about mind over matter? Most things in life are about mind over matter. The mind doesn’t work on logic or reason or common sense, the mind works on imagination and feelings and emotions. That’s what we’re tapping into when we do hypnotherapy.

What’s the most common misconception about hypnotherapy? That people actually go to sleep, which they don’t. Clients have to remain conscious otherwise they won’t be able to hear what I’m saying. Hypnosis is just a very relaxed, dreamy state which helps focus the attention and therefore the mind for a short time so new and more positive ideas can be introduced.

What is your response to sceptics? My successes speak for themselves; I’ve had lots of successful clients, which equates to literally tons of weight lost. The results are what matters – the proof is in the pudding, if you’ll pardon the pun.

What’s one thing people probably don’t know about you? More than anything else, I enjoy a simple life.

lyndavishypnotherapy.com