Most people leave a hypnotherapy session feeling calm, reflective, and often a little lighter than when they arrived. Some people notice a shift straight away. Many find that something has quietly changed in the days that follow – in the way they respond to a situation, or in a thought pattern that simply isn’t there anymore.
For the majority of people the experience after a session is a pleasant one, and the process of change is gradual, gentle, and largely unremarkable in the best possible sense.
Occasionally though, therapeutic work that goes below the surface can bring things a little closer to the surface before they settle. This is less common, but it is normal, and it is worth knowing about. The rest of this page explains what can sometimes happen, why it happens, and what to do if it does.
It’s a reasonable question to ask, and if you’ve been wondering about this it probably says something good about the care you’re providing yourself.
The short answer is: for most people, hypnotherapy is a straightforward and often deeply relaxing experience, with positive effects that build across sessions. But therapeutic work that goes below the surface sometimes stirs things up before it settles them down. That’s not a sign something has gone wrong. In many cases, it’s a sign something is working.
This page explains what can sometimes happen after a session, why it happens, and what to do about it.
This is the most common thing people notice and are sometimes surprised by. You may leave a session feeling quieter than usual, more reflective, or find that emotions are closer to the surface in the day or two that follow. Occasionally, some people find themselves tearful without quite knowing why. Others sometimes feel a kind of tiredness that isn’t unpleasant, similar to how you might feel after a long conversation with someone you trust.
This happens because hypnotherapy works at a level where emotion lives. When we access things that have been held below conscious awareness, whether that’s an old memory, a long-suppressed feeling, or a pattern that formed years ago, the process of beginning to shift it can feel like movement. It’s not always comfortable movement, but it is usually purposeful movement.
It generally eases within a day or two. Most people find that on the other side of that raw feeling something has genuinely shifted.
If the feeling is more intense or lasts longer than you expected, please contact us. It doesn’t mean something has gone wrong, but it does mean we’d like to know, and there are things we can do to support the process. Glenn, Carol or Philip will be happy to speak to you directly in between sessions to support you, and Rachel is qualified and available to help.
Occasionally, something emerges in a session that neither you nor your therapist may have anticipated: an old memory, or a feeling that arrives quickly and with unexpected force. There may be tears, or a physical sense of something releasing.
This is known clinically as an abreaction: a spontaneous release of emotion that has been held, often for a long time. It can feel alarming in the moment, especially if you weren’t expecting it. But it is not dangerous, and it is not a sign that the session has gone badly.
Glenn, Carol and Philip are trained to work with this if and when it occurs. The session won’t end while you are still in that heightened state. We will take the time needed to bring you back to a place of calm before you leave. If something surfaces that needs more time or a different kind of support, we will tell you honestly.
This is the concern people are most likely to type into a search engine, and the one most likely to land them on forum threads full of conflicting messages of reassurance and alarm.
Here’s our answer to this, arrived at through experience:
In the early stages of any therapeutic work it is not uncommon to feel temporarily more aware of the thing you came to address. This can feel like worsening, but it is usually something different: your attention has been drawn to a pattern or feeling that was previously operating quietly in the background. Bringing it into focus, even as part of resolving it, can make it feel more present before it begins to diminish.
You may wish to consider this example: if you’ve been carrying tension in your shoulders without noticing it, the moment you become aware of it can feel like the tension has gotten worse. It probably hasn’t, but it’s likely you’ve just started to notice it a bit more.
This kind of temporary intensification is well documented in psychological and therapeutic literature (Mohr, 1995; Lambert & Ogles, 2004). It generally settles within a few days of a session. It is not the same as genuine deterioration, and for most people it is a sign that the work has made contact with something real. This is what we mean when we say that we aim to help you achieve meaningful change, not just symptomatic change.
Not everyone experiences this, but if you do it’s not a sign that your problem is unsolvable.
That said: if you feel genuinely distressed, or if a sense of being worse persists beyond a few days, please reach out. We take these experiences seriously and would always rather hear from you so we can help.
Some people notice that in the days following a session dreams can become more vivid, or memories might surface that haven’t been present for some time. This is a normal part of how the mind continues to process material after a session ends.
Therapeutic work doesn’t stop when we leave the therapy room. Research into therapeutic change more broadly suggests that around 40% of what shifts for a person happens outside the therapy room entirely: through our own resources, our relationships, and the ordinary movement of our lives (Lambert, 1992). The session starts something, and life continues it.
So, the changes that begin in a session often continue to unfold in the days that follow, sometimes in ways that are conscious and noticeable, sometimes beneath awareness. Vivid dreaming is one of the more common ways this shows up, and it is generally not cause for concern.
If the content of what surfaces is distressing, it is worth making a note of it and bringing it to your next session.
Hypnotherapy, when practised by qualified clinical hypnotherapists, has a very low rate of serious adverse outcomes. The professional and research literature consistently supports this. The situations that carry most risk are those involving unqualified practitioners, or where hypnotherapy is used with people for whom it is clinically contraindicated. In our clinic every new session begins with a thorough conversation and discussion of your circumstances before any formal hypnosis work begins, specifically for this reason.
It is also worth noting that hypnotherapy is not a treatment for every presenting issue. Where we have concerns about your suitability for this work we will say so, and where we believe another form of support would serve you better, we will say that too.
We would always rather you called us than sat with a worry or crowd-sourced online for answers. If something about a session has stayed with you, whether it was emotional, physical, or simply something you didn’t understand, please get in touch.
Over our many years of practice we have seen the full range of what can happen in and after a session. Nothing you describe will be unfamiliar to us, and nothing will be dismissed. We have a duty of care to you, and we take that duty seriously.
Our contact details can be found here, or call 07 3354 4555
This is not a page designed to talk you out of your concerns or tell you not to worry. It’s a page designed to give you accurate, honest information so that if something does happen, something unexpected, something uncomfortable, you have a framework for understanding it, and you know where to turn.
Clinical hypnotherapy is, for the overwhelming majority of people, a genuinely positive experience. The concerns on this page are real but uncommon. We think it’s worth discussing them openly.
REFERENCES
Lambert, M. J. (1992). Psychotherapy outcome research: Implications for integrative and eclectic therapists. In J. C. Norcross & M. R. Goldfried (Eds.), Handbook of psychotherapy integration (pp. 94–129). Basic Books.
Lambert, M. J., & Ogles, B. M. (2004). The efficacy and effectiveness of psychotherapy. In M. J. Lambert (Ed.), Bergin and Garfield’s handbook of psychotherapy and behaviour change (5th ed., pp. 139–193). Wiley.
Mohr, D. C. (1995). Negative outcome in psychotherapy: A critical review. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 2(1), 1–27.
