Therapeutic Hypnosis Consultations by Video

Hypnosis by video: the framework

Who are video consultations for?

• Your schedule does not allow you to travel. A session at midday between two meetings, or in the evening once the children are in bed, becomes possible when there is no journey and no parking.
• You prefer the privacy of your own home. On certain subjects (intimacy, a substance use, a difficulty you have told no one about…), not passing other clients in a waiting room removes a genuine barrier.
• You are an expatriate, travelling, or often on the move. Your support does not stop because you change province or country: this is particularly useful for students living abroad and professionals on the move.
• Getting around is difficult for you. Reduced mobility, illness, fatigue linked to treatment, a young child at home, no means of transport — or simply a winter that makes the drive hard going.
• Or simply: you have started a course of support and you are moving house. Continuing with the same practitioner rather than starting over elsewhere has real value.

Most of our hypnotherapists in Quebec and Ontario work by video alongside their offices: the map at the foot of this page shows who consults remotely.

The benefits of hypnosis consultations by video

• Equivalent effectiveness. This is the question everyone asks, so let us answer it straight away: hypnosis rests on the voice, on attention and on the relationship, not on physical presence. What matters is that you can hear the practitioner clearly and that they can see you. Our clients who have done both report no difference in outcome.
• You work in your real environment. This is an underrated advantage: the anchor you install, you install at home, where you will need it. For sleep in particular, learning self-hypnosis in the bed you sleep in has an obvious benefit.
• Comfort. Your armchair, your blanket, your temperature. Many people let go more easily at home than in a practitioner's office.
• No journey, no time lost, and often more flexibility on timing, evenings included.
• Continuity is possible despite travel, moving house or busy stretches.
• And complete discretion: nobody sees you arrive or leave.

The limits, to read before booking

Let us be straightforward: video does not suit every situation, or everyone.

• You need a genuinely private space. This is limit number one, and by far the most common. If someone can walk in, if the walls are thin, if you share a home without being able to shut yourself away for an hour, the session will lose a great deal. You do not let go while watching the door. Better then to find a solution (a time when the home is empty) or to opt for an in-person session.
• An unstable connection is a real nuisance. A drop-out mid-session is in no way dangerous — we explain below what happens — but repeated interruptions break the work.
• Home is not always a neutral place. For some people it is precisely where the weight sits: the desk that takes over everything, the traces of a separation, the family load. Leaving the house is then part of the benefit.
• Some situations call for an in-person session. Spiritual and regression hypnosis is practised in the office only, because the session runs for two hours and the depth of the work calls for physical presence. For young children, video is possible but often less comfortable: they move about, they lose focus, and the bond is built better in person. And if you are going through a period of real fragility, an in-person setting is preferable — and sometimes it is a doctor or a psychologist you need first.
• A minimum of technical ease is needed. Nothing complicated: opening a link, allowing the camera and the microphone. But if that worries you, do a test run with someone close to you first. Or ask someone to set it up for you the first few times.
• Finally, video is not an emergency channel. If you are in serious distress, do not book and wait: call 811 (Info-Santé), 988 (suicide crisis helpline) or 911.

The three non-negotiable conditions

If you remember only three things from this page:

1. A quiet, private place, where nobody will come in for an hour.
2. A comfortable, stable position: sitting or lying down, with your head supported.
3. A safe place. This deserves to be spelled out: never a session while driving, walking, on public transport, or anywhere you need to stay alert. The hypnotic state reduces your attention to your surroundings — that is precisely the point of it — and that is why the setting must be safe. A serious practitioner will stop the session if they see that it is not.