When Clients Feel It’s All Too Much:
Working with Overwhelm, Distress and Emotional Regulation in Hypnotherapy

A practical, experiential four-week training designed to help hypnotherapists confidently work with emotionally overwhelmed clients.

Do you ever find yourself wondering...

🔸What should I do when a client becomes overwhelmed in session?

🔸Why aren't my usual techniques working with this client?

🔸Should I stay with the emotion or help them move away from it?

🔸Why does this client understand things intellectually but still feel stuck?

🔸Why do I sometimes feel anxious, helpless, or out of my depth when clients become distressed?

🔸How can I use hypnosis effectively when emotions are running high?

If so, you're not alone. Many hypnotherapists receive excellent training in hypnosis techniques but relatively little training in emotional regulation, overwhelm, and working with clients who struggle to stay within their window of tolerance. When clients become emotionally flooded, shut down, stuck in shame, or unable to engage with therapy, it's easy to feel uncertain about what to do next.

This course will help you understand what's happening, formulate it clearly, and respond with confidence.

What You'll Gain

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:

🔸Distinguish overwhelm from other emotional experiences

🔸Understand what drives and maintains overwhelm

🔸Recognise the emotional regulation difficulties underlying many presenting problems

🔸Assess a client's capacity for emotional regulation

🔸Formulate what's keeping a client stuck

🔸Understand why cognitive approaches sometimes fail when clients are overwhelmed

🔸Use hypnosis to support both emotional regulation and emotional processing

🔸Work more effectively with shame, self-criticism, and emotional avoidance

🔸Know when to stabilise and when to deepen emotional work

🔸Navigate difficult moments in sessions with greater confidence

🔸Recognise your own nervous system responses and use them as valuable clinical information

🔸Protect your own wellbeing while working with emotionally demanding clients

This Is Not A Lecture-Based Training

This course is designed to be interactive, experiential, and reflective. You'll be invited to:

🔸Practise techniques in pairs and small groups

🔸Experience exercises for yourself

🔸Reflect on your own responses as a therapist

🔸Explore real-world clinical scenarios

🔸Discuss case examples and formulations

🔸Apply what you're learning directly to your client work

Between sessions, you'll complete short integration activities designed to help you embed the learning into your practice. Because understanding a technique is not the same as feeling confident using it.

What We'll Cover

Week 1: Understanding Overwhelm

Week 2: Assessment, Formulation and Stabilisation

Week 3: Working With Emotions

Week 4: Integration and Clinical Decision-Making

A Different Way Of Thinking About Overwhelm

Many therapists see overwhelm as the problem. In this course, we'll explore how overwhelm is often a signal that a client's emotional experience has exceeded their current capacity to process it. Understanding this distinction changes everything.

Instead of asking: "How do I get rid of this emotion?"

You'll learn to ask: "What is happening here, what is maintaining it, and what does this client need right now?"

That shift can transform how you work with distress, emotion regulation, and hypnosis.

Who Is This Course For?

This training is suitable for:

🔸Qualified hypnotherapists

🔸Student hypnotherapists approaching qualification

🔸Therapists who incorporate hypnosis into their work

Course Format

🔸Live online training

🔸Four weekly sessions

🔸Two hours per session

🔸Eight hours of teaching and experiential learning

🔸Interactive exercises and skills practice

🔸Reflection and integration activities between sessions

🔸Handouts and resources included

Investment

Launch Cohort Pricing

Early Bird: £147

Standard Price: £197

Places are limited to ensure opportunities for discussion, reflection, and practical skills development.

Your Clients Don't Need You To Remove Their Emotions

They need someone who can help them understand, regulate, and work with them. If you'd like to feel more confident working with overwhelmed clients and develop a clearer framework for supporting emotional regulation using hypnotherapy, I'd love to welcome you onto the course.

About the tutor

Sarah Mortimer is a highly experienced hypnotherapist, trainer, and clinical supervisor with over 15 years in practice. She brings together evidence-based psychological understanding and real-world clinical experience to support practitioners in developing greater confidence, clarity, and flexibility in their work. Her CPD training is designed to go beyond techniques, helping hypnotherapists strengthen their clinical thinking, deepen formulation skills, and respond more effectively to complex therapeutic situations. Drawing on approaches including CBT, ACT, CFT, Ericksonian and Solution-Focused Hypnotherapy, she creates structured, experiential learning that is both reflective and directly applicable to clinical practice.