Trauma-sensitive Cognitive Hypnotherapist - NLP - Somatic Practitioner - PSYCH-K® Facilitator - Attachment Lens
I work online and in person and offer support with:
low self-esteem
stress & anxiety
attachment & inner child wounding
embracing change and life transitions - overcoming ‘stuckness’
low mood and negative self-talk
resentment - forgiveness work
understanding and regulating your nervous system - from a polyvagal perspective
managing pain and chronic health conditions
dysregulated eating
fears and phobias
stopping smoking / other habits
I support clients on a short, medium, and long term basis.
Please feel free to book in a no-commitment discovery call if you’d like to decide whether my approach might be a good fit.
A little bit about me:
Hello.
I’m Laura.
I am a healing arts practitioner trained as a Cognitive Hypnotherapist, NeuroLinguistic Programming Practitioner (NLP), PSYCH-K® Facilitator and Somatic Movement Educator.
Through trauma-sensitive guided trance work and somatic integration, I support people to move past blockages, self-sabotaging beliefs and behaviours, to let go of the resentments and the stories that no longer serve them, and to move in a direction that feels more aligned with one’s desires.
My practice as a Bodyworker and Somatic Movement Educator are great allies in helping me work from an embodied place and with an understanding of nervous system regulation and (mal)adaptive stress responses. I work from a Polyvagal perspective. This supports integrated, embodied and lasting transformation.
I’m trained in Carmen Spagnola’s Trauma-sensitive facilitation method (levels 1-3) weaving attachment, somatics, and justice. I am committed to creating a safe and inclusive space and actively welcome all people.
My approach is also influenced by Hakomi, a mindfulness and somatic based approach to psychotherapy that centres Loving Kindness, fostering a safe and nurturing environment for the therapeutic process to unfold.
As someone who has experienced multiple heath complexities, and lives in a female body, I’m forever curious about the relationship and interactions between our emotional states, nervous system function, and our immune system - also know as psychoneuroimmunology - and how we can use brain plasticity and nervous system regulation to support greater regulation, symptom management and healing.
My approach is transpersonal, meaning that we work on physical, mental, emotional and spiritual levels, guided by your needs and sensibilities.
Walking along this path takes much courage.
I honour this deeply in all those that I work with.
Core Training:
Cognitive Hypnotherapy Diploma, Quest Institute, London, NCH accredited - 2024
NeuroLinguistic Programming (NLP) Diploma, Quest Institute, London - 2024
Trauma-sensitive ‘Barefoot Doctor’ training for therapeutic helpers weaving attachment, somatics & justice with Carmen Spagnola:
Level 1: NuMethod Facilitation
Level 2: Metaskills for Trauma Sensitive Care
Level 3: Embodied Attachment
Somatic Movement Educator through the School of Body-Mind Centering®, a multi-year in person training - completed in 2018
Other trainings / professional development that inform my approach:
Member of Carmen Spagnola’s Numinous Network - Embodied Attachment / Contact Nutrition / Peer Supervision
PSYCH-K® Facilitator - 2023
Member of Jenna Hamm’s The Library - IFS & Nervous System regulation
Healing Trauma with EMDR and Applied Neuroscience - Dr. Scott Lyons’ The Embody Lab
Hakomi Mindful Somatic Psychotherapy: an Introduction with Lorena Monda / Hakomi Institute -2025
Awakening Aliveness: Somatic Approaches to Healing Attachment Trauma with Dr. Peter Levine (Somatic Experiencing) & Diane Poole Heller (Dynamic Attachment Re-patterning Experience) - 2025
Integrated Ask & Receive with Cathy Simmons - current
Parts Therapy with Dr Roets / Gold Leaf Training - 2024
Opening & Strengthening our Heart through the Consciousness of Embodiment; Engaging and Aligning the Endocrine Glands with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen (current)
‘Parasympathetic Pleasure’ with Sigourney Belle:
level 1: Parasympathetic Breathwork Facilitator & Tremor Work - 2023-
level 2: Spinal Attunement - current
‘Forgiveness Made Easy’ - Forgiveness Field Masterclass with Barbara. J.Hunt - 2023
Qigong instructor - Bristol school of Shiatsu - 2022
I offer a professional and confidential service in a warm, quiet and therapeutic environment.
I work with clients on a short to long term basis. Some people may need just a handful of sessions. Others may want to work together for longer. We meet weekly or fortnightly initially, with more spaciousness being an option later in the process, and for on-going longer term support.
We work at a speed that feels good for you and I incorporate:
Cognitive Hypnotherapy - a combination of therapeutic hypnosis & Gestalt.
Somatic Practice from a Polyvagal perspective for nervous system regulation and re-patterning
Parts work
Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)
PSYCH-K®
positive actions & homework/play, including bespoke recordings
talking therapy for on-going reflection and integration.
Pricing:
£80.00 / session
The first session lasts up to 90 minutes. We take time to discuss your personal histories, needs, aims, wider context and any pertinent information for our work.
Other sessions last around 60-75mins
Payments for sessions are requested within 24 hours of the session taking place.
Lower-cost sessions:
I hold a number of low-cost sessions for those on lower income each month. Please reach out if you would like to discuss this.
Access:
Please note that whilst my office is on the ground floor, there is a step to get into the building and the bathroom is only accessible via a steep flight of stairs.
I offer appointments online, via zoom.
Please reach out with any access questions.
I abide by the social model of disability.
How we work together:
Cognitive Hypnotherapy is a collaborative process
Cognitive Hypnotherapy utilises conversational trance work and requires your active participation. We are collaborators in your healing/ recovery/ growth process. It is estimated that we engage in up to 60.000 thoughts a day and that about 90% of these thoughts emerge from our subconscious. In many adults, 75% are often limiting self-sabotaging beliefs. Cognitive Hypnotherapy supports us to identify & shift unconscious limiting beliefs that get in your way -often in really sneaky ways- and keep you stuck in unhelpful or self-sabotaging thought patterns and behaviours.
Hypnosis as focused relaxation
‘Trance states are part of every problem, and need to be part of every resolution’ - Trevor Silvester
Therapeutic Hypnosis is nothing like stage hypnosis. Here we are just working with states of focused relaxation, where the body is relaxed (or if it can’t relax we go and explore that) and the mind is open. At no point are you under my ‘hypnotic spell’. Cognitive Hypnotherapy considers various ‘trance phenomena’ to be a part of every day life, including those times when you are experiencing or performing your ‘problem state’ (eg: feeling unworthy aka ‘the trance of unworthiness’). In this sense, part of our work together is to de-hypnotise the thoughts & habits that keep you stuck in place. Although you may experience some deep trance like states during our sessions, your ‘ability to be hypnotised’ or the depth of your trance do not dictate your ability to instigate and achieve profound and lasting transformation.
Attachement Lens
Working with an attachment lens means working with an awareness and sensitivity for attachment wounding, and how this influences our attachment styles, Nervous Systems responses and ability to self and co-regulate and receive nourishment in the present day.
Past, present, future
We utilise different time fames as we explore re-framing past, present and future. We address problem states in relation to all three time frames, optimising possibilities for your transformation, growth and healing.
‘Cognitive Hypnotherapy as a whole works to ‘de-prime’ connections between past and present stimuli that lead to negative outcome and a state of protection, and to prime new connections that lead to a more positive interpretation of the world - a state of growth’. Trevor Silvester
Your model of the world
Rather than focusing on labels or diagnosis, we work with your ‘model of the world’ and the ways in which you experience or ‘do’ your problem/ addiction/ behaviour. No two clients - even if presenting with the same ‘issue’ - will be worked with in an identical way or using an identical script or induction.
Psych-K®
Psych-K® combines kinesiology muscle-testing with a ‘Whole Brain State’, a state that unites activity in the two hemispheres of the brain to affect change on a deep, subconscious level. It was developed by Rob Williams and influenced by Bruce Lipton’s Biology of Belief. It helps with identifying & shifting unconscious limiting beliefs that get in our way -often in really sneaky ways-and keep us stuck in certain thought patterns and behaviours. We may use it to support our work when it feels right to do so and desired on your part.
Systemic Trauma
I am committed to continued work on deepening my understanding and awareness of the systems of oppression that shape our world, and that for many, the pain, trauma and difficulties we experience are not down ‘negative mental habits’ or ‘mindset’, but rather as a result of systemic oppression and of the patriarchal, racist, capitalist structures we live under, impacting all aspects of our lives. In Krishnamurti’s words: ‘It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.’ As we work together in shifting and transforming stuckness, I do so with the understanding that rage and despair are often warranted, healthy reactions that need space to be expressed, witnessed, and felt into.
