The things people ask before they book.

No. You stay fully aware the whole time. Hypnosis isn’t sleep, it’s not unconsciousness, and it’s not a stage show. You hear everything I say, you remember everything you want to remember, and you can stop the session at any point. If I suggested something that didn’t sit right with you, your mind would simply ignore it.

Most people describe it as deeply relaxed but mentally sharp — somewhere between meditation and the moment right before you fall asleep. You’re not floating, you’re not gone. You’re focused, calm, and aware. Most people are surprised by how normal it feels.

Almost everyone can. Hypnosis is a focused mental state your brain enters every day on its own — driving a familiar route, getting lost in a book, zoning out in the shower. The only requirement is that you want to be there. If you don’t want it to work, it won’t. If you do, your brain will do most of the work for you.

That’s what the free consultation is for. Twenty minutes, no commitment. If it’s not a fit, I’ll tell you. If someone else is a better match for what you’re working on, I’ll point you there. The goal is for you to get help — not necessarily for me to be the one who provides it.

I’m not a licensed mental health provider, and I don’t diagnose or treat clinical disorders. If you’re working through a diagnosed mental health condition, a licensed clinician is who you want for that. What I do is help you change patterns — stress responses, habits, sleep, focus, how your body interprets pain. It’s practical work on a specific goal, not long-term clinical care.

We talk for about 20 minutes on the phone or Zoom. You tell me what’s going on. I tell you whether hypnotherapy is a good fit for it, and if I’m the right person to do the work with you. No pitch, no pressure. If it’s not a fit, I’ll tell you that too.

First sessions run 60 to 90 minutes because we need time to talk through what’s going on, set the goal, and do the work. After that, regular sessions are 60 minutes. You’ll know going in how long we have.

Most goals move in three to six sessions. Some people see a real shift in the first one. The honest answer is: we work the problem until it’s solved, then we stop. I’m not going to sell you a package you don’t need.

No, and there’s a reason. Hypnotherapy works best when your mind has one clear target. Splitting focus splits results. If you’re carrying more than one thing — and most people are — we pick the one that’s loudest, work it until it shifts, and then move to the next one in a future session. Faster in the long run.

Then you cry. People do, sometimes. It’s not a problem and it’s not something I need you to apologize for. The work we’re doing is sometimes uncomfortable before it gets easier. I’ve seen it. I’m not going anywhere when it happens.

Eat something, hydrate, and skip the alcohol that day. Wear something you can relax in. Show up five minutes early if you’re coming in person so we can do paperwork without eating into your session time. If it’s a Zoom session, find a room where you won’t be interrupted for 90 minutes — door closed, phone silenced, headphones on if you’ve got them.

Both work. In-person sessions at 405 The Hill use the Inharmony zero-gravity chair, which does some of the heavy lifting for your body before we even start. Zoom sessions skip the chair but get you the same hypnotherapy work from wherever you are. If you’re local and you can get to Portsmouth, the chair is worth the drive. If you can’t, virtual is a real option, not a consolation prize.

The Inharmony chair tilts you into a zero-gravity position — feet slightly above your heart, weight distributed so your body stops working to hold itself up. Built-in haptics send low-frequency vibrations through the chair that sync with the acoustics in your headphones. Your nervous system reads it as safe and starts to stand down. By the time we begin the hypnosis work, your body has already done about half of what we’d otherwise spend the session getting to.

For your first session, yes — a spouse, a friend, anyone you trust can sit in the waiting area or join the consultation portion if you want them to. The hypnosis work itself is one-on-one. Most people prefer it that way once they understand what we’re doing.

It’s a private space online that belongs to you and nobody else. It’s where you fill out your intake before we meet, where your recordings live afterward so you can listen whenever you need them, and where anything I give you to practice between sessions shows up — written for you, not pulled off a shelf, and yours to adjust so it actually fits your week.

Keeping all of it in there is deliberate. Practice sheets and recordings don’t go out as email attachments that sit in your inbox forever or land on a shared family computer. They stay behind your own login.

It isn’t a social network and it isn’t a dashboard that grades you. It’s a quiet room with your own things in it. I’m still adding to it, so expect it to grow.

You don’t need one. After you book and sign the release form, you get an email with a link that takes you straight in — no account to create, nothing to remember. You can set a password later if you prefer, but you don’t have to. And if you ever set one and forget it, there’s nothing to reset: ask for a link and it’ll email you a new one. Half the people I work with never set a password at all.

No. Think of it the way you’d think of a doctor’s office — you do the intake first, and then you see the doctor. Same here. The intake comes before our conversation; it doesn’t replace it.

I wrote every question in it myself, in my own words, so it asks you what I would ask you and follows up where I’d follow up. A paper form can’t do that. What it can’t do is be me, and I won’t pretend otherwise — there will be a moment or two where it feels a little impersonal. Sit with it anyway and answer honestly. Every real answer you give it is time we don’t spend on paperwork and get to spend on you instead.

It doesn’t decide anything about you, it doesn’t assess you, and nothing in it is handled by anyone but me. I read what you wrote before you walk in, so when we start, I already know why you’re there.

You can listen as often as you want, from anywhere, for as long as you’re working with me — but the audio plays inside your portal rather than downloading as a file. That’s deliberate. A recording made for you, about your situation, shouldn’t end up as a loose file on a shared laptop or in a phone backup somebody else can reach. It also keeps me square with the licensing on the audio I use. Press play, as many times as it takes.

Yes. There’s a message thread in your portal that comes straight to me. Use it for the ordinary things — a question about the practice I gave you, moving an appointment, telling me something came up.

Keep in mind it’s a message thread, not a session. Nothing from the room goes in it, and I’d ask you not to put the heavy material in there either. The work belongs in the work. If something big has shifted and you want to get into it, tell me that and we’ll find time properly.

It also isn’t a crisis line. If you’re in danger or someone else is, call 911 or 988 — don’t wait on me to read a message.

That’s coming. The plan is a short check-in between sessions — a couple of questions about how things have actually been going, not a test and not a score. What you tell me shapes what we do next time, and if something isn’t working, I’d rather find out in week two than in month three.

You’ll never open your portal and be handed a number or a chart about yourself. How the work is going is a conversation I have with you, out loud, with time to talk about it — not something a screen tells you on a Tuesday night.

Yes. What you tell me stays with me. I keep session notes secured, I don’t share names or details with anyone — not your spouse, not your command, not your doctor unless you give me written permission. The only exceptions are the ones every practitioner has by law: if you tell me you’re going to hurt yourself or someone else, or if a court orders disclosure. Beyond that, what happens in the session stays in the session.

No. Booking a session with me is no different than booking a massage or a haircut as far as anyone else is concerned. You pay out of pocket, nothing routes through TRICARE, nothing shows up in your medical record, nothing crosses your chain of command. What you do on your own time is your business.

Sessions aren’t recorded by default. What I do send you is a custom audio recording made specifically for what we worked on, so you can listen between sessions and reinforce the work on your own. If you want a recording of the actual session itself for personal use, ask and we’ll figure it out together. Nothing leaves my system without your written okay.

No. Hypnotherapy isn’t typically covered by health insurance in the U.S. I keep my rates straightforward for that reason — $150 standard, $80 military.

I ask for 24 hours’ notice if you need to cancel or reschedule. Cancel inside that window and the session is charged in full — my time was already set aside for you. If you show up and the work doesn’t feel right within the first 15 minutes, we end the session and you don’t pay. I’d rather refund a session than do work that isn’t going to help.

For most things, no. But if you’ve been diagnosed with a clinical mental health condition — PTSD, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, active eating disorder, anything similar — or if you’re working on hypnotherapy support for a medical condition like chronic pain, I’ll ask you to get a written release from your treating provider before we start. It protects you, it protects the work we’re doing together, and it keeps your clinical care coordinated.

Yes. The military rate applies to active service members, veterans, and their immediate family. If you’re carrying weight because of someone else’s job, that’s still your weight. You’re welcome here.

Yes. Most of my work is with the military community because that’s the language I speak best, but anyone carrying the kind of weight I help with is welcome to book. The standard rate applies for civilians not connected to the military.