About me

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My name is Samantha Rivett and I am a qualified and experienced Solution Focused Clinical Hypnotherapist and Psychotherapist. I have been awarded with the Diploma of Solution Focused Hypnotherapy from Clifton Practice, which is considered a centre of excelllence. I have also been awarded the Hypnotherapy in Practice Diploma and am a Practioner for Rewind Trauma Therapy. I work with children over 10 years old, teens and adults with a special interest in helping clients with symptoms of anxiety, trauma, fears and phobias.

This is a question I get asked a lot.

I think for a lot of my friends and family, they were quite surprised as they expected hypnotherapists to be a hippie type or a very spiritual person and I do not fit into either of those stereotypes. My background was hairdressing and I owned a successful hair salon for 16 years, so why hypnotherapy?

If I’m honest, I was a complete sceptic too until I tried it for myself!

After a traumatic birth with my first child, I was extremely worried when I fell pregnant again. Actually “extremely worried” does not even cover it! I was terrified! I decided that the only way I would not be terrified is to have an elected c section this time so I could at least feel like I had some control over the birth. But after a lot of meetings with consultants and a lot of stress and upset I knew that this was not going to be an option for me. The hospitals had just brought in new guidelines regarding elected c sections and if there was not a medical reason to have one, they no longer offered it, even if the damage was psychological. So, it was time for plan B.

I had a few friends that had tried hypnobirthing and had raved about it. Before this moment, I had not really considered this for myself. I knew it worked for them, but I thought it would not for me. That my body was not built that way, that my mind just does not work like that…but what other option did I have now?

So, I said to myself, if I have to do this naturally, I am going to give myself the best possible chance and put 110% into it. By this time, I was 34 weeks pregnant, so I did not have much time to wait. I contacted Leila Gardiner of Inspiring Births in Reigate (www.inspiringbirths.com) who one of my friends had recommended and paid for private weekly sessions at my home. 

Leila was incredible. She worked with my husband and me. My husband also loved the sessions. He had just taken over a new business and was quite stressed at the time, so he found the sessions really helped him relax. I found it odd at first, having never done anything like it before. It probably took me a bit longer to get comfortable with it, but I practised every day like Leila asked. She educated me about childbirth, I learnt visualisation and breathing techniques, self-hypnosis, affirmations, relaxation, fear release and much more. Even though I was never really sure if it would work, I gave it everything I had, hoping that it would!

I am not going to go into a massively detailed birth story now (you will be pleased to know!). But it was a textbook birth! I needed no pain relief at all! It was a waterbirth even though I was considered high risk by the hospital. The midwives had never seen anything like it. By the time my son was born I think there were about 4 midwives in the room watching this miracle take place. One of them even wrote a paper on me as part of her course. My husband was in awe of me and I could not believe that I had done it and actually, looking back I still can’t!

Now my memory of childbirth is a really positive one and I can honestly tell my daughter that it is the most wonderful experience ever. 

I became very passionate about hypnobirthing and told every pregnant lady I knew about it. But that wasn’t enough for me, I wanted every pregnant woman to know about this amazing option. So, having no experience except being a hypnobirthing mum, I did a hypnobirthing course so I could teach hypnobirthing to expectant mums. There were 2 parts to this course, hypnosis and childbirth. Honestly, I was dreading the hypnosis part of the course as I just didn’t think it was me, even at that point. But I was really looking forward to the childbirth bit, even though I am incredibly squeamish.

Unexpectantly, I loved the hypnosis part of the course. I found it fascinating to find out how the mind works, and I was blown away by it. I wanted to know more! I was in a room of doctors, midwives, doulas and hypnotherapists and we all practiced hypnosis on each other. One of the hypnotherapists there could see my enthusiasm and recommended Clifton Practice Hypnotherapy Training to me. She was a Solution Focused Hypnotherapist. I had never heard of that before. She said that it is the best course there is, I would love it and it really works! I don’t think I had even thought about what other types of issues hypnotherapy could help with up until that point. So, that was it…I knew then that one day I would do that course and learn how to be a hypnotherapist. I went home feeling rejuvenated and excited. 

I taught hypnobirthing to a few friends to practice but it became clear to me that I just did not know enough to be confident with it. Then I had work commitments at the salon I still owned and that took over for a while.

Last year I sold my salon to one of my employees and finally had the time to be able to enrol on the Solution Focused Hypnotherapy course at Clifton Practice. I started in Nov 2019. It is a life changing course. My fellow students and I are literally on a life journey together (that’s how it feels!). I was nervous about the amount of work involved. It is pretty intensive, and I don’t think I have ever studied like this since I left school, but I am really enjoying it. I wanted to learn more about our brains, psychology, behaviours, personality types, NLP, CBT, how to help cure fears and phobias, help people who are stressed, anxious or angry and wow that is exactly what I am doing plus more. What I wasn’t expecting was by the time I finish in August 2020 I will be experienced enough to have an up and running hypnotherapy business with around 150-200 hours of clinical therapy experience. You literally start practicing on people from day one and the course covers all areas of managing your business such as marketing, policies and procedures, etc.

But what do I really love about Solution Focused Hypnotherapy? What I love the most is when you see a client that you have been seeing for a little while and they are literally like a different person from the one you met on the first meeting. More positive, calm, happy, focused, fearless, healthy, in less or no pain, sleeping better….That’s the reason I do it, the massive sense of satisfaction knowing that I have given that person the tools to enable them to really make a difference to their lives…..That’s special don’t you think??