FAQ

Yes. All new clients complete the on-line registration form below.
(You may also download a copy in PDF form for your records. This includes the cancellation policy and other helpful information.)

• Complete Online Registration Form
• Download Registration Form (PDF)

There are two additional forms that are sometimes required:

MINOR CLIENT FORM: If the client is under 18 years of age, use this form. There’s a space for the client to sign and then permission must be given by a legal guardian. This form you may print, sign and either fax or return by emailing a scan or photo of the signed form.

• Download Minor Client Form (PDF)

CARE COORDINATION FORM: If the client is under the care of a licensed provider for this issue, we want to be sure our services are helpful and coordinated. This form makes sure your medical or therapeutic expert, is on board with hypnotherapy as an adjunct to their care and also allows us to communicate if necessary.

Please fill out this form and have your prescribing or treating provider sign as well. Return by fax, or by emailing a scan or photo of the signed form.

• Download Care Coordination Form (PDF)

Yes, we do. Please visit our Privacy Policy page for information.

We can be flexible. I’m available for online appointments Monday, Tuesday, and Friday, with some evening hours those days as well, in the Mountain Time Zone.

The office is available for in-person sessions in Prescott on Thursdays, and occasional weekends. 

Once we’ve chatted, a menu of single, returning or package options is available through the online calendar. You’ll be able to schedule, pre-pay and even change appointments on your own, if you prefer. I invite new clients to call or schedule a free phone consultation today. (866) 497-9675

SCHEDULE ONLINE

All you need for online sessions is a good Internet connection and a device with a microphone and camera. It also helps if you have a headset with a microphone. Clients value the cozy privacy and intimacy of working this way.And there’s no commute!

Working online is efficient and effective.

You’ll want to find a place where you can sit back or lie down and relax without interruption. We’ll start out just talking for a little while, and then you’ll make yourself comfortable. It helps if you can position your laptop, tablet, or phone, so I can stay connected to your expression and breathing. A side view is fine – when you’re relaxing, you’ll have your eyes closed and won’t need to see me.

Technical details:Your appointment confirmation will show you the Internet address that is our meeting site on Zoom.us.

If you’re already a Zoom user, you’ll go right to our meeting.

If you’re not already familiar with Zoom meetings, you can go ahead and click on it before our appointment time.

I’ll describe it here for you as well:

First-time users will get a message saying something like, “Zoom will walk you through setting up the program. A download should start automatically in a few seconds.”  Then the site will help you find your download and tell you to double-click to install it.

You’ll need to tell it to “Continue,” so Zoom can make sure it works on your computer.

You also may want to “opt out” of additional mailings (on the bottom of the window), and then click to join a meeting. Then you’ll enter the password from the email and click “Join with video.” Our meeting won’t start until the appointed time, but you’ll be able to check that your sound works. .

If we’re using hypnosis, at some point you might recline and let your eyes close down. Although we can work just fine using built-in audio on your device, I recommend headphones with a microphone. Earbuds will work. Even better is an inexpensive gaming headset. With headphones, it’s even easier to block out everything else and focus on the the suggestions coming straight into your head. In fact, some people like this experience so much that they use headphones even for in-person visits.

Usually, if your eyes are closed, I’ll turn off my camera at that point, so we can save bandwidth. If for some reason we lose a connection, you’ll simply count to three and open your eyes.

I’ll reconnect – or call if there’s a problem. When this happens, we take the opportunity to drift deeper into hypnosis, the same way we would in the office if there were a knock on the door or we needed a bathroom break.

Unlike talk therapy, we’ll be exploring some deep inner, feelings and don’t want to stop in the middle of a process. Let me know if you need to leave at a specific time.

They vary.

Single sessions are $250. The initial session is usually a little longer (2 hours instead of 90 minutes) and there is no extra charge for that. 

To encourage your commitment to your self-development, and to let me know how to plan our progress, Voss Wellness offers multi-session packages at a discount.

We’ll get a general idea about your needs during our phone consultation, but you can wait until after your first session before committing to a program.

For many single issues (like test-anxiety, needle phobia, smoking cessation), I offer a 3-session package. More complex issues, like IBS, chronic pain, long-term anxiety and weight do best when approached from several angles; so our 6-session package is popular for these. And we can combine them as needed. Most clients see significant progress in this brief time together. Some choose to come in regularly for boosts. Others return to work on new issues that suddenly seem surmountable once they begin to have more control over the way they think, feel and live.

All programs include teaching some handy tools for stress release, so you can feel confident about facing the future without reverting to old habits.

I am happy to provide a receipt, and you may be able to get reimbursed for smoking cessation or weight loss.

Sometimes I wish insurance covered hypnotherapy. It would save them so much money treating the illnesses of smokers or problems linked to obesity, or on medication for chronic pain.

On the other hand, not dealing with insurance bureaucracy protects your privacy and autonomy.

Most Health Savings Accounts will reimburse for our work together.

Yes, and… “Being hypnotized” sounds like something someone does to you. We prefer to talk about someone “going into hypnosis,” which is a choice you make for yourself. I believe everyone can learn to do this.

Some people need a little practice, and sometimes there is one technique or another to which you respond more easily.

Hypnosis is a natural state of focus that most of us slip into as we fall asleep or get lost in thought. Our sessions simply take advantage of our access to the imagination to suggest changes in the way we think, feel, and behave.

If you want help because you’re trapped in anxious or worrying feelings, you’ll probably go into the right state easily. Why? Because you’ve already been hypnotized into having the problem!

There are thousands of studies… about the effectiveness of hypnotherapy for specific issues. There are meta studies that study other studies.

If you’re curious about the research, ask. I have a page of Resources for my clients that links to some fascinating studies and documentaries.

Here’s what the reputable Mayo Clinic has to say about clinical hypnosis:

Pain control – Hypnosis may help with pain due to burns, cancer, childbirth, irritable bowel syndrome, fibromyalgia, temporomandibular joint problems, dental procedures, and headaches.

Hot flashes – Hypnosis may relieve symptoms of hot flashes associated with menopause.

Behavior change – Hypnosis has been used with some success in the treatment of insomnia, bed-wetting, smoking, and overeating.

Cancer treatment side effects – Hypnosis has been used to ease side effects related to chemotherapy or radiation treatment.

Mental health conditions – Hypnosis may help treat symptoms of anxiety, phobias, and post-traumatic stress.

Since hypnosis is a state of focused attention, your experience will vary depending on where you are focusing.

Stage hypnosis can lead to someone so focused on a specific suggestion that they can act as if the suggestion were true – I’ve seen someone sing beautifully on stage in a hypnosis show and swear they can’t usually carry a tune.

In hypnotherapy, we usually start with a deep level of relaxation, so you can feel completely safe to let your inner mind access whatever emotions or patterns of behavior you want to change. It can often feel as though you’ve had a nap.

Some people feel the suggestions to get “deeply” relaxed quite literally, and their bodies feel heavy and warm. Others just feel like they’re sitting in the chair, relaxing a bit while they listen.

Your experience will probably vary depending on your mood that day, on the specific process we’re using that day, and on the goals that you want to achieve.

In meditation, the state itself is the goal. And just practicing focusing the mind on the breath, a mantra, and awareness of the present moment can be very helpful.

In hypnosis, we’re usually using the state to access our imagination to shift the way we think, feel, or behave.

Several years ago, I took a 6-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction class to discover the difference for myself. There were 26 people the first week, many of whom had come to deal with chronic anxiety or chronic pain. Only 5 of us made it through the whole program. Many gave up because they weren’t getting the results they wanted.

I enjoyed some of the variations I learned but felt it was really a waste of a good trance. If I spend 20 minutes getting myself into a creative brainwave state, I want to give myself a nice juicy suggestion that will improve the results I’m getting in my life!

More recently, I’ve listened to neuroscientist Kelly McGonigal talk about how meditation can affect the brain’s default network (the activity in the brain when we’re not focused on doing anything) and help it overcome the negative bias.

I still prefer self-hypnosis myself but sometimes throw in a quick five-minute meditation for fun.

Hypnosis and self-hypnosis are simply ways of accessing a focused state of mind. In this state, the critical faculty of the mind (the part that says, I know I have this problem and I don’t believe I can be helped just by thinking differently) is bypassed, so we reach the creative part (the part that says, sure I can just do something else. And here’s what!) Once we’re in the right state, there are hundreds of techniques to do things like help strengthen the ego, correct fears or misperceptions from childhood, choose better behavior patterns, and improve memory.

5-PATH is a hypnosis approach developed by Cal Banyan that includes inner child work, forgiveness, and parts therapy. Sometimes we use this as designed; more often we’ll incorporate some of those techniques into our sessions.

NLP is Neuro-Linguistic Programming was made most famous by Tony Robbins and is based on the studies of suggestion as used by great therapists, Milton Erickson and Virginia Satir, as well by Bandler and Grinder. Two main theories of NLP are relevant : the notion of anchoring (linking one thing to another, like smiling every time you see your dog or hating the name Duane because you were teased by a dweeb with that name in junior high school) and the exploration of our favored modalities (do we think about something mostly visually, auditorily or kinesthetically? And what happens when we cross-map or for example, focus on what we hear when we picture a scene from the past.)

Autogenic Training is like self-induced biofeedback. Developed back in the 1930s by a German psychiatrist named Johannes Schultz, it involves training yourself to change the way your body feels in response to repeated suggestion. It’s almost like reverse hypnosis. In certain deep states of meditation or hypnosis, the body tends to feel heavy and warm. In AT, we start by getting the body to feel heavy and warm and let that produce calm relaxation instead of the other way around.

Guided Imagery is basically a kind of hypnosis that gives the mind a specific scene to imagine and induce a specific set of emotions.

Hope Quests and Hypno-Jingles are my original techniques. Hope quests are questions that you ask in the morning to set your mind on a quest throughout your day. Hypno-jingles are variations on affirmations – catchy, easy-to-remember phrases that sneak into your subconscious through repetition and humor.

HypnoKinesthetics, developed by my colleague Patricia Eslava Vessey, is a way of using movement to symbolize emotions and events.

OldPain2Go is a specific pain-relieving technique developed by Steven Blake. You basically talk to your subconscious, which controls the systems of the body that interpret the input from nerves and therefore our experience of pain. He calls this part “brain bargaining.” After explaining exactly that you’ve gotten the message and that your body doesn’t need to keep accepting pain signals, we ask your inner mind to agree to let go of the old, unnecessary pain. And then, we help it drain all that away.

EFT is Emotional Freedom Technique, also known as tapping.

I can usually help you understand that there is nothing wrong with you. You may not like the results you’re getting, and I can usually help people increase their satisfaction with their lives; but no, I can’t guarantee that our sessions will solve your problem. I do guarantee that I will use all my compassion, skill, and experience to help you help yourself.

When people go to physical therapy, they expect to be given exercises that if done at home, they will improve their strength, flexibility, and stamina, thus resulting in a better life.

How quickly they transform depends a lot on their commitment. Same here.

Be open to possibility. And come as you are – that is please use as few mind-altering drugs before a session as possible – including caffeine.

If you could wave a magic wand to solve your problem, what would life be like?

The clearer this answer is in your mind, the faster we can get to work making it happen.

Often, we think of our problem as a burden – we even use the phrase “baggage” about the memories we carry with us, and all we can think about is not having the problem. No pain. No smoking. No fear.

But concentrating on what you don’t want isn’t as helpful as focusing on what you DO want. You don’t want to be a prisoner anymore? Then what you want might be FREEDOM.

I don’t diagnose or treat illness and don’t offer psychotherapy. I am a certified clinical hypnotist and often work in tandem with doctors and licensed mental health providers to provide a team approach.

My job is to help you access your own strengths, resources, healing power, and hope.

I’ve been certified three times over in hypnosis and hypnotherapy, have taken courses in mindfulness, trauma resiliency, and other modalities.

Most states in the US do not license or even offer a state certification for hypnosis.

Most of us are certified by a few of the national organizations. I have belonged to the major ones and am currently enrolled with the National Guild of Hypnotists and the International Medical and Dental Hypnosis Association.

What?

A student at a career day at Pasadena once asked me that question, and it took me a moment to realize that he’d seen a film where a hypnotist used a pocket watch to hypnotize someone.

We call that “eye fascination,” and now it turns out there’s a whole science behind eye movement!

I guess if you’ve never seen a pocket watch, the round object on a string must be a yo-yo. I sometimes use a pendulum to teach clients about the power of their mind-body connection, but they hold it themselves.

See? No stupid questions!