Hypnosis Clearinghouse Institute: An Inside View

By Paul Michael Meredith

As the HCH Institute administrator of 3 years and supporter of the center for 18 years, I have been at the front desk observing the comings and goings of students, teachers, clients and therapists. I have been privy to countless stories of gratitude to HCH for providing such a loving and safe place for healing and learning. Newcomers to the center often describe the feeling of coming home as they enjoy our place of retreat and renewal.

Located in a three story wooded building in the rolling hills of Lafayette, the facility that HCH inhabits is vibrant, warm and welcoming, and for the last 20 years, students interested in hypnotherapy, energy therapy, coaching and parapsychology have come from all parts of the globe to study at HCH. We recently were honored to train a college professor from Brazil and a young Indian woman who is a personal coach. Both came to California specifically to study at HCH and both have returned home to practice and teach what they learned.

One of the programs that makes HCH unique and is perhaps the most important aspect of what HCH offers the Bay Area community is the low-fee clinic and internship program. At only $30 per 1hr session graduates of the hypnotherapy training provide hypnotherapy and energy therapy services to the public. Since no other hypnotherapy school offers this on going on site clinical experience with weekly supervision, HCH tends to attract students who are serious about wanting to become well-trained, competent hypnotherapists. Our graduate interns have served the Bay Area Community providing services for over 15,000 clients in our clinic.

Also unique to HCH is the training in Sandplay, an open-eyed hypnotic process for children and adults. We also have an on-going supervised externship program, advanced courses in Shamanic practices, audio recording workshops for hypnotherapists, practice building groups and several monthly groups free to the public.

HCH is not just a school. It is a community of people who are committed to transformation and making a difference in the world. During the week twenty-five practitioners practice at HCH and in the evenings and weekends the therapy offices become classrooms and group space.

Currently HCH is beginning a unique program through which we offer free services to returning US Vets who have post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms. Vets may have up to ten free sessions in the clinic and may also attend our monthly Borrowing Benefits EFT class for no charge to learn EFT and to receive the benefits of doing group EFT. We are currently engaged in a study to show the effects of using hypnotherapy and EFT on chronic and complex PTSD symptoms for these clients and students.

All of our programs are transpersonally oriented, honoring that there is a spiritual component involved with healing and that the client has an innate resource for inner wisdom and self-healing. We teach client-centered empowering approaches to healing which directly engage the client's higher Self. Dr. Holly Holmes-Meredith, the owner and Director of HCH, recently completed her doctorate. She researched and wrote her dissertation on Spiritual Hypnotherapy and the effects of using a transpersonal model of hypnotherapy both for clients and students of hypnotherapy. Her dissertation will soon be a textbook for the HCH Hypnotherapy training.

I am profoundly inspired and struck by the magnificence of HCH Institute and feel fortunate to be a part of it. A graduate of the February hypnotherapy training stated in her course evaluation, "Coming to HCH has been the most growthful and inspiring experience of my life. I love this place!"