College of Outcome Oriented and Hypno-psychotherapies (COOHP)

The focus of therapy is to support you in working towards progress and developments you seek in your life and the values that drive those outcomes. Your therapist uses a variety of tools and techniques to help you use your own skills, abilities and resources to address the issues that matter to you and to help you make the changes that you want.

Activating resources the client may not have recognised before, or did not previously know how to develop, is a core theme of psychotherapeutic effect. This respect of the client’s own resources and values provides opportunity for a good working relationship to develop between client and therapist. This assists work on deeper issues to come to the fore and be worked with in a collaborative and creative way.

Flexibility to the client’s needs regarding the duration and frequency of therapy is a key tenet of this modality.  Outcome Oriented psychotherapy is often a brief therapy, sometimes taking a few focussed sessions, or it may be mid-term, that is up to around 20 sessions. Some clients may be in therapy for longer or choose to attend ‘chapters’ of therapy at different times in their life yet building a longer-term relationship with their psychotherapist.

If you have any queries for this college, please contact:
COOHPchair@ukcp.org.uk

Core assumptions and beliefs

We work from the assumption that the client experiences their own life in a way that is unique to them and their life experiences. 

We start from a premise that symptoms are a message from the unconscious and that they can bring opportunities for learning, growth and healing.

We believe that the client has been doing the best they can within their available skills and resources and that even problematic behaviours or distressful feelings have served a purpose in some past or present context.

 We uphold that the client knows themselves best and can be supported to heal and make their own changes in alignment with their values and within their unique and meaningful life.

When outcome oriented and hypno-psychotherapies might be a good fit for a client

This modality is good for clients when they want to be seen for who they are, rather than any diagnosis or label, although such a diagnosis, or experiencing the problems that come under certain labels, may be the starting point for many who seek this therapy. 

Because the therapy is usually time limited, this therapy can be a good fit for clients who want to get on with things and achieve organic change in a safe and comfortable manner, where they are in charge of their own process. 

Because of the respect of the unconscious as functional rather than dysfunctional, deeper historic issues can often be connected with at a more authentic and direct level, without years of complex retrospection, and the client’s inner healing resources can be engaged more spontaneously and often even in an enjoyable way.

When outcome oriented and hypno-psychotherapies might be a good fit for a student or trainee

This modality is particularly good for students or trainees who want a structured model of therapy that brings out the best in their clients. It also works well for students who believe in the potential of their clients, and enjoy using creative ways to help their clients achieve meaningful outcomes.

Qualifying in this modality requires a willingness to learn through experiential work, that includes experimentation, respect of the uniqueness of each person’s journey rather than an “instruction manual”, inviting creativity and fun as essential processes of learning about oneself and others.

Because of the central belief in an egalitarian, collaborative relationship between therapist and unique client, this modality is particularly well aligned for trainees who value inclusivity and respect of difference.

Approaches used in this modality

Outcome Oriented and Hypno-Psychotherapies are by definition in a state of constant evolution in response to new discoveries about how people heal and grow. The approach is therefore necessarily integrative and therapy is formulated to meet the unique strengths and challenges brought by the client.

Therapy is usually one to one conversation that helps to open awareness to the client’s experiential life and how they are processing this at the deepest levels of feelings, thoughts, sensations, actions, fears and hopes. Clients are introduced to various forms of practice to enable their own more relaxed and self-empowered states often with a focus on specific changes in destructive behaviour patterns so that new choices can emerge and become possible to activate effectively.

At its heart, this therapy develops relationship between client and therapist and the client’s ‘self-relationship’ with their own inner process. This co-creates a safe and empowering place to bring conscious and unconscious into better alignment so that the client may experience enhanced autonomy, improved relationships with others and better skills to influence the meaningful direction that they wish their life to take.

These are ultimately practical endeavours which may be realised by means of setting goals, working with unresolved hurts from the past, healing trauma-reactive patterns, transforming destructive behaviours or finding new frames of meaning in order to navigate experience with more choice, flexibility and wisdom.

These activities may include clinical hypnosis in its infinite forms, from mindfulness practice to visualisation to NLP to inner child work. These are developed purposefully with the client towards mind-body integration, evolution of belief systems, resolution of inner conflicts and address of oppressive systems, whether these are upheld by inner compulsions or by externally imposed limitations that have reduced the client’s sense of who they are. Some therapists include creative approaches such as art or drama based work and often the client is offered practical work that they can do between sessions to enhance their progress.