Dr Andrew Greenland: 0:00

So, welcome back to Voices in Health and Wellness. This is the show where we speak with the people reshaping how we care for our bodies, minds, and our communities. I'm joined by Kriti Gupta Goel, a clinical hypnotherapist, psychotherapist, and coach. Kriti specializes in subconscious reprogramming, inner child healing, and trauma-informed therapy. Our clients are often high-achieving, high-performing people who feel stuck despite doing all the right things. So, with that, Kriti, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Kriti Gupta Goel: 0:30

Thank you very much for inviting me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Dr Andrew Greenland: 0:33

Lovely. So perhaps could you share a little bit about how you got into hypnotherapy and psychotherapy and what was the personal professional spark that led you there?

Kriti Gupta Goel: 0:41

Sure. Thanks for giving this platform to share my journey. I actually come from a background from psychology. I did my clinical psychology and counseling psychology. And my journey starts pretty much almost two decades, more than two decades back, trained in psychology. So my foundation has always been about understanding human behavior, emotions, and the mind. Early in journey, I knew that I wanted to work in mental health, uh, helping people make sense of how they are feeling, what they are feeling. So I was always curious about mind, something also to do with a very interesting part. And as a child, we dream, right? And I was always curious to know that when I'm dreaming, why do I see certain things which I haven't seen before in my life? So that I think that little little curiosity uh was getting me more involved and or pushing me more towards uh knowing more in psychology, uh, counseling, hypnosis. Um but uh however, like many people, my path wasn't uh that linear. Uh there was a period in my life when I had to really step away from my career, from my path altogether, uh, due to a lot of personal changes, uh, marriage, uh moving continents. So originally I'm from India. So I'm moving continent, settling into a new country, starting everything from scratch. During that transition, which lasted almost kind of like eight to eight years, I worked in a recruitment industry. So my shift like completely moved from the psychology clinical side to the recruitment industry. Uh, but definitely people oriented, that's where my heart lies. Um, on the surface, it looked everything was very nice, stable, but uh internally I was facing significant uh health challenges. Uh, I had been suffering from endometriosis uh when I was 18. In fact, like since I was 18, and every year it got worse. To the time that later my marital life became stressful because of the impact of it has endometriosis that has on fertility, uh the chronic pain. And given that every year it was getting worse, um I reached a stage four endometriosis and just like experiencing chronic pain, emotional exhaustion, and alongside fertility problem. But uh by God's grace, then I started navigating motherhood. I have twins. Um, happened through Sarogesi, though, but uh I have girls. So it happened, but uh it was really taking a toll on my emotional health, my mental health, and raising twins, managing responsibilities is not that easy. Uh and uh holding that emotional space for others as well while dealing with our my own personal pain, um, until eventually I underwent a full hysterectomy. That's another, like you do get rid of your physical pain, but then it leaves a scar. It leaves a scar on mind that you have lost a part of your body. Um, then itself is a grief. So that added on further stress, which very few people understand. I mean, I have a beautiful family, my friend circle is strong, but even then, at times you feel that you do not get the right kind of support. It's very difficult for anyone to understand unless and until you have been there. Like it's you know that you feel like, okay, it's a physical pain that you have left. You have gone, dealt with your physical pain, but that mental pain is still there. I think that during that time, stress was something that I understood, not only understood academically, but I actually felt in my body. There were moments when I was actually very close to breakdown. And but through it all, what kept me grounded was my understanding of the human mind and commitment to self-care and self-healing. And I guess because of my background of psychology uh in counseling, that really kept me going. I was my own healer, I actually became my own healer, uh, did a lot of meditations, uh, yoga. Uh and that's when I thought, especially during the COVID time, uh, which was again another big time, very stressful period, that I realized that I really have to go back to my field. Um, and that is when I started knowing more about hypnotherapy. Uh, because again, more through my inner healing. Um, and that that's what kept me grounded. My understanding of the human mind kept on increasing. I just wanted to dig more or learn more about uh mental health, reminding myself that healing is just not physical, it is a mind-body process. If your mind is healed, your body heals. It's very easy for people to see the physical pain, but it's very difficult to understand your mental pain. Like many, I'm sure like many uh therapists, I'm not saying like all, but many mental health therapists, they come from that firsthand experience. They have seen something, dealt something, learned something, and that's how they provide the healing. So, in my journey, again, that's where I started uh during the COVID learning more about the hypnotherapy. Um, and that's yes, through this lived experience and later through working with my clients, I realized that insight alone isn't always enough. People could talk about their challenges, uh, understand where things are coming from, but still they feel emotionally stuck. The body continues to react. Anxiety, overwhelm, emotional eating, burnout, these are all things which is again connected to your mental health. And that realization led me to explore hypnotherapy further. And as mentioned, that dream was, I think, was for initial seed, dream analysis, not analysis, but the dream part was the initial seed, which took me again back to my field of psychology and counseling. And then I learned hypnotherapy, did a course in hypnotherapy, uh, and that's where Kriti therapy was born. Uh, the journey of kriti therapy began. And um, basically, I offer it's like an integrated uh hypnotherapy where I combine psychology, uh, hypnosis, other modalities, NLP technique, coaching, which comes together. It's like a marriage between all different modalities to support lasting uh compassionate change. Hypnotherapy is such a powerful tool because it is it, in simple words, I should say like hypnosis, it this bridges the gap. It bridges the gap between understanding and feeling. People don't struggle because they lack insight, they know, they have the knowledge. It is just their nervous system hasn't caught up with what they intellectually know. And hypnotherapist is that bridge, it helps you, it works at the root level, and that can happen only when your conscious mind is relaxed. So hypnosis helps to relax your conscious mind, and that is when it can go deep down into your subconscious mind and work. That's where all the uh healing process starts, it works at your root level, and over time, through hypnosis, people learn to respond rather than react. You know, uh they feel calmer, they feel more grounded, they they are able to change their perspectives. That's what hypnotherapy does. Although it's a very still um not very well taken at some times, but uh yeah, here I am uh working as a hypnotherapist, and my kind of mission is to make hypnosis uh one of the most popular, or make people aware that hypnotherapy is such a powerful tool, it is so effective. Uh it's it's not like a magic, but it is a quick fix. It doesn't take uh months or years of uh therapy to notice your results, but few sessions, and then you can see changes, and that is just through self-I have tried myself through self-hypnosis, through self-healing. So, yeah, Silo, this is my journey, and here I am.

Dr Andrew Greenland: 10:06

Amazing. No, thank you for sharing. It's always um really interesting to hear about the personal journey and how it shapes your practice and your kind of approach and your your nuanced touch that you have. So thank you for sharing that. Um so you're working, as I understand it, in a community space near a GP clinic. Can you tell us what that experience is like and how it shapes your client work?

Kriti Gupta Goel: 10:26

Oh la la. Happy to. So, yes, my practice in uh Greenwich and it is in the community hub, pretty much, where I'm sharing the space with GP. And uh surprisingly, I think that is one of the challenges that uh NHS is burdened, right? GPs are burdened. There's a huge waiting list uh for uh to see their patients suffering from mental uh illnesses or depression, anxiety. However, I hardly receive any referral from GP, even though it's very easy, all you need to do for the GPs is to uh check on their CNHC system, where all the alternative list of alternative therapists are there. But majority of the GPs wouldn't even know, they don't know, they're not even aware that any such system exists. And few GPs, even if they know, they don't have that uh, don't refer. So a lot many times I actually funnily, uh I receive calls from the potential clients while they are waiting for their turn to see a GP, they see my flyer. They know, oh, there's a hypnotherapist here, and they called me. They call me to book an appointment. So people do want to come and have uh seen by a hypnotherapist. Now the problem is because it is uh it doesn't because the NHS doesn't refer, A, it comes about the authenticity and B cost. Sometimes I've received call people, they the client assume that uh given it is in the NHS vicinity, uh it must be referred by the NHS, so cost will be taken care of, which is not the case because it's a private practice. But uh, anyhow, even then, few clients they do come given they want, but uh it's just because they want that assurance. And uh so many times I have approached GP uh to refer for the reference, but you do not receive any reference. And one of the biggest things that uh when clients come to see me, they say that uh when you go in G to see a GP, either you're being referred to a counselor, um, that's more like a talk therapy, which sometimes they find it difficult because it is basically you are going over your trauma again and again. You're talking about your trauma, you're talking about your difficult time, your issues to a therapist, to a counselor over again and again. They just don't want to sometimes, they want a solution, but without revisiting that trauma all over again, 10 times, 20 times. So that's that is what stops them, right? Because the root cause hasn't been removed. It's still there, they're still attached to the root cause. And uh, people who know what hypnotherapy does, it's just kind of detach you emotionally from your uh past event, from your traumatic event. But uh, given that NHS, it doesn't come through the NHS, not from the refer from the GP, they sometimes uh either approach privately or they find it difficult that is it authentic, and they do carry those myths around, which is all the popular myths of hypnotherapy. They feel that is it true, why is not the NGP? Why can't the GP refer? So, yeah, that's one of the biggest challenges that I feel. Um sitting sharing in the even in the community hub, that uh something which should be so simple, uh, plus it will reduce the burden of not getting refers from the NHS.

Dr Andrew Greenland: 14:28

Thank you. Um, I was going to touch on the whole thing about the mythology around hypnotherapy and how do you approach educating clients or even other practitioners who might not fully understand it?

Kriti Gupta Goel: 14:39

So that this is uh this is basically an ongoing process. Uh, every time, this is one of the again the marketing thing, uh, explaining to people like how I'm doing now that hypnosis is not like a magic, right? When people, it's not what people believe uh that they will take away the control, the popular myths that you'll always lose your you will lose your control, right? So whenever I meet people, when I talk about hypnosis, as soon as someone comes to know, oh you're a hypnotherapist, and they're taken back. I said, Are you going to take my control? Will I lose my control? So those are like very popular questions that I've been asked, anyone who knows that I'm a hypnotherapist. So it is like an ongoing process. I tell them, you know, it's a myth. Hypnotherapy, and for anyone to start the conversation, I start from saying, if you know about meditation, hypnosis is just a few levels deep, deeper than meditation. If you have done meditation, if you do yoga or if you do meditation, it is just a few deeps down, right? It's all about relaxing your mind and uh also telling them, you know, that every single day, anyways, we all undergo hypnosis. It's like how you relax your conscious mind. Something one of my favorite examples, staying in London, which everyone can relate to, is giving an example of taking a public transport. You know, when you take a public transport and when you are following a same route daily, when you go to work, 10 destinations, you know that once you're returning back from your work, after 10 stops, you have to get down, but you're so, so tired. And as soon as you um enter your uh train, as soon as you sit down, you're so relaxed that you doze off. And right before two stops, you suddenly get up. You never miss your stop. That is hypnosis because your subconscious conscious mind is relaxed, but your subconscious mind is always, always working, and as soon as your subconscious mind knows that your stop is coming, it alerts your conscious mind. So that is hypnosis. So those simple when I explain, I try to explain using everyday examples. Reading a book, reading a book is hypnosis. You get so engrossed in while reading a book that what's happening in your surrounding, you don't care, you don't know. Because that book is so interesting, you're completely engrossed watching the TV. You're so engrossed in watching a TV, your favorite program, movie, it's hypnosis. So I guess using this simple term, simple daily examples, it helps. I'm trying to help people to understand it is nothing to be scared of. Now, clinical hypnotherapy and stage hypnotherapy is a little different. Stage hypnosis is more like a magic show, you know. They uh it's a very rapid uh induction, and that's what they do, it's more like a performance-based, but clinical hypnotherapy it is more to do with it's very different. Um, it is grounded, it is respectful, it is all consent-based and deeply, deeply therapeutic. So that's the idea of how I explain hypnotherapy. Uh, it's just uh quick fix. Uh if you take uh 20 sessions in counseling, you take six sessions in hypnotherapy, and nothing you do not reveal anything without your consent. You're always in control. In fact, if hypnotherapy does anything is to give your control back, which you have lost because you're emotionally so emotionally stuck with your trauma, um, emotional eating, or anything, you are emotionally stuck there. So, what hypnotherapy does is help you to get your control back.

Dr Andrew Greenland: 18:58

Lovely. I actually trained in hypnotherapy years ago before moving into functional medicine. So I really resonate with how powerful the subconscious is, and especially when it comes to shifting health outcomes. So, this all is music to my ears, and um, I do miss the hypnotherapy I used to do. Um trying to get GPs on board, and I think we've in a previous conversation talked about running GP education sessions. What would you most want them to understand about the work that you do?

Kriti Gupta Goel: 19:30

I'm not taking away their jobs. No, but uh I want so okay, now the problem over here is hypnotherapy, even though it is being recognized by NHS, it is not regulated. Now, given the whole system, it will take years and years before any regulation happens, which I think. Although I feel if I have a magic wand, I would just say, come on. Make it regulated so then it's easier for you to refer. But because even though there's a scientific evidence, it works with your subconscious mind. Now, hypnotherapy, they believe and they do it's more about what you believe. Even today, like uh when you talk to any GP, they feel like when you're talking about your problem at a conscious level, it's more effective. What happens in your subconscious mind, it's like your half-sleep-like state. Um, we cannot make it more reliable, right? Uh I have done a few of the like uh workshops for um GPs and uh send them flyers, you know, to health tips. So they do understand the mindfulness. And I think a lot of uh in some few hospitals, in fact, not a lot of few hospitals, they apply some mindful techniques till the time it is mindfulness, they are happy, but when it comes to hypnosis and especially treating any anxieties, depression, they're unable to understand that it can be effective. Uh the but and also like GPs, they rely more on medications, right? If you go for even a mild depression or file anxiety, if you say, Oh, I have a sleep issue, I can't sleep overnight, um, I'm feeling upset, I'm feeling depressed, they simply give you antidepressants. So I I think it is more about the training. If the GPs are trained to understand more about hypnotherapy, it will be easier for them to refer. Right now, it is more about the word of mouth. Me going to a GP, explaining to them, and then the GP said, okay, if someone comes to me, I'll refer. But do they really refer? So I think it's more about training uh GP, making them aware, making them understand that it is such a such an effective method.

Dr Andrew Greenland: 22:13

Thank you. So obviously, you're running a clinic, which is a business, and what's going particularly well for you in your work or from the clinic side of things, the operational side of what you do?

Kriti Gupta Goel: 22:24

So getting clients is a challenge, but once I get a client, it's really good. Something which is happening now that in a few years has been uh it's been established, word of mouth. Uh, a lot of my clients are coming through word of mouth. Um, and uh it's expanding, it's really expanding. Interesting, whenever I think of uh making a niche, I'm always kind of drawn towards another side. That um I started off making a niche as an addiction because I've got few clients for uh uh smoking and uh eliminating alcohol. Uh the minute I thought of okay, let me make this as uh my niche, suddenly some new set of different set of clients started popping in for the weight loss. Uh, and then I started working for the weight loss. Recently, there's a huge uh inquiries coming for the teenagers, which I had honestly when I started hypnotherapy. I never initially thought of starting looking for the younger uh clients, but last year, and this is really working well. Last year uh I have expanded and I'm taking uh young clients because I think in today's time, one thing which is very which is really good that's happening is that young generation, young people, they are giving uh mental health their priority, because of which there are a lot of inquiries coming from younger people to work on their mental health. So that is really working well because um I get a lot of queries from uh mothers asking about their children, uh young teenage children or preteens, uh, low self-esteem, low confidence, anxiety. They're very they're very image conscious. And in this fast-paced life, they just want a quick fix. And hypnotherapy, it's a quick fix, though it's not a magic, but it's a quick fix. So, yes, it's really working well if people know, and uh it's through word of mouth and then the community marketing. Um, so it's working.

Dr Andrew Greenland: 24:42

Amazing. And on the other side of the coin, are there any particular frustrations, bottlenecks, or changes that you're trying to overcome? Maybe on the admin growth or visibility side. Obviously, you've mentioned about um the difficulty with getting referrals from GPs, but are there anything else that kind of um are things you're having to overcome in running a clinic as a business?

Kriti Gupta Goel: 25:03

Oh, definitely. Marketing, admin side. Again, when I started, um you're you're so enthusiastic when you start something, you're so enthusiastic about the product or the service you want to deliver, right? But when you start, you realize that majority of your chunk is going towards the admin work, and that is a big challenge, even though, like I think thanks to the internet, uh, thanks to social media, that awareness is coming along. Uh, people are getting aware about uh taking care of their mental health, and it's all because of the information is so readily available, but at the same time, this is coming out to be one of the biggest challenges for me, uh, because I'm coming from that era where social media was not is not my one of my comfort zones. So marketing definitely being uh on the top of uh social media is one of the biggest challenges. Uh facts and figures, I'm not too much into the facts and figures. I would happily just work with my clients. But when you're uh working, when you're an entrepreneur and you're a sole trader, you have to do, you have to wear all the hats here. Um, so that's one of the biggest challenges that uh marketing, being on the social media, looking for the content, uh, spreading awareness, but the right awareness, because if you now see on the social media, everyone is seeing something. Now, where's the authenticity? Where is the reliability? How true is the information? There's a lot of good information, reliable information, but at the same time, there's a lot of rumors, there's a lot of misinformation, what to believe, what not to believe. So it's uh pros and cons of the social media. But yeah, that's my biggest challenge.

Dr Andrew Greenland: 27:10

Got it. So, where would you love to take your work in the next six to 12 months? Where do you see things going in the next year or so?

Kriti Gupta Goel: 27:17

Oh, definitely I um would want to do obviously I'm always hungry for clients, so I would want to get more and more of clients. But uh group therapy is something uh I would want to explore, getting uh getting involved with secondary schools, because again, the young generations, young people, they want the therapy. So I want to develop more towards now the group count, uh, group therapies, whether it is online or uh whether delivering the workshops, uh engaging with the organizations. Uh so that's where I'm seeing, that's where I'm kind of working towards um providing more therapy in a wider platform or to a wider group rather than just one-to-one. Because as of now, it is primarily one-to-one uh or the workshops.

Dr Andrew Greenland: 28:18

If you could change, if I gave you a magic wand and you could change one thing about your business tomorrow or how it runs, uh, what might that be?

Kriti Gupta Goel: 28:29

If how it runs, okay. Uh, I was about to say the NHS, but it's about my business. Um, if I would want to change one thing, I would kind of get all this admin side sorted quickly. Um get all these uh handbooks or uh group therapy sessions prepared beforehand because this is something I very late I realized. So if I had to do something to just get this prepared, everything, and then kind of you know, go out and spread more about hypnotherapy. Um yeah, I think it's more about the admin side that I would like to change and get things very quickly. It's there, it's ready, everything is ready, you know. And then you start focusing more on building the client relationships, getting clients, working in a group setup, group therapies, but it is more about the admin, which and the social media. Um it's beautiful, it's just beautiful. I mean, had I known earlier, I would have just uh started uh quite early in my life because something I realized uh, which is very uh interesting thing, that as a therapist, when you are seeing a client, you are not only healing a client, you are healing yourself as well. One very interesting case, like a lot of uh clients come to me to for to work on their phobias. And I had this interestingly, dental phobia for ages, for ages. But when I started hypnotherapy and seeing clients um to resolve to get rid of their phobias, not necessarily dental phobia, but any phobia, and I realized that I've actually overcome my own phobia without actually working on myself, just working on the clients. Ultimately, what I'm saying, because in hypnosis, it's all about my voice. So, what my voice is saying, my subconscious is registering as well. So I wish I had started my Kriti therapy ages back, right? Uh, it would have been a completely different picture. But you know, when it's the right time, it's the right time.

Dr Andrew Greenland: 31:00

Thank you, Kriti, thank you. Um, it's been such an interesting and engageful, engaging conversation. Thank you for your insights. I think a lot of clinicians and coaches listening will be inspired not just by your methods, but by the heart behind them, especially the way you hold space for your clients to rewrite their internal narratives that have been holding them back for years. So thank you so much for joining us and speaking so freely and openly about your work.

Kriti Gupta Goel: 31:22

Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure talking to you, and it's amazing the kind of work you do. So thank you so much.