Hypnotherapy based in Skipton and online: anxiety, stress, confidence, phobias, smoking cessation. Available in Embsay, Carleton, Gargrave, Keighley, Ilkley, Steeton, Silsden, Barnoldswick. Clinically led by Registered Mental Health Nurse, Christopher Hardy - 20 years of experience in NHS healthcare. Find us on the Hub of Hope, Joy, Autism Services Directory, Thomson Local and Yell.com.
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Clinical Hypnotherapy and Mental Health Support in Skipton & Online
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Professional, ethical and safe hypnotherapy - clinically led by Christopher Hardy, a Registered Mental Health Nurse with 20 years of experience working in NHS mental health services
✓ NMC Registered Mental Health Nurse
✓ 20 years NHS Experience
✓ Fully Insured
✓ Enhanced DBS Checked
🚨Help in a Crisis or an Emergency
Asclepieia Hypnotherapy and Wellness is not an emergency or mental health crisis service - If you find yourself in a situation where you need immediate help or are experiencing a mental health crisis, your safety is the top priority. In those moments, please reach out to the dedicated professionals at the services listed below, who are specifically equipped to provide 24/7 urgent care and support.
If there is an immediate risk to life or physical safety:
Call 999 or go to the nearest Accident & Emergency (A&E) department (In Skipton, this is Airedale General Hospital, BD20 6TD).
In a mental health crisis:
First Response (NHS): 0800 952 1181 or 111 (option 2)
How to refer/self refer: Just call. This is the primary 24/7 "front door" for mental health crises in Skipton and Craven. They provide immediate telephone support and can dispatch a "First Responder" team to your home if needed.
Mental Health Support in Skipton and Online: An Evidence-Based Approach
At Asclepieia Hypnotherapy and Wellness, we believe that mental health support should be grounded in clinical evidence, professional ethics, and a deep respect for individual safety. In an era where "wellness" can often feel synonymous with exaggerated claims and unverified methods, we provide a practical, realistic alternative. Led by a Registered Mental Health Nurse with 20 years of NHS experience, our clinic bridges the gap between traditional clinical care and the transformative potential of therapeutic hypnosis.
Hypnotherapy as a Complementary Clinical Tool
Hypnotherapy is not a replacement for medical psychiatric care, but rather a powerful, evidence-based complementary therapy. It is a collaborative process that uses focused attention and deep relaxation to help you explore new perspectives and develop healthier cognitive patterns.
The validity of hypnotherapy is well-supported by leading UK health and psychological bodies:
The British Psychological Society (BPS): The BPS has formally recognised that enough clinical evidence exists to suggest hypnotherapy is an effective adjunct for managing anxiety, stress, and insomnia, as well as enhancing the outcomes of weight management programmes and smoking cessation.
The NHS: While not typically available on the health service, the NHS acknowledges hypnotherapy as a legitimate method for habit change and symptom management. They specifically recommend seeking practitioners with a professional healthcare background, such as nursing or psychology, to ensure safe and ethical practice.
A Grounded Space for Recovery
Inspired by the ancient Greek Asclepieia, sanctuaries designed for rest, reflection, and recovery, our Skipton clinic offers a modern, structured environment where your mental wellbeing is the primary focus. By combining extensive NHS mental health expertise with safe, professional hypnotherapy, we provide a space where you can feel heard, supported, and empowered to make meaningful, lasting change.
Whether you are managing the pressures of daily stress, navigating anxiety, or looking to break a long-standing habit, our approach remains the same: no gimmicks, no myths - just professional, ethical care tailored to your unique needs.
About Christopher Hardy BSc (Hons) DipPSN RNMH
Christopher Hardy is an NMC Registered Mental Health Nurse (NMC PIN 09F0389E - verify registration on the official NMC register) with more than 20 years’ experience in the NHS. Throughout his career he has supported individuals and families through anxiety, depression, trauma, addiction and crisis situations.
This clinical background gives him a unique advantage as a hypnotherapist: he understands not just the theory of the mind, but how real mental health challenges present in everyday life. At Asclepieia, you receive hypnotherapy that is professional, compassionate and genuinely safe – delivered by someone who has spent two decades caring for people at their most vulnerable.
Our Mental Health Services in Skipton, surrounding areas and Online
We help adults and young people across Skipton, North Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and Lancashire (including Keighley, Ilkley, Steeton, Silsden and Barnoldswick) and anywhere in the UK via online sessions with practical, solution-focused hypnotherapy, with problems including:
Rebuild inner strength and develop a confident version of yourself.
Gentle, effective techniques to overcome fears of flying, heights, needles, public speaking and more.
Learn to calm the nervous system, reduce overwhelm and regain control in daily life.
Break the habit for good with a structured, supportive programme that addresses both the psychological and physical sides of quitting.
Each programme is tailored by Chris, for you. Sessions are 1-to-1, confidential, and designed to deliver meaningful and measurable results - working at your pace.
Evidence-based techniques to identify the triggers and the maintaining factors to your anger - and embed safe and manageable change.
Evidence-based support to calm the mind, reduce night-time worries to establish healthier sleep patterns, so you can enjoy deeper, more restorative rest.
Interrupt automatic negative thinking, and strengthen a balanced and more realistic perspective.
Hypnotherapy and mental health: a measured, evidence-informed view
Mental health is often discussed as though it sits neatly inside separate boxes: anxiety, stress, low mood, sleep problems, panic, burnout. In practice, it is usually more interconnected than that.
For many people, the same underlying pattern shows up again and again: a nervous system that feels over-activated, a mind that struggles to switch off, and a body that stays on alert long after the original pressure has passed. That can affect sleep, concentration, relationships, work, physical tension, and overall quality of life.
If you are looking at hypnotherapy through a mental health lens, that caution is sensible. It should be taken seriously, used appropriately, and understood as part of a broader evidence-informed approach rather than as a miracle cure. NICE recommends a stepped-care approach for anxiety disorders, with the least intrusive effective intervention offered first, and evidence-based psychological interventions as first-line treatment.
A complementary approach, not a substitute for proper care
The NHS describes hypnotherapy as a complementary therapy that uses relaxation techniques to help improve unhealthy habits or ways of thinking, and notes that the NHS may offer complementary therapies only in certain circumstances and based on evidence and value for money. It also makes clear that hypnotherapy is not suitable for everyone, including some people with schizophrenia or a history of psychosis, and some people with epilepsy.
That matters, because the most credible way to talk about hypnotherapy is not to oversell it. The strongest position is this: it may be helpful for some people, for some symptoms, in some contexts, particularly when it is used carefully and alongside sound clinical judgement.
What the research suggests
The evidence base is growing. A meta-analysis of hypnosis for anxiety found that hypnosis was effective in reducing anxiety symptoms, with more benefit when it was combined with other psychological interventions than when used alone.
A broader 20-year overview of meta-analyses found that hypnosis showed positive effects across a range of mental and somatic outcomes, with 99.2% of reported outcomes positive and more than half showing at least a medium effect size. The authors concluded that the findings support hypnosis as an efficacious treatment option for a range of health problems, while also noting that the evidence is heterogeneous and that more work is needed to identify who benefits most.
A 2024 review focused on anxiety and its physiological effects found that hypnosis and hypnotherapy may help reduce anxiety and may also influence the cardiovascular stress response, including sympathetic activation and parasympathetic tone. That does not make hypnosis a treatment for cardiovascular disease, but it does underline something clinically important: mental distress is not “just in the mind”. It is embodied, measurable, and often sustained by the body’s own alarm systems.
Where hypnotherapy may be helpful in mental health
In a mental health context, hypnotherapy is most plausibly useful when symptoms are experienced as automatic, physical, and difficult to interrupt by willpower alone. That can include anxiety, stress, habitual worry, sleep disruption, tension, performance anxiety, and some panic-like patterns. NHS material on complementary therapies also frames hypnotherapy as a relaxation-based approach, and NHS services may use it selectively for symptom support in certain conditions.
Used well, hypnotherapy may help people:
reduce the body’s stress arousal and settle more readily into a calmer state;
interrupt loops of rumination and anticipatory worry;
strengthen more helpful internal responses through repetition and suggestion;
and create more space for recovery, sleep, and emotional regulation.
That is a modest claim, but an important one. For many people, the value is not dramatic transformation overnight. It is the gradual weakening of old threat patterns and the building of a more responsive, regulated baseline.
Why our approach is different
What matters most in hypnotherapy is not simply the technique. It is the clinical frame around it.
Chris' background as a Registered Mental Health Nurse, with 20 years of NHS experience including mental health services and patient safety roles, gives that work a different level of context and caution. In mental health, that is really important because symptoms do not always mean the same thing, and not every presentation is suitable for the same intervention. A mental-health-led approach is more likely to recognise complexity, boundary issues, risk, and the need for referral or alternative support when that is the safer option.
That means the work is more than relaxation. It is assessment, pacing, informed consent, and a clear understanding of where hypnotherapy fits and where it does not. It is also why a clinically grounded practice is better aligned with YMYL (Your Money, Your Life) expectations: the emphasis is on safety, suitability, and realistic expectations, not hype.
What you can expect from the work
A considered hypnotherapy process should feel calm, collaborative, and specific to the person . It should not rely on generic scripts or exaggerated promises.
With Chris at Asclepieia Hypnotherapy, the focus is on understanding what is happening underneath the symptom picture, identifying what keeps it going, and using evidence-informed hypnotherapy in a way that feels measured and safe. The aim is not to override your experience, but to support a better relationship with it.
That is especially relevant for people who feel they have already tried “thinking positively” or pushing through, only to find that the body keeps reacting as if it is still under threat. Hypnotherapy may offer a different route in: one that works with attention, expectation, and physiological settling rather than against them.
A sensible next step
If mental health symptoms are becoming persistent, distressing, or disruptive, the starting point should always be an appropriate assessment and, where needed, evidence-based psychological care. Hypnotherapy may then be part of a wider plan, particularly where stress, anxiety, sleep, or conditioned responses are part of the picture. That is the most responsible and credible way to use it.
In that sense, the benefit of hypnotherapy in mental health is not that it replaces established care. It is that, for the right person and the right presentation, it may provide a structured way to help the mind and body stop rehearsing the same alarm response.
References
Leo, D.G., Keller, S.S. and Proietti, R. (2024) ‘“Close your eyes and relax”: the role of hypnosis in reducing anxiety, and its implications for the prevention of cardiovascular diseases’, Frontiers in Psychology, 15, 1411835.
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (2011, updated 2020) Generalised anxiety disorder and panic disorder in adults: management (CG113).
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (2014) Quality statement 2: Psychological interventions | Anxiety disorders | Quality standards.
NHS (2026) Herbal medicines and complementary therapies.
Rosendahl, J., Alldredge, C.T. and Haddenhorst, A. (2024) ‘Meta-analytic evidence on the efficacy of hypnosis for mental and somatic health issues: a 20-year perspective’, Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1330238.
Valentine, K.E., Milling, L.S., Clark, L.J. and Moriarty, C.L. (2019) ‘The efficacy of hypnosis as a treatment for anxiety: a meta-analysis’, International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 67(3), pp. 336–363.
Mental Health and Hypnotherapy Articles
Mental Health Support Services Directory
First Response (NHS) - Call 0800 952 1181
24/7 crisis service for all ages in the Skipton, Craven and Bradford district area - bdct.nhs.uk
Samaritans - Call 116 123
24/7 non-judgmental listening ear for anyone struggling to cope - samaritans.org
SHOUT - Text SHOUT to 85258
24/7 confidential text support for those in crisis - giveusashout.org/
Additional problem specific services:
Beat (Eating Disorders): 0808 801 0677
Provides helplines and online support for adults and young people experiencing eating disorders.
Website: beateatingdisorders.org.uk
CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably): 0800 58 58 58
A service dedicated to preventing male suicide; open from 5:00 PM to Midnight.
Website: thecalmzone.net
Cruse Bereavement Support: 0808 808 1677
Offers specialist grief support, advice, and information for anyone following a loss.
Website: cruse.org.uk
IDAS (Independent Domestic Abuse Services): 03000 110 110
A North Yorkshire service providing support for anyone affected by domestic or sexual violence.
Website: idas.org.uk
NAPAC (National Association for People Abused in Childhood): 0808 801 0331
Supports adult survivors of any form of childhood abuse.
Website: napac.org.uk
North Yorkshire Horizons (Skipton Hub): 01756 636 313
Provides drug and alcohol recovery services specifically for those in the North Yorkshire area.
Website: nyhorizons.org.uk
OCD Action: 0300 636 5478
Offers support and information specifically for people living with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
Website: ocdaction.org.uk
Papyrus (HOPELINE247): 0800 068 4141
Specialist support for young people (under 35) experiencing suicidal thoughts.
Website: papyrus-uk.org
Switchboard (LGBTQ+ Support): 0300 330 0630
Provides a safe space for LGBTQ+ communities to find information and support.
Website: switchboard.lgbt
Victim Support: 0808 168 9111
An independent charity that helps anyone affected by crime or traumatic events.
Website: victimsupport.org.uk
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Phone
Asclepieia Hypnotherapy and Wellness, The Divergent Space, 6 Victoria St, Skipton BD23 1JE
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ASCLEPIEIA HYPNOTHERAPY AND WELLNESS LTD
Company number 17167132
Registered in England and Wales
Registered office: 15 Princes Drive, Skipton, England, BD23 1HN
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