Hypnotherapy Reviews: Can You Trust Them: Hypnotherapy in Ely and Newmarket

Now I don’t know about you, but these days when I’m deciding to buy something online, or when I’m researching a local business or service I need, then I always take a bit of time to check out the reviews and to see what other people say about their experience or about the thing I’m thinking of getting.

And I’m not just checking the ‘top’ reviews or those deemed ‘most favourable’ (by some online algorithm), I want to scan through what people have said more generally, the pros and cons they list, the proportion of people rating things at different levels and the most recent reviews in case something has changed. Quality and service can change over time so it’s useful to spend a few minutes checking out the reviews to gain a level of assurance before buying that thing or contacting someone about a service.

Whether I’m buying a book or some more guitar plectrums (because they tend to walk off on their own!), or I want to switch bank or find a plumber, I’m either going with a recommendation from someone I trust or conscientiously checking out their reviews. These days, reviews really do matter. I know this with my own hypnotherapy reviews because people want a level of confidence before contacting me about their mental health, or they come because a family member or friend has recommended me.

Yet the upside of being able to quickly check out what other people have said in online reviews sadly comes with the downside that, because reviews really do matter, it can be a breeding ground for those who seek to inflate claims, misrepresent their success and play the system. For some, there can be an unbearable urge to cut corners to boost their profile rather than to do the work and let the good reviews grow organically.

There have been several articles in the news recently about fake reviews and plans about future laws to make them illegal. Yet, right now, if you were to do a quick search online, you could quickly find dozens of companies who are only too happy to sell business reviews on Google, Facebook or anywhere else online that hosts reviews.  And we aren’t talking about a service that contacts actual customers to encourage reviews (like those emails you get a few days after you buy anything online asking you to review it). They are openly selling made up reviews from people who have never used the services of the business, either using deliberately created accounts or sometimes using the same reviewers (so them seem legitimate at first glance) to fabricate some words and leave some stars.

Over the years I’ve had cause to speak to a lot of other hypnotherapists and to look at maybe hundreds of online hypnotherapy websites and profiles and until recently, I’d never knowingly come across the use of fabricated reviews or fake reviews in the field of hypnotherapy. Yet more recently, a bit of research has shown that certainly and sadly there seems to now be this more shady element within the world of hypnotherapy reviews.

Hypnotherapy Reviews

In the main, us hypnotherapists tend to be an honest bunch and to display integrity in what we do and the service we offer. After all, we are working one to one with you on what can be very sensitive and personal issues and we want to do our very best to help you to achieve your goals from your therapy. Given the nature of the work we do, it seems natural that the sort of people attracted to the field of hypnotherapy are those who want to be helpful, encouraging and supportive in what we do when working with you.

Yet even beyond a natural tendency towards integrity and honesty, each hypnotherapy association will have a code of conduct that specifically mandates that we must behave in these proper ways.

I’m a member of the UK Hypnotherapy Council (because of it’s support for science and evidence) and, by being a member, agree to abide by its Code of Conduct for members of the association. Within the code it specifies that members ‘must always act with honesty and integrity.’ It goes on to say that I must maintain high standards of personal conduct as well as professional conduct, must not undermine my professional standing by doing anything that may affect someone’s confidence in me, and that I must never knowingly be dishonest or misleading.

At the risk of sounding like the report into Boris Johnson’s lockdown rule breaking and misleading of Parliament, I think we would all agree that these requirements are both important and necessary for hypnotherapists. Any of the other professional hypnotherapy associations out there will have similar requirements along the same lines for their members. You wouldn’t really want to be seeing a hypnotherapist who didn’t do these things.

Yet just as one rotten apple can spoil the barrel, there is a real risk that one hypnotherapist procuring ‘fake’ or ‘non-genuine’ reviews could damage the wider credibility to the hypnotherapy profession as a whole. People seeking help for their mental health have enough to deal with without having to worry about whether they can trust a hypnotherapist who does not uphold the highest standards of honesty and conduct. It could even discourage people from seeking and accessing the psychological help and support that they very much need.

Can You Trust Online Hypnotherapy Reviews? 

One of the main issues that arises with non-legitimate reviews is that, if you can’t trust a hypnotherapist to be honest about their business, what else about what they say and write should you be sceptical about? If they harvest reviews that aren’t from clients to entice you in and to try and influence your spending decision over which therapist to employ (because very clearly this does not just apply in the hypnotherapy field), then what else might they say and do that is misleading if you do work with them to deal with your issues? How could you ever be sure they were being honest in what they say to you?

That is why fake reviews matter, because they sow the seeds of doubt and distrust. Research demonstrates that the relationship between you and your therapist is very important in helping you to achieve positive therapeutic results and so it all very much matters.

And I realise the irony here because I very much do rely on the three hundred plus hypnotherapy reviews that I have received to highlight what is achievable to you from your hypnotherapy sessions with me. That’s why I actively seek both written and video hypnotherapy testimonials, so you can read, see and hear from real people talking about their sessions. It’s also why I have to approve any review that is submitted before it can appear on my website. I want to make sure that the reviews you see here are from actual people I’ve worked with. I’ve met, worked with and know every single person who has a review published on these pages.

Now, I can’t categorically state that for other hypnotherapists because so many of them publish reviews that may or may not be genuine on their websites and where the person is only known by their first name in all of them or they are all anonymous and undated.

So how do you spot fake hypnotherapy reviews?

Sadly, unless you’ve been keeping track of their reviews it isn’t always that easy. There are several potential red flags without any one of them being conclusive. Here I’m mostly talking about Google reviews because in my experience, Google really aren’t that bothered about whether a review is genuine or not, unless it is obviously fake and sounds like the home page of a therapy website, in which case their filters may spot it and remove it….as I saw happen to a local therapist recently (although if you buy fake reviews then the websites you can get them from probably offer a free replacement for any reviews removed by Google).

As you scroll through their reviews you may spot a sudden change in the pattern. Maybe reviews have gone from being all a few sentences long to just being stars only, and there may be a cluster of them. Could be fine, could mean they’ve asked all their mates to leave a review to boost numbers.  You can look for reviews from people with the same surname as the hypnotherapist as these are likely family members helping boost the review numbers to sway your decision making process (maybe they have been helped by the therapist but their relationship should be declared openly). Review from friends may be more focused on what a nice person they are and be lacking in any mention of actual therapy having occurred. If reviews are purchased they may arrive in an unnaturally speedy time frame, all coming as a cluster.

If you search in date order, you may spot a cluster of reviews that sound awfully similar when read together (in some cases they may even have been submitted within minutes of each other). On their own they might seem legitimate, put together you notice that they have a similar structure and way of describing the same things just in different words. They seem to say a lot but are very vague about their experience and what they sought help about, and most (but maybe not all) will have just the one review. Some people have their reviews set to pubic so you can see who else they have reviewed, and whilst us hypnotherapists work online these days, the geographical spread of their reviews and the things they have written before compared to here can start to indicate whether, just maybe, they may be receiving something in return for their reviews of these businesses.

Until non-genuine reviews are made illegal, or search engines and social media sites take it more seriously, the onus is always going to fall upon all of us to be thorough and to be diligent in our decision making. That’s true whether you are buying a product or a service, from a small business or a large one.

Recommendations are always best when making a decision and I would advise looking at a whole range of reviews, from the top one to the most recent, from written ones to videos, to be the best informed and assured that you can be before going ahead.

One of the reasons I offer a free face to face initial consultation is so that you can meet me in person, find out more about me and what I do, and ask me as many questions as you like before making the decision to go ahead with hypnotherapy sessions with me.  I sigh when I see hypnotherapists who only offer initial consultations over the phone, after all, if you go ahead with sessions you’ll be in a room with them so what is it that stops them from letting you meet and talk in person and get familiar with the surroundings. After all, if you are going to be trusting them with often sensitive and definitely private information about you, then surely you both want to meet and start to build that relationship of trust before just diving straight in after a brief chat over the phone?

So if you’d like to come and meet me for a chat to find out how I can help you and to get your questions answered honestly and accurately then please do get in touch by email, phone or using the contact form and we can soon help you to start moving forward feeling better and better in yourself.

To your health and happiness, 

Dan Regan

Award Winning Hypnotherapist in Ely & Newmarket

POSTSCRIPT: It seems that Google did catch up with one particular local hypnotherapist who I suspected of having bought fake hypnotherapy reviews and they had over a fifth of their reviews removed. I find it quite staggering that Google detected that one in every five of their reviews was considered to be illegitimate.

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