Care and quality are internal and external aspects of the same thing. A person who sees quality and feels it as he works is a person who cares. A person who cares about what he sees and does is a person who’s bound to have some characteristic of quality.
— Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
For the 15+ years we’ve been in business, we’ve backed our private sessions with one of the strongest guarantees in the profession. The feedback we’ve received through this policy has led us to develop original best practices (such as written treatment plans) and produce higher levels of client satisfaction each year. We hope that our ethos of continual improvement and client-centred care will eventually lead the way for hypnotherapists worldwide.
Our Guarantee
If you are considering a client relationship with us, please read this page carefully, since a professional service isn’t guaranteed the same way a consumer product would be. When a retailer issues a refund, they buy back the product you’ve purchased, but for a service like hypnotherapy, there’s nothing for us to buy back—our time and effort have already been spent.
Instead, we view refunds as “buying” your constructive feedback for the price of up to three sessions, which is the maximum refund. To qualify for a refund, you will have to write a substantive complaint that meets these criteria:
- Critical: Tell us specifically what we did wrong. This is not the time to sugar-coat your feedback: kindness looks to us like candour, openness and transparency. We want the real story behind your dissatisfaction.
- Relevant: Your complaint must describe a problem with our processes, communication or professionalism, which are within our control. We cannot guarantee anything that is outside of our control, such as decisions you make on your own. We also cannot take responsibility for expectations that are not based on the claims we’ve made. A complaint such as “it didn’t work” needs to be explained further before we can accept it as relevant.
- Actionable: We are looking for feedback that can improve our work with future clients. We cannot improve if, for example, your complaint is based solely on personal preferences that do not generalize to other people. It’s okay for you to vent, but what we really want to understand is what we should do differently in the future.
Your complaint doesn’t have to be lengthy, but it does have to meet these criteria to fall under our guarantee. If you are asking us for a refund or to redo a session for free, but your complaint does not meet all of these criteria, we will ask you to resubmit your complaint to qualify (see the next section for examples).
If you are unable to write a complaint that satisfies these criteria, it means our refund policy is not intended for your situation, and the best way forward is usually to continue your treatment plan with a deeper understanding of how people change.
These terms allow us to stand behind our work and improve it, while preventing a very small percentage of clients from abandoning responsibility or abusing our goodwill. To use an analogy, a leather goods maker might guarantee its products against defects in materials and workmanship (which are within its control), but not misuse or accidental damage (which are the buyer’s responsibility). Such a distinction ensures that real problems will be remedied while unrealistic expectations are not rewarded.
Clarifying Examples
Non-qualifying complaint: “I started smoking again, so I’d like to have my past sessions refunded” or “the sessions were relaxing, but hypnosis didn’t work for me.”
As they are written, neither of these complaints explains how we failed to meet our obligations or how we’re otherwise at fault. These outcomes are usually caused by factors that are not in our control, such as the client’s own decision-making, the influence of others or unanticipated stressors. Reading between the lines, we also notice the client denying their own agency, which we do not want to encourage.
If you cannot describe what we did wrong, like in the qualifying example below, our guarantee does not apply. In most cases, you would be better served by continuing your sessions until you achieve the results you’re seeking.
Qualifying complaint: “I mentioned that I’m a vegetarian during my intake, but in my third session, my hypnotist included poultry among the foods that I can enjoy. It made me feel sick and I couldn’t concentrate or listen after that. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to start over with a different hypnotist. You should keep better notes about people’s dietary restrictions!”
This complaint is critical, relevant and actionable. We are clearly at fault, and we can learn from the complaint. It will result in a prompt refund of the three sessions, our apologies and a change to our procedures.
Additional Notes and Terms
We guarantee private in-office and online sessions because of the uncertainties involved and the impossibility of reversing time. This can make it easier for you to proceed with hypnosis, since we understand our work much better than a new client does, and we are willing to assume the risk that we might misstep during your initial sessions. We cannot, however, assume the risk that you might misstep.
Please consider that a refund usually terminates the hypnotist–client relationship. Avoiding this worst-case scenario starts early: you should be open and honest during your intake, set your expectations to match what we describe in your treatment plan, set your mind on success rather than failure, embrace your crucial role in the process of changing your own perspectives or behaviours and consider this policy to be a last resort.
This policy applies to sessions that you have already completed and paid for. Prepaid sessions that have not yet been completed are fully refundable upon request (subject to our 24-hour Cancellation Policy). If you cannot be hypnotized in a first session, as measured through standard depth testing that we conduct in the first 15 minutes, the session will usually end early and no fee will be incurred.
At our discretion, we will sometimes repeat a session at no extra cost. In this situation, the same terms apply: we first need a complaint that satisfies the criteria above before we can accept responsibility for your dissatisfaction.
If you are a payer but not the client (i.e., the person who is being hypnotized), you should consider our fees to be non-refundable, since we consider our clients to be in control of their own treatment. We can only accept refund requests from our clients, unless you are the client’s legal guardian.
Recorded sessions are non-refundable, because our recorded work can be sampled online, outlined in advance and edited afterward. Normally, a recording would be your last session in a series, which means we have some time to get the message right. There will never be a situation where we deliver a recording with a voice or content other than what you can reasonably expect based on information that’s available to you in advance.
We will write your first treatment plan free of charge. If you require additional written treatment plans, a non-refundable charge will apply.
Group sessions, classes and workshops are non-refundable, except in the event that you’ve prepaid and have to cancel due to illness.
Products come with their own refund policies, which will be described at the point of sale.
Last edited August 21, 2022.