Hypnotherapy for Men: 5 Ways to Make Your Practice More Male Friendly

The proportion of male clients seeking out therapy has increased from 18% to 29% of all therapy clients in the last 15 years – that’s potentially a third of your potential clients now who are men.

But even though more men are seeking out therapy, there’s still a mismatch between a desire for support and feeling that they’re welcomed by therapists, or that therapy is appropriate for them.

Some of this is based around the unknown  - men don’t know what’s involved with counselling or hypnotherapy, and that lack of knowing can lead to fear and a tendency to hold back from making the first move.

But what many of my male clients – and students and family members who have shared their experience of therapy – have told me is that their experiences of therapy simply haven’t “gelled” with them. Before I go on, I should mention that it’s really important not to reduce our clients to gendered stereotypes and that some male clients are very emotionally self-aware and comfortable with the type of therapeutic experiences they’ve had. What I’m discussing here is general patterns and trends.  

What I tend to hear is that a therapist is “nice” but they sometimes feel like the therapist is talking a different language to them. This makes sense. The majority of therapists, including hypnotherapists, are female (although the numbers of males entering the profession is steadily increasing, which is great to see). And, with our female clients, we’re often starting from a different point. We have clients who are used to talking to friends, going deeper into the issues they might experience, and are more well-versed with conversations around vulnerability and introspection.

Male clients often don’t have this grounding, and they often simply approach problems differently. Many men are looking for solutions. They often have less awareness of “what’s underneath the problem”, and the type of awareness and “getting beneath the surface” language that therapists use can make them feel disengaged and even threatened at times. If we want to work with male clients effectively and attract more men to our practice, we need to be aware of some gender differences that can influence their experience, and how to make our practice more welcoming to men.

Hypnotherapy for Men: 5 ways to make your practice more male friendly

1)    Provide tools

One of the most effective ways of working with men is to provide them with therapeutic tools. This is where the concept of the Men’s Resilience Toolkit came from – concrete, tangible things that men can “do”. Whilst many men might find it harder to engage with talking and listening, and whilst feeling passive might feel uncomfortable, having practical measures for specific situations is a great way to work with their sense of agency and empowerment.

2)    Make it clear you work with men

Many of our websites and social media carry a predominantly “feminine” message – which is often the result of unconscious choices on our part. There’s nothing wrong with this, particularly if you work with women most of the time. But if working with men is something you want to focus on more, make it clear that men are welcome to your practice. Either consider your overall branding or include a page and information on your website about men’s hypnotherapy. Men can feel unwelcome unless they explicitly know you work with male clients.

3)    Be open to embracing new approaches

As therapists, it’s always important to grow and change, to learn new approaches and develop your practice. And if you want to work with male clients, it’s important to “learn their language” and be open to subtly shifting your approach so that it’s more inclusive and accessible.

4)    Reframe within the language of challenge

There are many ways we can change our language, from how we talk to our clients, to the language we use in hypnotherapy scripts, and how we explain the tools we offer our clients. One simple and effective change we can make it to reframe the process of therapy within the context of challenge. Rather than focus on therapeutic outcomes, many men respond well to thinking about “doing therapy” as a challenge in itself, and seeing it in this way can provide motivation for sticking with the process.

5)    Stick with the problem

As hypnotherapists, we all know that underneath the presenting issue is usually a deeper problem. Part of our work is often guiding our clients towards a deeper sense of self-awareness. But for men, this process often leads them to feel disengaged and unheard, and if it’s rushed, they can become frustrated and tempted to leave their hypnotherapy sessions and not return. Sticking with the problem – which is a very Ericksonian approach – can feel far safer for men, and it’s amazing what deeper insights emerge when we stay focused on the external problem itself, remaining genuinely curious and interested in it. Hypnotherapy for men means taking our existing skills and approaches and giving them a tweak here and there to ensure our practice is accessible and effective.

Putting these, and other, measures in place can help your clients not only choose you as their hypnotherapist in the first place, but get the most from their sessions.

To join our next Men’s Resilience Toolkit – a blend of hypnotherapy, NLP and coaching – live training course on 18^thJuly 2026, please click

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To become a Men’s Resilience Toolkit practitioner by studying our online, self-paced course – please click here.

Or for more information, or to share your experience as a male client, please get in touch!