Neurodivergent Hypnotherapy: How Understanding Neurodivergence Makes Us Better Hypnotherapists

When someone uses a hypnotherapy approach that doesn't fit well with me, it can feel almost as if I've been slapped in the face.

It's that immediate.

I'm not resistant. I'm not sitting there analysing everything the practitioner says or deliberately refusing to let go. I want it to work. I'm very open to hypnosis and know how powerful and absorbing an experience it can be.

But if the language and approach don't feel right for the way I process things, I simply can't engage with it.

For me, I need silence. I need space. I need time to collect my own thoughts, make my own connections and allow an experience to develop without someone continually filling in the gaps for me. I tend to respond much better to indirectness and a more Ericksonian-based style, where there is room for my own meaning, associations and experience to emerge.

Put me through a very direct progressive muscle relaxation, with one instruction following another and little space for anything of my own to happen, and I physically struggle to engage with it.

That doesn't make progressive muscle relaxation a bad induction. And it certainly doesn't mean that I can't be hypnotised.

It means it isn't a particularly good route into hypnosis for me.

Understanding neurodivergent hypnotherapy isn't simply about learning how to work with autistic or ADHD clients, and I've written about the problems with a neurodivergent approach that can become reductionist here. It's about recognising differences in processing, attention, imagery, language and sensory experience — and using that understanding to deliver more responsive hypnotherapy for everyone.

After almost a decade of working primarily with neurodivergent clients, as well as developing a much greater understanding of my own autistic and ADHD processing, I've become increasingly aware of how much our own way of experiencing the world can influence the hypnosis we deliver.

And I think that's something all hypnotherapists need to think about.

Neurodivergent Hypnotherapy Is About Understanding Difference

I'm very aware that my own processing influences where I naturally gravitate in my client work.

Of course it does.

It makes sense that we're likely to use approaches that feel meaningful and effective to us. If something feels deeply experiential, absorbing or powerful when we experience it ourselves, it's very easy to assume that it will create something similar for our clients.

But it might not.

Understanding neurodivergence forces us to look at this.

What feels spacious to me might feel frustratingly vague to someone else. What feels beautifully indirect to me might leave another client desperately wishing I would just tell them what we're doing.

Someone else might love the predictability and physical focus of progressive muscle relaxation. Another might find it almost unbearable.

Some people love rich visual imagery. Others don't naturally experience their thoughts in particularly visual ways. Some people become deeply absorbed through bodily sensations. Others find an intense focus on their body distracting or uncomfortable.

Some people need a clear sense of where an experience is going. Others engage much more deeply when they aren't being directed towards a particular destination.

Some people naturally follow one thread of thought. Others make meaning through multiple strands, associations and connections, perhaps moving between them before those different strands begin to come together.

None of these is the “right” way to experience hypnosis.

Why do some clients struggle to engage with hypnosis?

Sometimes clients struggle to engage with hypnosis not because they are resistant or difficult to hypnotise, but because the way hypnosis is being delivered doesn't fit comfortably with how they process language, attention, imagery, sensory information or meaning.

This is where I think becoming more neurodivergent-aware has implications far beyond working with clients who have an autism or ADHD diagnosis.

When a client struggles to engage with hypnosis, it's very easy to interpret that through some of the language traditionally used within hypnotherapy.

They're resistant.

They're too analytical.

They won't let go.

They need to stop trying so hard.

They're difficult to hypnotise.

But perhaps we're looking in completely the wrong place.

Perhaps the client wants the process to work every bit as much as we do, but what we're offering simply doesn't fit comfortably with the way they process their internal and external world.

Imagine someone who needs time to process language being given instruction after instruction without sufficient space between them.

Imagine someone who thinks primarily through concepts, words or connections being continually asked to “see” increasingly elaborate scenes.

Imagine someone whose attention naturally moves between several interconnected strands being repeatedly pulled back because we believe they're supposed to be focusing on one thing.

Imagine someone who needs clarity being given layer upon layer of vague metaphor.

Or someone who needs freedom to create their own meaning being told precisely what they're seeing, feeling and experiencing at every stage.

They may be trying incredibly hard to engage.

And the harder they try, the more aware they become that whatever is supposed to be happening isn't happening.

We can call that resistance.

Or we can become curious about what's getting in the way.

Neurodivergent hypnotherapy shouldn't mean putting people into new boxes

When I think about neurodivergence and hypnosis, the core principle for me is diversity.

It's not about creating a list of techniques for autistic people and another list for people with ADHD.

It's not about deciding that autistic clients need literal language while ADHD clients need something fast-paced and varied.

And it's certainly not about replacing one set of assumptions with another.

Autistic people don't all process information in the same way. Neither do people with ADHD. Neither do neurotypical people.

Even within the same diagnostic group, people can have enormously different experiences of imagery, language, attention, sensory information, bodily awareness, emotion, memory and meaning-making.

So rather than using diagnosis to tell us how somebody's mind works, we can become much more interested in how the individual person in front of us processes experience.

How do they think?

How do they make connections?

How much processing time do they need?

How do they respond to metaphor?

Do they prefer clarity or ambiguity?

Do they naturally experience imagery, sounds, sensations, words, concepts or something much less easily described?

What happens to their attention when they're absorbed?

What makes an experience feel comfortable enough for them to become involved in it?

Those questions are far more useful to me than asking whether someone is “hypnotisable”.

Why processing matters in hypnosis

Once we start thinking about processing, hypnosis becomes much more interesting.

Because hypnosis is fundamentally experiential.

We're using language, attention, imagination, expectation, sensation, memory, emotion and meaning in different combinations to help someone engage with an internal experience.

If we're going to do that well, surely it makes sense to understand something about how that particular person experiences those things.

A client who makes meaning through patterns and connections may respond beautifully when we leave enough space for those connections to emerge.

Someone who prefers greater structure might become more absorbed when they understand exactly what we're doing and what comes next.

Someone with very vivid internal imagery may naturally become immersed in visual experience, while someone else may connect far more deeply with a sense of knowing, a physical experience, words, memories or ideas.

Someone may need movement to regulate their attention rather than stillness.

Someone else may need silence.

And sometimes the smallest changes in our delivery can make an enormous difference.

A longer pause.

A different choice of words.

An invitation rather than an instruction.

More structure.

Less structure.

More explanation before we begin.

Permission to move.

Permission to open their eyes.

Permission not to see anything at all.

These aren't necessarily dramatic new hypnotic techniques.

They're ways of becoming more responsive to the person experiencing them.

Understanding neurodivergence means questioning ourselves too

Perhaps one of the most useful things about learning about neurodivergence is that it makes us examine our own processing.

As therapists, we aren't neutral.

We bring our own minds into the therapy room.

We have our own preferences for directness, metaphor, imagery, pace, structure and communication. We have our own ideas about what relaxation feels like, what absorption looks like and what makes an experience feel meaningful.

I know that I naturally gravitate towards approaches that give people space to find their own meaning because that's what I need myself.

Another therapist may personally respond incredibly well to a structured, direct induction and naturally gravitate towards using that with clients.

There's nothing inherently wrong with either.

The problem comes when we mistake what works for us for what hypnosis is.

My preference for space, indirectness and an Ericksonian approach tells you something about me.

It doesn't tell you what every client needs.

Understanding neurodivergence asks us to recognise the difference between:

This is how I experience hypnosis.

and:

This is how hypnosis should be experienced.

That's a significant difference.

And once we really understand that, it becomes much harder to label a client as resistant simply because they aren't responding in the way we expected.

Becoming more sensitive and responsive hypnotherapists

Understanding neurodivergence makes us better hypnotherapists because it teaches us to question assumptions, recognise different processing styles and adapt the hypnotic experience to the individual rather than expecting the individual to adapt to our preferred way of delivering hypnosis.

It doesn't give us a new collection of scripts.

And it doesn't give us a formula for hypnotising neurodivergent people.

Instead, it makes us more sensitive to difference.

It encourages us to notice when somebody isn't engaging and become curious rather than judgemental. It helps us recognise that a client who appears distracted, uncomfortable, analytical or “resistant” may simply be telling us — sometimes without having the words to tell us — that the experience we're creating doesn't fit them.

And it encourages us to adapt.

When we understand that people process language, attention, imagery, sensory experience and meaning differently, we have far more possibilities available to us.

We can slow down.

We can leave space.

We can become more direct or less direct.

We can offer choices rather than assume.

We can find out how our client experiences their internal world instead of telling them how they should experience it.

We can stop treating traditional signs of hypnosis as proof that hypnosis is happening and start paying attention to what absorption actually looks and feels like for that individual.

For me, this is what good neurodivergent hypnotherapy should ultimately teach us.

The goal isn't to become better at putting people into categories.

It's to become better at taking them out of them.

Because once we really embrace the diversity of how human beings think, process, imagine, feel and make meaning, we're not simply providing better hypnosis for neurodivergent clients.

We're providing more thoughtful, responsive and individually tailored hypnotherapy for everyone and training as a neurodivergent hypnotherapist doesn't just give you the skills to work with neurodivergent clients - it enhances your skills in every area of hypnotherapy.