Hi, I’m Katie
I’m a Clinical Hypnotherapist and Self-Belief Coach, working in Wokingham and online. For over two decades I’ve been helping people build confidence, develop self-trust and create change that lasts.
Over the years, my work has evolved as I have. I’ve trained in different therapies, worked with thousands of clients and experienced plenty of change, uncertainty and self-doubt in my own life too. All of that has shaped the way I work today: warm, practical and honest, with a focus on understanding what sits underneath the patterns we repeat, not simply trying harder to overcome them.
How I found my way here
I didn’t start out with a grand plan to become a therapist. My first career took me through sales, social care and community work, but I was always drawn to people, what makes us tick and why we can know something logically yet still feel or behave completely differently.
In 2002, I began training in holistic therapies and my work gradually took a very different direction. The more I worked with people, the more fascinated I became by the connection between our experiences, our beliefs and the way we respond to life. That curiosity eventually led me to train as a Clinical Hypnotherapist in 2008.
Hypnotherapy changed the way I understood change itself. I saw that people could consciously know exactly what they wanted to do differently and still find themselves repeating the same reactions, fears and behaviours. It made me want to understand not just the symptom someone arrived with, but what was sitting underneath it.
Over the years I kept learning, training and adding to the way I work. Coaching became an important part of that because I could see the value in not only helping someone release what was holding them back, but supporting them to think, choose and respond differently afterwards.
That journey eventually became the way I work today: bringing together Clinical Hypnotherapy and Self-Belief Coaching to work with both the subconscious patterns underneath a problem and the conscious choices that help create lasting change.
I had to learn to trust myself too
At 40, I made a huge change in my own life and opened The Haven Wellbeing Hub. It meant stepping away from what was familiar and creating something completely new. From the outside, it probably looked brave and exciting. On the inside, there was plenty of self-doubt, overthinking and procrastination along the way.
And it wasn’t the last time I had to reinvent things. Moving in 2020 brought another period of change. In 2022, I made the difficult decision to close the Wellbeing Hub and return to working independently as a therapist. Then in 2023, I built The Haven cabin at home and came back to where I started my therapist journey.
None of those changes happened because I suddenly felt completely confident or knew exactly how everything would work out. I questioned myself. I delayed decisions. I worried about getting things wrong and wondered what other people might think. I experienced many of the same patterns I now help my clients recognise in themselves.
That’s one of the reasons I don’t think confidence is about getting rid of fear or self-doubt. It’s about learning to trust yourself enough that they no longer get to decide what you do.
And sometimes the hardest part of change isn’t knowing that something needs to be different. It’s allowing yourself to let go of what once felt safe and make room for what fits the person you are now.
Knowing why doesn’t always change how you feel
There have also been times in my life when I understood perfectly well what was happening and still couldn’t simply think my way out of how I felt. During the years we were trying to start a family, I experienced periods of anxiety, insomnia, panic and a level of overwhelm I hadn’t known before. I could rationalise what was happening. I could tell myself what I “should” be thinking or feeling. It didn’t necessarily change what my mind and body were doing.
I used many of the things I now encourage my clients to explore: counselling, hypnotherapy, meditation, journalling and simply learning to understand myself better. Different things helped at different times, and the experience deepened my understanding of just how complex change can be. It also reinforced something I see again and again in my work now: insight matters, but insight alone doesn’t always change an automatic response.
You can know you’re capable and still doubt yourself. You can know there’s nothing to fear and still feel anxious. You can understand exactly where a pattern came from and still find yourself repeating it. That’s why my work has gradually evolved to work with both sides of change: what we understand consciously, and what has become deeply learnt underneath it.
Why I work the way I do
Over the years, I’ve learnt that lasting change rarely comes from one thing alone. Understanding where a pattern came from can be incredibly useful, but understanding it doesn’t always stop it. Equally, releasing an old belief or emotional response can create huge change, but sometimes people still need support to build a different way of thinking, responding and trusting themselves afterwards.
That’s why my work now brings together Clinical Hypnotherapy and Self-Belief Coaching.
Hypnotherapy allows us to work with the subconscious beliefs and emotional responses that may be driving a pattern. Coaching helps bring that change into everyday life, so you can recognise the old reactions when they appear and begin making different choices.
For me, it isn’t about fitting you into one method. It’s about understanding what’s keeping you stuck and using the right tools to help you move forward.
24 years of helping people change
I’ve been working with people for more than two decades, and one of the things those years have taught me is that no two people get stuck in quite the same way.
Every client, every training and every stage of my own life has added something to the way I work. I still learn, question and adapt, because I don’t believe good therapy is about applying the same formula to everyone.
24 years
working in wellbeing and supporting people through change
18 years
as a Clinical Hypnotherapist
6 years
combining hypnotherapy with coaching
Thousands
of client sessions and conversations about what really keeps us stuck
That experience has given me a large toolbox, but knowing which tool to use, and when, is what really matters.
What it’s like to work with me
I’m warm, caring and non-judgemental, but I’m also honest. I’ll listen, I’ll support you and I’ll give you space to work things through, but I won’t just nod along if I can see you’re getting caught in the same pattern again.
I believe change happens best when you feel safe enough to be honest, but supported enough to challenge what’s no longer working for you.
There may be difficult conversations, surprising realisations and moments when I ask a question you’d rather I hadn’t. There will probably also be laughter. Quite a lot of it, actually.
You don’t need to arrive knowing exactly what’s wrong or having all the right words. You just need to be willing to be curious about yourself and open to doing something differently.
My job isn’t to tell you who to be. It’s to help you understand what has been getting in the way, let go of what no longer serves you and trust yourself more in what comes next.
Training & qualifications
I’ve trained across a range of therapeutic and wellbeing approaches over the past 24 years. That breadth of training means I can draw on different ways of working rather than expecting one approach to suit everyone.
- Clinical Hypnotherapy & Hypnoanalysis
- Self-Belief Coaching
- Advanced Past Life Regression Therapy
- Somatic Trauma Therapy
- Yoga Breathing
- Flexibility Coach
- Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
- NLP
- Angelic Reiki 1-4
- Reiki 1-3 and other energy-healing modalities.
- Reflexology
- Aromatherapy
- Holistic Therapist
I continue to learn and develop my work, not because I believe I need another certificate on the wall, but because understanding people and how we change never really stops evolving. Much of what I’ve trained in has also been part of my own journey, giving me the chance to experience the techniques for myself, understand them from the inside and use them in my own healing and growth.
What clients say
Katie is amazing. She is one of those people that you can tell anything to, and she wouldn’t be shocked or judge. The Haven is such a safe space perfectly designed for healing. I am so grateful to Katie for all she has done for me. I went to Katie for hypnotherapy, which was incredibly and professionally executed, and she also offered self-belief work which was crucial to my understanding of myself and how my past has impacted me. Amy H – Google Review
Ready to find out if working together feels right?
If something in this page has resonated with you, the next step is simply to book a free Discovery Call. We can talk about what’s going on, what you’d like to change and whether working together feels like the right fit.