Sunshine Coast & online

Hypnotherapy for self-sabotage

For when you know exactly why you do it, and you still do it.

Self-sabotage rarely looks like sabotage from the inside. It looks like procrastination, a sudden loss of interest, picking a fight, one more drink, the project that's been 90% finished for a year. Afterwards you can explain all of it. That's the frustrating part: the explanation changes nothing.

In my experience the pattern usually isn't working against you. It's protecting you from something: being seen, failing, succeeding and having to keep it up, outgrowing the people around you. It learned that job early and it's still doing it. Hypnotherapy works with that protective part directly, instead of trying to overpower it with willpower.

Does this sound familiar?

You understand your patterns in detail and keep repeating them
Things go well, and then you find a way to undo them
Finishing is much harder than starting
Procrastination that feels more like freezing than laziness
A habit you've “decided” to stop many times
An inner critic that sounds a lot like someone from your past

How the work approaches it

Step 1

Find the pattern

We map the exact sequence: what happens just before you sabotage, what you feel, what you tell yourself, and what it gets you. The real pattern is rarely the one you've been naming.

Step 2

Meet the part that runs it

With parts work and hypnosis, we talk to the part of you that does the sabotaging and find out what it's protecting. Once its job is understood, it can be given a better one.

Step 3

Install the new default

We rehearse the new response in hypnosis, then test it in your week. A recording keeps the change working between sessions.

What the research says

“Self-sabotage” isn't a clinical diagnosis, so there's no research on it as such, and I won't pretend otherwise.

What there is: in 2026 the first meta-analysis of Ericksonian hypnotherapy, the approach I trained in, pooled eight randomised trials, including trials on alcohol use, disordered eating and depression. It found a large overall effect, with results comparable to CBT where the two were compared. The authors call it initial support, and so do I. Here's what that review found, and what it doesn't say.

What to expect

Where: In person at Banyula Zen, Doonan (Noosa Hinterland), or online by video call
First step: Free 30-minute Clarity Call, then a 90-minute Initial Session (A$250)
How many: One issue usually takes six to eight sessions; packages of 6 or 8 lower the rate per session
Between sessions: A recording of your hypnosis to listen to at home

Hypnotherapy complements medical and psychological care; it doesn't replace it. If you're in crisis, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or call 000.

Questions people ask

Isn't this just a lack of willpower?

Usually not. If willpower were enough, you'd have stopped already. Willpower works at the conscious level; the pattern runs underneath it. That's why the work happens there.

How long does it take?

One pattern usually takes six to eight sessions. Long-running patterns, or several tangled together, often suit the twelve-week Conscious Evolution Program.

What if I sabotage the therapy too?

Then that's useful information, and we work with it. A missed session or a sudden wave of doubt is part of the pattern, not a failure. Just tell me what happened.