About Awaken Counselling and Hypnotherapy
David Frank
Awaken Counselling and Hypnotherapy is run by David Frank. David is a qualified counsellor and hypnotherapist with a B.A. (Hons) degree in Humanistic Psychotherapy. David has been working as a freelance therapist for many years, as well as working as a counsellor for several General Practitioner Surgeries in the U.K. He has also taught a number of courses in Counselling for Further Education Colleges, and has run many workshops including Self-Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy. Research that David carried out led to the writing and international publication of his book, “Hypnosis & Counselling in the Treatment of Chronic Illness”, which he co-wrote with one of his colleagues. David always works in a friendly and informal manner.
David might best be described as a humanistic and transpersonal counsellor and hypnotherapist. He has spent a large part of his career investigating the mostly unused potential of the subconscious mind through hypnosis. At a personal level David combines self-hypnosis with meditation to work towards individuation.
David first became interested in counselling in 1985 when he was working for social services in the UK looking after people with severe intellectual disability. In 1986 he attended a course in basic counselling skills. Following this in 1990 David went to the University of East London, where in 1992 he was awarded a diploma of higher education in humanistic counselling by independent study. During this period he also studied for a diploma in hypnotherapy at a private collage, which he achieved after sitting an external exam. Having successfully completed his Dip HE, David took a year off from studying to focus on starting a private practice.
In 1993 David restarted his studies with the College of Independent Study where he began a B.A. (Hons) degree course validated by the University of Wolverhampton. He completed his degree in 1994 and for his final dissertation he conducted research to test his hypothesis that, ‘people receiving client-centred counselling would enter a hypnotic state’.
As well as starting his private practice in 1992 David also started to teach basic counselling skills at Thurrock College for Further Education in Essex, U.K. He became the course tutor for counselling and wrote three courses in client-centred counselling. The first was a short non-validated ten-week introduction. The second and third were validated by the Essex Open College Federation. These courses were specifically designed for people such as nurses and social workers who wanted to utilise counselling skills within their current field but did not necessarily want to become professional counsellors.
In 1996 David started to work in medical centres. Doctors that he worked for found his self-managed service to be efficient and cost effective with a high level of patient satisfaction demonstrated by clinical audits and client surveys. His duties were to provide a counselling service for people with emotional, social, phobic and addiction problems. This included facilitating people with various levels of anxiety and depression, anger management, sexual and marital problems, and also adults who had been sexually or emotionally abused as children.