The Return of the Life Time Guarantee
20 years ago it was quite common for hypnotherapists to offer “life time guarantees” on smoking cessation sessions as a means of getting clients through the door. It was a practise which I was and am vehemently opposed to. Why you might ask? Ok, how many of these practices still exist. I would be willing to wager, at best 1 in 10 are still in business. How many of those clients are still alive? I would guess a helluva a lot more than that. So, a lifetime guarantee is not really worth the paper it is written on.
For a good 7 to 10 years, this practise had gone the way of the dodo, in that it was no longer something one would regularly see. Unfortunately, with the economy in question and the proliferation of many newly and poorly trained practitioners joining our ranks, it appears that this practise is becoming vogue again.
For hypnotherapists to be able to continue to practise in the UK with limited restriction it is the profession’s responsibility to ensure that claims made by practitioners are provable and ethical. To make claims of a “lifetime guarantee” in my view is suspect at best. Those of us who have been around for a while survived because the services we provided were valuable without having to resort to such tactics. Please for the good of the profession if you are engaged in this activity, please stop, think and change. You will be glad you did.