Speaking & Teaching
Clinical hypnosis, therapeutic communication, nocebo, anaesthesia, pain, ethics and informed consent.
I teach clinicians how communication can be used more deliberately to improve patient care. The emphasis is not on learning scripts, but on understanding how rapport, attention, expectation, listening, suggestion and language influence patient experience — and how these principles can be incorporated naturally into everyday clinical interactions.
Current presentation & workshop topics
Hypnotic Communication for the Busy Clinician
Conversational hypnosis, rapport, attention, expectation, utilisation, reframing and suggestion in everyday clinical care.
Little Words, BIG Impact
Mitigating or avoiding nocebo effects in clinical communication, procedures and informed consent.
GREAT & LAURS
Practical structures for therapeutic clinical communication.
Safe Words During Invasive Procedures
Language analysis and practical communication strategies that focus on the patient's experience.
Needle Phobia — From Fear to Control
Lived-in imagination, utilisation, reframing, dissociation, ideomotor signalling and conversational hypnosis.
Hypnosis in Paediatric Burns
More than 25 years of clinical experience integrating therapeutic communication with conventional care.
Clinical Hypnosis in Pregnancy & Childbirth
Hypnosis, expectation, suggestion, antenatal preparation and conventional pain management.
Ethics, Nocebo & Informed Consent
Autonomy, non-maleficence, risk communication and therapeutically meaningful information.
Honours & major invited lectures
Recognition of significant and lasting contributions through leadership, clinical innovation, research and education in hypnotic communication.
Keynote Speaker — Pain / Anaesthesia / Critical Care.
Kester Brown Lecture.
Keynote Speaker.
Selected invited teaching
- 2026 — ANZCA ASM, Auckland: Clinical Hypnosis Workshop.
- 2026 — European Society of Hypnosis Congress, Glasgow: Hypnosis for Paediatric Burns; Needle Phobia Workshop.
- 2026 — IASP World Congress on Pain, Bangkok: therapeutic communication and mitigating nocebo effects during invasive procedures.
- 2025 — Australian Society of Anaesthetists ASM, Canberra: Hypnotic Communication for the Busy Anaesthetist.
- 2024 — ASA NSC, Darwin: Hypnotic Communication for Analgesia and Anaesthesia.
- 2023 — Association of Anaesthetists, London: Medical Hypnosis Practical Workshop.
- 2023 — SAPNA, Adelaide: Perioperative Communication — How words help, how words hurt.
- 2021 — Royal Society of Medicine, London: Little Words BIG Impact: Hypnosis and communication for the management of pain.
- 2021 — ANZCA/ASA NT ACE, Darwin: The Hitchhiker's Guide to Hypnotic Communication in Anaesthesia; Wizard Ways with Words workshop.
Featured podcast
No More S Words! What Hypnosis Teaches Us About Talking with Patients
Australian Society of Anaesthetists, Australian Anaesthesia Podcast — Episode 123.