Some things carry on long after whatever started them has passed. The knee was repaired in 2016 and it still hurts. The bloods are normal and she still can’t get through a Monday. He left the job years ago and still won’t sit with his back to a door.

Different symptoms, different people, the same fault underneath: a protection system that never got the message the danger was over.

Meet Harold.

Harold is the health and safety officer who works in your client’s head. Hi-vis, hard hat, clipboard, permanently earnest, and his entire job is keeping them alive. He carried out a risk assessment once, after one bad day years ago, and he has never reviewed it. The cordon tape is still up. The alarm is still wired in.

He isn’t the villain. He’s kept them alive this far and he’s rather good at his job. He simply never throws anything away — and clients grasp that in about four seconds, which is most of why it works.

Over the two days

—  The model, and the research behind it. Current pain neuroscience, predictive processing, the trauma-response literature, and the 2022 randomised controlled trial published in JAMA Psychiatry. Referenced properly, with the limitations stated.

—  The six threat responses — fight, flight, freeze, flop, friend and fawn — as a single map that reorganises most of a caseload.

—  The Stand-Down: a five-step structure for working with a protective response rather than against it. Nothing is deleted and nothing is overridden.

—  Why some clients won’t let go, and what to do about it.

—  What makes the change hold after they leave the room — the part most approaches skip.

—  Working safely: when to proceed, when to refer, and where the limits of this work sit.

—  Supervised practice throughout, so you leave having done it rather than having watched it.

Where it fits

It’s built to sit alongside what you already do rather than replace it — hypnotherapy, counselling, coaching, bodywork, NLP. You’ll need existing practice; this isn’t an introduction to therapy.

We start on the simple, stable ground: persistent pain, fatigue, hypervigilance, phobias, people-pleasing. Not trauma and not the complicated end — which is a design decision rather than a limitation.

Where this is up to

The model draws on established pain science, but the training itself is new and still developing. The people in these early rooms are actively shaping how it gets taught, and feedback is genuinely wanted. If you’d rather wait for something fully bedded in, that’s a reasonable choice. If you’d rather help shape it, come.

What you leave with

The full participant manual, the Stand-Down pocket card, the session materials, and a certificate of attendance. Certified Practitioner is a separate pathway with supervised cases and assessment.

Refreshments throughout — proper coffee and very good biscuits.

Who’s teaching it

Alan Johnson — NLP trainer, clinical hypnotherapist, psychotherapist, IEMT / MOM practitioner and former mental health nurse, with around thirty years in the helping professions. Author of the Amazon number one bestseller Overthunk!, and host of the That NLP Bloke podcast. Clients have included the NHS, Durham Constabulary, the Ministry of Defence and HM Prison Service.

Important

This approach works alongside medical care and never replaces it. Nothing taught here is a treatment for any medical condition and no outcome is promised. Practitioners are taught to work only with symptoms that have been medically investigated, and to refer anything undiagnosed, new or changing back to a doctor. That principle is built into the front door of the method rather than added as a disclaimer.

The details

Saturday 23 and Sunday 24 January 2027, at Change Working in Northallerton.

Capped at 12 places.

£595, or £445 for bookings made before 31 August.

The fee can be spread across five monthly payments at no extra cost.

Full outline and booking: overprotected.co.uk

Questions: [email protected]