Christine Rivers, PhD

A woman with shoulder-length wavy hair and blue eyes smiling, wearing a black blazer and a white top, sitting in front of a large window with green trees outside.

My name is Christine Rivers and I am a qualified and registered integrative hypnotherapist with psychotherapeutic training, qualified health and lifestyle coach and Professor of Mindfulness and Business at the University of Surrey. 

I am curious about how we can understand our inner world, create new meaning and knowledge about our world and integrate these into our new way of being. Throughout this process of healing ourselves, I find the use of different therapeutic approaches such as talking, hypnosis, mindfulness and embodied practices helpful and supportive.

Based on my own experience of therapy especially before my therapist training, just talking did not help me enough to understand myself better - why I was anxious, angry or reacted unkind and just wanted to run away from my responsibility as a parent of three children including twins. Therapy felt exhausting, slow and unclear. I often felt like I was going round in circles, which only exacerbated the problem instead of freeing my mind.

I realised I needed something else that helped me to move from my head into the body. The combination of hypnosis, mindfulness and talking was very powerful and suddenly, I arrived at my desired outcome much faster. My thoughts and emotions changed, the way I responded changed. I learned to love and accept myself, be kind to my self and others despite my quirks. Through change my physical syndromes and pains (e.g. IBS, Panic attacks, Migraines) disappeared.

For some just talking might work really well and I am happy to offer that, for others working with imagination, the body or something else might be more suitable. I am committed to work collaboratively to identify how to best work through your presenting issue(s) in order to get to your desired outcome as quick as possible and with long lasting impact.

Clinical hypnosis, embodied and emotion-focused therapy, mindfulness including art-based methods, lifestyle medicine and talking therapy are my therapy tools of choice.

I am fully insured with Balens and enhanced DBS checked. I comply with UKCP Code of Practice and Code of Ethics.