John Tepe
Psychotherapy and Coaching
Intensive and 60-minute therapy and hypnotherapy for people experiencing pressured and difficult times.
Support for clients in Birmingham, across the UK, and online.
Take Control of Your Narrative
Psychotherapy for people carrying more than they can easily put into words. Whether the pressure comes from work, relationships or simply the accumulating weight of keeping things going. This is a space to examine what is actually happening and begin to change it.
My practice is integrative, drawing on applied neuroscience, cognitive behavioural therapy and cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy within a framework grounded in how people construct their experience.
60 Minute Therapy Sessions
Standard 60-minute sessions offer a consistent, contained space for therapeutic work at a pace that suits your life.
Regular sessions build momentum over time, and for many people this is exactly the right structure for the work they need to do.
My Therapeutic Process
A Structured, Integrative Approach to Therapeutic Change
You won't be left to find your own way through this. I provide the structure and clinical direction. Your job is simply to engage with what comes up.
This is neuroscience-informed, person-centred psychotherapy and hypnotherapy drawing on evidence-based methods and structured protocols where that are always shaped around your personal experience. Every session is tailored, focused and spacious enough for genuine exploration.
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Anxiety that won't quieten, no matter what you try to do.
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The weight of stress that has built up over time and stopped responding to the usual fixes
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Cycles of self-doubt, perfectionism, and habits that feel persistent and difficult to shift.
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Grief or loss that sits with you. You may feel numb, isolated, overwhelmed, or any combination.
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A growing sense that something needs to change, even if you can't yet name exactly what.
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Emotional and physical pain that feels overwhelming and exhausting, and also something you need to hide.
Every journey begins by understanding your story: what you experienced, how you felt, what you thought, and what you did. Through focused and reflective dialogue, I help you clarify the areas where change is most needed and begin the therapeutic work that supports clearer thinking, steadier reactions and more deliberate action.
Your Story
I listen closely to your story and use evidence-based frameworks to clarify the beliefs, patterns and habitual responses that may be limiting your progress. This analytical work forms the foundation for meaningful therapeutic change.
Analysis and Insight
The first steps are understanding what has been going on for you: what has been your normal for so long and yet still feels so uncomfortable. This gives us an idea of what challenges your body and mind have learned to expect and to prepare for, often in ways that make things just as bad, or even worse.
Making Sense of Your Experience
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What Makes This Work Distinct
Many people arrive having already tried to think their way through what's wrong. They understand their patterns well enough. What's harder is changing them.
This work operates at the level where patterns are actually maintained: the beliefs, emotional habits and automatic responses that shape behaviour under pressure. The approach is structured, evidence-informed and built around your specific psychology rather than a generic model.
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Work that addresses the underlying patterns driving difficulty, not just the presenting symptoms
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Sessions structured around your specific history, psychology and way of working
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An approach that draws on neuroscience and evidence-based methods without losing sight of the whole person
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Enough time in each session to go beneath the surface and actually shift something
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A way of working that respects you and your capacity to change
Insights in Psychotherapy, Neuroscience, and Practice
Writing for people who want to understand themselves more clearly and respond to pressure more deliberately. These articles draw on clinical practice, neuroscience and a background in literature to explore the psychological processes that shape how we think, feel and act.
Topics include:
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Thinking and Responding Under Pressure
Research-informed perspectives on emotional regulation, decision-making and the patterns that emerge in difficult and demanding situations
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Neuroscience and Cognitive Processes
How the brain shapes motivation, habit formation and the ways we interpret and respond to complex situations
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Applied Therapeutic Methods
Cognitive-behavioural hypnotherapy, behaviour mapping and other evidence-informed approaches explored in clinical context
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Books, Ideas and Reflective Practice
Fiction and non-fiction examined through a psychological lens, drawing on my background in literature and neuroscience to uncover themes relevant to how we live and work
Intensive Psychotherapy and Coaching Sessions
I offer intensive 90 to 120-minute sessions that provide the structure and focus the work requires. This format creates the space to examine thought patterns, behaviours and underlying beliefs with depth and clarity, allowing the work to progress with deliberate focus rather than being constrained by the clock.
These sessions are designed for people who are feeling the weight of sustained pressure: professionals, parents, carers, people navigating difficult transitions or simply anyone whose life has become harder to carry than it looks from the outside. The format provides enough space to examine what is actually driving the difficulty, reduce the overload that comes from holding too much, and develop a steadier, more grounded way of responding.
How These Intensive Sessions Work
Most therapeutic work benefits from time to think, reflect and explore without haste. The 90 to 120-minute format provides a contained space for deeper psychological work, allowing us to examine patterns with clarity and develop a genuine understanding of what needs to change and why.
Rather than general discussion or broad advice, the work is structured and purposeful. Each session is tailored to your specific patterns, history and needs.
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Recognise limiting thought patterns and the underlying beliefs that maintain them
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Understand the cognitive and emotional loops that shape behaviour when you're under pressure
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Interrupt cycles of anxiety, perfectionism and work-driven overextension
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Develop skills that support calmer, more deliberate responding in high-stakes moments
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Work with attentional processes, imagery and cognitive behavioural approaches to shift persistent patterns
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Consolidate change between sessions through rehearsal and deliberate practice
The work remains focused, practical and relevant to what is actually happening in your life.
1. Assessment
We begin by examining your current thought patterns, behaviours and habitual responses.
Through behaviour mapping and therapeutic assessment, we identify what is actually driving the difficulty and where the work needs to focus.
This initial mapping shapes everything that follows. Rather than working from assumptions, we build a clear picture of your specific patterns before deciding where to focus the therapeutic work.
2. Therapeutic Work and Cognitive Restructuring
Once we have a clear picture of what is maintaining the difficulty, we work directly with it.
Drawing on cognitive-behavioural hypnotherapy, cognitive restructuring and attentional training, the focus is on shifting unhelpful thinking, reducing habitual reactivity and developing a steadier, calmer relationship with your thoughts and feelings so you respond in situations, rather than react to them.
The work addresses both the conscious strategies you rely on day to day and the deeper processes that shape them.
3. Integration and Application
Each session concludes with clear steps to apply between appointments, supporting the integration of insight into daily life.
These practices help consolidate what has shifted in the session. The periods between appointments are often where the work from therapy truly kicks into gear. They are offered where they feel useful and manageable, never as an obligation.
The work doesn't stop when the session ends. The between session times is often when the magic happens.
"Patients who master a troubling symptom in one area of their lives find themselves overcoming other problems in other areas."
Dr. H. Spiegel and Dr. L Linn
American Journal of Psychiatry, 126: 53-58
Grounded in Science
My postgraduate training in neuroscience at King's College London shapes how I understand and work with the difficulties people bring. The science of how the brain constructs experience, how it learns to predict and prepare, and how those predictions can become the source of distress. This is the foundation of how I work. It also informs why hypnotherapy is so effective. CBH is a clinically evidenced way for you to work directly with your situation: what you pay attention to, what you expect, and to work with those without the distracting noise of background thoughts and anxieties.
Therapy and hypnotherapy are about engaging and working with what is difficult, rather than finding strategies to avoid. We build new experiences by exploring better ways and engaging with what we know is better, but still feels uncomfortable. That gives our brain new material to learn from. Just like we learn to ride a bike by falling off, we only ride by getting up again, taking the risk, and finding balance.
Two Ways to Work
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If you are looking for intensive, structured therapeutic work across 90 to 120-minute sessions, you can find out more below.
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If you are looking for accessible weekly therapy for anxiety, stress, phobias, grief or habit change, you can find out more on the Therapy Sessions page.
