The Journey to Freedom Through Hypnotherapy – Exclusive Interview with Kylie Gallaher

Kylie Gallaher is a Clinical Hypnotherapist and the founder of Newcastle Clinical Hypnotherapy, the region’s only professional hypnotherapy team. Her professional journey is defined by a commitment to evidence-based practice, advanced qualifications, and a vision to transform the treatment of eating disorders in Australia.

Kylie Gallaher, Clinical Hypnotherapist, Strategic Psychotherapist

Who is Kylie Gallaher? 

I was born and raised in Newcastle, Australia, and have been blessed to have travelled and lived across the globe, including years in the UK and the US. At home, I’m a mother to two beautiful children and wife to a partner who has walked beside me for more than half our lives. Beyond my work, I’ve spent over 20 years as a belly dancer, I’m endlessly curious about cultural sociology, and I’m a passionate family historian. I also love history, cooking, and textiles I find joy in the textures of life both literally and metaphorically.

Professionally, I never did set out to become a therapist. I have a background in business administration and hold an MBA. But my lifelong fascination with how our minds work and how experiences shape who we become eventually found its calling. Today, I am the founder of Newcastle Clinical Hypnotherapy (NCH), a unique practice in Australia where I have built a team of hypnotherapists, each with their own area of specialty, who strive to improve the accessibility and raise the profile of clinical hypnotherapy in supporting mental health.

My area of expertise, and the work I feel most called to advance, is in treating Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID), an eating disorder that is often misunderstood yet profoundly impacts lives. My broader mission is to improve public and professional understanding of hypnotherapy as a legitimate, evidence-based clinical practice, not an “alternative” niche.

What led you to start Newcastle Clinical Hypnotherapy?

My journey into this field began when my son was seven years old and diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) and General Anxiety Disorder (GAD) while we were living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. By then, I had knocked on so many doors, it’s a who’s who list of medical practitioners! It became apparent that specialists treat things in silos, and I get it. Yet my son was falling through the cracks.

Since infancy, I had watched in real time, the development of medical trauma, nutritional deficiencies, social anxiety, his immune system barely function, and I knew his cognitive development had to be impacted. I tried everything from gastroenterologists, immunologists, dietitians, naturopaths, psychologists, even energy healers, but we got nowhere. Watching his world shrink because food was unsafe, and knowing his anxiety was escalating, I realised I could no longer wait for someone else to help solve this. I began training in clinical hypnotherapy and strategic psychotherapy, and over the years, have advanced my qualifications to include evidence-based and specialised treatment of ‘traditional’ eating disorders and ARFID, NLP, gut-directed hypnotherapy, and neuroscience-based posttraumatic stress techniques.

Working with my son during my training, I saw first-hand the power of addressing the cognitive patterns that underpin anxiety, phobias, trauma, and sensory reactivity. And the importance of changing the neurological landscape and evolving his relationship with his body and his environment. Over time, he not only recovered, but flourished. 

That lived experience, combined with professional training, became the foundation for NCH and my life’s work. I have built a centre that offers hope and transformation, reflected in our aspirational by-line: ‘Freedom to Thrive’. This is what I hope to impart.

 What sets your hypnotherapy approach apart from others?

What sets my approach apart is its integration of advanced neuroscience-based techniques and cognitive behavioural psychotherapy with clinical hypnosis. I utilise tools such as Havening Techniques® (developed by Drs Ronald and Steven Ruden) and Multichannel Eye Movement Integration (MEMI, by Dr. Mike Deninger) alongside strategic cognitive behavioural psychotherapy, NLP, and gut-directed hypnotherapeutic theory. Together, these allow me to work not just at the cognitive level, but at the very level of the neurological limbic response where trauma and fear responses are activated and influence the nervous system.

Equally important, I situate ARFID within a cognitive patterns framework by recognising that the same processes underpin anxiety, phobias, PTSD, chronic pain, and social anxiety. By addressing these, we don’t just shift eating behaviour, we transform mental health more broadly.

My long-term vision is to change the face of eating disorder treatment, especially for ARFID, by championing approaches that are trauma-informed, neurologically safe, and genuinely effective.

Can you share a success story that demonstrates your expertise?

One of my favourite success stories is my son’s recovery from ARFID. After all, his journey is the one that shaped my life and led to my practice. There was a time when his entire world revolved around just three “safe” foods: corn, cheese, and rice crackers. Eating out was impossible, social events were distressing, and our family life was structured around avoidance. Over time, through a combination of hypnotherapy, trauma-informed techniques, and cognitive re-patterning, we gradually worked to help his limbic and nervous systems feel safe again so that he could begin to discover the world in new ways.

I recall one particular afternoon when he surprised me by asking if he could make a toasted sandwich with ham, pickles, ketchup, and halloumi. That small act of being creative with food, unprompted, and his satisfaction and enjoyment of it, was enormous. It demonstrated that his fear-based patterns had evolved into confidence and curiosity in embracing the unknown. Watching him experience freedom around food over and over again, is beyond describable! I tell him often, “Your experience inspires people you’ll never meet, every day”.

And his story reflects what I see in clients every day. People who have lived for years with anxiety, phobias, or trauma responses that quietly limit their lives. Whether the focus is food, driving, public speaking, or simply feeling safe in their own body, the transformation follows the same principle: when the limbic brain and the nervous system learn safety, freedom becomes possible. My work is about creating that shift and helping people move from survival to safety, and from fear to the freedom to thrive.

What’s a misconception people often have about hypnotherapy or mental health work?

One of the biggest misconceptions is that hypnotherapy is about control. People either think it’s mind control, in which case they are wary, or that we have a magic wand, in which case, they are relying on us to perform miracles. In reality, hypnotherapy is a deeply collaborative therapeutic alliance. It’s about working with someone, helping them access the subconscious in a safe, collaborative way that translates into their everyday life. It empowers clients to rewire old patterns and reclaim agency with greater ease because we are changing the triggers of patterns of thought, behaviour, and emotions. 

When we do that, we’re not just changing behaviour, we’re changing the patterns that drive thoughts, emotions, and responses. We treat the source. Clients often tell me they feel lighter, calmer, or more in control. Not because I’ve “done” something to them, but because they’ve reconnected with their own capacity for change.

This is where hypnotherapy offers something distinct from the traditional mental health paradigm. Traditional approaches often work from the top down, by focusing on conscious thought, language, and behaviour to manage specific symptoms or diagnoses. These methods are incredibly valuable, yet they sometimes address the presenting issue more than the whole person. My Strategic Hypnotherapeutic approach combines working from the bottom up with top down, engaging directly with what we call the subconscious, where those patterns are stored, allowing change to happen at deeper, more integrated, and sustainable levels.

That applies across so many of the issues I work with, including anxiety, phobias, trauma, emotional regulation, and eating disorders. ARFID, in particular, is often misunderstood or dismissed as “picky eating,” but it’s far more complex than that. It’s a trauma-informed, neurologically rooted experience that deserves compassion and proper treatment, just like anxiety or post-traumatic stress. True freedom requires an integrated approach.

Recognising this is essential to reducing stigma and opening pathways to healing. I’m not a fan of the word ‘recovery’. For me, it’s not just about recovery; it’s about freedom. Freedom to live, connect, and move through life without fear running the show. That’s what hypnotherapy is really about.

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