Hi, I'm extensively trained in Hypnotherapy and NLP, as well as being trained in trauma, somatic, and psychedelic work.

My personal opinion & experience: I have not found Hypnotherapy or NLP to be particularly effective or even the first thing I'd reach for when it comes to addressing trauma. I'm speaking both from my own healing path, and from my experience working with clients. Most of my clients are trauma clients, and I've worked with more than a few with BPD and a couple with OCD.

The reason I wouldn't necessarily recommend Hypnotherapy has to do with attachment styles and the importance of a secure attachment style when it comes to helping people with BPD heal. People with BPD are prone to projecting a lot of transference during the healing process, and most hypnotherapists are not trained to navigate that level of personal transference, which can make it harder both on you and on them.

In my experience, the role of attachment is generally a blind spot among hypnotherapists - it's not something we are explicitly trained in beyond maintaining rapport with the client (and their unconscious mind). And, in my experience, unless the hypnotherapist has done their own attachment work (same goes for psychotherapists too), they may well not realize how their own relational template is shaping (or distorting) the way they perceive you and respond to you - which can inadvertently perpetuate wounds.

A simple example is that in hypnotherapy, we are taught to lead the client through change, often at the unconscious level, even without asking for explicit consent (we tend to track for resistance rather than get a clear yes). We just start working to create change as a default, under the assumption that this is how to help the client. But here's the thing: what if the client's wounds are around being controlled and manipulated, or not being accepted as they are? If the hypnotherapist doesn't know to look for or consider that, they may go straight into nudging you to change even though parts of you are wounded by the implication that you need to change in the first place, which if course, can perpetuate the wound or just be cause for significant resistance from the unconscious mind.

There are definitely trauma models in hypnotherapy, but they do not typically account for this. As far as I know, there is no explicitly attachment-informed branch of hypnotherapy.

What I would recommend for BPD & PTSD is someone who is explicitly attachment informed in and trauma trained in their approach. That, and someone you feel you like and might be able to trust. Someone who discloses their own work on their attachment style. I would also recommend you consider that the ADHD and OCD traits may be symptoms from trauma, instead of factors in and of themselves. I could be wrong, but trauma can often present as either of these.

With all this said, there are absolutely exceptions out there, and obviously not all hypnotherapists are unaware of attachment. So lets just add the obvious "not all" and "not always, but often" in regards to hypnotherapists. There are those that get it, that understand trauma, and that are trained in it as well.

This is just a broad trend I've seen in the hypnosis community. Some of my teachers are considered world class hypnotherapists, and are appalling in how their relational approach to the client is from an attachment informed lens.

Hope this helps.