Why do clients who fully understand their patterns still can't change them? A look at insight, the amygdala, and where BWRT comes in.

Ever had a client say, "I know exactly why I do this — I just still do it"?

We explore why insight and behaviour change aren't the same thing, and what that means for therapists and coaches working with clients who understand their patterns but can't shift their automatic responses.

Topics covered:

• Why understanding a problem intellectually doesn't always change how the body or brain responds to it
• The role of the amygdala and prefrontal cortex in automatic emotional and behavioural reactions
• A real-world example: why a client can fully understand their relationship with food and still binge on processed foods
• A parenting example: why knowing a tantrum is "normal" doesn't stop a parent's own frustration response
• What to do when a client doesn't want to analyse their past, and how to help them shift the emotional burden anyway
• Where BWRT® (BrainWorking Recursive Therapy) fits as a tool that works before the automatic response fires — not as a replacement for insight, but as a different layer of intervention
• A practical question every therapist and coach can bring into their next session

Whether you're a therapist, psychologist, or coach, this episode offers a way of thinking about insight, behaviour change, and when it's time to reach for a different clinical tool.

Interested in the next online Denmark training running in October 2026? Here is the link to read more and to sign up.

BrainWorking Recursive Therapy® (BWRT) is a fast, effective, and modern form of psychotherapy that is gaining recognition across the globe. This podcast offers a platform for BWRT professionals to share how they integrate the method into their unique therapeutic approaches. Through conversations about specializations, personal experiences, and client work, listeners gain insight into the diverse and evolving ways BWRT is being applied in practice.

To find out how to train to be a BWRT® Professional Therapist, please visit the official practitioner training site.

If you’re looking for a BWRT® practitioner, you can also explore the BWRT Practitioner Directory.

The BWRT Podcast music was composed and produced by Edouard Van De Velde, BWRT® Practitioner and Trainer for the Netherlands.

In this solo episode, Stefanie Fernandes explores how she uses BWRT® in her work with parents, from postpartum challenges and relationship strain to the toddler, teenage and young-adult years. She looks at how parenting can activate old emotional patterns and how BWRT® can support professionals working with these responses.

Interested in training in BWRT®? The next BWRT® Level 1 training in Denmark takes place in October and is open to Denmark-based professionals.

Learn more and register here.

Visit Stefanie's website if you want to read more about her work or get in touch.

BrainWorking Recursive Therapy® (BWRT) is a fast, effective, and modern form of psychotherapy that is gaining recognition across the globe. This podcast offers a platform for BWRT professionals to share how they integrate the method into their unique therapeutic approaches. Through conversations about specializations, personal experiences, and client work, listeners gain insight into the diverse and evolving ways BWRT is being applied in practice.

To find out how to train to be a BWRT® Professional Therapist, please visit the official practitioner training site.

If you’re looking for a BWRT® practitioner, you can also explore the BWRT Practitioner Directory.

The BWRT Podcast music was composed and produced by Edouard Van De Velde, BWRT® Practitioner and Trainer for the Netherlands.

BWRT is often taught as a structured and highly effective model, but what happens when clients don't fit neatly into a protocol?

In this episode, Clinical Psychologist Shelley Hall, an international BWRT mentor, supervisor, and developer of the BWRT-C programme for children, shares how therapists can adapt BWRT for children, neurodiverse clients, anxiety presentations, OCD, emotional overwhelm, and other complex real-world situations without losing the integrity of the model.

Together, they explore the concept of developmental readiness, why formulation matters, and how therapists can balance flexibility with clinical discipline. Shelley also discusses common mistakes practitioners make when working with highly anxious clients and explains how BWRT fits within a broader psychological understanding of the person sitting in front of us.

This conversation is particularly valuable for BWRT practitioners who want to move beyond applying techniques and deepen their clinical decision-making.

In this episode:

• What developmental readiness means and why it matters
• Adapting BWRT for children while maintaining fidelity to the model
• Key considerations when working with neurodiverse clients
• Understanding anxiety, OCD, and emotional overwhelm
• The relationship between BWRT and psychological formulation
• How experienced practitioners become more flexible without becoming less structured
• What Shelley wishes every therapist understood about BWRT

Whether you are newly trained in BWRT or have years of experience, this episode offers practical insights into applying BWRT thoughtfully, ethically, and effectively in complex clinical practice.

LinkedIn: Shelley Hall on LinkedIn

Facebook: Zululand Psychologist on Facebook

Website: Shelley Hall Clinical Psychologist

BrainWorking Recursive Therapy® (BWRT) is a fast, effective, and modern form of psychotherapy that is gaining recognition across the globe. This podcast offers a platform for BWRT professionals to share how they integrate the method into their unique therapeutic approaches. Through conversations about specializations, personal experiences, and client work, listeners gain insight into the diverse and evolving ways BWRT is being applied in practice.

To find out how to train to be a BWRT® Professional Therapist, please visit the official practitioner training site.

If you’re looking for a BWRT® practitioner, you can also explore the BWRT Practitioner Directory.

The BWRT Podcast music was composed and produced by Edouard Van De Velde, BWRT® Practitioner and Trainer for the Netherlands.

Shruti Sanganeria, an Advanced BWRT Practitioner, clinical hypnotherapist, and coach, joins the BWRT podcast to discuss the personal work behind effective therapy.

We explore a question many therapists quietly hold: do you need to have it all together to hold space for others?

Shruti shares how her own therapeutic journey shaped her clinical work and why ongoing personal development is not optional, but foundational to ethical, effective practice. We talk about the importance of recognising what belongs to the client and what belongs to the therapist, and how easily those lines can blur without awareness.

This conversation also dives into neutrality in therapy, not as emotional distance, but as a disciplined and conscious stance that allows clients to be fully seen without interference from the therapist’s own material.

Connect with Shruti on LinkedIn and Facebook. Visit Shruti's Website for more information

BrainWorking Recursive Therapy® (BWRT) is a fast, effective, and modern form of psychotherapy that is gaining recognition across the globe. This podcast offers a platform for BWRT professionals to share how they integrate the method into their unique therapeutic approaches. Through conversations about specializations, personal experiences, and client work, listeners gain insight into the diverse and evolving ways BWRT is being applied in practice.

To find out how to train to be a BWRT® Professional Therapist, please visit the official practitioner training site.

If you’re looking for a BWRT® practitioner, you can also explore the BWRT Practitioner Directory.

The BWRT Podcast music was composed and produced by Edouard Van De Velde, BWRT® Practitioner and Trainer for the Netherlands.

Laura Smith shares about her journey from corporate life into BWRT practice through the Newcomer pathway.

Laura first experienced BWRT as a client nearly three years ago. The impact was significant enough to inspire her to train in 2024, despite having no prior therapy background. Shortly after qualifying, a breast cancer diagnosis paused her plans yet BWRT became a key support during her treatment and recovery.

Now back in good health, Laura is building her practice, Mind Reset BWRT, working with anxiety, phobias, imposter syndrome, performance anxiety, midlife women, and young people from the “anxious generation.”

This conversation explores starting BWRT from scratch, building confidence as a new practitioner, and using personal adversity as professional strength.

Mind Reset BWRT website

Connect with Laura on Instagram and Facebook.

BrainWorking Recursive Therapy® (BWRT) is a fast, effective, and modern form of psychotherapy that is gaining recognition across the globe. This podcast offers a platform for BWRT professionals to share how they integrate the method into their unique therapeutic approaches. Through conversations about specializations, personal experiences, and client work, listeners gain insight into the diverse and evolving ways BWRT is being applied in practice.

To find out how to train to be a BWRT® Professional Therapist, please visit the official practitioner training site.

If you’re looking for a BWRT® practitioner, you can also explore the BWRT Practitioner Directory.

The BWRT Podcast music was composed and produced by Edouard Van De Velde, BWRT® Practitioner and Trainer for the Netherlands.

In this episode of the BWRT Practice Podcast, I’m joined by June Hale, one of the earliest BWRT practitioners and a senior figure within the BWRT community. With a background in psychotherapy and hypnotherapy and many years of clinical experience, June also serves as Head of Supervision and Assessments for the International BWRT Institute.

This episode is both professional and personal. June shares her own experience of using BWRT during one of the most challenging periods of her life: caring for her husband while he lived with Parkinson’s Disease and Lewy Body Dementia. She reflects on the emotional toll of long-term caregiving and how BWRT supported her in regulating her internal responses, even when the external circumstances could not be changed.

Our conversation explores what is possible with BWRT in situations of chronic stress, ongoing responsibility, and long-term trauma, offering valuable insights for practitioners working with carers, complex trauma, and clients facing unchangeable life conditions.

This episode is especially relevant for BWRT practitioners who want to deepen their understanding of how the process works beyond symptom resolution, and how it can support resilience, stability, and emotional clarity in the most difficult contexts.

Connect with June Hale:

Website: https://bwrttraining.co.uk/

Facebook: http://facebook.com/bwrttraining

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/junehale/

BrainWorking Recursive Therapy® (BWRT) is a fast, effective, and modern form of psychotherapy that is gaining recognition across the globe. This podcast offers a platform for BWRT professionals to share how they integrate the method into their unique therapeutic approaches. Through conversations about specializations, personal experiences, and client work, listeners gain insight into the diverse and evolving ways BWRT is being applied in practice.

To find out how to train to be a BWRT® Professional Therapist, please visit the official practitioner training site.

If you’re looking for a BWRT® practitioner, you can also explore the BWRT Practitioner Directory.

The BWRT Podcast music was composed and produced by Edouard Van De Velde, BWRT® Practitioner and Trainer for the Netherlands.

Children and teenagers today are facing increasing emotional, psychological, and social pressures, yet mental health support systems often remain fragmented, underfunded, or reactive rather than preventative. Sam Berriman is a registered BWRT practitioner and shares with us how she works with children and teenagers and why we need to invest in better mental health and wellbeing for the kids of today.

Sam is an experienced teacher and saw first-hand the challenges the school system faces, the challenges that teachers and kids need to navigate nowadays.

Having experienced the effectiveness of BWRT herself, Sam now advocates for early, appropriate mental health support and works directly with young people to help them regulate, process, and build resilience in an increasingly demanding world.

Read more about Sam's work on her website.

Instagram

BrainWorking Recursive Therapy® (BWRT) is a fast, effective, and modern form of psychotherapy that is gaining recognition across the globe. This podcast offers a platform for BWRT professionals to share how they integrate the method into their unique therapeutic approaches. Through conversations about specializations, personal experiences, and client work, listeners gain insight into the diverse and evolving ways BWRT is being applied in practice.

To find out how to train to be a BWRT® Professional Therapist, please visit the official practitioner training site.

If you’re looking for a BWRT® practitioner, you can also explore the BWRT Practitioner Directory.

The BWRT Podcast music was composed and produced by Edouard Van De Velde, BWRT® Practitioner and Trainer for the Netherlands.

In this episode, we explore how BWRT supports leaders navigating high-pressure corporate environments. Our guest, Rachael Lewis, works with executives who struggle with fear of public speaking, performance pressure, and the emotional demands of leadership roles.

As a business psychologist, Rachael became a registered BWRT practitioner in 2024, and has been integrating BWRT into her leadership coaching with remarkable results. Today, we explore how BWRT supports leaders with the psychological and emotional demands of modern leadership and why it has become such a powerful extension of her coaching toolkit.

We discuss why leaders expect rapid results, why they should, and how BWRT helps them get there.

Connect with Rachael Lewis on LinkedIn.

BrainWorking Recursive Therapy® (BWRT) is a fast, effective, and modern form of psychotherapy that is gaining recognition across the globe. This podcast offers a platform for BWRT professionals to share how they integrate the method into their unique therapeutic approaches. Through conversations about specializations, personal experiences, and client work, listeners gain insight into the diverse and evolving ways BWRT is being applied in practice.

To find out how to train to be a BWRT® Professional Therapist, please visit the official practitioner training site.

If you’re looking for a BWRT® practitioner, you can also explore the BWRT Practitioner Directory.

The BWRT Podcast music was composed and produced by Edouard Van De Velde, BWRT® Practitioner and Trainer for the Netherlands.