WHY US?

Think of us as your real life delete button, your on-demand turbo boost, or your personal magic wand, We are here to help you change your world. So let’s start right now!

The Freedom Factor was founded on the view that everyone is born uniquely perfect. We all have inside of us what we need to create the life we want.

However, sometimes we pick up behaviors and beliefs along the way that end up holding us back and slowing us down..

Those "speed bumps" of life come in all shapes and sizes. It could be a fear, a phobia, or an old habit that won't go away. Sometimes  it’s a traumatic memory, depression, overwhelm, or plain confusion that is blocking the way.

Our job at The Freedom Factor is to help you get rid of what’s holding you back and bring you closer to the things you want more of in life.

As freedom experts, we use highly effective change tools from NLP (neuro linguistic programming), psychotherapy, hypnotherapy and coaching to help you make that change FAST!

WE HELP OUR CLIENTS WITH…

CLIENT TESTIMONIALS

Frequently asked questions

Here are some of the questions that we most commonly get asked.

If you can't find the answer that you’re looking for on this page, please don't hesitate to contact us.

1. WHAT iS NLP?

NLP is short for Neuro-Linguistic Programming. It is the study of human excellence and explores the relationship between how we think, how we communicate with ourselves and others, and our patterns of behaviour and emotion.

NLP works at the level of the unconscious mind. It provides us with some very powerful tools for creating change and managing our states, our emotions and behaviours.

Throughout life, we all take experiences and learnings into our unconscious mind. Once there, they create our behaviours and personal beliefs. Using NLP, we can clear the old, ineffective programs and behaviours to make way for new, desired programs that help us achieve our goals.

If that all sounds a bit too deep or theoretical, you can also think of it like this:

Much like a computer or a smartphone always has many apps or programs running in the background, people too have their own programs running in their heads.

We may not be consciously aware of them, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there. We actually use them all the time.

The programs that run in our minds directly affect things like what we notice (and what we don’t), how we interpret things that happen around us, and how we respond to them.

These programs creates our individual “map of the world” and shape our own reality.

Using that metaphor, NLP is the equivalent of getting rid of the old, buggy software that keeps crashing. Instead, we replace it with the latest and greatest update that was designed to do the exact task that you want to get done.

No matter if it's a belief, a habit, an emotion, or a behaviour - by changing the program, we help our clients get a different outcome. This is what makes NLP techniques such a powerful way of creating lasting change. .

The name NLP comes from: 

• Neuro = the physical senses that we use to understand the world

• Linguistic = the language of those senses (pictures, sounds, feelings, smells, tastes, thoughts)

• Programming = how we process and make meaning of this information in order to form our beliefs, attitudes and behaviors.

2. How many sessions does it take?

Contrary to many traditional therapies that can often drag on for several months (or even years), NLP is often referred to as a 'fast therapy'.

Of course, the exact number of sessions needed depends on the client and their unique situation. Sometimes one single session is enough. Other times, we need a bit more time to resolve things.

As a general guide, Magnus tends to work with a client for between 2 - 5 sessions in total.

The client decides how frequently they want their sessions to be scheduled. We normally recommend either fortnightly or monthly.

3. There are SOME things THAT i prefer not to discuss. will i have to share them?

Nope. One of the great things about NLP is that it can be "content free'.

This means that the therapist can be highly effective without knowing about the problem in great detail.

This is another major advantage of NLP over traditional therapies, since people who want to seek help may be embarrassed over the idea of discussing personal issues with someone they haven't met before.

As long as you are clear on what it is you want to change, you don't need to share any details unless you want to.

4. WILL I BE HYPNOTIsED?

No, not necessarily. Some NLP techniques have elements of hypnosis but many of them don’t.

First of all, it’s important to clarify what hypnosis actually is. Many people associate hypnosis with things that they’ve seen in a movie or in a show. The kind where a stage hypnotist makes a member of the audience crawl around on all fours and bark like a dog.

That sort of hypnosis has nothing to do with NLP.

In reality, hypnosis is actually a completely natural process. We all drift in and out of hypnotic states every day.

Remember when you last felt like your mind was “miles away”? Or when you saw someone else daydream? Maybe they were gazing out the window and you had to call their name a few times before they ‘snapped out of it’? That calm, peaceful experience is a kind of hypnotic state. There are many similarities between hypnosis and meditation.

In NLP, hypnosis is simply a conversational tool that helps a client relax and create change on an unconscious level.

It is 100% safe, it can’t hurt you and - importantly - it isn’t mind control. You can’t be hypnotised to do something that you don’t want to do.

5. HOW DO I KNOW IT WILL WORK?

Every session has a clear goal and also an agreed measurement that helps us make sure that the goal for that particular session was reached. This allows our clients to leave each session knowing that they’ve made real progress.

The client helps decide both the goal and the measurement, so that everyone is comfortable that the desired outcome has been met.

6. what’s the difference between psychiatrY, psychologY and nlp?

Great question!

There are many differences between psychiatry, psychology and NLP - both when it comes to underlying assumptions of the human mind and also the methodologies used.

Who does what?

*Psychiatrists are trained medical doctors who can prescribe medications. Whilst they can use different types of counselling and psychotherapy to provide help, they spend much of their time with patients on medication management as a course of treatment. They can also admit a person to hospital if needed.

*Psychologists aren’t medical doctors. They can’t prescribe medication and can’t admit someone to hospital. They focus extensively on psychotherapy and conversational intervention to treat emotional and mental suffering. Somewhat oversimplified, it’s what many people associate with what they’ve seen in movies and TV shows, where someone lies down on a couch and talks about their childhood or what’s going on in their life.

*NLP doesn’t focus on labels or diagnosing people. Instead, the emphasis is put on identifying ‘how’ you create your individual experience, rather than on the particular content.

Let me give you an example using phobias:

In NLP, it doesn’t matter if a client has a fear of dogs, snakes, needles, public speaking, social situations, confined spaces, martians or baked beans. What matters is how they ”do scared” - i.e what goes on in their mind when they think about the thing that scares them. The focus then becomes to identify, remove and replace their old emotional autopilot, so that it no longer catapults them straight into that scared or phobic experience.

Other important differences between NLP and traditional psychology include:

1. No Labels or Diagnosis - NLP makes no diagnosis about a person’s mental health or illness. It doesn’t “label” certain behaviours. Every client is unique and deserves a unique solution, regardless of what sort of label others might want to use to try and classify a behaviour. Putting people into categories of personality type or psychopathology simply promotes their getting or staying stuck, rather than assisting them to grow, change and heal.

2. Speed, Results & Resolution Process - Many traditional psychotherapy clients complain that their sessions lack structure. That’s because in psychology, integration and resolution are often left to non-specific processes.

   This means that the client will often go in, spend 50 minutes letting their thoughts wander, and then leave again without any real sense of progress. That ritual can then be repeated for an indeterminate amount of time, sometimes lasting for many years.

   Whilst all those sessions might bring conscious awareness of problems (and even help reduce their effects) the actual resolution is often left unfinished.

   By contrast, in NLP the focus is purely on results. Each session has a predefined goal and agreed measurements in place to ensure that our clients leave every session knowing that they’ve made clear progress towards their goal.

   NLP can therefore be a very useful way to finish or resolve an issue where traditional psychotherapy has reached a point of diminishing returns.

3. People aren’t broken. NLP suggests that people aren’t broken. They work perfectly to produce the results that they’re currently getting - even if those results aren’t desirable. If a person doesn’t like the results they’re getting at the moment, NLP provides tools for them to start getting the results they want instead.

4. Focus Areas & Cause-Effect - NLP doesn’t take long personal histories from clients for the purpose of understanding what might have initially caused something. That can often be considered to be an expensive waste of time.

   In our experience, simply revisiting an issue that happened in the past and dwell on it time and time again, rarely does anything to genuinely resolve it and move forward.

   Instead, the focus in NLP is on the current experience and on how to best change it.

   NLP also avoids going down the rabbit hole of asking unresolvable or never-ending sequences of questions, such as “Why?….. Because…. Why?…. Because…..Why?…..Because…..”.

   For every answer to “Why”, the question “Why” can be applied again. Since there is no end to such sequences, NLP prefers to ask more useful questions such as “How? What? Where? When? and Who?”.

5. NLP is based on modelling, not theory - It focuses on process and structure and seeks to understand HOW something works, rather than WHY it might be that way.

6. Not statistics-based - NLP observes that statistics can’t measure or predict a particular person’s subjective experience, simply because subjective experience is understood by internal - not external - empiricism.

7. Different definition of ‘Behaviour' - Psychology and NLP don’t share the same definition of ‘behaviour’. In NLP, we also include things which aren’t directly observable.

   In other words, “Just because others can’t see it, that doesn’t mean you’re not doing it or experiencing it.” and “Just because others can’t reproduce it, that doesn’t mean it didn’t work for you'.

   In NLP, behaviours include internal thought structures such as beliefs and values, memory, sensory representation etc.

   None of those things can be directly observed externally, nor can their effects be causally connected with measurable external observations. Nevertheless, no reasonable person would deny the importance and meaning of such internal experiences.

6. HOW MUCH DOES A SESSION COST?

• Initial Consultation Session - In Person/Online (1.5 hrs): AU $350

The initial consultation is only needed if you are a first-time client with us. This first session lasts for 1.5 hours (instead of the standard 1 hour). The extra time is required to map out what it is you want to achieve, what your current situation is, and how we can best help you move forward.

Any subsequent session(s) are 1 hour each:

• Standard Consultation Session - In Person/Online (1 hr): AU $300

We also offer a:

• Complimentary Discovery Session - Online/Phone only (15 min): $0

The discovery session is free of charge and lets you work out if coaching is right for you. We'll discuss what it is you want to achieve and see if we are a good match. The discovery session is done either via phone or Zoom/Skype.   

Please note - most health insurance companies do not provide rebates for NLP coaching or therapy.

7. what payment methods do you accept?

We accept both cash and credit / debit cards. As we try to run a paper free office, all receipts are provided to our clients via email.

8. WHAT IF I NEED TO RESCHEDULE OR CANCEL MY APPOINTMENT?

Life happens and we totally understand that things sometimes come up unexpectedly.

If you need to reschedule your appointment, please let us know as soon as possible on info(at)thefreedomfactor.com.au or 0406 822 206 so that we can offer your time slot to another client.

Please keep in mind that we have a 24-hour cancellation policy. Appointments cancelled within 24 hours of the scheduled time will be billed at the full rate.

9. WHERE IS Your office located?

The consultation sessions don’t need to be held face to face. Most clients prefer to do online sessions via Zoom/Skype/Google Meet. All you need is a good internet connection and a quiet space where you can avoid being interrupted.

However, we can also arrange to see you in-person at our client space by appointment only.

Our client space is located at:

The Little Space, Level 1, 54 Bronte Road, Bondi Junction, NSW 2022 (right next to Biku Hair Salon).

Please note that access is by stairs only (no lifts are available).

Bondi Junction is a major transport junction and easy to access by either train, bus or car.

If you drive, there are plenty of convenient parking options available (in addition to street parking) within walking distance from our office.

10. could you meet me at my office / house instead?

If you are unable to do online sessions or make it in person to our client space in Bondi, we might be able to arrange a meet up in a different location - such as at your office or home.

Please note that depending on location this may involve an additional fee to cover travel time and other expenses, such as road tolls and parking. If you want to explore this option, please contact us on info(at)thefreedomfactor.com.au or 0406 822 206 to discuss further.

11. What if i want coaching RATHER THAN therapy?

Great! NLP works perfectly in both cases.

We use NLP Coaching when there is a specific goal to be reached. We use NLP Therapy to clear things that are blocking your progress and to build the resources that will help you get to where you want.

Your goal could be personal, business, family, or about life in general. As long as you have a desired outcome, we can help you.