Once upon a time, there was a doctor who had to reinvent herself… A woman in Vlissingen who worked in acute psychiatric wards for 15 years, who saw people at their darkest moments, and who knew exactly how complex the human brain can be.
But there came a moment when it was no longer her patients’ turn, but her own life’s—because she, too, was going through a dark period.
Judith Hopmans describes herself as “on a journey” and says, “I’m on a journey to remake my world as heaven on earth, without really needing anyone else to do it.” That sounds poetic, but there’s no flippant spiritual cliché behind that statement.
Behind it all is a woman who went through burnout, lost her relationship, sold her home, lived in five different homes over the course of seven months, and suddenly found herself sharing custody of her dog instead of having him with her seven days a week. She also quit smoking and drinking and broke free from many negative beliefs.
As a medical resident, she worked for years in mental health care and was accustomed to dealing with people who posed a danger to themselves or others, as well as those experiencing psychosis, severe depression, addiction, and suicidal tendencies. “I’m pretty used to that,” she says.
Yet, for a time, her own life also took a turn for the worse. She had a job that no longer gave her energy, a relationship that didn’t feel like true love, little contact with family, few friends, and, above all, the feeling that outside of work she couldn’t do much besides dream and dance.
“The only thing I really knew was good in my life was my dog.” And then came the burnout. Not as a dead end, but as a call to adventure.
The old way of doing things no longer worked
In the classic hero’s journey, the hero must first realize that the old world has become too small. For Judith, this didn’t happen with a fanfare, but through exhaustion.
For years, she had worked in a system where people told their stories over and over again, but where, in her view, little of substance ever changed. In psychiatry, she saw people with deep traumas, severe symptoms, and painful patterns. “The story was retold over and over again, and nothing ever changed,” she says.
And what was often left? Medication, which mainly numbs, dulls, and suppresses.
As a doctor, she understood the value of medicine, especially in acute situations and surgery, but she felt something was missing: a way to get to the root of the problem. What causes people to get sick?
That sense of something missing had been there for a long time. She also wanted to learn conversation techniques, because she noticed that her conversations often followed the same pattern. But the door she was looking for wouldn’t open within the mental health care system. “I did have a certain desire, but no one could fulfill it.”
In mental health care, NLP and hypnotherapy weren’t really well-known, or they were viewed as old-fashioned and/or New Age. Yet these approaches actually get right to the heart of the matter.
Meanwhile, her own inner voice began to whisper ever more insistently: Judith, it’s time.
An audio session that set everything in motion
The answer came through a spiritual platform. There, Judith listened to an audio hypnotherapy session in which Edwin Selij demonstrated an allergy technique.
Sometimes in life, you have those moments when you just know. For Judith, this was one of those moments. “That’s when I thought: I can do that too; I want to be able to do that.” And even more strongly: “I’d never experienced anything like that before in my life.”
She had already explored Chinese medicine, energy medicine, massage, and psychotherapy, but nowhere else did everything come together quite like it did with the hypnotherapy audio sessions. “I just thought: this is it.”
Within a week, she was enrolled in the program at the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands. It was either November 1 or 2 when she signed up, and by November 10, she was already able to attend the orientation day. It was as if life, for a moment, offered no resistance but instead opened the door for her.
For someone in the midst of a burnout, that was no small decision. Yet it didn’t feel like an impulse; rather, it felt like coming home to something that had been waiting for her all along.
The HIN as a training ground for the heroine
For Judith, the HIN became more than just a training program where she learned techniques. It became a training ground where she rediscovered herself, layer by layer. She completed the 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 courses one after another. “For me, it provided so many answers to so many life questions,” she says.
And also: “I feel like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.” That’s quite a statement for someone who initially knew only that her old life no longer fit. But sometimes you only discover who you are once everything that doesn’t belong to you slowly falls away.
The training was special to her because it was so different from anything she had known before. She came from the world of high school, college, and the seriousness of the medical field. At HIN, she was invited to be creative, open up, give constructive feedback, and make genuine connections.
“You grow personally in all kinds of ways,” she explains. Not just mentally, but also emotionally, spiritually, relationally, financially, and physically.
Every step in the training felt like a little door opening onto a new world. Or rather: onto the world she knew deep down already existed. “Finally, exactly what I’d been looking for all along.”
The 3.0: Exhausted, Hyperreactive, and Yet Exactly Where I Need to Be
Judith did the 3.0 program live. It was wonderful, but also challenging. She was in the midst of a transformation process and had lost a lot along the way. Her body was still recovering, her mind was racing, and her system was often on high alert.
She was really looking forward to the training weekends, but precisely because she was so excited about them, she was sometimes already exhausted before she even got there. “Then I’d go into hyperreactivity mode in the evenings,” she admits honestly. It’s not a smooth success story where everything went smoothly and radiantly from day one. Rather, it’s the story of someone who dragged herself to the next gate because she knew she had to be there.
Still, she wouldn’t have missed it for the world. “I loved it,” she says. A special moment was Charity Day. There, in her own words, she felt “like a star for a moment.”
Everything went incredibly smoothly. She put people under hypnosis, numbed their hands and tongues, made their arms levitate, and quickly resolved problems… It all happened. “It was as if a tunnel of light was passing right through me.”
Teaching, raising money for charity with the group, practicing, enjoying herself: for Judith, it all came together. Not just learning, but contributing. Not just technique, but meaning.
Through the darkness to a new foundation
After completing the training, the real hero’s journey had only just begun. Because finishing a training program is great, but then you still have to put it into practice in real life.
After quitting smoking and drinking, she also stopped using social media for extended periods, changed her diet, and tried to work as a doctor a few more times while attending the HIN training programs. Medical examiner, geriatrics, care for people with disabilities: she explored these options, but each time she felt that it just wasn’t right anymore.
“It went against my own truth,” she says. Prescribing medication while she herself felt that there was another layer that could be addressed became increasingly difficult.
That doesn’t mean her new life became easy right away. On the contrary. She lives in Vlissingen, sometimes feels isolated on a small island in Zeeland, and her practice is still in the works. Yet that is precisely where the post-traumatic growth following her burnout lies.
Not: having lost everything and therefore feeling broken.
But: losing everything and, as a result, being forced to lay a new foundation and become a new version of herself.
“I’m clearer-headed and fitter than I was ten years ago,” she says. At the same time, there has been sadness and disappointment. She calls it a process of purification. “I lost everything, but in the process, I was also nourished.” That is the essence of her journey: building something real out of the darkness, with more truth, more love, and fewer masks.
Working with people whom others sometimes no longer see as open to change
Judith now works as a hypnotherapist in Vlissingen and online.
She prefers in-person sessions, but online sessions are certainly an option as well. Thanks to her background as a resident in psychiatry, she isn’t easily daunted by complex issues.
Severe depression, addictions, suicidal tendencies, and complex psychiatric issues are familiar territory to her.
“I’m just familiar with it,” she says. She describes her target audience broadly: people with a problem, because, in her view, many problems have their roots in the subconscious.
Yet there is one group that holds a special place in her heart and piques her professional curiosity:
People who are considered “complex” in mental health care or who have even been deemed “beyond treatment.” For example, people with borderline personality disorder, a diagnosis surrounded by significant stigma.
Judith sees not only the destructive side, but also the sensitivity. “These are people who are very sensitive to safety and control,” she says. She sees a healthy side and an unhealthy side, and wonders what becomes possible when you bring the healthy side more to the forefront.
“That’s the ‘fixer’ in me,” she says. Not out of a desire to save others, but out of a deep sense that some people aren’t ready yet, even though the system sometimes seems to have run out of options.
From Survival to Rebuilding
Judith’s story isn’t over yet. That’s precisely what makes it interesting. This isn’t a final scene where the heroine stands on a mountaintop, waving with a thriving practice, a full schedule, and a perfect life.
This is the chapter in which she is laying the foundation. “It’s not a done deal yet,” she says. And at the same time: “A new foundation is taking shape.” That foundation consists of authenticity, inner child work, love, truth, and the courage to never go back to a life that doesn’t feel right.
And now? Now Judith is continuing to build her practice. From Vlissingen, through hypnotizee.nl, on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook—and above all, through her own journey.
“I’m living a hero’s journey,” she says. And as is often the case in hero stories: darkness isn’t the end. It’s the soil in which something new takes root.
Would you like to know if Judith can help you? Check out her website here.
Would you like to build heroes with hypnosis, just like Judith?
You can take the training in person or online. Would you like to have a no-obligation chat to see if this is right for you? Schedule a one-on-one consultation here. You won’t be speaking with a salesperson, but with an experienced HIN coach who works with this training program and clients on a daily basis. In 20–30 minutes, you’ll get a clear sense of whether this is the right step for you and which start date suits you best.
The schedule for these sessions fills up quickly around the start of each group. Is there still a time slot available that works for you? Then book it now.
