Trevor Silvester: Founder of Cognitive Hypnotherapy and the Quest Institute
Trevor is the founder of Cognitive Hypnotherapy and the Training Director of The Quest Institute. He was a practicing Hypnotherapist with a clinic in Harley Street for many years before focusing his efforts entirely on Quest. He was the editor of the Hypnotherapy Journal of the National Council for Hypnotherapy for nine years, and was their Director of Ethics and Supervision for a further five until he stepped down in 2011. You can read Trevor’s full bio here.
Rebecca Silvester: Operations Director
Rebecca is an NLP Master Practitioner and Cognitive Hypnotherapist with many years experience in the training field. What her title really means is that it’s her organisational and people skills that keep Quest working.
Don’t bother asking Trevor anything about dates, money, or planning, it’s Rebecca who’ll have the answer.
In addition to her role within Quest, Bex was formerly a member of the UKCHO (United Kingdom Confederation of Hypnotherapy Organisations) committee, in her capacity as chair of that organisation’s training schools sub-committee, which assisted and advised on developing training standards and policy.
Jan Scurrah: Office Manager
Jan is our right hand woman, and a dear friend. She makes any number of essential things happen that we have long forgotten need doing. She is likely to be your first point of contact if you ring or email. If you ring, notice how she says “Institoot”. We nearly changed our name to suit her. While you’re on, she is a graduate of Quest, so can offer a personal perspective on the training, while also being a practising Cognitive Hypnotherapist serving the Newmarket area. In her spare time she sings like an angel.
Sarah Ariss: Training Manager
Sarah trained with The Quest Institute in 2016 and has been running a successful Cognitive Hypnotherapy practice in Hertfordshire ever since. She now combines that therapy with being Training Manager for the Institute, since being appointed in early 2021. She co-teaches with Trevor on the live weekends at Regents University and co-presents the webinars between these live weekends. Sarah organises the team of assistants who support students during their training and, together with the whole Quest team, creates a warm and supportive environment for learning. She also runs the Quest Institute social media pages.
Anita Mitchell: Assessment Manager
Anita performs two important roles at Quest. With Rebecca, she shares the responsibility of interviewing the prospective students. We think it’s vital that you choose the right course to fulfil your needs, and we’ve found over the years that meeting potential students makes a huge difference to
who we attract into Quest. They’ll put you at ease and answer all your questions, while asking a few of their own in a very informal meeting – it’s as much about you choosing us as us choosing you.
Anita is also our Assessment Manager, co-ordinating all of the student workflow as they progress through the stages of their qualifying examination. We’re very proud of the standard of our graduates, so supporting them in getting the most from the course is a crucial part of our team’s work.
Anita qualified with Quest in 2007, and has since become a great friend. She is a practising Cognitive Hypnotherapist and Hypnotherapy Supervisor. A former black cab driver, she is now an avid Harley Davidson rider (it’s like a motor bike but slower!)
The Hospitality Team
After Barney’s loss, Fred and Betty came into our life. To be honest, their role in the Institute has always been hard to define, but we couldn’t imagine leaving them off this page because they’ve been inextricably linked to the rhythm of our lives for so long. Fred is the universe having a joke on us. He’s a dog with issues, but also a joyful heart in-between when they affect him.
Betty…Betty was, like Barney, another once in a lifetime companion. She fought one form of cancer for seven years, was given six weeks to live with another, but miraculously survived it. Along the way she made us laugh every day and fall deeply in love with her unquenchable love of life. You’ll find a number of blogs and podcasts by Trevor devoted to the lessons she taught him. He cries in most of them. We lost her in early 2022. She survives in the memories of her Facebook fanbase, in medical textbooks, and we thought it appropriate she should feature here too.
Barney the original Hospitality Director
Barney was a legend within Quest. He was there at the beginning and played an active part in our success all throughout the Noughties, including being the means by which several Quest students lost their dog phobias (plus using some of the techniques we teach, obviously).He had a wonderful gift for making people love him and we were bereft when he passed on in November 2010. To be honest, we couldn’t bear to take him off the page, so think of this as an ‘About Us’ page, past and present.
