Frequently Asked Questions

Quick Answers to Common Questions

Over 150,000 people worldwide have completed the Hoffman Process to achieve inner peace, vitality, and overall well-being. Our participants come from all income groups, professions, cultures, and spiritual beliefs. The Hoffman Centre Australia celebrates diversity in all its forms and welcomes participants from all areas of life. Our main demographic is participants between the ages of 30-75.

We are proud to share that hundreds of psychotherapists and coaches have participated in the Hoffman Process. Subsequently, they have referred many clients as a powerful addition to individual therapy or coaching work.

There are many reasons why people choose to do the Hoffman Process. These include, but are not limited to, issues with intimacy, relationships, family, career, depression, spirituality, a sense of connection and belonging, compulsive or addictive behaviours and unwanted personal limitations, including stress and anxiety.

For some participants, they attend the Hoffman Process as they have achieved a particular material success but cannot freely give and receive love. Others are in a life transition, perhaps feeling a loss of meaning in their relationships or careers and are feeling uninspired with their world. Religious and spiritual practitioners and students of the human potential movement also have attended the Hoffman Process.

As the Hoffman Process can improve professional performance and emotional competence in the work environment, many people in leadership positions also attend to improve their ‘soft skills’.

Here is a list of statements that you can review to see if the Hoffman Process is for you.

  • Something is holding me back, and I want to find freedom of expression and confidence.

  • I experience too much stress, and I’m not having enough fun.

  • I know what I should do, but I often can’t generate the will to do it. I often feel angry, resentful, embarrassed, or depressed.

  • I flip-flop between dominating and intimidating people.

  • I feel intimidated, coerced, and manipulated by others, and I can’t stand up for myself.

  • I work compulsively, often to the detriment of other aspects of my life.

  • I’m losing a sense of meaning in my marriage, career, or life. I often feel I’m just going through the motions.

  • There’s a lack of intimacy in my life — I’ve been unsuccessful in creating relationships.

  • I’m in recovery from substance abuse (clean and sober for 90 days minimum) and want to deal with the original pain that led to addiction.

  • I recognise that my parents were not as loving and supportive as I wanted them to be or that bad things happened in my childhood.

  • I see myself passing my suffering on to my children.

  • I experience a lack of emotional resilience.

If one or more of these statements apply to you, we recommend you consider taking the Hoffman Process. Contact us to discuss how the Process can assist you in resolving the patterns that led to these experiences.

During the Hoffman Process, you will rediscover yourself on an emotional, spiritual, and intellectual level as never before. The Hoffman Process offers a deep and practical resolution to emotional issues and enables you to come to terms with life as it is. You can recover the love, happiness and ease of self-expression that are your birthright. You will emerge as an integrated, powerful and mature emotional adult.

The Hoffman Process is a comprehensive 3-month personal development program, the foundation of which is a 7-day intensive residential retreat. We strongly recommend spending the two days following the 7-day program as time for personal reflection and integration. On that weekend, the whole group reconvenes for a 2-hour tutorial. For the first three weeks after the Hoffman Process, the facilitators track the integration process weekly via phone calls and virtual meetings. Our experience is that participants notice positive results immediately. Of course, there is also a period of adjustment in the days and weeks following the Hoffman Process while you integrate insights and knowledge into your daily life.

All our Hoffman Facilitators have completed the Hoffman Process and are qualified in our in-house training program. They are also independent psychologists, therapists and/or counsellors grounded in various disciplines. Our Facilitators provide instruction and personalised individual guidance to ensure that each participant progresses successfully through the Hoffman Process and learn tools for their ongoing development.

The Hoffman Process is not intended as a substitute for therapy. Many people have reported that the Hoffman Process is a vital addition to their therapeutic experience, and many psychotherapists use the Hoffman Process as a complementary adjunct to therapy. If you are currently in therapy, we ask that you consult your medical doctor and/or therapist about your choice to participate. Several research studies have been published over the years as to the efficacy of the Hoffman Process. You can read more here.

The Hoffman Process is designed to be a safe and supportive environment. Participants will grow personally and will significantly enhance their ability to give and receive emotionally and spiritually. We combine individual and group work to empower your journey. Our Facilitators employ an empathic and supportive approach, which respects the dignity of each person.

Typical Hoffman Process size ranges from 20 to 24 participants, with one certified Hoffman Process facilitator for every 6 to 8 students.

The Hoffman Process is not intended to be a detoxification program or a recovery support group. Nor is it intended to be a substitute or alternative to such programs. If you have an active addiction to alcohol or drugs, we urge you to seek a program designed to help you achieve sobriety.

Please get in touch with us to speak with one of our enrolment consultants if, after achieving a minimum of 90 days’ sobriety, you feel the Hoffman Process would further assist you in your recovery and life in general. Many graduates have reported the Hoffman Process as an important addition to their recovery program.

To ensure each person gains the maximum benefit from the Hoffman Process, we create an environment where participants can focus on their inward work without distractions. Therefore, we require participants to disconnect from the outside world electronically and digitally. This means that telephone calls, emails, and texting are not permitted, as well as connecting to the internet and other “outside” means of communication. Family members and significant others are given an emergency contact number and encouraged to contact us if they have any concerns.

During the Hoffman Process, we require participants to refrain from alcoholic beverages, non-prescription mood-altering drugs, and sexual activity. To devote your entire energetic attention to this exploration, students are asked to put aside, for this one week only, their meditation practices, as well as any aerobic exercise regime. The Hoffman Process provides alternatives. You are encouraged to resume these life-enhancing practices upon your return.

Because this is unlike “other retreats” and is a highly individualised inward journey, we do not recommend taking the Hoffman Process with a friend or someone you know. We have found that it can be challenging for participants to entirely focus on doing their work if they are paying attention to or checking in with someone they know in the room. Putting one’s attention elsewhere can provide an unintentional way of avoiding one’s work. It’s best to devote your whole Hoffman Process entirely to you.

We ask that romantic partners and family members not participate in the same Hoffman Process for the same reasons as completing the Process with a friend. Couples inevitably have intertwined dynamics that are difficult to separate during the Hoffman Process. This is an individual course in a group setting, and we want each person to focus on their journey. Once both people in a relationship have taken the Process, we welcome you to attend graduate courses together.

Bob Hoffman began working with individuals intuitively, healing emotional, physical and spiritual wounds more than 50 years ago. Bob Hoffman created the theory of the ‘Negative Love Syndrome’ and the ‘Quadrinity Model’ to describe the basis of his work. As his success began to attract the interest of psychotherapists and other mental health professionals, they were able to point out parallels and differences between Hoffman’s methodology and standard psycho-therapeutic models. This is fully described in ‘The Negative Love Syndrome’ and the ‘Quadrinity Model’ by Bob Hoffman. Subsequent research and theoretical work in psychology, brain development, education and medicine have confirmed many of Hoffman’s hypotheses. With the Hoffman Centre’s active cooperation, the scientific research community continues to create opportunities for research studies to measure and assess the results that participants experience.

Renowned for his intuitive capacities, Bob Hoffman was a gifted and generous man dedicated to awakening people to the incredible power of love that dwells within each of us. He believed that unconditional love is the birthright of every human being.

In 1967, Bob Hoffman gained his fundamental insight into the nature of early childhood conditioning and the mechanism by which that conditioning passed from generation to generation. For the next five years, he collaborated with psychotherapists and psychiatrists to help individuals on a one-to-one level. In 1972, he and noted psychiatrist Claudio Naranjo, MD, began presenting Hoffman’s method in a group setting called the ‘Fischer-Hoffman Process’ in honour of the late Siegfried Fischer, MD. Over the next 12 years, the Fisher- Hoffman Process gained a reputation for producing deep and lasting results.

In 1976 he authored ‘Getting Divorced from Mother and Dad’, published by E. P. Dutton and Co., Inc. It was later republished under the title ‘No One is to Blame – Freedom from Compulsive Self-Defeating Behaviour’. In 2003 this was updated to ‘You Can Change Your Life’ – A Future Different from Your Past with the Hoffman Process’. Tim Laurence, founder of the Hoffman Institute UK, trained and worked extensively with Bob Hoffman. This is the first book to detail the practical methods of the course. It is packed with inspiring personal stories and is available at the Hoffman Centre.

In 1985 Bob Hoffman reformatted his program into a 7-day residential intensive, renamed it the ‘Hoffman Quadrinity Process’. Bob continued to refine the program until his retirement in 1991. Hoffman International continues his constant attention to improving the efficacy of the Hoffman Process.

The $500 non-refundable deposit is valid for twelve months and applies to a specific course date. If you change or cancel your Process within two weeks of commencement, a $4,000 Process fee is applicable. If you change or cancel your Process within one week of course commencement, the entire fee is forfeited.

Exemptions are considered on medical grounds if a Medical Certificate is provided. All other date changes outside these specified periods incur a $110 administration fee. For any questions, please call +61 3 9826 2133 or contact us by email.

Book a Free Consultation

Take advantage of our free consultation and speak with one of our consultants.

Free Self Assessment

Find out in 5 minutes if the Hoffman Process is right for you.

Experience amazing life transformation with the Hoffman Process.