A DRIVING instructor has utilised her therapy skills to teach learners how to pass their test stress-free.

Diane Hall has self-published a book to help novice drivers overcome their nerves and save money.

L Of A Way to Pass combines six years of experience as a driving instructor with her training in alternative stress therapy.

Diane said more than half of UK driving tests end in failure because nerves meant they were going to pieces on the big day.

She also believed pupils were spending too much money on needless lessons with instructors.

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The 44-year-old, who teaches pupils from across Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle, said: "I thought there had got to be a better way to help people pass their test."

In August 2007 Diane saw a television show featuring Paul McKenna using a 'tapping' technique to take away people's anxieties.

The procedure entails tapping yourself in certain parts of the body to retrain the mind to overcome phobias and cravings.

Diane immediately saw the potential.

And after contacting Paul McKenna's associates with her idea, it was suggested that she begin training to become a therapist herself.

That was completed in March 2008 and Diane, who lives in Hales, near Loggerheads, began using the techniques on some of her students.

And in November her 240-page book was released, thanks in part to a £3,500 grant from the UnLtd Millennium Awards, which distributes lottery money to benefit communities to social entrepreneurs.

It helped pay for the £1,500 self-publication costs, training and the creation of a website. The book details her theories and deals with assessing why people fail, confidence building exercises, how to get manoeuvres right and other areas.

A number of techniques and visual exercises are also detailed and 'test day stress busters' are outlined, while a section with specialist Sandra Read describes how multi-sensory learning techniques can help the 250,000 dyslexics who learn to drive in the UK every year.

One of those was Gemma Colclough, aged 22, who had failed eight times over the previous four years after spending hundreds of hours and thousands of pounds on lessons.

Gemma signed up with Diane as a last-ditch attempt to pass and got rid of her L plates on the first test after therapy.

She said: "It was like it unblocked something in my head.."