News, Industry

As professional hypnotherapists, we always want to know more about the studies and research involving hypnosis, as well as more about how the medical industry is progressing in its use and applications of hypnosis.

HypnosisAndSuggestion.org is an excellent resource for researching more about the medical side of hypnosis, consisting of grouping citations and studies together by topic. A few hours of browsing this site will familiarize you with many of the studies mentioned in press articles. If you ever have doctors asking you for resources about medical hypnosis, giving them this site is a great start.

Some of the actual texts of the studies and the journals linked require membership or subscription, and all of the organizations on the links pages require state-licensing in the medical or mental health field in order to join (so, doctors, nurses, social workers, etc. with current credentials).

This is a great place to read up on studies and the structure of studies, and a smart place for the professional hypnotherapist to spend some time learning.

This is about as main-stream as it gets!

This article:
Can Hypnosis Snuff Out a Smoker's Cigarette Habit?
June 23, 2008

Whenever you learn a new career skill set, you will be required to learn a lot of information quickly. You will want to be sure you are comfortable with the class materials and especially the instructors. There really won't be time or energy for personality conflicts or trust issues with your instructors, so be sure you like them before investing your money in courses and programs.

Most schools offer several opportunities to get to know the school and instructors before you sign up. Open houses, short introductory courses and free class auditing programs are all good ways to check things out, and you should take every opportunity to thoroughly check out your school.

Indicators of a outstanding school include:

• well established, has been doing classes in the same town for years;
• has had the same president or director for some years now;
• has more than one qualified instructor on staff;
• has an open house day or evening with presentations, meet the staff, etc.;
• is open about showing you the course text books and class materials (though probably won't let you take them home until you sign up);
  

In the United States, hypnotherapy is an unregulated profession (some would say it is a self-regulated profession), meaning you do not require a license to offer, provide and charge for hypnotherapy services.

There are a few states that have specific laws about hypnotherapy, mostly to keep it clearly different from psychotherapy and medical practice for the sake of clarity for consumers. If you are going to be doing business in Colorado, Connecticut, Indiana, or Washington, you will need to be make sure you register with the state. If you will be doing business in California, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, or Utah, be sure to check and follow local and state requirements.

Opening your own office is a great option as a professional hypnotherapist. Be sure you are ready to handle the additional expense before you commit to a lease. Remember, like any new business, it usually will take about 18-24 months before your marketing, advertising and local networking efforts will bring you new clients each week.

Being a hypnotherapist means being a "people person," and really caring about people. While the skills to hypnotize a person can be learned by just about anyone, it takes someone with a love of working with people to be a great hypnotherapist.

We often get calls and emails from people who are considering a future in hypnotherapy, and they have questions about the industry, legal requirements, opportunities, and more.

This study, done at North Shore Medical Center, Salem, Massachusetts, compares four ways of quitting smoking - hypnosis, nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), hypnotherapy plus NRT, and abrupt cessation without other treatment (cold turkey) - and finds hypnosis to be the most effective method.

MedPage Today in the UK ran this story about using hypnosis to help relieve pain, anxiety and in 28 patients with non-cardiac, angina-like chest pain, an extremely debilitating and difficult-to-treat condition. The results numbers are quite good.

Read more:
http://www.medpagetoday.com/Cardiology/AcuteCoronarySyndrome/tb/3128

In this story on the BBC website, a hypnotist in Worthing, England has used hypnosis instead of a general anesthetic for an 83-minute hand surgery.

Here's the link (bbc.co.uk):
Man hypnotises himself before op

Well done!