CHOOSING A HYPNOTHERAPIST
By David Quigley
Hypnosis therapy has proven itself over the past twenty years to be enormously practical and valuable for many kinds of personal problems. It has been demonstrated effective for long term weight loss, smoking cessation, pain control, and recovery from illness in conjunction with medical treatment, treatment of the underlying causes of phobias, anxiety, and depression and for a host of other problems. Unlike most medical or pharmaceutical interventions which mask the symptoms of illness or treat only its outer physical manifestations, hypnosis therapy can address the causes of our behavioral and disease conditions in the subconscious mind. It is also proven to be far safer and more rapid than other strategies. I have been told by thousands of clients over the years that a few sessions of hypnosis have achieved more powerful results than years of psychotherapy, and have often freed them from long term dependence on medical treatment, or the self administered "therapy" of illegal drugs and alcohol.
But for all of its successes, there is still a great deal of ambivalence in the medical and counseling communities about the effectiveness of hypnotherapy. Research results are often mixed. Clients report that other hypnotists were unable to achieve the results they were looking for.
There is no mystery about the ambivalent results many people experience from hypnosis therapy: Hypnosis trainings vary widely from one school to another and there are no consistent standards of training or Certification in the field. Many reputable schools, including my own, require extensive testing and supervised practice. But thousands of hypnotherapists have been "Certified" by private membership organizations with as little as one weekend of training. How could a single weekend of training prepare anyone for a successful practice in a field that requires a profound understanding of human nature? Other programs require only 50 hours of training; some can be completed online, with no documented practice or clinical supervision. Many "Certified" hypnotists lack the essential skills necessary to deal with a wide variety of client issues.
Another popular misconception in the field is that some professional hypnosis organizations offer this stern warning to the consumer: "Only put your trust in a licensed professional (Doctor, Psychotherapist, or Social Worker) who is trained in hypnosis!" However, years of experience in the field with such licensed professionals has taught me a lesson. While Doctors and other licensees certainly have more years in the classroom and in the clinic learning their art, there is no guarantee that they have the extensive training in hypnosis technology necessary to give you the maximum help that hypnosis therapy can provide. Most doctors and psychotherapists had no training in hypnosis skills during their education or internship. Courses in Hypnotherapy are not even offered as electives in many accredited training institutions within these professions. Post graduate training in hypnosis for certification as a hypnosis specialist can usually be completed in as little as one weekend or as much as 40 hours of instruction. Many licensed professionals justify this ridiculously inadequate training by claiming that hypnosis therapy is nothing more than the use of hypnotic suggestion and guided imagery, so it is not difficult to master for the professional clinician. This is an entirely erroneous attitude. Hypnotherapy if done right requires a complex set of skills that no one can master in 40 hours of instruction.
Don't get me wrong. Many licensed professionals are indeed as highly skilled and reliable in hypnosis as any unlicensed practitioner. And they certainly will bring the rich resources of years of professional education and clinical experience with patients to this practice, which is no small contribution to their value as healers. But if anyone is counting on the presence of a license to prove the ability of a hypnotist to assist with the latest in hypnosis techniques, this is your wake up call. Licensure in other professions is no guarantee of adequate training or effectiveness with hypnotic therapies.
In addition, if your search is limited to licensed professionals, you may pay a stiff price for their licensed status if you pay out of pocket. Or, if you want insurance coverage, which is one significant advantage of working with these practitioners here in the USA, you will need to accept a diagnosis as having a medical condition, and it will sit on your medical file all your life. Of course, if you are seeking treatment for a mental or physical illness, working with a licensed professional is an advantage because of their clinical experience. Just be aware that their training and experience in hypnotherapy may be less thorough than that of the typical non-licensed but well trained hypnotherapist.
So how do you find a hypnotherapist who is right for you?
First, ask around among your friends who have benefited from hypnosis therapy. Is there anyone they recommend? If you have a physician, chiropractor, or psychotherapist you trust who is open to alternative therapies ask who they recommend.
Most reputable hypnotherapists nowadays have a website where you can review their credentials, training, and years of experience, even their areas of specialization. Even better is if they have written and published on their website articles about their work with clients.
Review the list of approved practitioners on our website Practitioner Directory. You can also research hypnosis organizations to see if they have a referral network. I recommend the National Guild of Hypnotists for starters.
Interview your potential hypnotherapist by phone. Don’t hesitate to describe the nature of the problem in exact detail. And be sure to ask what training, experience and results this hypnotist has in the exact area you want to work in. While most practitioners work with weight loss, few have specialized training in peak performance in athletics for example, or work with chronic pain. And if they do work with weight loss, for example, ask how they get their results. The techniques used by hypnotists vary widely, as do the successes they achieve.
Shopping for hypnosis therapy is not like shopping for clothes or auto repair. Nearly everyone who calls my office wants to know three things: how long will it take, how much will it cost and what kind of guarantee can you offer?
These concerns are quite normal. Many are shopping for the quickest, easiest and least expensive program to achieve results. Unfortunately, if your focus is only on time or cost you will almost certainly receive an inferior product, or worse you may get no permanent results at all.
It is often the inexperienced or amateur hypnotherapist who enthusiastically offers quick fixes and unconditional guarantees of success at low prices. I once met a newly certified hypnotist at a conference, with 50 hours of training and a small part-time practice, who bragged about her 100% success rate with smokers. "They are so easy to fix in one session!" she said. When asked how she knew they were all so successful (since with all my skill my success rate is only about 85%) she replied, "Well, they don’t call me back, so obviously they have quit." Obviously, there are a number of reasons why they wouldn't call her back besides having quit smoking. It is best to avoid working with practitioners who offer these kinds of easy guarantees. If promises sound too good to be true, they probably are. In other words, if you smell snake oil on the phone or in the office, trust your nose.
In response to questions about cost and effectiveness an experienced professional will ask you questions, and listen closely for several minutes to gather the details of the problem, and then the hypnotherapist will decide if they can help you. If I can’t help, I tell the potential client why. If I have lots of experience in their area of concern, I will assure them that if they are a good trance subject, we can probably get excellent results in approximately X number of sessions, based upon my years of experience, which will cost $X. I remind the client that the underlying causes of their condition may be numerous, so I can make no absolute guarantee beforehand. But I do promise that if all goes well they will begin to feel some improvement, after the second session. (The first session is usually a lengthy interview.) And I assure the potential client that as my results with clients are sufficiently reliable, if we find that they are not achieving results by the end of the third session, I will no longer continue to work with them because I don't want them to waste their money and my time. The potential client is also told that there will be homework to do on a daily basis on their own to achieve these rapid results, and that I will train them in how to use easy and fun self-hypnosis techniques.
With these things in mind, then, it is important to ask certain questions of your potential practitioner and of yourself as well.
1. First, you should know what training and experience this practitioner has in the area of your problem. Knowing whether this practitioner is a medical doctor for 20 years or a non-licensed practitioner with only two years experience is ultimately of very little importance compared to whether this person has specific training and experience with chronic anxiety, if that is your issue.
2. In addition, ask how this practitioner will achieve results. Many practitioners rely exclusively on direct hypnotic suggestion. But I have found over and over that having a wide variety of available tools to address the deep underlying causes of the problem makes for more effective and permanent results. A skilled hypnosis practitioner should have in their tool bag specific training in several of these modalities: regression therapy, Gestalt therapy, neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), sub-personality therapy (sometimes called parts therapy), Ericksonian hypnosis, inner-child work, emotional freedom technique (EFT), idiomotor questioning. Not every hypnotherapist will have skills in all of these areas. At least 4 or 5 of the above is the bottom line for most skilled practitioners. If your hypnotist does not recognize these words and know these technologies, then they probably don't have all the skills they need to assist you.
There is a widely held belief that non-licensed hypnotists can only use direct suggestion with clients or else they are illegally practicing psychotherapy. As an expert in the legal and ethical limits of a hypnosis practice, let me clarify: here in the USA the legal definition of a psychology or psychotherapy practice is the treatment of mental and emotional illness, as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). No specific therapy strategies such as regression are defined as the exclusive territory of such licensed practitioners, in any law, in any state in this country. Therefore, to suggest, for example, that a hypnotist using parts therapy to help a client quit smoking is practicing psychotherapy, is to suggest that he is “treating a mental disorder.” My stop-smoking clients would, I am sure, be surprised to know they have a mental illness. Most understand that a non-licensed hypnotist’s job is to help healthy individuals who wish to improve their lives. If any practitioner attempts to foist the belief upon you that unlicensed hypnotists must not practice such methods as regression or Gestalt, I recommend you seek help elsewhere. You might also wish to inform them that most of the great innovations in the field of hypnotherapy over the last 50 years have emerged from the unlicensed pioneers of modern hypnosis therapy.
3. Your hypnotist should be ready to explain how they will achieve results with you in simple layman’s terms. For example, a client comes for sessions to heal their cancer. Here is how I will explain my work: "As an adjunct to your medical treatment, I will help you access the underlying causes of the cancer in your subconscious mind. There may be traumatic memories stored in the area of the tumor which we will be able to change, by actively rescuing your past self or perhaps your inner child, from those memories. We may need to release emotion from your body that is trapped in the area of the tumor. We will then insert into the area of the tumor blissful new memories of being nurtured, safe, and loved, perhaps by your adult self, perhaps by loving inner parents. I will then teach you how to focus this love every day on this area of your body, especially before and after each medical procedure, to increase the effectiveness of your treatment regimen. We may also discover any parts of your subconscious mind that have 'hired' this disease. We can then help these parts to get their needs met, so they can release this illness, and help you recover more quickly."
Note that this explanation, while complex, is easy for any lay person to understand. It also includes far more strategies than simply: "I will use hypnosis to give your subconscious mind suggestions to shrink your tumor in conjunction with medical treatment." To make a real difference, a skilled practitioner must have more tools than this statement outlines. Unfortunately, nearly all clinical research using hypnosis with cancer patients is limited to these overly simplistic methods, which is why the results of hypnosis on cancer are ambivalent in the existing clinical trials. As physicians become better informed about the recent advances in hypnosis technology, I am sure the research results will more accurately reflect the healing potential of hypnotherapy.
4. There is yet another factor that must be considered in choosing a hypnotist: "chemistry" is a critical factor, which must be honored. If I notice that the chemistry between me and a client is not right, if I don’t feel a mutual pleasure in each other’s company and a sense of warmth and trust developing during an interview, I will often stop the interview and tell the client as compassionately as possible that we cannot work together. Likewise, no matter how skilled your therapist is at answering all the questions posed above, if you do not feel safety, trust, and fun from this therapist, find somebody else. Hypnotherapy is far too intimate a process to be effective with someone you don’t like or trust. And it is okay even in the third or fourth session, if you realize you don't like this person, if you dread an appointment, or you are not already feeling results - call it quits, and resume your search for a better fit. There is no need to make yourself or the practitioner wrong for this either. Trust your guts! You deserve the best.
Finding a hypnotist whose services you can trust is not more difficult that finding the right doctor, the right dentist, or the right counselor. The benefits of effective hypnosis therapy are so phenomenal that I can guarantee one thing: Effective hypnotherapy is worth the effort and the costs, a thousand times over!
Good luck in your search.
Hypnosis therapy has proven itself over the past twenty years to be enormously practical and valuable for many kinds of personal problems. It has been demonstrated effective for long term weight loss, smoking cessation, pain control, and recovery from illness in conjunction with medical treatment, treatment of the underlying causes of phobias, anxiety, and depression and for a host of other problems. Unlike most medical or pharmaceutical interventions which mask the symptoms of illness or treat only its outer physical manifestations, hypnosis therapy can address the causes of our behavioral and disease conditions in the subconscious mind. It is also proven to be far safer and more rapid than other strategies. I have been told by thousands of clients over the years that a few sessions of hypnosis have achieved more powerful results than years of psychotherapy, and have often freed them from long term dependence on medical treatment, or the self administered "therapy" of illegal drugs and alcohol.
But for all of its successes, there is still a great deal of ambivalence in the medical and counseling communities about the effectiveness of hypnotherapy. Research results are often mixed. Clients report that other hypnotists were unable to achieve the results they were looking for.
There is no mystery about the ambivalent results many people experience from hypnosis therapy: Hypnosis trainings vary widely from one school to another and there are no consistent standards of training or Certification in the field. Many reputable schools, including my own, require extensive testing and supervised practice. But thousands of hypnotherapists have been "Certified" by private membership organizations with as little as one weekend of training. How could a single weekend of training prepare anyone for a successful practice in a field that requires a profound understanding of human nature? Other programs require only 50 hours of training; some can be completed online, with no documented practice or clinical supervision. Many "Certified" hypnotists lack the essential skills necessary to deal with a wide variety of client issues.
Another popular misconception in the field is that some professional hypnosis organizations offer this stern warning to the consumer: "Only put your trust in a licensed professional (Doctor, Psychotherapist, or Social Worker) who is trained in hypnosis!" However, years of experience in the field with such licensed professionals has taught me a lesson. While Doctors and other licensees certainly have more years in the classroom and in the clinic learning their art, there is no guarantee that they have the extensive training in hypnosis technology necessary to give you the maximum help that hypnosis therapy can provide. Most doctors and psychotherapists had no training in hypnosis skills during their education or internship. Courses in Hypnotherapy are not even offered as electives in many accredited training institutions within these professions. Post graduate training in hypnosis for certification as a hypnosis specialist can usually be completed in as little as one weekend or as much as 40 hours of instruction. Many licensed professionals justify this ridiculously inadequate training by claiming that hypnosis therapy is nothing more than the use of hypnotic suggestion and guided imagery, so it is not difficult to master for the professional clinician. This is an entirely erroneous attitude. Hypnotherapy if done right requires a complex set of skills that no one can master in 40 hours of instruction.
Don't get me wrong. Many licensed professionals are indeed as highly skilled and reliable in hypnosis as any unlicensed practitioner. And they certainly will bring the rich resources of years of professional education and clinical experience with patients to this practice, which is no small contribution to their value as healers. But if anyone is counting on the presence of a license to prove the ability of a hypnotist to assist with the latest in hypnosis techniques, this is your wake up call. Licensure in other professions is no guarantee of adequate training or effectiveness with hypnotic therapies.
In addition, if your search is limited to licensed professionals, you may pay a stiff price for their licensed status if you pay out of pocket. Or, if you want insurance coverage, which is one significant advantage of working with these practitioners here in the USA, you will need to accept a diagnosis as having a medical condition, and it will sit on your medical file all your life. Of course, if you are seeking treatment for a mental or physical illness, working with a licensed professional is an advantage because of their clinical experience. Just be aware that their training and experience in hypnotherapy may be less thorough than that of the typical non-licensed but well trained hypnotherapist.
So how do you find a hypnotherapist who is right for you?
First, ask around among your friends who have benefited from hypnosis therapy. Is there anyone they recommend? If you have a physician, chiropractor, or psychotherapist you trust who is open to alternative therapies ask who they recommend.
Most reputable hypnotherapists nowadays have a website where you can review their credentials, training, and years of experience, even their areas of specialization. Even better is if they have written and published on their website articles about their work with clients.
Review the list of approved practitioners on our website Practitioner Directory. You can also research hypnosis organizations to see if they have a referral network. I recommend the National Guild of Hypnotists for starters.
Interview your potential hypnotherapist by phone. Don’t hesitate to describe the nature of the problem in exact detail. And be sure to ask what training, experience and results this hypnotist has in the exact area you want to work in. While most practitioners work with weight loss, few have specialized training in peak performance in athletics for example, or work with chronic pain. And if they do work with weight loss, for example, ask how they get their results. The techniques used by hypnotists vary widely, as do the successes they achieve.
Shopping for hypnosis therapy is not like shopping for clothes or auto repair. Nearly everyone who calls my office wants to know three things: how long will it take, how much will it cost and what kind of guarantee can you offer?
These concerns are quite normal. Many are shopping for the quickest, easiest and least expensive program to achieve results. Unfortunately, if your focus is only on time or cost you will almost certainly receive an inferior product, or worse you may get no permanent results at all.
It is often the inexperienced or amateur hypnotherapist who enthusiastically offers quick fixes and unconditional guarantees of success at low prices. I once met a newly certified hypnotist at a conference, with 50 hours of training and a small part-time practice, who bragged about her 100% success rate with smokers. "They are so easy to fix in one session!" she said. When asked how she knew they were all so successful (since with all my skill my success rate is only about 85%) she replied, "Well, they don’t call me back, so obviously they have quit." Obviously, there are a number of reasons why they wouldn't call her back besides having quit smoking. It is best to avoid working with practitioners who offer these kinds of easy guarantees. If promises sound too good to be true, they probably are. In other words, if you smell snake oil on the phone or in the office, trust your nose.
In response to questions about cost and effectiveness an experienced professional will ask you questions, and listen closely for several minutes to gather the details of the problem, and then the hypnotherapist will decide if they can help you. If I can’t help, I tell the potential client why. If I have lots of experience in their area of concern, I will assure them that if they are a good trance subject, we can probably get excellent results in approximately X number of sessions, based upon my years of experience, which will cost $X. I remind the client that the underlying causes of their condition may be numerous, so I can make no absolute guarantee beforehand. But I do promise that if all goes well they will begin to feel some improvement, after the second session. (The first session is usually a lengthy interview.) And I assure the potential client that as my results with clients are sufficiently reliable, if we find that they are not achieving results by the end of the third session, I will no longer continue to work with them because I don't want them to waste their money and my time. The potential client is also told that there will be homework to do on a daily basis on their own to achieve these rapid results, and that I will train them in how to use easy and fun self-hypnosis techniques.
With these things in mind, then, it is important to ask certain questions of your potential practitioner and of yourself as well.
1. First, you should know what training and experience this practitioner has in the area of your problem. Knowing whether this practitioner is a medical doctor for 20 years or a non-licensed practitioner with only two years experience is ultimately of very little importance compared to whether this person has specific training and experience with chronic anxiety, if that is your issue.
2. In addition, ask how this practitioner will achieve results. Many practitioners rely exclusively on direct hypnotic suggestion. But I have found over and over that having a wide variety of available tools to address the deep underlying causes of the problem makes for more effective and permanent results. A skilled hypnosis practitioner should have in their tool bag specific training in several of these modalities: regression therapy, Gestalt therapy, neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), sub-personality therapy (sometimes called parts therapy), Ericksonian hypnosis, inner-child work, emotional freedom technique (EFT), idiomotor questioning. Not every hypnotherapist will have skills in all of these areas. At least 4 or 5 of the above is the bottom line for most skilled practitioners. If your hypnotist does not recognize these words and know these technologies, then they probably don't have all the skills they need to assist you.
There is a widely held belief that non-licensed hypnotists can only use direct suggestion with clients or else they are illegally practicing psychotherapy. As an expert in the legal and ethical limits of a hypnosis practice, let me clarify: here in the USA the legal definition of a psychology or psychotherapy practice is the treatment of mental and emotional illness, as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). No specific therapy strategies such as regression are defined as the exclusive territory of such licensed practitioners, in any law, in any state in this country. Therefore, to suggest, for example, that a hypnotist using parts therapy to help a client quit smoking is practicing psychotherapy, is to suggest that he is “treating a mental disorder.” My stop-smoking clients would, I am sure, be surprised to know they have a mental illness. Most understand that a non-licensed hypnotist’s job is to help healthy individuals who wish to improve their lives. If any practitioner attempts to foist the belief upon you that unlicensed hypnotists must not practice such methods as regression or Gestalt, I recommend you seek help elsewhere. You might also wish to inform them that most of the great innovations in the field of hypnotherapy over the last 50 years have emerged from the unlicensed pioneers of modern hypnosis therapy.
3. Your hypnotist should be ready to explain how they will achieve results with you in simple layman’s terms. For example, a client comes for sessions to heal their cancer. Here is how I will explain my work: "As an adjunct to your medical treatment, I will help you access the underlying causes of the cancer in your subconscious mind. There may be traumatic memories stored in the area of the tumor which we will be able to change, by actively rescuing your past self or perhaps your inner child, from those memories. We may need to release emotion from your body that is trapped in the area of the tumor. We will then insert into the area of the tumor blissful new memories of being nurtured, safe, and loved, perhaps by your adult self, perhaps by loving inner parents. I will then teach you how to focus this love every day on this area of your body, especially before and after each medical procedure, to increase the effectiveness of your treatment regimen. We may also discover any parts of your subconscious mind that have 'hired' this disease. We can then help these parts to get their needs met, so they can release this illness, and help you recover more quickly."
Note that this explanation, while complex, is easy for any lay person to understand. It also includes far more strategies than simply: "I will use hypnosis to give your subconscious mind suggestions to shrink your tumor in conjunction with medical treatment." To make a real difference, a skilled practitioner must have more tools than this statement outlines. Unfortunately, nearly all clinical research using hypnosis with cancer patients is limited to these overly simplistic methods, which is why the results of hypnosis on cancer are ambivalent in the existing clinical trials. As physicians become better informed about the recent advances in hypnosis technology, I am sure the research results will more accurately reflect the healing potential of hypnotherapy.
4. There is yet another factor that must be considered in choosing a hypnotist: "chemistry" is a critical factor, which must be honored. If I notice that the chemistry between me and a client is not right, if I don’t feel a mutual pleasure in each other’s company and a sense of warmth and trust developing during an interview, I will often stop the interview and tell the client as compassionately as possible that we cannot work together. Likewise, no matter how skilled your therapist is at answering all the questions posed above, if you do not feel safety, trust, and fun from this therapist, find somebody else. Hypnotherapy is far too intimate a process to be effective with someone you don’t like or trust. And it is okay even in the third or fourth session, if you realize you don't like this person, if you dread an appointment, or you are not already feeling results - call it quits, and resume your search for a better fit. There is no need to make yourself or the practitioner wrong for this either. Trust your guts! You deserve the best.
Finding a hypnotist whose services you can trust is not more difficult that finding the right doctor, the right dentist, or the right counselor. The benefits of effective hypnosis therapy are so phenomenal that I can guarantee one thing: Effective hypnotherapy is worth the effort and the costs, a thousand times over!
Good luck in your search.
