Hypnosis Certification, is it really necessary?

[True-Gossiper]

Considering hypnosis is just a persuasive kind of communication and hypnotherapy is using hypnosis in theurapetical setting, how important is someone's certification in praciticing and teaching hypnosis?

Personally, I don't find that hypnosis practice could do any real harm since they're basicaly all about compliance and suggestions. There is no RIGHT or WRONG way to do hypnosis, just as there is no right or wrong way to do communication. Practicing, sharing, and teaching hypnosis is not an elite right just as claimed by some certified organization (read:biz).

The only meaningful use for certification is just that it enlists and tracks the hypno business players, just in case somebody tries to run a dishonest or fraudulent practice. It's there for the sake of client's biz safety, not necessarily for the hypnosis itself.

What do you think? Let's share.

 

[True-Gossiper]

Anyone?

 

[Gravy]

They just want to keep people from swinging pocket watches. It's the mesmerists I worry about.

 

[porch]

There are a couple of ways to do hypnosis wrong. The first would be to tell your client that hypnosis is anything more than a game of the imagination. That is, to suggest that thoughts or memories experienced during hypnosis are as real, or even more real, than under other circumstances. Not using the term hypnosis probably helps in this regard.

The second would be to lead your client in any way when "under" hypnosis. To ask someone, "Do you recall being molested as a child?" is to plant the idea. Another potentially damaging one would be "I sense there's someone else in there that would like to talk. Do you think you could call them out for me?"

 

[JonWhite]

Regarding the certification, is it necessary with regard to what?

To set yourself up in the "biz"? In the UK not, as the industry is completely unregulated anyway with many different versions of certification according to the company trained with and no set standard.

In terms of having such certification, here in the UK for example it does allow for membership to organisations such as the General Hypnotherapy Register - a reputable/impressive sounding affiliation to an organisation that is in effect a glorified registered practitioner database, through membership of which one gains a few other benefits such as a reasonable insurance deal.

In terms of selling your services, it is of course a good convincer to have a few important looking letters after your name and cool certificates on the wall.

Regarding the actual practice of hypnotherapy, if all you do is script based direct suggestion work then any old untrained Joe/Josephine of suitable confidence who learns the scripts and creates equal conviction of the process in the client will be as good as anyone trained.

For anyone using hypnotherapy for analytical work, one certainly would at least hope that their training leading up to certification developed a degree of understanding and ability beyond that of the untrained/uncertified.