The Reluctant Hypnotherapist

I was talking to a friend recently who said something I could relate to.

"If I didn't know you, and someone said "oh meet this person, they're a clinical hypnotherapist", I'd say f*ck off."

I get it. The public perception of a hypnotherapist has a lot of uncomfortable overlap with street magicians (no offence to either group intended)

I've always felt a bit uncomfortable with the title, and feel that sometimes the public perceptions about hypnotherapy are one of the biggest obstacles in getting to a space for engaging in therapeutic work.

I was studying psychology when I first really started reading about hypnotherapy, sort of as a quirky side note. I was expecting to find out about it mostly being nonsense, and a little vague quote about the "power of the human mind" in the end. I just couldn't find that conclusion in the literature. Because there's just case after case, and a number of peer reviewed, scientific, clinical studies showing that its remarkably effective in a wide range of areas.

I couldn't figure out, why isn't this mainstream? Why isn't everyone FASCINATED with what the hell is going on here? And I still don't have an answer to that question. It should be far more mainstream. There should be far more clinical studies.

Part of me asks... Do I think that because I’m into it? Like a trainspotter who can't believe everybody wouldn’t be thrilled to spend all weekend jotting down the numbers of the trains that go by?

I dont think so. I think it's stayed in this fuzzy, "alternative medicine" space (even though clinically proven and accepted by scientific and medical circles for a number of applications) because it's impossible to define what it actually is.

Hypnotherapy is about creating new perspectives and reframing your ways of interpreting what's happening for you. When changes are made to your worldview, it has far reaching implications for your behavioural and c responses, and even your sensory experiences.

There are an endless number of techniques for achieving this. Consciousness and subjective experience is an impossibly elusive target, and anything that's even a little blurry round the edges is too easily disregarded as unscientific. Which is a shame, because its applications have very testable, repeatable results.

Although the branding of hypnotherapy has (hopefully) outgrown its "swinging watch held by someone with a twisty moustache" phase, it's still a little too firmly in the "close your eyes and I'll whisper positive affirmations in a very particular monotone to you with some gentle synth in the background" for my liking.

But I love working in this fuzzy, unseen space. And my favourite people to work with are the kind who aren't remotely interested in being “hypnotised”.