Utilization of Hypnosis

Abstract

The full circle prohibition and repeal, in South Africa, from 1997 to 2007, of the utilization of hypnosis by any person not in the profession of psychology (i.e., psychotherapy) was examined to understand the causes thereof in order to prevent its deleterious re-occurrence globally, and second to examine the utilization of hypnosis in health care practice. It was found that the prohibition was erroneous, including that it was: (a) unenforceable—the occurrence of hypnosis cannot be prevented because communication necessarily invokes, often without awareness thereof, trance hypnosis and/or waking hypnosis; (b) unnecessary—the prohibition of the utilization of hypnosis by other disciplines is not a logical consequence of the prohibition of its psychotherapeutic utilization by other disciplines because its utilization in any discipline is distinct from that in any another; and (c) preventing efficacious use—the demarcation of hypnosis as belonging to psychology, and thus as single-disciplinary, prevents efficacy because this is contingent on knowledge about the mind, body, physical environment, and interaction, which is necessarily of a multidisciplinary nature. Having identified that hypnosis cannot be prevented, only utilized, is content free, and can effect profound learning, it was concluded that the potential utilization of hypnosis in, and thus refiguration of, the practice of multidisciplinary health care is limited only by every discipline’s awareness, training, and integrated utilization thereof in medicine, surgery, and/or communication for mental and/or physical illness and/or disease. The paper concludes with illustrations of how hypnosis may be utilized in treatment and therapy disciplines respectively.