A coalition of hypnotherapists declared this January 4 to be official World Hypnotism Day, with the aim of encouraging the public to learn more about the benefits of hypnosis and hypnotherapy.


Hypnotherapy sits within those CAM professions that are not licensed (unless the provider is separately licensed–for example, as a physician (doing medical hypnosis)), a dentist (performing dental hypnosis), or even a massage therapist (offering guided visualization).
Unlike naturopathic physicians, who have achieved licensure, lay hypnotherapists are largely unregulated. On the other hand, like practitioners of homeopathy, hypnotists and hypnotherapists have strong national (and international) organizations, including those that sponsored World Hypnotism Day, such as these:
The National Guild of Hypnotists
in association with
Academy of Professional Hypnosis
Association to Advance Ethical Hypnosis
Banyan Hypnosis Center
Die Freie Gesellschaft für Hypnose e.V. (Germany)
Hypnosis Educational Council International
Hypnosis Information Network
International Hypnological Association
International Medical And Dental Hypnotherapy Association
National Association of Certified Hypno Counselors
National Association of Clergy Hypnotherapists
National Federation of Hypnotists OPEIU AFL/CIO
National Federation of Neuro Linguistic Psychology
Ontario Association of Hypnotherapists (Canada)
The National Council for Hypnotherapy (England)
5-PATH Hypnotherapists Association
Unlike practitioners of homeopathy, though, hypnotherapists have little (if any) professional consensus on e theducation or clinical training required to call oneself a hypnotherapist. In this sense, the professional and regulatory landscape for most hypnotherapy could be called the Wild West of licensure.
Hypnotists and hypnotherapists may have some protection in states (like California and Rhode Island) that follow the “Minnesota model” of health care freedom legislation, granting non-licensed providers authority to practice.
I’ve gained many things through study of hypnotherapy, which shares ground with meditation, prayer, and any centering activity. Most important is the notion of trance, and how it permeates our lives.
Those interested in reading about clinical use of trance states, journeying through trance, shamanic aspects of work on the unconsious, and more specifically, Ericksonian hypnotherapy, through the venue of a novel may be interested in A Question of Time. I’m also putting links to hypnosis and hypnotherapy organizations on this site.
In the meanwhile, let’s see if the first World Hypnotism Day helps lift the world ever more subtly out of the war-trance, and into the dreamy dreams that undergird transformation.