Editorial - Australian Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis: Volume 37, Number 1, 2009

Abstract

The content of the current issue highlights the international nature of scholarship in the study and practice of hypnosis. Dr Carlos Alvarado writing at the University of Virginia provides us with a historical perspective on the development of the ideas of Charcot and the Salpêtrière School through the influence of a unique individual the hypnotic virtuoso Blanche Wittmann. Dr Tom Kraft and Dr David Kraft writing from their practice in Harley Street, London, provide the final instalment of a series of papers on the place of hypnosis in behavioural medicine with a thoughtful and wide-ranging examination of the treatment of eating disorders. Sadly, Dr Tom Kraft passed away on 10 December 2008. In addition to a distinguished clinical career he contributed extensively to the practice of clinical hypnosis through many scholarly publications and his role in the further training of professionals through the Hypnosis Unit of University College London. He is especially remembered as a loving father by his son David, with whom he wrote this his final paper. From Australia we have a case study of the use of hypnosis in the treatment of premenstrual dysphoric disorder by Sydney-based therapist Marianne Gabriel. Lynda Dolan, also writing from Sydney, presents a detailed rationale for the careful integration of hypnosuggestion and hypnoanalysis with wider therapy issues in her account of the treatment of a case of vaginismus. Priscilla Kwan from Honk Kong contributes a report on the use phase-oriented hypnotherapy for complex PTSD in battered women.