Hypnotherapy - poised to enter higher education

Abstract

At the Gold Coast 2006 AMZAME Conference, Jenny Graham, Leon Cowen and Paul Orrock conducted a session on hypnotherapy, attracting significant interest across the health professions. Many ideas and viewpoints were shared and many questions were raised. The current health climate (with strong public interest in natural and complementary medicine and governments keen to contain burgeoning costs of health delivery) seems conducive to serious examination of the place of hypnotherapy in the preparation and/or continuing development of health professionals. The benefit of hypnotherapy as an effective rapid drug free intervention and one which can be coupled with and enhance other interventions (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy or counselling) is being recognised. As reported in 2006, a wide range of health practitioners are seeking training in hypnotherapy and there is a need to identify core competencies.