Hypnotherapy and Unrealistic Expectations
I often tell my students that hypnotherapy is a bit of a double edged sword. What I mean by this is that hypnotherapy has what I believe to be a relatively good public recognition profile going for it. This means that even if a person does not know exactly what hypnotherapy is, they certainly have an idea of what it is about in perhaps a more clearly defined way than if one mentions things like psychotherapy, psychology, and psychiatry.
The problem with this recognition comes when people present for therapy with unrealistic expectations as to what can be achieved with hypnotherapy and how long it will take to achieve results. The general consensus is that hypnotherapy often gets results faster than other forms of talking therapy. However, this does not mean that hypnotherapy is a magic bullet. Things take the time they take.
In my own practice, I will not give estimates as to how long things will take to work on. With the exception of smoking which is a single session protocol. The reason I do not give estimates is that problems may have other dimensions that the client is unaware of and may well take a bit longer to resolve than the presenting issue would suggest. I would urge clients to temper their expectations when presenting for therapy and for therapists to be more straightforward about what the therapeutic process involves.
