American Hypnotherapist Accused of Sexual Assault
This is one of the topics that I really hate writing about. Though situations like this are thankfully rare, it does not diminish the impact of such allegations. Now, I say this without prejudging the case, but we as a profession need to do a better job at the training level to attempt to either weed out people who are predatory from entering the profession as well as hammering home the importance of ethics within professional practice.
I realise that the argument can be made that the first part of this is impossible. Even medical schools let some people slip through the net who should not be trained. However, schools should and in my view must engage in some form of selection process. Yes, hypnotherapy schools are a business, but it is not good business to not vet people who are to be trained.
As far as ethics are concerned, there are huge advantages both professionally and bottom line in being ethical. Ethics simply put are great for business. It should be known that in issues regarding boundary transgressing, it is ALWAYS the responsibility of the therapist to ensure that professional boundaries are maintained. Clients are often quite vulnerable and it is our responsibility to keep them safe when undertaking therapy.
