Do Hypnotherapists Take Research Seriously
I could simply answer this question in one word, which would be NO. However, that would make for a very short article for the day, so let me elaborate. Very often hypnotherapists and organisations representing them will make a big deal about the importance of research and even have a member of the governing committee responsible for research. However, how much research is actually done by these bodies. Do they fund research or give advice to practitioners wanting to do practitioner driven research? The answer sadly is No to both of these questions.
I believe that it is intuitive that professionals embrace the idea of research. After all, how does a discipline move forward without research being carried out in order to determine efficacy and other critical clinical factors. However, more and more practitioners refer to “their research” which is little more than anecdotal at best and at worst just a marketing punchline used to dupe potential clients into thinking that they are more academically gifted than their competitors.
I believe professional organisations have a responsibility to further the cause of research by getting in genuinely qualified people to help co-ordinate it. These could be practitioners or academics, but people who genuinely know what research is and isn’t. Practitioners have the responsibility to be research informed and to keep abreast of the latest findings within the field and not simply rely on their original training as the bedrock of their practice. Once this is achieved, hypnotherapists will enjoy far greater recognition and acceptance in the wider psychological and medical worlds.
