Eating Disorders and Hypnosis
Well, I am afraid that today’s offer is a bit of a rant which will probably not go down with many of my hypnotherapy colleagues. I was reading an article written by a hypnotherapist talking about working with eating disorders with hypnosis. My concern was that the practitioner writing on the subject had no specialist training in working with eating disorders.
In my opinion the article was a bit simplistic regarding “the power of hypnosis”. Hypnotherapy can be an aid to working with eating disorders, but it should not be employed by under qualified practitioners. There are many programmes which teach practitioners how to work with eating disorders. It is essential that practitioners understand more than the presentation of the disorder. A practitioner needs to understand what drives the behaviour and how to best work with that.
This is not a simple fix, it can involve intensive therapy which requires a great deal of knowledge of psychotherapeutic process. As I have said many times before, process is hardly touched on in the vast majority of hypnotherapy trainings. Can hypnotherapy help with eating disorders? Yes. Ensure that the practitioner is qualified to work with eating disorders without hypnosis. If he or she isn’t chances are they are not qualified to work with eating disorders with hypnotherapy.
