Hypnotherapy and Mental Health
Following on from World Mental Health Day, I have seen some articles talking about how hypnotherapy is an “alternative approach” to mental health care. I cannot tell you how much this infuriates me. When people say that “hypnotherapy depends on the person having it”. This kind of statement ignores that all forms of psychotherapy depend on the relationship between the therapist and client. No one therapy works for everyone.
This is true of all interventions, including chemical interventions for mental health issues. Hypnotherapy has a wealth of peer reviewed articles which show its efficacy. Yet, there are some both in and out of the mental health profession who still see hypnosis as some sort of parlour trick. Hypno-psychotherapy is where hypnosis is used as the vehicle for the delivery of psychotherapeutic interventions.
The time has come to start looking at results and evidence and take the therapeutic politics out of the debate. Hypno-psychotherapy is an evidenced based psychotherapy and is worthy of being treated not as an alternative form of psychotherapy, but a mainstream one. Though not for everyone, hypno-psychotherapy can really assist clients in difficulties get to where they need to go therapeutically and often in a more brief solution oriented way.
