A Change in Thought
It is the last teaspoon of Darjeeling. It is a sad moment, but it has been a lovely satchel of tea and a new beginning for some other type. Tomorrow will be a reinvention of my morning ritual - a whole new flavor experience
Perhaps today should be about new flavors then. There have been times when I am a little terse or even a tad bit harsh on psychology attitudes and views on hypnosis. I suspect I have parceled them together and lumped them in a category that is not so favorable based on a few personal experiences where I found certain members of the psychologist family to be just awful and completely useless. I do realize this is so not fair (and when I dug into my notes yesterday, I found many of the ones I have thought to be useless were not psychologist at all, but trained social workers). I shant go into a negative rant, but rather will shift the balance to the positive. Psychology (and social work) is like everything else. There are the good and the bad. For every bad, I suspect there are two or more good ones out there.
But, I am human and it is easy to get peeved by those psychologists (those in the western hemisphere particularly) who blow off the value of a good hypnosis session. I suspect these same psychologist are annoyed at me for blowing off long-term talk therapy. But then there is the other side, as I was reminded on Monday by the Australian psychologists who do not want to deregulate hypnosis so that the lay population can practice it.
I know, I know. Relax my fellow hypnotists who do not live in places where hypnosis is regulated. I shant preach about why or why not it should be regulated, but we should take a pause here. What does this actually say about hypnosis, this little fight down under. In many ways it is actually exalting hypnosis. It preaches the validity of it. If psychologist over there are so concerned that in the wrong hands, hypnosis could be a bad thing - is that not an acknowledgment of the potential benefits for hypnosis? Okay, so it is a bit skewed - it does not do much for the general public to hear all this because it could lead to fear or more misconceptions. But on a professional level, it is really very interesting.
Any thoughts?
June 11th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
I recently listened to a member of one of the hypnosis organizations that require the “magic letters” behind your name to qualify. She was the sole speaker on a panel on hypnosis and I couldn’t believe the misinformation she was saying. (Things like the classic rants against stage hypnosis, that people can get killed in car accidents by going into a trance, or how she would never do a demonstration of hypnosis because she didn’t have anyone to act as a spotter because she was afraid of hypnotizing someone else in the audience, which at the time was a total of 2, myself included.) Hypnosis, in her opinion, should be left up to the people with the “magic letters” behind their name.
The only thing I could figure from what she was saying was that either she (or the organization she was a part of) didn’t understand hypnosis very well or else they were somehow afraid of it.
June 12th, 2008 at 8:03 am
I don’t know why it surprises me that some psychologist would still have this attitude. I know I harp on this, but I think it is threatening to some because it occasionally offers relief faster than talk therapy. It may just have its roots in fear of competition…