Laypeople 2

• Ericksonian Therapy and NLP by kendavis@erols.com, 9/3/97
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    • Voice of the Establishment by Jeffrey Zeig, 10/23/97
      
      

Dear Jeffrey,

You have asked me to brace myself. You have told me in very clear terms that you intend to be hard on me. You have stated that it will be difficult to reach me but you will try valiantly or fail miserably (my word). And as I ease into my chair I will strive to respond and thank you for posting a response so quickly. To answer your comment about not being the establishment, from where I sit, you are the establishment. In your example of taxi drivers and licensure I see your point but I also think that you left out a very important factor in that equation which is public demand. Have you ever wondered why there are so many “unlicensed” practitioners in Hypnotherapy and many other health care fields? If there wasn’t a demand for their services they wouldn’t be in business and everyone would be going to “licensed practitioners”. Do you feel that every unlicensed practitioner is a charlatan and therefore deceives his/her clients by presenting false credentials or could there be many clients who actually seek out these “unlicensed” services with a full awareness of the qualifications of the practitioner? Could it be that licensed practitioners do not provide the services the consumer is searching for? My point is that I feel that there is a very real need for “guerilla training” of therapists of all types as long as the training is set to high standards. The time when accredited university training being the only valid and acceptable training is over in my opinion. There is a tremendous need out there for good communication skills, which are not given appropriate importance in university. Why is it that clients consistently tell me that their Physician, Psychiatrist, surgeon etc. can’t or won’t communicate with them in any real sense? Do these licensed practitioners learn any communication skills in 8-10 Yrs? It’s too bad that Erickson’s views on that subject didn’t rub off. In 1978 Dr. Robert Goudreau the then President of the Canadian Medical Association stated at their annual general meeting ,“We have got to do everything possible to stop the hordes of alternative health care practitioners from invading our territory.” Although that was said a number of years ago I still see much evidence of that attitude today. When you state it is illegal to practice without a license I assume you mean as a Psychologist or other area that has legal protection of title. In Canada, Ontario is the only province that has any legislation relating to hypnotherapy or counselling. The association I belong to has recently been involved in a series of meetings with the Health Professions Council in British Columbia, Canada. This council was mandated to make recommendations on the regulation of counselling in BC. I can assure you that Hypnotherapists will still be allowed to practice legally in BC as they always have if the recommendations are acted on. As far as I know many states have no legislation relating to the practice of hypnotherapy or counselling. I’m assuming that by your definition I come under the category of untrained practitioner purely based on the fact that I am do not hold the appropriate university degree. If that is true then I guess the legal precedent I set testifying as an expert witness on hypnosis or the fact that there is a Dept. of Hypnotherapy in the British Columbia Cancer agency based on the training that I developed has no credibility from your perspective. In 1986 I established and registered our school with the appropriate government bodies in our province. The registrar of the BC psychologists Association wrote a letter to the government dept. to try to block our registration because we weren’t “qualified”. This confused the person in charge since many of the letters of support for our training came from members of the same association. Even the registrar took a weekend workshop that we sponsored. The President of the Canadian Society of Clinical Hypnosis has and still does on occasion send me clients and students. I even had 1 student who told me that the head of the dept. of psychology at the University of BC (very accredited) referred him to my training but told him not to say who referred him. We now legally practice as a school with the blessing of the government. In 1978 the Canadian Hypnosis Association was established. We have some of the highest standards pertaining to hypnotherapy in North America as well as rules of conduct, code of ethics and a system to respond to complaints. We have a mandate to govern our own members but cannot govern members outside of our association. The association is an independent body. We do not have a degree requirement although a number of our members have degrees. I seem to remember in the book, “Hypnotic Suggestions and Metaphors” by Croydon that it said as long as you have a masters level degree or above you can practice hypnotherapy with 40 hrs. training according to American Society of Clinical Hypnosis guidelines. Please correct me if I’m wrong on this point. For every example you can site of unlicensed practitioners doing harm I can site you another example of licensed practitioners doing harm. Not too long ago the head of Psychiatry at the UBC Health Sciences Hospital in Vancouver was convicted of assault when he took four female clients to his farm and whipped them as part of their therapy. I’m not sure if he used hypnosis but he certainly belonged to the appropriate associations and was qualified. As I have stated before I have been in private practice for 17 yrs. and have been training students for 11 yrs. I am a Registered Clinical Counselor and a Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist. I have been fascinated with Dr. Erickson’s work and have learned an enormous amount from yourself, Stephen Gilligan, Ernest Rossi, Paul Carter, etc. Much of the work I do combines counselling, Ericksonian Hypnosis, Shamanism, Yoga Breathing, Chi Kung and Vipassana Meditation. I feel like I’m just beginning to realize how much I don’t know about healing. However I do know that healing is much more than just intellect. When the professions start to change their focus from the head to the heart and realize they won’t lose there heads in the process then I feel we can make real progress in learning and healing which is what we are all here for anyway. I hope I have responded to all your points and I would be happy to send you any information you would like on our school or Association. Thanks, Sheldon.

• The real reason lay hypnotists exist by Terry Moore, LCSW, 10/27/97
  • Those Lay Hypnotists! by Sheldon Bilsker, 10/27/97
    • unscrupulous trainers by Terry Moore, LCSW, 10/28/97
      • reply to unscrupulous trainers by Sheldon Bilsker, 10/28/97
        • hypnosis training & degrees by Terry Moore, LCSW, 10/29/97
          • The hard work issue by Stephen Lankton, 10/30/97
            • reply to hard work by Terry Moore, LCSW, 10/30/97
• RE: Charlatans by Jeffrey K. Zeig, Ph.D., 11/3/97