ABSTRACT
This chapter provides clinicians wanting to learn hypnosis with both perspectives and methods that are based on scientific understandings of hypnosis as well as the realities of modern clinical practice. Clinical hypnosis is a multidimensional phenomenon that can be considered from many different vantage points. Hypnosis tends to generate a mixed reaction from both professionals and the general public; people usually have a great curiosity about hypnosis, but it is often tainted with skepticism and misapprehension based on commonly held misconceptions. Most people have seen or heard of hypnosis before, and whatever they saw, heard, or felt at the time became the basis for their corresponding attitude. Hypnosis has been demonstrated in movies, kiddie cartoons, television programs, stage shows, state fairs, and nightclubs. The field of clinical hypnosis has been directly influenced by the push for “empirically supported treatments.”.
