ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the evolution of hypnosis education in the USA. It is primarily informed by the author's decades of experience originating, producing, and leading professional education in pediatric hypnosis. Inasmuch as introspection about our development maps our journey and our future, this chapter is largely autobiographical. Because childhood and adolescence frame our future, this pediatric hypnosis educational model translates readily to hypnosis training in the clinical care of adults. This chapter emphasizes the imposing and challenging reality – for both teacher and learner – that health care professionals come to an initial workshop with biases about hypnosis. This requires both teacher and learner to bring and maintain a “beginner's mind” to such training. This premise also applies to methods for teaching adult learners, requirements and challenges for faculty, and how we integrate hypnosis into the care of another. We discuss how our ongoing use of evaluations by learners and teachers is an essential ingredient for the ongoing development of effective teaching approaches in clinical hypnosis. We emphasize that faculty must be interdisciplinary, including – but not limited to – clinical and academic physicians, psychologists, clinical social workers, and advance practice nursing clinicians. Finally, we envision ongoing refinements to improve both the relevance and effectiveness of professional training in clinical hypnosis, across the lifespan.
