ABSTRACT
Hypnosis is not a therapy in itself. When it is combined with various forms of medical and psychological treatment, it becomes hypnotherapy. Some authors express this clarification by avoiding the term hypnotherapy and utilizing the phrase “hypnosis as a therapeutic adjunct,” but these efforts often result in a return to semantic confusion with the use of such phrases as “the patient was treated with hypnosis” or “hypnosis produced no substitute symptoms.” Therefore, we maintain the distinction between hypnosis as an altered state of consciousness or awareness and hypnotherapy as a treatment modality in which the patient is in hypnosis at least part of the time. Our departure from this distinction is in our use of the term self-hypnosis. Technically we refer to self-hypnotherapy, but we will avoid that term because it is not yet in general use. Related to this is the emerging discipline of cyberphysiology, with emphasis on self-regulation via strategies such as self-hypnosis (see Chapter 17) or biofeedback (see Chapter 16).
