ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a basic, generic overview of assessment and case formulation in cognitive-behavioural hypnotherapy. The inclusion of hypnosis only entails slight modifications to common cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) approaches, which are well-documented elsewhere. Many practitioners using hypnotherapy assess clients primarily in the initial session, which typically lasts around fifty minutes. Other practitioners employ longer sessions, or more of them, to complete the initial assessment and conceptualisation process. Cognitive and behavioural therapies have always emphasised the important role played in treatment by similar factors in the therapeutic relationship. Hypnotherapists, likewise, have always emphasised the central importance of the relationship in treatment. The Mesmerists referred to the profound connection between operator and subject as "rapport", by which they actually meant to imply a bond so intense that the subject would temporarily be oblivious to distractions. The development of a healthy working alliance is just as important in cognitive-behavioural approaches to hypnotherapy as in standard CBT.
