Utilization of hypnosis: Refiguring the practice of multidisciplinary health care

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the full circle prohibition and repeal, in South Africa, from 1997 to 2007, of the utilization of hypnosis by any person not in the profession of psychology (i.e., psychotherapy), to identify the causes thereof to prevent its deleterious reoccurrence globally, and to clarify the potential utilization of hypnosis in multidisciplinary health care. It was found that the prohibition was necessarily repealed because it was erroneous, including that it was: (i) Unenforceable – the occurrence of hypnosis cannot be prevented because communication necessarily invokes, often without awareness thereof, trance hypnosis, and/or waking hypnosis; (ii) unnecessary – the prohibition of the utilization of hypnosis by other disciplines is not a logical consequence of the prohibition of its psychotherapeutic utilization by other disciplines because its utilization in any discipline is distinct from that in any another; and (iii) preventing efficacious use – the demarcation of hypnosis as belonging to psychology, and thus as single-disciplinary, prevents efficacy because this is contingent on knowledge about the mind, body, physical environment, and interaction, which is necessarily of a multidisciplinary nature. It was also found that hypnosis can only be utilized (i.e., instead of being prevented because its occurrence is inherent to communication), is content-free, and can effect profound learning. It was concluded that the potential utilization of hypnosis in, and thus refiguration of, the practice of multidisciplinary health care is limited only by every discipline’s awareness, training, and integrated utilization thereof in medicine, surgery, and/or communication for mental and/or physical illness and/or disease. The paper concludes with illustrations of how hypnosis may be utilized in treatment and therapy disciplines, respectively.