Hypnosis Organizations and Associations

No endorsement is to be assumed because an Association or Organization is included in this list. [Except for our own International Registry of Professional Hypnotherapists, of course!]

I have attempted to include all Hypnosis Associations that have websites. You are encouraged to make your own investigations and judgements. Please let me know of any omissions.

You may be interested in being "certified" as a hypnosis professional. (The American use of the word "certified" in this connection could be amusing to British people since it is the same term used in the U.K. when someone is committed to a mental hospital :-).

Anyway, here's an email exchange between a newbie and Brian David Phillips, PhD, CH.:

Question: "What are the top few most prestigious certifications that I could have?"

Dr Phillips' answer: "Prestigious? That's a loaded question and a half.

It isn't really the case that certification offers prestige. Rather, prestige would come from membership in an organization as a certified member . . . for prestige, hands down the most prestigious organization would be the hypnosis interest group of the APA and other licensed professional organizations and the like.

However, you won't be joining that group unless you have other qualifications . . . a friend of mine used to be the President of a US state branch of one of the prestigious "licensed professional" organizations and he also served on the ethics committee for hypnosis way back when and he tells me they were seeing such silly things as ethics complaints because a doctor taught his nurse to do quick inductions. Things have evidently not improved all that much over the years.

In practical terms, membership in an organization becomes more to do with what you want to get out of the organization and what it offers its community of members. Some offer large numbers and others offer strict competence guidelines for training. One organization that often claims to have the largest membership in the world also claims to have the best training program . . . however, while some of the best trainers in the world do belong to that organization, so do some of the worst.

If you want to ask about which certification confers actual competence . . . that would be different from prestige. Some of the biggest and most active organizations have become more hit or miss when it comes to training quality - in part because they have grown so large that they have become unwieldy and in part because some organizations are more concerned with expanding revenues which means increasing membership. Others, keep a tight reign on their training programs and still others follow a "keep it small and manageable" philosophy. At least one organization has membership consisting solely of folks who have been trained by one individual . . . not as a fly-by-night operation as does occur but because the fellow behind the group wants to personally guarantee the level of competence and exposure of knowledge within the membership.

As to "which organization" is the best . . . we won't open that can of worms here . . . other than to recognize that some organizations have very valuable programs and serve the needs of their membership.

There are some organizations which I don't allow to be promoted on this list . . . others I do . . . however, there is an obvious prejudice here . . . go to the group's homepage and you'll see what I mean . . . the Society of Experiential Trance (http://www.trancesociety.org) has officially begun offering certifications (contact individual trainers for schedules or other options), after a couple years of behind-the-scenes preparation. Of course, that's one organization among many . . . but it is the one specifically associated with my email list."

All the best,
Brian

Brian David Phillips, PhD, CH [phillips@nccu.edu.tw] Performance Hypnotist, Certified Hypnotherapist President, Society of Experiential Trance Associate Professor, English Dept., NCCU, Taipei, Taiwan www.BrianDavidPhillips.com and S.E.T.

The International Registry of Professional Hypnotherapists

The Association for Professional Hypnosis and Psychotherapy

International Association of Counseling Hypnotherapists

Society of Psychological Hypnosis

International Association of Counselors and Therapists:

Professional Board of Hypnotherapy

American Association of Professional Hypnotherapists

Association of Registered Clinical Hypnotherapists - ARCH Canada

International Hypnosis Federation

National Guild of Hypnotists

National Association of Transpersonal Hypnotherapists

The International Medical and Dental Hypnotherapy Association

Australian Society of Clinical Hypnotherapists

British Society of Clinical Hypnosis

Ocean County, NJ, Chapter of the National Guild of Hypnotists, Inc

National Board for Certified Clinical Hypnotherapists