Credentials

Self-hypnosis is a great technique that you will be able to use successfully for many purposes. Still, there are times when you should consult a professional. The professionals involved, depending on the problem, would be a medical doctor, a psychologist, or a hypnotist or hypnotherapist who is neither a doctor nor a psychologist. For some goals you also need to go to a teacher of some sort, such as a golf pro or guitar teacher if your goal has to do with sports or music. There are a number of specialists in sports hypnosis, and a few specializing in working with musicians. In most cases, for this sort of goal you should be seeing a teacher along with doing self-hypnosis or seeing a hypnosis specialist. Let's skip over the teachers and look at hypnotists and hypnotherapists. In most places, you can just call yourself a hypnotherapist. There are no qualifications or licensing required. So you really need to check on a person's qualifications. We don't expect a doctor to be a hypnotist. That's not why we go to see him. We don't expect a dentist to be a hypnotist either, but she may be. Hypnotism has been successful in dentistry, but you would have to look for a dentist who uses it. A psychologist may be trained as a hypnotist. Some hypnotists who are not psychologists are well qualified and some aren't. We discuss that later in this section. A stage hypnotist may be great at hypnotizing people, but that doesn't make her a good therapist. The same is true of your brother-in-law who's a hit at parties with his hypnotism routine. Do some investigation before choosing a professional hypnotist.