Is there a certification or credentialing process for the practice of hypnosis?
There are many, many schools of hypnotherapy throughout the world, and in most places, in fact in most states in this country, it is not a regulated profession. You can get trained as a "certified" clinical hypnotherapist in three days or, in fact, in the state of California you can have no training at all and say you're a hypnotherapist, and that's perfectly legal. Now, can you really do it? I could teach you how to hypnotise somebody in ten minutes, but then what do you do? Learning how to induce hypnosis is one thing and learning hypnotherapy is another. The certification that one gets is really only as good as the training. If you go to a school for three days, you can be called "certified" because almost every hypnotherapy school has a "board" with which they certify their graduates, and so it's important if you're looking or thinking about seeing a hypnotherapist to ask questions, such as "What was your training like?" "How long have you been doing this?" "Do you work with physicians and other medical health professionals?" For instance, the training I went through, which I think is one of the best programmes in the country, was a full year of course work, a six month clinical internship and hours and hours of independent study, and it was all conducted by licensed medical health professionals. That's a big difference to a three day online or weekend course in some hotel ballroom. I got the same exact designation; I am as certified a hypnotherapist as that other person, and we're both completely allowed to practice our craft, if you will.
