2023 Midyear Clinical Hypnosis Workshops

2023 Midyear Clinical Hypnosis Workshops is organized by Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis (SCEH) and will be held from Apr 28 - May 01, 2023.

Introductory/Basic Workshop - two day
Workshop Description: 
For hundreds of years, hypnosis has been a powerful tool that has allowed medical and psychological providers a means to assist their patients or clients. This course follows established Standards of Training to provide students with a basic background and understanding to begin using hypnosis within the context of their own scope of practice. In addition to reviewing a brief history of hypnosis, this course will introduce students to the steps to facilitate a hypnotic state along with various types of suggestions for positive therapeutic change. Emphasis will be placed on how to integrate these skills into clinical practice or apply to research models.  This workshop will include live demonstrations, videos, PowerPoint lectures and supervised hands-on practice of hypnotic inductions, deepening techniques, suggestions and re-alerting. Each student will have the opportunity to practice skills and experience hypnosis.

Learning Objectives:
• Provide definitions of hypnosis and of terms commonly used in describing hypnosis.
• Describe the effects of hypnosis on the autonomic nervous system.
• Describe the steps in a formal hypnotic encounter.
• Describe at least 4 observable physiological and 4 psychological/behavioral signs of trance.
• Discuss the importance of removing suggestions.
• Explain 5 different hypnotic phenomena.
• Define abreaction and how it can be addressed therapeutically.
• Describe three methods of trance intensification.
• Name at least four commonly used words/phrases to reinforce the patient’s hypnotic experience.
• Define what is meant by ego strengthening and how it might be used in clinical practice.
• Explain how to teach self-hypnosis to a patient or client.
• Describe the ways in which memory may be fallible.
• Describe the therapeutic application of hypnosis to children.

Intermediate Workshop - two day
Workshop description:

This workshop will focus on teaching and practicing intermediate level hypnotic techniques including hypnotic inductions, methods of assessment, treatment methods, case conceptualization, and knowledge of current research/theory.  The participants will learn how to utilize hypnotic assessment to choose methods of hypnotic induction, treatment methods, and case conceptualizations that are well suited for their clients unique hypnotic talents, psychophysiological style, and individual psychology.  In particular, participants will learn to integrate mindfulness meditation into their hypnotic repertoire of skills for induction and treatment related goals.    

Emphasis will be on learning and discussing current associated research findings and theoretical perspectives that underlie clinical and experimental phenomena commonly encountered in hypnosis.  Participants will practice hypnotic treatment methods that are used to help clients learn to cope with and/or transcend difficulties with PTSD, acute and chronic medical problems, and common psychological disorders such as depression and anxiety using post hypnotic suggestions and other hypnotic methods.

This workshop is designed to empower clinicians with evidenced-based skills and training in the application of hypnosis for mental health, medicine, and general wellness, creating a positive effect on health worldwide.

Learning Objectives:
• Identify at least two benefits of including hypnosis into clinical practice.
• Identify three advanced induction techniques to specific clinical concerns.
• Introduce ideas about how to integrate metaphors as a type of hypnotic suggestion.
• Describe current literature on hypnosis and memory, and its implications for clinical work.
• Identify three hypnotic phenomena associated with memory.
• Identify at least two ego strengthening interventions that can be used during hypnosis.
• Explain how hypnosis can be used to help clients manage habit disorders.
• Explain how hypnosis can be used to help clients manage pain.
• Generate a treatment plan for treating anxiety disorders with hypnosis.
• Identify at least five potential challenges with hypnosis and interventions to minimize these challenges.
• Describe potential contraindications for using hypnosis in clinical settings.
• Describe clinical hypnosis standards of training, and levels of certification.
• Describe professional clinical hypnosis societies Ethical Principles.

Hypnosis and Hypnosis-Related Techniques for Labor, Delivery, and other Obstetrics Applications

Workshop Description:
In this workshop, I will introduce the concept of quality of labour/birth. I will explore how and why it is that even in cases where both mother and baby are 'well' (i.e., alive), the labor/birth can still be of poor quality.I will start from the premise that, in addition to their known physical effects, the hormones associated with childbirth also have a number of emotional, motivational and mind-altering effects on the woman giving birth. In natural cases, psycho-affective effects allow the experience of childbirth to be euphoric and ecstatic, despite/alongside the strong physical-physical sensations in natural childbirth. My hypothesis is that synthetic substances used to induce and accelerate labor, as well as pharmacological painkillers used to medicate, do not bring these emotional-motivational changes, but at the same time they have a violent effect on the physical processes. Thus, the alteration of the state of consciousness will most often be an increasingly sharpened negative trance. It follows from all this that the main thing to do is to support the natural alteration of consciousness and psycho-affective changes. This can be done by counteracting the negative suggestion that inhibits this, and hypnotic suggestion can be used effectively to convey positive content. We will analyze several case vignettes, identifying the suggestive effects. Case-descriptions will also be used to follow the application of these techniques during a process.

Learning Objectives:
• review the sensitivity (sometimes vulnerability) of pregnant women to suggestive effects.
• be able to analyze several verbal nonverbal and environmental suggestions during perinatal time.
• describe why several suggestive techniques are effective without formal hypnosis in obstetric practice; how “suggestive presence” can support the natural processes of childbirth.
• be able to analyze case vignettes how the difficult situations could be resolved by appropriate suggestions.

Hypnosis for Hot Flashes and other Common Issues for Healthy Women
Workshop Description:
Hot flashes are a prevalent symptom after menopause (natural and surgical), but also after treatment for breast cancer. It is estimated that over 25 million women in the United States have hot flashes (HFs),] with up to 80% of women in the general population reporting hot flashes during the menopause transition. Hot flashes negatively impact health related quality of life. Over half of the women with a history of breast cancer report their hot flashes as severe. Hot flashes can cause sweating, discomfort, anxiety, fatigue, and can interfere with sleep leading to adverse health outcomes. Hypnosis is an effective option for hot flashes. Dr. Elkins and colleagues have developed a hypnosis intervention involving standardized audio recordings of hypnosis for home practice and individualized hypnosis inductions delivered by a clinical researcher. This treatment reduced the frequency and severity of Hot Flash Scores (HFS) by approximately 80% on average in postmenopausal women with and without a history of breast cancer, which is comparable in efficacy to that of hormone replacement therapy. In this webinar, participants will learn about the research on hypnosis for hot flashes and improving sleep in post-menopause women and breast cancer survivors. The methods of assessment of hynotizability, session-by-session hypnotherapy, scales to measure progress, and the use of available apps to encourage home practice of self-hypnosis to reduce hot flashes. A combination of lecture, PowerPoints, case examples, and demonstration will be utilized.

Learning Objectives:
• discuss research supporting the efficacy of a hypnosis intervention for hot flashes in postmenopausal women and breast cancer survivors.
• identify valid measurement of the frequency and severity of hot flashes in clinical practice.
• identify clinical resources for providing hypnotherapy for hot flashes.

Workshop Description:
Fatigue is one of the most common and challenging side effects associated with cancer and its treatment. In 2014, our group published the results of an RCT (n=200) showing that women undergoing breast cancer radiotherapy, who received an intervention combining cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT, specifically Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy) and hypnosis, had significantly less fatigue for up to six months after radiotherapy than women who received an empathic listening condition. In the workshop, we will be reviewing the guidelines and evidence supporting the intervention and the combination of CBT and hypnosis more broadly, and we will be teaching you how to conduct this CBTH intervention according to the treatment manual. We will role-play how to conduct each component of the intervention (e.g., how to conduct an REBT thought record worksheet, how to encourage the use of behavioral techniques to manage fatigue, and how to conduct our fatigue-focused hypnosis intervention), and how to move beyond the manual and beyond the radiotherapy setting to apply it to your patient populations. Our goal is for this to be a relaxed, informative, and fun workshop for anyone interested in oncology settings.

Learning Objectives:
• become familiar with the literature supporting hypnosis for cancer symptom management.
• become familiar with the evidence supporting CBTH for cancer-related fatigue.
• become familiar with the CBTH thought record worksheet, and how to replace unhelpful beliefs with more helpful alternatives.
• be able to conduct the CBTH hypnosis intervention, including debunking.
• understand the flow and progress of CBTH from the first to last session.

Mind Matters: Psychosocial Oncology, Women’s Health and Hypnosis
Workshop Description:
We are thoughtful, emotional, and social as well as physical beings. Even serious problems such as cancer that clearly damage the body can be best handled by attending to cognition, emotion, and social support as well as the use of surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, and newer immunomodulatory and other treatments. Marital status affects survival time with cancer – in large scale studies being married is associated with an overall 4-month longer survival time – equivalent to the overall effect of chemotherapy. Depression, abnormal diurnal cortisol levels, and lower heart rate variability predict shorter cancer survival. This means that addressing psychosocial problems has the potential to add to both quality and quantity of life. Interventions involving enhancing social support, hypnosis for assistance with pain, insomnia, and stress will be presented and evaluated. With cancer, it is not simply mind over matter, but mind matters.

Learning Objectives:
• how to utilize hypnosis to help cancer survivors cope with pain, fear and other stressors.
• learn the effects of psychosocial variables on cancer survival.