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Regulation called for hypnotherapy

Last Modified: 02 Jan 2008
By: Girish Juneja

With controversy growing over who can and can't call themselves a hypnotherapist, campaigners call for regulation to prevent abuse.

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Abuse claims

But it's possible to set up as a hypnotherapist with little more qualification than a short correspondence course. This, say campaigners, leads to abuse.

Witness, an organistion set up to help people who have been abused by health and social care workers and working to prevent abuse, received seven complaints about hypnotherpaists in two years.

But it is a small organisation and when trying to get more figures, it appeared that no-one is counting from the Government and Doctor's Organisations to consumer groups including Which? Magazine.

Eventually, Consumer Direct told us they had received 68 complaints over two years.

Self-regulation

They are asking for government regulation of the industry.

Going through Parliament now is the The Health and Social Care Bill. At the White Paper stage of the Bill the government dismissed hypnotherapy, saying it was not a discrete profession in its own right, but a technique used by a variety of disciplines.

It said it would introduce regulation only for the better established disciplines. The upshot? The Hypnotherapy industry has been left to regulate itself.

Patients vulnerable

By its nature, hypnotherapy puts people in a vulnerable position.

Most people agree that practitioners should be required to meet minimum training standards and clients should have a clear route for complaint.

Campaigners say voluntary regulation will not provide either of these. Hypnotherapists say they will and are busy drawing up the standards.

While professional bodies are working hard towards meaningful self regulation, it seems that unless they are able to convince their critics, the government may yet have to step in.