[Hypnotic communication and hypnosis in clinical practice]

In addition to usual medical care it is often critical to consider the patient's inner world in order to sensitively differentiate between harmful and helpful suggestive elements. The respective abilities in terms of hypnotic communication can be easily learned. Confident, empathic attention and a calm, understanding and figurative language narrowing the focus on positive emotions and positive change, which have been shown to improve the patient's chances of healing, are of particular importance. Proper clinical hypnosis goes one step further: it makes explicit use of suggestions, trance, and trance phenomena. The major clinical indications for hypnosis include psychosomatic disorders, anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorders, depression, and pain syndromes. Hypnosis can also be employed as an adjunct for surgical therapy.