Yearning for the Vastness of the Sea: Reflections and Commentary on Professional Training in Hypnosis

Educational programs are a major focus of most professional hypnosis societies. Many of these programs rely on traditional curricula and teaching strategies with variable success. The articles in this special issue examine and critique these training models and suggest innovative approaches to professional education with an emphasis on more uniform course content and goals and more dynamic and effective educational processes. A convergence of themes is noted and examined including the need to continue to expand the acceptance and utilization of clinical hypnosis, the importance of attending to broader clinical competence beyond hypnosis skills, the need for faculty development and evaluation, and the imperative that course content reflects academic rigor and contemporary science as well as providing for demonstration and supervised clinical practice. These themes are explicated for the development of new training paradigms and for continued programs in the field of clinical hypnosis.