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Posted by: Lee Darrow (Jun 20, 2005 6:56am) |
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Okay, here we go again:
If one is going to learn hypnosis, for heaven's sake, do it right and get professional training! I simply cannot stress this enough. Hypnosis is a high-level communicative process that deals with a very wide range of behavioral modalities that makes Kentonism look like kinderspiel.
You will not learn how to deal with things like abreactions, phobic responses, misunderstood suggestions, non-directed triggering, spontaneous regression, catatonia or any of a number of other, admittedly rare (but still common enough) phenomena that you WILL eventually run into while performing. If you do not know what these terms mean, then I have further proven my point.
Organizations like the National Guild of Hypnotists offer substantial training programs, as do the International Medical and Dental Hypnosis Association and any of the member groups of the Congress of Professional Hypnosis Organizations (COPHO).
Please do NOT rely on ebook or weekend wonder training from people who crank out these "learn to hypnotize anyone, anywhere and get them to do anything, instantly!" programs. Such programs are, at best, slim overviews of the field and, at worst, dangerously written directions that can lead you straight into litigation. Having read several of them and having had my lawyer do so as well, I am speaking with some authority on this point.
Ask yourself: Did you learn to become a professional level mentalist or magician in a weekend or from reading an ebook? What makes you think you can do it in a weekend with something as complex as hypnosis? We have all seen the people who walk into a magic chain store, buy the six tricks that are on special this week and then go do a show the next weekend. Is that where you want to come from?
The safest way to learn is in a supervised situation, where you can get the feedback you need and the help you might need, should anything happen that you aren't ready to deal with.
Get the clinical certification first. Many insurance companies are now requiring one before they will issue performance liability coverage these days anyway. Then take one of the hypnosis show classes, Like the one Ormond McGill & Jerry Valley teach. But please! Don't go the weekend-wonder route or the vidiot route! Hypnosis isn't like working with a deck of cards and you never know what you are going to run into out there.
I'm only speaking from 36 years' experience as a stage hypnotist, working all over the US, Canada, the Caribbean and a few gigs in Europe, so take the advice for what it's worth. I'm also teaching the free class at the National Guild's convention this year on Safety for Stage Hypnotists and Lecturers - a first for them as a specific class addressing safety as a discrete classm not as part of the general certification program - which it still is, of course. More info at http://www.ngh.net, just hit the link for the convention.
But please! For the safety of your volunteers and for your own financial welfare (lawsuits never fit well, the material is usually terrible and they always cost WAY too much), get the professional-level training before you step on stage, even for an in-home party! Believe me, you will be thankful that you did the first time something goes in a direction that you did not intend it to go in!
Rermember, doing a hypnosis show is doing a show inside the imaginations and with the subconscious minds of your volunteers and it is YOUR assets, both professional and financial, that are on the line. And, like my Daddy used to say" Always Cover Your Assets!"
Get the professional Certification and get the performance liability insurance before you do your first show. I cannot state this strongly enough.
Lee Darrow, C.H.
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