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by Hypnosis and Neurolinguistic Programming.
It is commonly believed amongst therapy circles, that had Freud been a better hypnotist, then the evolution of contemporary psychotherapy would have taken a different course. What is certainly a reality is that if Freud had not been a physician, psychoanalysis may easily have been dismissed or ignored by the orthodoxy and met the same fate as Hubbard's Dianetics, a fringe pseudo-mystical therapy cult.
By the time the latter day 'wizards' of therapy emerged (such as Bateson, Satir, Erickson) and developed new and innovative techniques, the establishment of the Freudian influence within psychiatric orthodoxies was well founded. As psychotherapy continued to build it's shape was already to dependent on the Victorian Neo-Freudian foundations.
Vague attempts at reform in the shape of a de-medicalisation of psychotherapy occurred independently from the power held by the orthodoxies. The advent and evolution of 'counselling' led to an explosion of differing philosophies, and structures. Each 'model' of counselling inevitably had it's 'guru's' and devotees, but inevitably these guru's tended to reflect an inherent orthodoxy by the essential attachment of psychology or medical degree built on the same psycho-dynamic foundation of analytical psychotherapy.
Whilst analytical therapy attempt to cure it's patients, counselling attempted rather appallingly to lead it's 'clients' to 'come to terms' with an amalgamation of bio-psychiatry, Freudian analysis and post feminism gave rise to an ineffectual structure of pseudo-therapy that anyone could practice with or without medical degree.
With rising popularity, both within the medical and the nursing professions and a cultural insistence that we have a 'right' to counselling if we should so much as sneeze, counselling has shifted the focus of therapy by uniting mental bio-genesis to talk therapy to assist us all to come-to-terms and graciously accept whatever iatrogenic illnesses our happy pills afford us.
Evolving independently and from a different foundation, neurolinguistic programming offered a new innovation in therapeutic approach. By taking individual units and components from the practice of the therapeutic wizards of the time, the evolving NLP did not depend on 'models' or 'philosophies of care' but rested purely on the common successful approaches made by the therapists themselves.
By grouping together a range of highly successful elements from linguistic and communication patterns, a new philosophy emerged, simply a philosophy of change.
However by it's very definition, the establishment is very resistant to change and modern hypnotherapy remains on the fringes as an alternative therapy (resting uncomfortably close to Homeopathy in the review pages). It is somewhat regrettable that current medical practice offers little or no opportunity for existing physicians to practice this effective therapy in the course of their normal working life.
Meanwhile a well conditioned public (fearing the power of 'mind-control') continue to gaze admiringly at lengthy lists of professional qualifications and affiliations and continue to be swayed by the power of the orthodox establishments. Despite the fact that such orthodox practices have (and still do) involve electric shock treatments and pre-frontal leucotomy; not to mention the Eugenics of a post war 'modern' world and the current epidemic of Parkinson's and tardive dyskinesia amongst patients receiving neuroleptic treatment in 'modern' psychiatric hospitals and clinics.
For it's part, Brief Therapy tends to remain in the domain of the pseudo-mystical 'crystal set', with training courses and seminars frequently beginning with horrendous and degrading bonding practices such as 'group hugs', 'Being-At-One-With-The-Groop' (sic), false smiles and sycophantic 'HIYAA's.'
Another problem is that these easily accessible 'training' courses with the promise of instant therapeutic relief and complex psycho-babble tend to also attract a large sub-category of people who attend in the mistaken belief that is must be infinitely better to learn how to do therapy than to merely receive it!
Whatever their motives for training in such courses, most graduating 'therapist's' can be sure that they can place large strings of meaningless letters after their names that are intended to somehow allude to the 'qualifications' attained. (Call me a cynic but it has been my experience that since most courses are structured into two or three parts, with only 'graduates' able to move on to their next course, it would appear, given the necessity of having enough people to fill the higher course, rather difficult to fail).
So we have thousands of graduate therapists having completed their correspondence courses or hypno-analysis courses (and having learned all the big names in therapy training) offering their services as registered, chartered or professional therapists without an ounce of research base behind them and most source material coming from books shelved between Homeopathy and Hewan's New Age Directory.
Until either the medical establishment shifts to research into the efficiency of Brief Therapy, or the private sector gets it's act together and stops pandering to the New Age and middle class 'Evening Class', Brief Therapy will remain the domain of the therapy 'course-junky.'
Of the few medical practitioners practising hypnosis, the waiting lists are long and referrals difficult, and at the last count the BMA recommendation was for £85 per 50 minute hour. Since the efficiency of hypnosis depends very much on the very nature of the hypnotist, a medical degree and high fee do not necessarily reflect hypnotic competency. It does however reflect a considerable amount of professional 'people time' dealing with people intimately and 'professionally', something many on private courses severely lack.
Finding a competent therapist is fraught with difficulty, but until Brief Therapy ceases to reflect brief training, this is unlikely to change. Only when Brief Therapy receives official 'Sanction' from the orthodoxy will the situation change and 'Hypnotherapy' will cease to be stocked on the 'Holistic' shelves next to 'Homeopathy'.
