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Ep.12: How To Stay Within Your Scope Of Practice As A Hypnotist
378 Plays4 years ago
PTSD, depression, anxiety. These are medical conditions that many hypnotists claim to help their clients with. In many places, this is considered practicing medicine without a license, and these hypnotists can get into serious trouble.
Learn how to stay within your scope of practice as a hypnotist from THE expert, Rev. Dr. C. Scott Giles. He will help you sleep well at night by showing you simple ways to practice hypnosis safely and navigate the grey areas. This frees you to enjoy helping people improve their lives in amazing ways with hypnosis.
In this episode, you will learn:
- The things you are and are not qualified to do as a hypnotist.
- The difference between a hypnotist and a therapist.
- When and how to get a medical referral for your hypnosis clients.
- Tips on working with online clients.
- Recommended cautions for using regression with your hypnosis clients.
- How to choose where to get the best hypnosis training.
Rev. Dr. C. Scot Giles legally advocates for hypnotists across the US and Canada on behalf of the National Guild of Hypnotists. He is also a pioneer in hypnotic cancer treatment, and specializes his hypnosis practice on oncology, fertility treatment and weight control.
The opinions expressed in this podcast are not legal advice. Contact your attorney regarding your specific situation.
Find out more about your hypnosis scope of practice at https://ngh.net/ngh-download-center/.
You can reach Rev. Dr. C. Scot Giles at https://www.csgiles.org.
Learn more about how hypnosis can help you at https://www.hypnosistrainingcanada.com
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Transcript
Introduction to Hypnosis and Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
All hypnosis is really self-hypnosis. It's not something we do to a client. It's a normal state of consciousness. The client goes in. We just show them how to do that in an especially effective and targeted way. But the work is the work of the client.
00:00:23
Speaker
You want to transform yourself and improve your life. You long to help people. You wish to become healthier, happier, and more successful. This show is your opportunity to learn how to use hypnosis to make your life better. Each week, hypnotist Robbie Spear Miller interviews people who have already changed their lives in amazing ways with hypnosis.
00:00:46
Speaker
These models can help you discover your path to making the most of your life. If you want to learn how hypnosis can help you reach your goals, this show is for you.
Legal Framework and Professional Boundaries
00:01:00
Speaker
Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Hypnosis Show podcast. I'm Robby Spear Miller, your host. Today, we have a really important topic that we're going to explore. We're going to be helping our listeners understand the legal scope of practice for hypnotists and how to navigate questions such as, what do we call ourselves? What are we legally allowed to help people with? How do we navigate some of the gray areas of hypnosis practice?
00:01:26
Speaker
Our guest is the expert on how to practice hypnosis legally advocating for hypnotists across the U.S. and Canada on behalf of the National Guild of Hypnotists. He's also a pioneer in hypnotic cancer treatment and specializes his hypnosis practice on oncology, fertility treatment, and weight control. Please welcome Reverend Dr. C. Scott Giles. It's a pleasure to be here and glad to be of help to the colleagues. So how can I be of help? What questions do you have?
00:01:56
Speaker
Well, one of the things that often happens is when people are considering training to be hypnotist, they're wondering, are they allowed to practice? What are they allowed to do or not do? What is this type of certification going to get them depending on where they're located? So I think it would be a good place to start about addressing that question. Sure. Well, first understand.
Role and Language of Hypnotists
00:02:20
Speaker
that regulation varies in the United States by state. So we have 50 sets of rules. And in Canada, it goes by province. So depending upon where you are, you may have to follow or abide by different rules. Generally speaking, when you're setting yourself up as a practitioner of the hypnotic arts and sciences, and I have been in a private practice full time for more than 30 years here in
00:02:49
Speaker
in the United States, you do not want to present yourself as if you're some sort of junior psychologist. Do not try to put yourself forward as a mental health professional because hypnotists aren't. We are motivational coaches. We are self-help gurus. We can do wonderful things. I routinely work in a medical setting, but we're not ourselves health care.
00:03:18
Speaker
professionals. And that's important to realize. Don't try to be a junior psychologist. Be a hypnotist and be proud of that. Now, if you think of it, all hypnosis is really self-hypnosis. It's not something we do to a client. It's a normal state of consciousness. The client goes in
00:03:39
Speaker
We just show them how to do that in an especially effective and targeted way. But the work is the work of the client. We're not doing anything to them. Our role is as a coach. We are helping them use whatever hypnotic ability God gave them. We can't give them hypnotic ability they don't have.
00:04:03
Speaker
Just like an athletic coach can help an athlete use whatever level of athletic ability the athlete has, but can't give the player ability the player doesn't have. So that's our role. We are facilitators, we are coaches, we are guides, but we're not treating, we're not doing things to other people.
00:04:27
Speaker
The definition of the work of the hypnotist within the National Guild of Hypotists, and we like to use the term consulting hypnotists for our members, is that consulting hypnotists help regular, everyday people with regular, everyday problems using individual hypnotic techniques.
00:04:50
Speaker
We don't claim to diagnose, to treat, to prescribe. And if you restrict yourself to that kind of work, you'll be fine. Now, you mentioned that I'm a pioneer in doing work with cancer patients, and I am. I was one of the very first hypnotists who got interested in that. I've maintained clinics and hospitals all through Illinois.
00:05:13
Speaker
even now kind of in semi-retirement. I still work with up to 75 cancer patients a month in my free clinics and a number as private clients. But I don't treat cancer. Only a licensed medical doctor can treat cancer. I help people with issues that are related, sleeplessness, worry, sadness, nausea, a discomfort,
00:05:43
Speaker
My work is intended to make the work they receive from their physician more effective, not to replace it. And so if you see yourself in that kind of a role, you'll be basically in good stead.
00:05:58
Speaker
you want to avoid the language and the look and feel of the licensed healthcare profession. So don't show up in your office wearing a white lab coat with a stethoscope around your neck. That gives the wrong impression. Don't use the language of psychotherapy. Don't talk about depression and anxiety and phobias. Use equivalents that are not regulated words.
00:06:27
Speaker
In the licensing laws of states and provinces, the scope of practice section contains protection for the licensed healthcare professionals and gives them exclusive rights to use certain words. The problem is that some of those words have fallen down into common language and will use them carelessly.
00:06:52
Speaker
As a practitioner, you can't use them carelessly. Otherwise, they can be used to waste you on your own partard in a courtroom by an unfriendly lawyer. For example, I had a client just recently who said, well, I'm depressed today. Well, by that, he did not mean that he met seven of the 10 criteria for chronic recurrent depression of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association. He meant he was feeling sad.
00:07:22
Speaker
So, so long as we can find the discussion to his sadness and what I might show him to do with that, we're fine. But if I say I helped him with his depression, I've crossed a boundary and I could get in trouble for doing that. For those, everyone who wants, you can go to the website of the National Guild of Hypotists, ngh.net, and you may download for free
00:07:50
Speaker
The Code of Ethics, Standards of Practice, and Recommended Terminology of the National Guild of Hypnotists for Hypnotic Practice. You don't even have to be a member of the guild to use it. We freely let anyone borrow it who wants to. And this will give you word-by-word equivalences for therapeutic language in non-therapeutic terms.
00:08:13
Speaker
We don't talk about depression. We talk about sadness. We don't talk about phobias. We talk about fears. We don't talk about anxiety. We talk about worry. We don't talk about compulsions. We talk about being driven. We don't talk about addictions. We talk about regaining self-control. And if you use the non-therapeutic language, you will steer your practice into safe waters.
00:08:39
Speaker
About a dozen times a year, I hear from colleagues who have received a cease and desist order for crossing these boundaries. And almost always what we do is we help them clean up their practice so that they're not using controlled language. When you get in trouble, it's almost always because of the words that have come out of your mouth or the words you wrote down on a piece of paper that caused that. So does that help initially?
00:09:06
Speaker
It does. And so as we look at this, we're really, you know, I know and you know, because we've been both doing this for many, many years, that there are so many people who are reasonably healthy people who need help to just live their lives better, to be healthier, to get their goals. There's a huge market for this. And so when we're clear about where the boundaries are, we can help people in amazing ways.
00:09:32
Speaker
In fact, 80% of the caseload of most licensed mental health professionals are non-therapeutic issues. They would like to stop us from working with those too, but they can't because their law protects only the therapeutic applications of their craft. So long as we stay in the non-therapeutic camp, we are safe to practice.
00:09:57
Speaker
Yeah, great. And so as we look at this, when if somebody has an athletic coach and the coach is giving them feedback or helping them see things differently or challenge themselves in different ways, that's really our role when we're working with clients. And we want to own that role within our scope of practice.
00:10:19
Speaker
Absolutely. In the province of Quebec, for example, we have specific language in the law that defines coaching.
00:10:30
Speaker
And that language works great for us too. So if your listeners are in Quebec, I'll repeat that language in a minute, you want to note it down and you want to adjust your practice accordingly. And I'm actively trying to get the same language into some laws here in the United States. We currently don't have it. But let me read it to you. In Quebec.
00:10:52
Speaker
Coaching aims at the achievement through development of talents, resources, or abilities of the full potential of an individual who is not in distress or suffering and who expresses particular needs related to his or her personal or professional goals. And that is a beautiful summation of what we do. And the key words that you want to look at, not in distress or suffering.
00:11:22
Speaker
If the client is in distress or suffering, then you probably got a therapeutic issue. But if they're not in distress or suffering, then no you don't. You have a self-improvement issue.
00:11:36
Speaker
you have a positive mental attitude issue. And that we can safely work with. In fact, if I were practicing in Canada, my intake sheet would have a checkbox. Are you in distress or discomfort? And if you, distress or suffering, and if you click no, then I can work with you. And if you say yes, I refer you. It would be that simple to keep the practice completely legal, provided I didn't make the mistake of using therapeutic language.
00:12:03
Speaker
And the NGH recommends that we use what's called the reasonable person test, where when we're evaluating people, talk more about that. Sure. Some people once called the Guild bookstore to ask to buy copies of the reasonable person test. There isn't any such thing. It is a legal fiction used by the court.
00:12:24
Speaker
would a reasonable person would say eight to nine people out of 10 agree that what you did was reasonable in this situation? So if a person says, I'm feeling depressed today, you mean you're kind of sad? Yeah, that's a reasonable interpretation of that. If the person comes in and said, I'm really upset today because I was abducted by aliens last night, and they also abducted my dog, and then I get up this morning and my forsythia plant was talking to me,
00:12:54
Speaker
A reasonable person would not believe that we should go ahead and work with such a person. A reasonable person would say that's a problem for a psychiatrist. So it's a common sense rule. What would, you know, nine out of ten people say about the situation?
Regulation and Legislation in Hypnosis
00:13:18
Speaker
The other thing to be careful about is what you call yourself and what you do. The Guild recommends that if it's legal to call yourself a hypnotherapist in a state, yeah, you can do it. But we recommend that you not. And in a number of states in the United States, it is illegal to do it.
00:13:35
Speaker
do that unless you're licensed as a healthcare professional. The term we like is either hypnotist or consulting hypnotist. In Canada, you currently don't have any restrictions, but it won't surprise me if they start showing up in case law. I should mention this. When you look at regulatory rules, you have the legislation itself
00:14:00
Speaker
Then you have rules about that regulation made by the regulatory body. And as a tertiary concern, you've got case law. What have judges said about those rules or about those words? And you have to look at all three. For example, in the state of Connecticut, there is no restriction on the use of hypnotherapist in the legislation or the rules.
00:14:27
Speaker
But we've had judges who have said, hypnotherapy is psychotherapy by means of hypnosis. And so long as that legal opinion stands, if you do hypnotherapy, you're doing psychotherapy as far as the state of Connecticut is concerned, and you have to be licensed as a psychotherapist.
00:14:48
Speaker
So you got to watch these things. We recommend a more neutral title. In fact, if I could wave my magic wand and create just one change in the whole profession of hypnotism in the United States and Canada, it would be to have all the organizations simply agree on a single title or small set of titles.
00:15:13
Speaker
let's all agree to call ourselves consulting hypnotist or professional hypnotist or whatever, but then educate the public what that means. Instead of having, well, I'm a certified master hypnotist and I'm a behavioral hypnotherapist and I'm the grand poobah from the planet Hypno. The public doesn't know what to make of these titles. And because it's so confusing, it creates opportunities for our opponents to attack us.
00:15:42
Speaker
And so what I've observed here is that a lot of hypnotists call themselves hypnotherapists, even though they're not therapists. And I know the NGH recommendation in Ontario, where I am, is that you call yourself a hypnotist because they could look at that. If you call yourself a hypnotherapist, they could say that's confusing to the public because it sounds like we're doing therapy, which belongs in the realm of psychotherapists or psychologists.
00:16:09
Speaker
Exactly. It may not be in law, but it would be a wise choice. But because of it, most people here really look at it, they talk about hypnotherapy in the general public. That used to be the case in the United States too. We actually had one situation in Texas where a group of hypnotists got cease and desist orders because they simply advertised their membership in an organization that used hypnotherapy in its title.
00:16:39
Speaker
and that was sufficient to generate a cease and desist order. Now, we ultimately got those dismissed, but part of that was that they had to stop advertising using that word. So, you know, I treat people like adults. I don't carry them in for the rain. I mean, we tell you what we think you should do and why. And it's up to you to decide what you want to do with that information. And if you choose to ignore it, I don't have any way of compelling you.
00:17:08
Speaker
But I am telling you upfront that if you get in trouble, there probably isn't going to be a lot I can do to help you. Yeah. And in Ontario, I know the penalty if you hold yourself out as a therapist and you're not a psychotherapist, I think it's something like $25,000 and possible jail time. It's not a small slap on the wrist.
00:17:30
Speaker
Let me talk a bit about the Ontario law. Now, the Guild was heavily involved in negotiating that law when it became obvious that there was going to be a psychotherapy law in Ontario, and that we would not be able to stop it. We did intervene to try to shape it for the sake of our members, and we retained a lobbyist through our AFL-CIO affiliate, and it cost a fortune.
00:18:02
Speaker
ended up spending there. And that came from the AFL-CIO, not from the GILT, because the GILT doesn't cost a hundred bucks a year to be a union hypnotist, not even a hundred bucks a year. So that doesn't generate enough revenue to pay for something like this. But we shaped the description of psychotherapy in such a way that people who are practicing hypnotism in accordance with GILT standards using GILT titles are going to be fine.
00:18:29
Speaker
Let's look at that definition. There are five criteria that the law asks to determine if someone is doing psychotherapy. And the answer has to be yes to all five points. If it is, you're doing psychotherapy and you're regulated.
00:18:49
Speaker
So first, it's that you would treat. Well, we don't treat. We don't diagnose, we don't prescribe. We guide, we shape, we suggest, we hypnotize, but we don't use the language or treatments. That's first. Treating by means of psychotherapy techniques. Well, we don't do that. We would hold that hypnosis as we implement it is not a part of psychotherapy, it's motivational guidance.
00:19:17
Speaker
Delivered through a therapeutic relationship. We don't hold ourselves as having a therapeutic relationship to our clients. We have a professional relationship, which again is why using the hypnotherapeutic term is gonna be an issue there. An individual who has a serious disorder or thought, cognition, mood, emotional regulation, perception, or memory. Operate words there. Serious disorder.
00:19:47
Speaker
Remember, just like in Quebec with this notion of distress or suffering, we don't work with people who have serious disorders. We work with people who have problems that concern them. And we help them discover ways they can resolve their own problems. And then finally, an individual's judgment, insight, behavior, communication, or social functioning. And we probably do that last one. But we don't do all five.
00:20:15
Speaker
Again, it's the words you use where you write down on paper that will get you into trouble. And if you're scrupulous about your words, you've got smooth sailing in Ontario. But if you're careless, they can and will come after you. And I know they are looking for someone to make a test case out of.
00:20:35
Speaker
Right. Yeah, you don't want to become the example and the media would love that as a headline too. So yeah, we've got to be in a position to help as many people as we can. Right. So with that caveat, both in Quebec and Ontario, you're fine. Basically, if you're practicing in accordance with guild standards and using guild terminology, there's no issue. It's when you depart from those that there are issues.
00:21:05
Speaker
and all the time I get people who are part of non-guild organizations who have gotten into trouble and that organization gives them my telephone number to try to get them out of trouble. I just can't tell you how much I enjoy that. It's tragic because I look at their materials and they're toast.
00:21:27
Speaker
Yeah, well, there are a lot of schools out there, and they may be in all kinds of locations that people get trained. And they're trained very specifically in things like PTSD or IBS. And there are all these medical diagnoses. And they come away believing they can treat people for those things, not realizing what the real scope of practice is. So the hypnosis skills are the same no matter what you're working with.
00:21:53
Speaker
If you were a doctor trained in hypnosis and you wanted to help somebody with IBS, then that would be in your scope of practice. But as a hypnotist, that would not be. I think that gets confusing for people sometimes. However, you could say to a person, I can't treat your IBS, that's not what I do, but I can teach you relaxation strategies that might help your IBS.
00:22:19
Speaker
That's right. That'd be fine. Yeah. It is a language game to some degree. But on the other hand, the reasonable person test does apply. Someone says I have IBS and I'm bleeding out the rectum and I know I can't get through a night without horrific cramps. You don't work with someone like that. Think of the emergency room.
00:22:36
Speaker
Yeah, and one thing that is interesting here is that our mental health system does not do a very good job overall of helping people who really need the license track help. And I know in my practice, there's been an occasion where I'll have somebody come see me who really needs professional license track help, and they can't get it. And it pulls at your heartstrings because it's like you're their last resort. And it's so important for people to be clear that you still can't help these people.
00:23:06
Speaker
even though it's heartbreaking and you would like to help them and they might beg you to help them, that's not our decision. And I think that as you and I talk about this and we talk about the legal aspects or the rules, people might forget that when they're in a relationship with their clients and they're seeing what the person's actually going through.
00:23:27
Speaker
and you got to be careful about
Ethical Practice and Compliance in Hypnosis
00:23:29
Speaker
that. I occasionally get someone, I want to do chemotherapy for my cancer, I just want to focus on the power of the mind and use hypnosis to treat my cancer. I don't work with them. I'm very sorry, but I won't work with someone who is also doing conventional medical care. Now, the other thing your people should be aware of is that psychology boards, medical societies hire shoppers.
00:23:56
Speaker
Shoppers is a loose term. These are people, typically law students, who receive academic credit for posing as potential clients. And they shop practices. And what they're trying to do is to get you to say something incriminating. And they're good at asking leading questions. They're trying to get you to say that you can do something illegal and the deceased and desist order will follow.
00:24:27
Speaker
And you've got to be very careful about that. I'm reasonably sure my practice has been shot more than once. But you know what to look for. You can kind of sniff it out. It was fine because I practiced squeaky clean as the person responsible or charged with legislation and governmental concerns for the entire National Guild of Hippotists. The eyes of the Medical Society are very much on me.
00:24:52
Speaker
I'm extremely careful about how I practice, but I've been a successful practice for 30 years. There's no downside to practice taking accordance with Guild recommendation standards and terminology.
00:25:07
Speaker
And there are a lot of upsides, too. The people who come to see us, they are capable of running with what we're teaching them better than somebody who has a more serious mental health issue. So we can help more people faster and easier. So there are some really good things about it, too. Well, the research is overwhelming that people who get hypnosis in addition to conventional medical care are better outcomes.
00:25:31
Speaker
That's why my programs are in hospitals and cancer wellness centers. The research overwhelmingly is that it does help, but it doesn't replace conventional medical care. And we are providing a complimentary service in the sense of to make complete. We're not doing all that.
00:25:57
Speaker
one thing question we get a lot now is i'm doing online work because of the pandemic what's the one of the rules about that and uh again the guild has done we did a two-year project we were just finishing it up with the pandemic yet so we just had to finalize it to publish it about how to do online sessions and what some of the issues are um in generally speaking you are regulated
00:26:24
Speaker
by the laws in place where you are physically present. So, Robbie, if you were treating someone in the state of Washington, for example, here in the US remotely, you are still regulated by the laws of Ontario. And you still have to follow those laws, even though your client's located in a state that doesn't have those laws.
00:26:48
Speaker
The other thing to be concerned about is that insurance companies are saying that if you are licensed or state regulated in your home state, you must also be licensed in the state where your client is. That's not the law, that's an insurance company rule. But if your license and your client is not, even though they're out of state,
00:27:16
Speaker
that the insurance policy will cover you in the event of a problem. So that's an important question to ask your insurance company. Well, I can tell you what the answer is if it's the American Professional Agency, because we've got that in writing. No, they don't cover you. However, if you're not licensed in your state of residence, because you don't have to be, you're practicing in accordance with guild rules, for example, as you are, I assume,
00:27:44
Speaker
then no, you don't have to be licensed where your client is either. So this is a case distance work where it is advantageous not to be a licensed healthcare provider in your own state. And we actually have, I felt some people who have actually put their license on inactive status so that they could hold their services out as motivational coaching and work remotely across the country.
00:28:14
Speaker
And so that's something you got to be aware of. These are often not simple questions. So if you are not licensed and not required to be licensed where you live, like that's true here, let's say that I had somebody who wanted help in a United States state that did require licensing and we were doing it remotely, would that be covered by insurance or would not be? Your insurance would still cover you for that circumstance.
00:28:44
Speaker
You are because you are not required to be licensed where you are You are only regulated by the laws where you are physically present States cannot set rules across state boundaries only the federal government can do that And there's there are no federal rules about this now, this isn't to say you're not going to have a problem with the insurance company Trying to get out of its responsibilities, but in my opinion you would win
00:29:13
Speaker
All right. And tell us a little bit more about what we do. Like, let's say somebody is coming through up with pain management or they have a medical issue and we believe they really need to be checked by their doctor and have a note from their doctor before they see us. How do people manage that situation? Well, a couple of different ways to do it. In the National Guild of Hippodists, we used to actually require a medical referral.
00:29:41
Speaker
And for decades, my cancer patients would show up with a prescription from their doctor for hypnotism. And the longer you do that sort of thing, the easier it becomes to get those prescriptions because you develop referral relationships with physicians. But there's been a change that's happened in the United States, which is that increasingly physicians do not own their own practices. They are a part of
00:30:09
Speaker
corporate corporate practices typically owned by hospitals or health care corporations and Those corporations often have rules about no outside referrals So in fact often if if it's a service that corporation doesn't provide they don't even tell it to the patient
00:30:29
Speaker
So if you're at hospital X and there is a treatment that would benefit you but it's not available at hospital X, it's only available at hospital Y, they will not tell you about that treatment. It can get that predatory.
00:30:47
Speaker
So what we did is we modified our rules some years ago that when someone comes to you, if they've got a medical problem that you think requires physician involvement, we give them a letter of physician notification, which gives the physician an opportunity to object, which describes that your services will be non-therapeutic in nature.
00:31:11
Speaker
and offers the physician an invitation for more information if they or a member of their staff wants more information. That so far has proven to be all we needed to do, although the reasonable person law rule will still apply.
00:31:29
Speaker
If someone comes to you and says, I'm not going to have medical care by my doctor, I want to just get it from you, or I'm going to have my chiropractor treat cancer, or I'm going to this herbalist in Wisconsin. I think a reasonable person would say, no, I'm not going to work with this person. There's too much risk. And that's what I would do. I turned down such people. It's up to you. But on your head, be it.
00:31:58
Speaker
Right. So if we're helping somebody with something like pain management, so let's say a client comes and they have a headache and they want help with their headaches, we would want to get a doctor's note. Like what I do is I get an explicit doctor's note saying they've been fully diagnosed. If you could do that. But your healthcare system in Canada is different from what we have in the United States. The for-profit system, it's not run by the government and there is, often these corporations will not issue
00:32:28
Speaker
such referral. So you don't get an explicit note for that you just inform the doctor? Yes, like I have one on college who still does this for me because he says he doesn't care what the hospital wants. He's worked with me for 30 years and by God he's going to continue. But this is the exception.
00:32:48
Speaker
I would do in a case like with a headache patient, well first, you know, have you seen your physician about these headaches? Have you reported this? And what did the physician say? This all gets documented. They say, well, my doctor says he's just a tension headache. Well, okay, I'm willing to take people out of their word. I don't need, but I will still give the letter of physician notification.
00:33:10
Speaker
and if during the course of our work they manifest symptoms like eye shifting or weird facial affect or you know when I go in one direction the different the other say okay reasonable person test this does not look like a non-therapeutic problem to me I need to refer you to a physician so that's how we would would do it.
00:33:33
Speaker
And I think that's an important point because sometimes these things become obvious as we're working with people. It might not be obvious when they first come see us. So even if we've agreed to a program and an outcome, if it becomes clear that they're not a reasonable person, we need to address that at that time. When in doubt, refer it out. The small number of clients you will lose by doing this is vastly outweighed by the benefit to your practice.
00:34:02
Speaker
of being in safe waters. Because having a practice that is known to be safe, where people talk about you well, that's your word of mouth. And that's your most precious resource as your practice goes through time. And if you start working with cases you shouldn't be working with, people are going to have bad outcomes. And even if you escape legal difficulty, they're going to talk. And it's going to mess up your word of mouth.
00:34:33
Speaker
You're going to be out of business. And so that actually brings the question of we rely a lot on client testimonials where they share their experience with hypnosis and their results and they tell other people and it inspires other people to come and also have success.
00:34:50
Speaker
And sometimes when people are recording their testimonials, whether it's written or video, they'll mention, oh, I was so depressed or I had anxiety or whatever. And so how do we handle that aspect of things? Because I know in the general scope of practice rules, it says that the client can say whatever they want, and it's the language we use that determines the liability.
00:35:15
Speaker
over the worst of our mouth, not the mouth of your client. That come out of your pen, not the pen of the client. I do online reviews. Now, in my case, the appointment management system that's integrated into my website will send a request for a review to any client when they first book an appointment and then every six months thereafter. I can't edit those reviews.
00:35:46
Speaker
to be sure that they are verified. They are not editable. The only thing I could do is choose not to publish, but I cannot alter what the client says. On my website, there's a whole page about client reviews. I hold my services out as motivational coaching by means of overdoses, as a non-therapeutic, non-medical service, not any form of healthcare. I, however, have no control over what my clients say in their reviews,
00:36:16
Speaker
And they may choose to use words that are psychological or medical in nature. Understand that I am not affirming that. And that's the disclaimer of my website. I wouldn't go read it. Okay. And so let's say somebody gives you a written testimonial or they give you a video and they mentioned that there you do have the ability to edit it. So the wise thing to do would be to take out the part.
00:36:41
Speaker
I would either end it or annotate it, probably the lab. So they say, you know, Dr. Giles cured my cancer. I would put an asterisk down at the bottom. You know, we do not hold our services out as any form of medical treatment. While the non-medical services we provide may be useful, I would do that. Got it. Okay. So anybody reading it, it would be crystal clear. Right. Yeah. What gets you in trouble is ambiguity.
00:37:10
Speaker
clear about what you're doing and what you're not doing. Robert Frost said that good fences make good neighbors, and they do. Boundaries are a good thing. I routinely get referrals from psychologists and counselors in my area, in part because they know that I'm going to be on the right side of the boundary. I'm not going to cross into their territory and mess with their client, with their work with their client.
00:37:37
Speaker
If a client's being treated for a generalized anxiety disorder by a psychologist, the psychologist says, no, learning self-agnosis probably do you a world of good. And they referred them to me for that. I teach them that. But that's all I do. I don't say, we're going to regress you to childhood, to abreact the trauma of pre-verbal childhood, which is causing your adulting. No, we don't do that. That's psychotherapy.
00:38:06
Speaker
All right. So, well, now that you bring up regression, talk a little bit about what are the risks that hypnotists are taking when they perform regression on clients.
Controversies and Challenges in Hypnosis
00:38:16
Speaker
Because I know, like, here we don't do regression and we have gentler ways to help people forgive and let go or, you know, build their future. But we do have a lot of people in Ontario who are really into regression and a lot of students who are wanting to learn that. So talk about that area a bit.
00:38:35
Speaker
I mean, the whole David Elman Omni School of Hypnosis is built around regression and abreaction. In the guild terminology, we define regression.
00:38:46
Speaker
as an imaginative review of significant events with the hypnotist serving as guy. That's our non-therapeutic definition of regression. It checks all the boxes for non-therapeutic. We're not saying we're regressing you to an earlier ego state where you become identical to a child like consciousness and become incapable of distinguishing present from past. We don't do that.
00:39:11
Speaker
It's not how we define regression. Again, it's the words that come out of your mouth that will get you to trouble. The other thing is you got to be careful about regression. I'm not a big fan of it. I will occasionally do it. I certainly know how. I'm much more willing to use gentler means that rewrite imprints that a client may have because I think they're dramatically safer.
00:39:39
Speaker
My purely personal impression after someone has been in this field a long time is that even people who specialize in doing regression and abreaction get it wrong about 25% of the time. And I have worked with people who have, to my mind, have been harmed.
00:39:59
Speaker
myocardial progression done by a hypnotist. Here in the United States, especially here in the Chicago area, there's a real issue with regression because we were the center of the satanic panic in the 1980s and 90s.
00:40:17
Speaker
This is when a psychiatrist and a psychologist based at Rush Medical Center running the dissociative disorders clinic used hypnosis and other psychiatric techniques to convince people that all of their problems were due
00:40:40
Speaker
panic, panic, which swept the whole nation. Lots of innocent people were hurt or harmed. Lots of people were caught up in this. And they were, what the hypnotists were doing is they were creating rampant false memories, which is very easy to do. And so you have people who will say, you know, I have these clear memories of being incested by my father, but there's absolutely no evidence that it ever happened.
00:41:09
Speaker
or I remember giving birth to these babies that were used for satanic rituals, but my doctors say there was no evidence I'd ever been pregnant, thus false memory. I don't teach basic hypnosis anymore, but when I used to, and occasionally when I teach the Ericksonian class, just as a demonstration of how easy this is to do, I will take a volunteer from the class and using conversation only, no hypnosis,
00:41:39
Speaker
I will, in front of the class, program a false memory into the volunteer. It's that easy to do. And yet, it does listen to that. It becomes even more. Rush Medical Center ended up paying one of the largest malpractice settlements in the United States history because of what those people were up to. They all lost their licenses. More significantly, hundreds, maybe thousands of people were harmed.
00:42:10
Speaker
Yeah, and really in my view, it's unnecessary. I as well know how to do it. I've done it very rarely. And there's so many gentler ways and less risky ways to help people. So it really seems unnecessary from my view. I know that this is a controversial topic and a lot of people are very into regression in this field. But I think that the evidence that we need to look at is that insurance companies
00:42:37
Speaker
make you get extra insurance if you perform a regression. So they know from their point of view, it is a greater risk. Because they know that when there are court cases, that tends to be what it's about. Sometimes I've seen people often with very casual levels of training doing these regressions. What I see is the hypothesis is just on a power trip.
00:43:04
Speaker
Yeah, or it's the soap opera. They love it for entertainment. It's intriguing. It's an adventure. And they don't realize what the risks are.
00:43:13
Speaker
Now I'm intrigued because when you shared with me what you wanted to talk about, you mentioned something about what are the downsides to the fact that as hypnotists, we're not a regulated field. So personally, I feel like it's a huge upside. I don't want to be regulated. I think we've got a lot of freedom to help people and we're offering them a true alternative because there aren't a whole bunch of rules tying our hands. So I'm curious about what is the downside from your point of view.
00:43:42
Speaker
It's like with everything else, it's a two-inch sort. If state licensure gives you maximum protection because the state is explicitly saying you can do this, but it also gives you minimum freedom. On the other extreme, completely no regulation, you've got maximum freedom. You can do anything you want within the limits of what's legal. But on the other hand, you've got no security.
00:44:12
Speaker
that freedom can be taken away from you by a stroke of the legislative pen with no warning. And that's happened a number of times. So between these two extremes, we have a continuum.
00:44:25
Speaker
you have what are called structured exemptions. This is what we have in Illinois, which is you have to be licensed as a psychologist to do hypnosis, except if you follow the following rules, which have a disturbing similarity to the guild standards of practice, because I'm the person who wrote this law. The state is saying you may do this without being a licensed person, but you may do only this.
00:44:56
Speaker
So you're given some security, but some structure. Then we have registration acts. And a registration act is where the state says, you want to do hypnosis, you've got to register, we give you a number, and there are some rules. So long as you obey the rules, you can keep your number. If you disobey the rules, we take away your number, and you can't practice. We have this in a number of states, Connecticut and Colorado, several others.
00:45:22
Speaker
Again, this is now more protection, but also more structure because you've got a much longer list of rules you have to abide by. And the rules can get in the way from giving people what they actually need or they can waste a lot of time. They most certainly can.
00:45:41
Speaker
And so what the downside of regulation is minimum freedom. The downside of no regulation is minimum security. And you have to view it as a continuum and decide where you want to be or where you want the loss of your state to be.
Future and Advocacy of Hypnosis
00:46:00
Speaker
So from the point of view of people who are considering doing hypnosis as a career, can you tell us a little bit about like in Canada, you mentioned Ontario and Quebec, and we've got the rest of Canada, the provinces and the territories. What do you see as the outlook in terms of can we keep practicing? What do you see our freedoms being in that regard?
00:46:27
Speaker
that hypnotic practitioners will continue to thrive and prosper throughout the Great White North. I don't have any doubt about that at all. We've got the situation, I think, pretty well in hand from a regulatory perspective, that so long as you're abiding within reasonable standards of practice, reasonable terminology, you're going to be fine. You're going to be regulated by the laws regarding commerce, not health care. So you can't commit fraud.
00:46:55
Speaker
care professional. In terms of someone just, well, where do I want to train? So a couple of things to watch out for. First, check out the school you're thinking of training with. Are they in compliance with the law?
00:47:10
Speaker
Or do you see lots of language there that could get you in trouble? Is it the case that they're actually breaking the law, they just haven't been caught? And one of the things that happens is education's regulated differently than practice. So I can say, I am an educator and I'm training you to do this service. It's not my fault, the service is illegal for you to do.
00:47:32
Speaker
Interesting. I didn't realize that. Some of the schools will do that. Yeah, they train you to do this, but if you do it, you're up the creek. That's something you want to look at carefully. The other thing you want to look at is successful graduates. Any school or any trainer that's doing a good job is going to have a list of students they've worked with who have gone on to prosper and become full-time successful,
00:48:02
Speaker
should be more than willing to put that out there.
00:48:06
Speaker
and don't just accept the testimonial with the name. Someone who's practicing as a hypnotist should have a business telephone number, an office address, a website, things that you can look at and check, and you should do that. Look at a training program, and you see lots of problematic words, and there are no student testimonials, and you can't find any student who trained with them that actually has a thriving practice. Go somewhere else.
00:48:36
Speaker
That would be my very candid advice. Yeah, and beware of international programs or programs in another province or state than you're in because where they are, it may be perfectly legal to do what they're teaching you and where you are, it may not. But if you're learning in an environment where everybody thinks this is what we do, it can become normalized and you might not realize that you're not allowed to do it. And I think that happens a lot.
00:49:04
Speaker
It does happen a lot. You'll see the unaccredited PhD programs and hypnosis around so much anymore, but they used to be common. A lot of these schools were corporations and they came at islands and stuff. They had no accreditation, but people would take the classes in good faith, believing that they were getting a real doctoral degree that would allow them to become
00:49:36
Speaker
that no, they didn't or they set up practices and discover that the degree they had just isn't going to provide any protection. We hear about that all the time. It's sad. You need to know who you're learning from. It's true. Even if you go to a hypnosis convention and someone's doing a workshop, don't just take what they say at face value, check them out.
00:50:05
Speaker
We're a profession of big egos and a lot of people are out there as posers. I've seen people who have never seen their first client teaching classes. Of course, that happens all the time in this field. Some people who are super confident can appear professional and that they know what they're talking about and they don't. Yes, I'm totally with you at that.
00:50:31
Speaker
Fortunately, with the rise of social networking and the internet, it's relatively easy to check out someone. You tell me you're a full-time hypnotic practitioner and you don't have a website, I'm not going to believe you. You tell me you're a full-time hypnotic professional and your website looks like it was designed by a 10-year-old, I'm not going to believe you. You have to look for the accouterments of successful practice.
00:51:00
Speaker
Yes. And there are some people out there who are trainers who've seen very few clients and they become trainers to make money, but they don't have the experience to actually train other hypnotists. So that's another thing to watch out for. Yeah. So the great thing about this is that we have all this freedom where we're free to help people. We can build our businesses the way we need to. And we do need to educate ourselves because there's nobody deciding it for us or doing it for us.
00:51:27
Speaker
I think that's a healthy way to live because life is like that too, having a business is like that too. Yeah, I would absolutely agree. In today's world, if you're going to have a profession, you also got to be politically active. That's how I got into this. I'm a volunteer. The Guild doesn't pay me for the legislative work I do. But if you're not going to be politically active as a profession, other professions that are politically active are going to roll right over you.
00:51:57
Speaker
Um, it's called retching the use of public law for private purposes. Don't try to take your clients away just to to minimize competition So that's why everybody needs to join the union right away Certainly as the union officer myself i'm vice president of the hypnotist union for the guilt, uh, but Longer than that any hypnosis organization to which you give your loyalty check it out
00:52:26
Speaker
Be sure it's got the capacity to protect you if something goes wrong. And then evaluate what the different organizations are able to do for you. I mean, don't join an organization where if you get in trouble, they send you to me. And just rely on my willingness to help out a colleague, even though they're not part of the National Guild of Hypotest, no. Because it's going to depend on how I'm feeling that day and how busy I am, whether or not I give you the time of the day.
00:52:55
Speaker
If you're going to be a hypnosis organization, you should be politically active. And if you're not, that's something people want to look at when they make a decision about where to go. And that's as close to a plug as I'm going to give for the guild. I'm not going to say organization out there. It's not. It's the one I've personally given my loyalty to.
00:53:14
Speaker
Great. So Scott, share with people how they can learn more about you and also how they can join the NGH union and the NGH so that they can enjoy the protections of being in the scope of practice and also contribute to defending our industry.
00:53:32
Speaker
Sure. Well, first thing to do is go to the website of the National Guild of Hippotist, ngh.nat, ngh.net, and you can join the union right from the website. It's less than 100 bucks a year. Those are your dues, and it also gives you a whole bunch of other benefits, including, by the way, free college education for you and your members of your immediate family. All the classes are in line, but it's fully accredited. You can get a two and a four, even if you have a four-year degree,
00:54:02
Speaker
Certain fields for free if you're a union There's a legal discount lots of benefits so that's the first thing to do run about me go to my website, which is www.c as in Charles my first name s as in Scott my middle name and then in my last name g i l e s dot org because I'm a nonprofit organization on a commercial business and
00:54:30
Speaker
Well, Scott, thank you so much for being here. I know you're volunteering tons of time to help with this issue in general. And hopefully this podcast will give you less work so people can just listen to learn about it instead of asking you questions over and over. That saves me time. Yeah. Yeah, I hope that's true. So thank you very much. I really appreciate it.
00:54:56
Speaker
If you have ever struggled with relationship boundaries, confidence, fear of abandonment, or replaying the same relationship drama over and over again, you will learn a great deal from next week's podcast. Join us to witness how Clarissa transforms her approach to relationships and dating. Hypnotist and marriage and family therapist Julie Nese will be coaching her through it.
00:55:20
Speaker
And if you are wanting to discover more about how hypnosis training can help you, go to hypnosistrainingcanada.com and schedule your free consultation. Remember to click the button to subscribe, share this podcast with a friend, and please leave us a review so you can help others to benefit from the podcast too. Until next week,
00:55:43
Speaker
You've been listening to The Hypnosis Show with Robbie Spear Miller. Tune in next time to learn more about how you can change your life with hypnosis. And if you are interested in learning more about training opportunities, go to hypnosistrainingcanada.com and schedule a free consultation.