Even though the art and science of hypnosis has been in existence for hundreds of years, there has been a controversy lurking regarding hypnosis education. The various hypnosis organizations have always set their own educational requirements for membership. There have been as many different educational requirements for hypnosis and hypnotherapy training as there have been professional hypnosis and hypnotherapy organizations. Finally, however, hypnosis and hypnotherapy is entering a new era, an era of quality education in the use of this ancient tool to help bring about desirable behavioral changes.

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Natural Stress Relief meditation, a mental technique which is practiced for 15 minutes twice a day, aims to reduce stress and anxiety by eliciting a specific state of physiological rest along with mental alertness. The meditation is taught in a self-administered program, requiring one hour of training during the first three days, followed by the regular twice daily practice. Each 15-min. session consists in sitting quietly with closed eyes while applying a specific mental procedure. To test the effectiveness of meditation in reducing trait anxiety, Spielberger's State-Trait Anxiety Inventory was administered to 25 participants four times over a 3-wk. period: one week before starting to practice the meditation, a few hours before starting, 1 wk. after, and 2 wk. after. The difference in Trait Anxiety score between pretreatment and before starting the practice was not significant, while it was significant both after the first week of practice (Cohen d=.46) and after the first 2 wk. of practice (d=.67).

Psychol Rep. 2007 Aug;101(1):130-4. Coppola F. Istituto Scientia, Massa, Italy. scientia@ipotesi.net