by Tim Brunson, PhD

Religion, self-help theories, and mainstream healing modalities share one common objective. They all seek to alleviate human suffering and move individuals and society toward a more desirable state in which a perception of happiness is achieved. Nevertheless, they differ in their basic approaches. Religion focuses on belief and faith; mainstream healing, on evidence-based scientific research, and self-help, on a combination of both – albeit with a focus on wishful thinking and the charisma of the author or presenter. All claim to be effective. Yet, considering their exclusive characteristics all tend to be rather short-sited and limited in their approaches. In actuality, each of them simultaneously contain partial truths while being devoid of others.

It is odd how an effective theoretical concept originates. Almost a decade ago I was confronted by a series of medical doctors who were fascinated by my abilities as a clinical hypnotherapist. However, as hard-nosed scientists they were accustomed to questioning the validity of any accomplishments or claims that lacked sufficient peer-reviewed literature describing supporting systematic investigations. This led me to quickly discover over 10,000 of such studies, which openly supported the efficacy of hypnosis in medical and mental health interventions. This detection and the ubiquitous lack of hypnosis-related knowledge among clinicians inspired me to create The International Hypnosis Research Institute.

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