Campaign to Reclaim the H-Word

Join the Campaign to
Reclaim the H-Word

Our mental health system has reached a crisis point

We cannot imagine a stronger admission that our mental health system is failing than Canada's proposed introduction of assisted suicide for persons with mental illnesses. We can no longer deny that mental health treatment is, without hyperbole, a matter of life or death.

Psychotherapy is too inaccessible for too many people. Therapists are burning out from overwork and watching their clients suffer week after week, often for years. The most compassionate practitioners feel the most hampered by the tools they have. On the pharmacology front, antidepressants only improve the symptoms of moderate to severe depression in 20% of study participants, relative to placebo.

But this website is not about problems. It's about bringing to light a solution, indeed a paradigm, that has been unfairly maligned and which we claim will save lives.

Remember the H-Word?

The H-Word is hypnosis.

Do you imagine that the backers of this campaign must be careless with truth and morality? Are you reaching to close your browser tab?

Even if you didn't have that reaction, some people do. That's why we created this campaign.

This reaction doesn't have much to do with the way that hypnotism is practised today, shorn of mysticism and laser-focused on truth. It's based on the history of the practice, the way that the word has been used carelessly throughout the ages, and the way that the word is sometimes used today. We are determined to change that.

A brief history

Hypnosis was used for surgical anaesthesia before the invention of ether. Then it showed much promise for the treatment of neurotic conditions, as they were called at the time, until a medical doctor named Sigmund Freud tried using it, found it lacking and rejected it. He went on to become one of the most influential figures in the 20th century, defining much of psychology to the present day.

Like weeds invading an untended garden, showmen rushed in to fill the void where serious scientists and medical doctors once were. We must acknowledge that the industry is in poor shape and that it's hard to find a trustworthy practitioner of hypnotherapy. We must also acknowledge that this reflects poorly on individuals, not on the practice of hypnotism itself.

We encourage you to view hypnotism as an emerging profession, like medicine in its earliest years, or psychotherapy in the early 2000s (before it was regulated in Ontario). Not every theory or practice within the field will stand the test of time, and not every practitioner deserves your trust, but that does not obligate us to abandon the practice: it obligates us to proceed with an unwavering commitment to truth and ethics.

What's the vision?

Let's briefly imagine an alternative universe where Freud didn't abandon hypnotism after the small amount of experimentation that he did. Instead, in this parallel universe, he became excellent at it, furthered our understanding of the practice, and left little room for second-rate thinkers or practitioners to enter the field in the 20th century. In the present day, then, hypnotism would have the same reputation that psychotherapy enjoys today.

Although that isn't the universe we live in today, we do live in a world where Freud isn't as intellectually unassailable he once seemed to be. To everybody's benefit, we've normalized having a therapist and made much progress destigmatizing mental illness.

We intend to usher in a convergence of our universe with the one we imagined above, for everybody's benefit as well. It's time to revisit this practice that Freud abandoned. Perhaps in the future, hypnotherapy will enjoy the status that medicine, dentistry and psychology do, as professions.

What is hypnosis, anyway?

If we look only to the overlapping centre of the Venn diagram that contains what all hypnotists believe, we can define hypnosis as an experience where one's focus narrows and new ideas are easier to accept. Other ideas about hypnosis (such as "speaking to the subconscious mind") are outside of this universal centre.

The heightened suggestibility makes accelerated learning of new attitudes and perspectives possible. When hypnotists are hired to provide these new perspectives, it's not only ethical, but mandatory, for the practitioner to be strongly directive in their guidance. This is a defining characteristic of the hypnotherapy profession, in contrast with psychotherapy, psychiatry and other mental health professions.

Where's the evidence?

There remains an academic hypnosis community that does scientific research into hypnotherapy, and whose work might see more light if hypnotherapy carried less stigma.

At the time of writing, a search for "hypnotherapy" on PubMed produces 16,122 results:

The objectivity of science doesn't make it an ideal tool for studying individual subjective experiences, but we are deeply indebted to researchers who nonetheless provide scientific evidence for what hypnotherapists have claimed for a long time.

What can you do?

All of these factors coming together mean the time is right to reclaim the word hypnosis. We ask you to use this word without shame or fear, in solidarity with those who seek effective solutions to human suffering.

If you work in health care or mental health, speak frankly about hypnosis without equivocating. If you find a trustworthy practitioner in your area, consider referring relevant cases to them. Consider learning how to practice it yourself.

If you're a client of mental health services, consider where your attitudes come from. If there's a local hypnotist who you find trustworthy, speak with them about how they might be able to help. (If you're in Toronto, you can reach out to us.)

If you run a website or have a social media channel, link with us to raise awareness. You can download our logo from here.

Paradigm shifts, in the Kuhnian sense of the term, are difficult to achieve because they challenge deeply entrenched interests and careers. But none of us, even when we are a mental health professional, is immune to developing depression, PTSD or even a psychotic disorder at some point in our lives. We owe it to the future of humanity to put truth above careerism.

Who are we reclaiming the word hypnosis from?

Besides Freud and his highly influential legacy, we are reclaiming the word hypnosis from religious fundamentalists who claim that we are doing the devil's work (if only our lives were that interesting, we'd be better at playing electric guitar), New Age spiritualists who mix up unprovable personal beliefs with professional practice, and outright charlatans who exploit popular misconceptions about hypnosis.

Bonus reclamation:
Leave the Buddhists alone

We encourage Buddhists and Hindus to reclaim the word meditation so that people don't think that "guided meditation" is a substitute for silent introspection and self-observation. Seriously, you folks should take that one. We'll work on reclaiming hypnosis so that people just say that instead.

Who are we?

This website was created by The Morpheus Clinic for Hypnosis in Toronto, Canada. We created it to speak on behalf of hypnotists worldwide, as well as scientists, academics and licensed mental health professionals who incorporate hypnotism in their practice.

In addition, we seek to reclaim the word for clients of hypnosis, past, present and future, whose experiences are valid and who should be able to pursue their options without ridicule or misrepresentation. Above all, we seek to create a society that is willing to take an unflinching look at the truth, and to believe what it sees.