I understand and empathise with where you are coming from here Sharon.

Incidentally, do your professional memberships and insirance specifically stipulate that they extend to and include therapy conducted by webcam?

I think hypnosis evolves as our communication methods evolve. For someone who isn’t comfortable with technology or who prefers human contact then webcam hypnosis won’t be right for them. However, for someone used to communicating via webcam or who finds it easier to type than write with a pen and for whom technology is part of their life then I think the same results are possible.

With regard to support, what support am I unable to give via webcam that I can’t give when I am in the same room? I can’t include physical touch or stop them cutting off the connection if theywant to. But then I don’t tend to touch my clients in a comforting way anyway and they could always walk out of the room during a face to face session. Maybe I’m missing something here though in which case it would be good to know as I don’t want to short change my clients. All opinions are welcomed!

Maybe it’s time to add research into webcam hypnosis to all the previous research…

Hi Sharon, I always love hearing from you, even if you do not agree with me… that is what keeps us on our toes and keeps healthy lines of critical thinking open…

I know loads and loads of hypnotherapists who say exactly as you are saying… And I think it wonderful that technology allows us to help those in these conditions and to be able to offer our services to people that may not have been able to access it otherwise. I applaud this. Really I do.

However, being sat at the other end of a webcam is not the same experience – whether you get the results or not. It is not the same as face-to-face hypnotherapy. The intimacy is not there, the reral-life connection is not there, you are not as responsive because you can’t be… I have heard many hypotherapy trainers suggest that it is unethical to offer up therapy via a webcam as you are unable to protect and support in the same way you would in real life.

So to say that this process being done by webcam is the same as hypnotherapy – a subject whose real-life applications have been rigourously researched, examined and documented over many, many years – is not on in my opinion. To class a webcam communication, as useful as you may claim it to be as the same as face-to-face hypnotherapy and put it into the same classification is misleading in my opinion.

Heck, we are not going to agree on everything, are we?

Thank you for your contribution Sharon, it is valued.

I offer hypnotherapy sessions by webcam and they can be as effective as face to face sessions. I do adapt the way I work slightly because sometimes there is a time lag that has to be taken into consideration. But I’ve done sessions with people a few miles away who were agoraphobic or found it difficult to travel and people thousands of miles away who didn’t have a local English speaking hypnotherapist or who had been referred to me by clients in the UK.

I think the webcam is important because I want the visual feedback. Pure audio sessions (in my opinion) don’t get the same results unless they are purely suggestion based reinforcement sessions. I have done a few of those for clients over the phone when they have been in situations where they wanted a last minute confidence booster.

So, whilst I agree wholeheartedly with you on a lot of what you say, I have to disagree on this one 🙂