Introduction

Abstract

The clinician newly acquainted with hypnosis is soon challenged by the controversies surrounding it, and surprised to discover that some of the most respected writers on the psychiatric use and understanding of hypnosis combine it so subtly with their treatment methods that, as an entity, it becomes lost. Some have even relinquished its use entirely. The reasons for this are probably varied, but one, at least, must lie in the different versions of what hypnosis is.