Enhancing Workshop Safety: Learning From Colleagues' Adverse Experiences (Part II—Structure/Policy)

Abstract

Findings summarized in Part I demonstrated that more adverse events occur during hypnosis workshops than had been previously appreciated. 93% went unnoticed and unreported during those workshops. Shortcomings in dehypnosis/realerting preceded most adverse events. Recommendations prioritized detecting, minimizing, preventing, and correcting those failures of alerting and dehypnosis. Part II proposes 13 additional protective measures, including curtailing common but potentially problematic practices. Further protective measures are proposed to monitor the effectiveness of participants' dehypnosis; oversee what transpires in experiential workshops; help faculty members become aware of the areas in which their skills require improvement; establish policies to delineate the range of issues acceptable to address in demonstrations; and clarify procedures for dealing with problematic faculty and adverse events in workshops.

Keywords:

• hypnotic induction
• hypnotic sequelae
• hypnosis training
• hypnotic trance
• hypnosis workshops