Editorial commentary

Abstract

In a move led by the International Society of Hypnosis, a white paper has been sent to the World Health Organisation detailing the proven therapeutic effectiveness of hypnosis and asking that hypnosis be given appropriate recognition. I suspect the WHO has bigger issues on its collective mind at the moment, but one might ask why, in the twenty-first century, it is necessary to launch such a petition. Perhaps the WHO has seen things in a similar way to a committee of the House of Lords in the UK. This committee set itself the task of evaluating the status of complementary and alternative medicine and published its findings two decades ago (House of Lords, 2000). They allocated therapies to what might be called three tiers of credibility. Surprisingly to many, homeopathy was placed in the top tier, while hypnosis was relegated to the second level, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Bach flower remedies. It is worth quoting the explanation offered for how these remedies are supposed to function: The theory behind flower remedies is that flowers contain the life force of the plant and this is imprinted into water through sun infusion.