Notes from the President
Claude Virot PhD
March 2018
Good morning everyone,
A few weeks ago, our board met for two days in Milan, a magnificent city, at the invitation of Giuseppe de Benedittis and Consuelo Casula, who are currently President and Vice-President of the COR (Council of Representatives of the Member Societies). These two annual days allow the BOD members to take the time to work on new dimensions of ISH and to deepen already active themes.
In terms of news, we especially wished to bring the International Society closer to its members in each country, whatever the language, in order to create a stronger and more dynamic hypnotic community.
The project that will soon be the most visible concerns our website. It is widely used by all those who want to benefit from its wealth of information and want to better understand the international evolution of hypnosis. Our website, regularly updated and adapted by our specific “website committee” is very appreciated but it suffers from a weakness identified a long time ago: it is entirely in English. This limit obviously creates a wall for most of our members and our societies that have another mother tongue. Until now, it has been impossible to translate into the twenty or so languages used at ISH for economic reasons. Fortunately, today, machine translation technologies have evolved enough that most texts are correctly translated and become readable in Chinese, Bulgarian, French, German or Russian. In the coming weeks, you will see small flags at the top of the website documents allowing you to benefit from this automatic translation. It still seems that some languages are less well translated so far, as Enayat Shahidi pointed out for example for Persian, but it is likely that the overall quality will continue to improve.
However, we also have legal and administrative documents on site that require rigorous translation. These texts will also be translated, checked and adapted by members of societies using the different languages used by the ISH community. They will soon be readable by all our members regardless of their country of origin.
This evolution is a major step to strengthen the links between all individual members and all societies that develop hypnosis in the world.
A second goal is to create active partnerships between ISH and national journals that disseminate knowledge of hypnosis in their countries. Journals exist in many countries such as France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Japan… I invite all of you who know these newspapers to suggest them to contact our secretary (ishworldoffice@gmail.com). We also wish to create a network of highly motivated national correspondents to disseminate at the national level the main international information, new research, congresses… Each of these journals will have the right to officially use the logo of the International Hypnosis Society with our motto:”Let us create bridges of understanding”.
This project will be implemented gradually over the coming months. The first very favourable contacts have already begun and will continue in Montreal during our next convention.
The third project is led by our future president Bernhard Trenkle. A directory of the most dynamic practitioners in the world of hypnosis is being created. Although the broad lines were validated at the Milan meeting, Bernhard and his team (including his son) still have a lot of work to do to make the directory operational. Bernhard will probably present it in the next newsletter in July. It will be an additional tool to create active and powerful links within our hypnotic world.
In addition to these innovations, ISH continues its work to make hypnosis a more accessible and safer practice.
The process for the evolution of the ethical charter begun in 2017 is still ongoing. The work of observing hypnotic practices in the different countries in which most of the companies participated provided valuable information to know the realities in the field. While many rules are very similar, others are very specific to the medical or therapeutic culture of the country. The objective is that our ethical charter provides everyone with a sufficiently clear framework for practice while retaining some flexibility to adapt to cultural values. Consuelo Casula and Kata Varga, leaders of the Ethics Committee are working on the formulation of new proposals. We hope that this new charter will be validated and voted on at the general assembly in Montreal.
Also at the Montreal congress, ISH will offer for the first time a 3-day educational training program, under the responsibility of Enayat Shahidi, to teach the basics of therapeutic hypnosis. The objective is to build a comprehensive educational program that could be offered in interested countries to discover hypnosis and begin the diffusion and learning. This program will give each student a level of hypnosis competence recognized by an International Society of Hypnosis diploma. This diploma will be of great value in enabling students to practice internationally recognized therapeutic hypnosis while respecting the specific rules of their country.
All these elements will contribute to the success of this fundamental objective for the ISH: the recognition of hypnosis by the World Health Organization. Obtaining this recognition is essential to finalizing the fundamental raison d’être of the ISH: that all people who suffer, wherever they live and whatever their standard of living, can benefit from hypnotic care if they need it. Let hypnosis become a basic therapeutic technique in all fields of health and in all cultures. A bit like aseptic, vaccination or antibiotics… This long and complex road passes through recognition by the world medical authorities. We have decided that the WHO committee should become a permanent and sustainable committee. Today it is directed byGiuseppe de Benedittis and Nicole Ruyssaert. A report of their activity will be presented in Montreal.
Every 3 years, ISH renews its office. Candidates for the positions of President and Secretary Treasurer were nominated by representatives of ISH member societies. The two candidates for the presidency are Mark Jensen (USA), our current secretary-treasurer and Teresa Robles (Mexico), director of the Hypnosis Institutes in Mexico and organizer of the Acapulco World Congress in 2006. The two candidates for the position of Secretary Treasurer are Enayat Shahidi (Iran), currently a member of the ISH Board and Treasurer of the Iranian Hypnosis Association, and Suzanne Pinco (USA), therapist in New York City. When you read this NL, you have certainly already received all the information from Julie Linden to participate in the vote. (reminder: to vote, you must be up to date with your membership!)
A second part of the board will be elected during the General Assembly in Montreal. They are the President of the Council of Representatives, the Vice-President and the Secretary as well as 4 active members of the Board? Each society nominates two representatives who must be individual members of the ISH and who may participate in the Montreal COR meeting. Societies must send the names of their two representatives before June 1st to the Secretary Treasurer of ISH. These two representatives shall have the right to vote and stand for election as officers, secretaries, vice-chairs and chairs of the Council of Representatives.
I thank you for reading carefully this long editorial which reflects the intense activity of the International Society of Hypnosis and I hope to have the pleasure of greeting you personally very soon in Montreal.
Claude VIROT
President of the
International Society of Hypnosis