John Brancato

While hypnosis and psychotherapy often share similar healing goals, each holds its own language, ethical framework, and professional boundaries. This presentation helps hypnotists and therapists better understand each other's perspectives, scope of practice, and modes of change, which builds the foundation for communication and collaboration rooted in mutual respect. We'll explore what each profession offers the other, from hypnosis's access to unconscious, experiential change to therapy's frameworks for insight, meaning-making, and clinical conceptualization. Real-life clinical examples will illustrate how bridging this gap can enhance trust between professionals and lead to more comprehensive, coordinated care for shared clients.

Our own lack of self-awareness is the biggest threat to providing adequate treatment to the people we serve. What we refuse to see in ourselves, we will see in our clients and in the world around us. This workshop opens with a discussion of why self-inquiry, not the newest theory or technique, is the most essential ongoing work of any healing professional, and how our blind spots shape everything from empathy to countertransference to the ethical integrity of our practice. From there, we move into an experiential journaling and hypnotic experience, where participants will explore, question, and dialogue with the parts of themselves that quietly obstruct healing, both with clients and within themselves. The workshop closes with an open discussion and Q&A, creating space to process what surfaced and share experiences with fellow practitioners. The goal is to start an honest conversation about what it means to be a conscious, self-aware healing professional because that awareness is what ultimately allows us to better serve those around us.

Understanding psychodynamic processes is essential to creating lasting therapeutic change, yet the language of psychodynamic theory rarely makes its way into hypnosis training or practice. This presentation bridges that gap. We'll begin by briefly exploring the structure and function of the psyche, with particular attention to the interplay between the conscious and unconscious mind. From there, we'll unpack key psychodynamic concepts — projection, transference, countertransference, dissociation, and suppression/repression — translating them from clinical jargon into language hypnotists can use both in their own case conceptualization and directly with clients. These dynamics often show up as the hidden obstacles behind rapport building, "resistance", and inconsistent treatment outcomes. Attendees will leave with practical tools to identify these dynamics as they surface in session, navigate them without losing rapport, and use that understanding to shape more precise, effective hypnotic interventions, particularly with clients presenting complex psychological histories. Ultimately, this session is an invitation for hypnotists and psychotherapists to learn from one another in service of better, more integrated client care.