Hypnotherapy is not
performance. It's deep listening.
What hypnosis actually is, where it comes from, what two centuries of clinical research say about it — and how the OMNI Advanced method uses it to resolve a problem at its source, not manage it at the surface.
A state you're already in every day
Hypnosis is not sleep, and it is not loss of control. It is a state of focused attention, deep physical relaxation, and heightened response to suggestion — a state every person enters naturally several times a day.
The moment just before sleep. Driving and realising you've passed your exit on autopilot. Becoming so absorbed in a film or a song that the room disappears. In each of these your attention narrows, your body settles, and your critical, analysing mind steps back. That is the doorway.
In a session we enter this state intentionally and use it for a purpose: to speak with the part of you that already knows where a problem began. You remain aware throughout, you remember everything afterwards, and you can end the process at any moment. The control was never anywhere but with you.
Two and a half centuries of refinement
Hypnosis is one of the oldest documented tools in Western psychology. Its story is one of stripping away mysticism until what remained was a usable, teachable clinical method.
Animal magnetism
The Austrian physician Franz Mesmer (1734–1815) proposed an invisible "magnetic fluid" running through living bodies, and induced trance-like healing states he called mesmerism. His theory was wrong — but he was the first to take the phenomenon seriously, and he is widely credited with the birth of modern hypnotism.
The word "hypnosis"
The Scottish surgeon James Braid (1795–1860) rejected Mesmer's magnetism and gave the phenomenon its scientific footing. He coined the term hypnotism — from the Greek for sleep — and defined it as a state of focused mental concentration, not sleep. He later felt the name misleading and proposed "monoideism": concentration upon a single idea.
Into the clinic
The French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot (1825–1893) studied hypnosis and hysteria at the Salpêtrière in Paris, bringing the subject into mainstream neurology and influencing a generation of physicians — including a young Sigmund Freud.
Conversational hypnosis
The American psychiatrist Milton Erickson became the most influential figure in modern hypnosis. A master of language, he worked with the unconscious indirectly and flexibly, person by person. His approach — Ericksonian hypnosis — reshaped clinical practice and fed directly into later therapeutic models.
A recognised science
The APA established Division 30, the Society of Psychological Hypnosis. From this point hypnosis research grew rigorous — randomised controlled trials and meta-analyses replaced anecdote, and multiple medical associations came to endorse its therapeutic use.
The OMNI Advanced method
I work within the framework of the OMNI Hypnosis Training Center — one of the most respected international standards in clinical hypnotherapy, with certified practitioners across dozens of countries. The Advanced level is not about deeper trance for its own sake. It is about precision: reaching the root of an issue and resolving it there.
01 Cause, not symptom
Most distress is a surface signal of something underneath. OMNI work is structured to find the originating moment — a memory, a decision, an emotion held in the body — rather than manage the symptom it produces.
02 Structured, not loose
The method follows a clear clinical arc: rapport, assessment, induction, the core work with the cause, and integration. Nothing is improvised away from a tested framework.
03 Few sessions, lasting change
OMNI is built around resolution in as few sessions as possible — typically one to four — rather than open-ended, indefinite treatment.
04 You stay in charge
You are conscious, aware and participating throughout. The practitioner guides; the change is yours. Confidentiality is absolute.
"The real origin and essence of the hypnotic condition is the induction of a habit of mental concentration."James Braid · Neurypnology, 1843
What the research actually says
Over the past two decades clinical hypnosis has moved from anecdote to evidence. The modern literature is built on randomised controlled trials and meta-analyses — and it is more robust than most people expect.
Psychosomatic disorders
A meta-analysis of 21 randomised controlled trials found a significant weighted mean effect size for hypnotherapy in psychosomatic conditions.[3]
Largest effects: pain
A 2024 overview of meta-analyses found the strongest evidence for patients experiencing pain, those undergoing medical procedures, and children.[1]
A safe intervention
A systematic review of meta-analyses concluded hypnosis is safe and effective in medicine, reducing pain, distress, medication use and procedure time.[2]
evidence is
strongest
The therapeutic use of hypnosis has been studied for anxiety and emotional distress, chronic and procedural pain, irritable bowel syndrome, smoking cessation, menopausal hot flashes, and as an adjunct in surgery and dentistry. Effect sizes across these areas are typically moderate to large.[1][2][4]
Two honest caveats. First, hypnosis is not a cure-all, and quality varies between studies — the field itself says so. Second, response varies between people; suggestibility differs, and no responsible practitioner promises a guaranteed outcome. What the evidence supports is that, applied well, hypnotherapy is a genuine, measurable clinical tool — not theatre.
What it isn't
You're unconscious and under someone else's control.
You're awake and aware. Hypnosis is focused attention — you can speak, decide, and stop at any time.
You can be made to do things against your will.
You cannot be made to act against your values. The practitioner guides; you remain the author of every choice.
You won't remember what happened.
You remember the session. Far from erasing memory, the work often brings buried material into clear view.
Only certain "weak-minded" people can be hypnotised.
Nearly everyone enters hypnosis daily and naturally. It correlates with focus and imagination, not weakness.
- Rosendahl, J., Alldredge, C. T., & Haddenhorst, A. (2024). Meta-analytic evidence on the efficacy of hypnosis for mental and somatic health issues: a 20-year perspective. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1330238.
- Häuser, W., Hagl, M., Schmierer, A., & Hansen, E. (2016). The efficacy, safety and applications of medical hypnosis. Deutsches Ärzteblatt International, 113(17), 289–296.
- Flammer, E., & Bongartz, W. (2003). On the efficacy of hypnosis: a meta-analytic study. Contemporary Hypnosis, 20(4), 179–197.
- Montgomery, G. H., DuHamel, K. N., & Redd, W. H. (2000). A meta-analysis of hypnotically induced analgesia. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 48(2), 138–153.
- Braid, J. (1843). Neurypnology; or, The Rationale of Nervous Sleep. London: John Churchill.
- American Psychological Association, Division 30 — Society of Psychological Hypnosis.
Provided for transparency and education. This page is informational and not a medical claim or a promise of specific results. Hypnotherapy is a complementary practice; it does not replace medical or psychiatric care where that is needed.
Start with a conversation
30 minutes, free, no commitment — to see whether this method fits what you're carrying.
Book a consultation →Where the OMNI method comes from
The approach I practise isn't improvised. It sits in a clear lineage that runs from one of the 20th century's great hypnotists down to a single, teachable, certified process.
OMNI's philosophy can be stated in one line, inherited from Dave Elman and Gerald Kein: every symptom has a cause — remove the cause, and the mind and body return to their natural, healthy state. Everything else is method in service of that idea.
The foundation
Dave Elman, widely regarded as one of the most significant hypnotists of the 20th century, developed the rapid inductions still used today and taught hypnosis to physicians and dentists. His core conviction — that every symptom has a cause — became OMNI's first principle.
OMNI is founded
A premiere student of Elman, Gerald "Jerry" Kein founded the OMNI Hypnosis Training Center in Florida. His mission: make hypnotherapy effective, fast and easy to learn — short, targeted sessions with concrete results, built around reaching the cause rather than managing symptoms.
The succession
Kein named Hansruedi Wipf his successor, sealing the handover at the Boston Hypnosis Congress. Wipf refined the OMNI process and carried it worldwide — keeping the Elman–Kein lineage alive while advancing it.
Worldwide reach
The OMNI method is now taught at over 50 locations in more than 20 countries, with more than 1,500 practitioners certified each year — one consistent standard of training wherever you are in the world.
Certified, and built for effectiveness
OMNI's defining promise is not depth of trance for its own sake — it's results, reached efficiently, to a documented and repeatable standard.
The OMNI hypnotherapy process was the first hypnosis process in the world to achieve ISO 9001 certification, in March 2015. ISO 9001 is the international standard for quality-management systems — independent proof of consistency, reliability and continual improvement.
In plain terms: the way the work is structured and delivered is documented, audited and held to the same standard worldwide — not left to one practitioner's improvisation.
Regress to Cause
The method's core: locate the originating cause of an issue and resolve it at the source — rather than soothe the symptom it produces.
Scientifically examined
The OMNI inductions, rooted in Elman's and Kein's work, were the subject of a study at the University of Zurich in 2023.
Few sessions
Designed around short, targeted work — most issues are addressed in a small number of sessions rather than open-ended treatment.
matters
for you
A certified, lineage-based method means two things for the person in the chair. First, predictability: you're not receiving one practitioner's personal theory, but a tested process refined over four decades and held to an external standard. Second, efficiency: the whole approach is built to find the cause quickly and resolve it, so you spend your time and money on change — not on indefinite weekly appointments.
None of this is a promise of a guaranteed outcome — no honest practitioner offers that, and response varies between people. What it is, is a serious, structured, internationally recognised foundation for the work we do together.
"Every symptom has a cause. Remove the cause, and the mind and body return to their natural, healthy state."The Elman–Kein principle · the heart of OMNI