Mindfulness Meets Hypnosis: A Synthesis for Hypnotically Trained Clinicians

Please join us on Saturday, May 25, 2024 as Akira Otani, Ed.D, FASCH, ABPH, presents: Mindfulness Meets Hypnosis: A Synthesis for Hypnotically Trained Clinicians.

This program will be held virtually on Zoom from 11AM to 1PM EDT.

Description:  Mindfulness has become an established behavioral health and medicine paradigm over the past 40 years. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness-Base Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) are two best-known examples that are widely used to treat depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and pain disorders. What is little appreciated, however, is that mindfulness techniques resemble clinical hypnosis and may be readily incorporated into hypnotic work for trance induction and utilization. In this presentation, the participant will (1) examine the similarities and differences between hypnosis and mindfulness, (2) learn the simple yet effective Touch-and-Return mindfulness method, and (3) acquire its applications in clinical hypnosis work. The presentation will offer an online demonstration of mindfulness to facilitate the participant’s experiential learning.

Biography: Akira Otani, Ed.D. is a psychologist who has a part-time practice at Waypoint Wellness Center in Annapolis, Maryland. Before joining the group, he was on the graduate faculty of the Johns Hopkins University Clinical Counseling Program and a senior psychologist at the University of Maryland Counseling Center at College Park, Maryland. He is an Approved Consultant and Fellow of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis (ASCH) and a Diplomate in the American Board of Psychological Hypnosis (ABPH). He is the author of 9 books on clinical hypnosis, mindfulness, and psychotherapy techniques (all in Japanese) and more than 70 journal articles and book chapters (both in English and Japanese), including the latest “Mindfulness Meditation and Hypnosis in Clinical Practice: An Integrated Approach” that appeared in The Routledge International Handbook of Clinical Hypnosis (J. H. Linden et al. eds, Taylor & Francis, 2024).