From drip irrigation to its widely successful COVID-19 vaccination campaign, Israel has long been considered a leader in innovation. However, there is one custom that is accepted in much of the world, but which Israel is reluctant to adopt. It’s hypnosis.
Hypnosis is commonly thought of as a mentalist stage act or associated with the occult, but hypnosis is widespread throughout the world. While some may downgrade hypnotherapy to simple alternative medicine, and some practices may be defined as such, hypnotherapy has been around the world for many years as a legitimate medical and psychological technique. It has been adopted.
However, Israel makes hypnosis much more difficult to use than other countries, and has perhaps the strictest hypnosis laws in the world.
The Act on the Use of Hypnosis, which has been in place since 1984, is one of the first of its kind in the world and strictly limits the practice of hypnosis to a select few dentists, doctors, and clinical psychologists. I am. All other practitioners, whether hypnotherapists or stage hypnotists, can be subject to stiff fines and even jail time.
But why does this law exist?
According to most reports, it all goes back to an incident in 1975. Israeli mentalist Avishalom Drori hypnotized a 17-year-old boy during a show he hosted. However, he was unable to wake her up, and although her hypnosis was eventually broken, it became something that many feared, and only a few years later, then-Health Minister Eliezer Szostak, later He proposed a bill that would provide for the use of hypnosis.
Under this law, only those who can practice hypnosis have a valid medical, psychologist, or dentist license and have graduated from an accredited course or institution abroad, or from an Israeli university or accredited private institution. Only people. Still, only a limited number of professionals are authorized by the Ministry of Health to teach hypnosis.
Since then, this law has remained untouched, even though hypnotherapy has become more popular around the world. This is despite the fact that institutions like the Mayo Clinic have endorsed it as a means of treating pain, and its use is growing outside of dentistry and psychology.
For the Israel Hypnosis Association, the organization that represents hypnotherapists in the country, the law is a good thing.
“Hypnosis is not magic,” explained Dr. Zahi Arnon, president of the association.
As detailed on its website, the association believes this law protects the public from the dangers of charlatans and irresponsible therapists.
Even Israel’s most famous psychic, Uri Geller, is against the use of stage hypnosis, despite being a hypnotist himself.
Geller practiced hypnosis in the military and later studied under Drori. However, he insists that hypnosis is not something that ordinary people can do.
“I think hypnotherapy can be very good if you have a license. But it shouldn’t be used on stage as entertainment,” Geller told The Jerusalem Post. “The reason I think that is because I saw what I could do to people, and it was incredible. When I put them in a trance, they were under my command. No one should be hypnotized into being under someone else’s command.
However, there are many people in Israel and abroad who think this law is too strict.
Part of this, they argue, is because the definition of hypnosis under the law is too vague.
“Under Israel’s hypnosis law, therapists, artists, religious leaders, and even mothers who sing nursery rhymes to their children are all guilty of hypnosis,” says the Academy of Hypnosis with Distinction in Health. says Natalie Pick, a therapist with a degree in clinical hypnosis. He is a Melbourne scientist who was found guilty in 2012 of breaching the Hypnosis Act and impersonating a hypnotherapist.
Some point out that hypnotherapy should not be limited to dentists and psychologists.
In 2015, doctors at Helen Schneider Women’s Hospital at Rabin Medical Center’s Beilinson Campus in Petah Tikvah pointed out that hypnotherapy also has a place in the obstetrics and gynecology ward as a means of reducing pain and trauma. .
The power of suggestion provided by a qualified hypnotist can help reduce pain when a fetus is flipped head down in the womb, reduce nausea and vomiting during pregnancy, and even It has been shown to be helpful in restoring menstruation in women who have stopped having periods. , as noted in a study published by Drs. David Rabinerson, Epi Yehoshua, and Rinat Gabai Ben Ziv write for the Hebrew magazine Harefuah.
Hypnotherapy is also gaining attention as a treatment option for people suffering from chronic pain. A 2012 study published in the Journal of Pain examined patients suffering from fibromyalgia, a chronic pain disorder that is often difficult to treat and currently has no widely accepted treatment. It turns out that hypnosis may be used to help.
Others who oppose the law argue that it effectively creates a closed market for hypnotherapy in Israel, with only a select few professionals allowed to practice, thereby limiting competition. claims.
“It is important for experts to consider their own interests. [Use of Hypnosis Law] “In a way that protects patients from the interests of that faction,” Israeli academics Marianna Lua Midvar Shapiro and Sharon Warshawsky wrote in a 2018 paper published in the periodical The Journal of CESNUR. Ta.
A major new movement toward legal reform is currently underway.
One of the leaders of this push is Israeli mentalist Ben Kail, who supports opening up the law to make it more accessible for hypnotherapists, saying, “It’s clear that Israel lags behind the rest of the world.” is.
“The association openly acknowledges on its website that hypnosis is extremely safe and has no side effects,” Kail told the Post. “According to their website, the only reason this law is justified is because they give the example of choosing analgesic hypnosis instead of appendix surgery and encourage people to choose hypnotherapy over other treatments. This claim does not stand up to any serious scrutiny or logic. This would also apply to over-the-counter painkillers and any alternative treatment.”
He argues that there may be other reasons why society supports this law.
“We know that hypnosis is completely safe, but we also know that bad therapy is not safe. So perhaps their real motivation is to open up a market for hypnotists that leads to bad therapy.” We need to make sure that standards remain very high. We need to make sure that it’s in the best interests of the public overall,” he explained.
“Right now, the only people the law actually prohibits are law-abiding professionals. What I want to do is protect law-abiding professionals with good intentions, like physical therapists and clinical social workers. to create a path for Israel to obtain a license and create collaboration between Israel and the rest of the world.”
Part of that could mean making it easier for more Israelis to learn hypnotherapy, which would mean the society overseeing a curriculum to train more hypnotherapists.
However, despite being a mentalist, Kael does not necessarily advocate loosening restrictions on stage hypnosis.
“While hypnosis is perfectly safe on stage, research has shown that the first encounter with hypnosis affects expectations and how subsequent hypnosis affects them,” he explained. “So there’s an argument that some types of stage hypnosis can have an impact on hypnotherapy.”
Kale is supported by a group of hypnotists from the US, UK, New Zealand and Australia. There are stage hypnotists like him, but there are also qualified hypnotherapists and heads of certified hypnotherapy training institutes.
Supporting them in Israel is Abil Kara, Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office (Yamina), who has vowed to propose these new reforms when parliament reconvenes after its adjournment.
“I will reduce regulatory burdens, dismantle cartels, [I] Open markets wherever you can,” Kara told the Post.
“Hypnosis is a very safe and effective tool for treating a variety of conditions and is widely used in every country in the world except Israel. It is valuable in so many areas of practice. There’s no reason why a secure, affordable tool should be in the hands of a private group of a few hundred people.”
