Book Report: Clinical Hypnosis by Crasilneck and Hall (c) 1985

 Harold Crasilneck and James A Hall were accomplished clinical hypnotherapists and psychologists who worked extensively in the medical arena. Crasilneck was noted for his work with hypnosis in pain control and Hall was a Jungian psychologist. Together they worked and researched in way that hypnosis can be employed in the medical arena. 

 This book is a more academic textbook than many of the books I've reviewed on this blog, but i think it's a valuable read for serious hypnotists. 

The book is dry and factually dense like many academic works. Through it's many chapters, it touches on valuable applications of hypnosis in many different medical and psychological situations. Each chapter is replete with a great number of footnotes and research references. 

Having been written in 1985, I imagine that most of the research material has been superseded by more advanced knowledge by now, but the sheer number of different clinical applications that they have actual experience and data on is both inspiring and practical. You won't find much technique described, so it's really appropriate for a more advanced practitioner, but it will tickle your imagination as to how far hypnosis can actually benefit people. 

Personally, I also found it interesting to read about hypnosis as described from a psychologist's perspective. Their analysis of some situations, as well as the terminology they use was a very interesting comparison to my training.