Hypnosis is a human condition involving focused attention, reduced peripheral awareness, and an enhanced capacity to respond to suggestion.
Hypnotherapy is a type of mind–body intervention in which hypnosis is used to create a state of focused attention and increased suggestibility in the treatment of a medical or psychological disorder or concern.
Psychotherapy is the use of psychological methods, particularly when based on regular personal interaction, to help a person change behavior, increase happiness, and overcome problems. Psychotherapy aims to improve an individual's well-being and mental health, to resolve or mitigate troublesome behaviors, beliefs, compulsions, thoughts, or emotions, and to improve relationships and social skills. Numerous types of psychotherapy have been designed either for individual adults, families, or children and adolescents. Certain types of psychotherapy are considered evidence-based for treating some diagnosed mental disorders; other types have been criticized as pseudoscience.
Milton Hyland Erickson was an American psychiatrist and psychologist specializing in medical hypnosis and family therapy. He was the founding president of the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis. He is noted for his approach to the unconscious mind as creative and solution-generating. He is also noted for influencing brief therapy, strategic family therapy, family systems therapy, solution focused brief therapy, and neuro-linguistic programming.
Richard Wayne Bandler is an American consultant in the field of self-help. With John Grinder, he founded the neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) approach to psychotherapy in the 1970s.
Albert Ellis was an American psychologist and psychotherapist who founded rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT). He held MA and PhD degrees in clinical psychology from Columbia University, and was certified by the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP). He also founded, and was the President of, the New York City-based Albert Ellis Institute. He is generally considered to be one of the originators of the cognitive revolutionary paradigm shift in psychotherapy and an early proponent and developer of cognitive-behavioral therapies.
Integrative psychotherapy is the integration of elements from different schools of psychotherapy in the treatment of a client. Integrative psychotherapy may also refer to the psychotherapeutic process of integrating the personality: uniting the "affective, cognitive, behavioral, and physiological systems within a person".
Jay Douglas Haley was one of the founding figures of brief and family therapy in general and of the strategic model of psychotherapy, and he was one of the more accomplished teachers, clinical supervisors, and authors in these disciplines.
Ian Kerner is a sex counselor, practitioner of psychotherapy, and author on pleasuring sex partners. He works in sex therapy and couples therapy.
Helen Lorraine (Cook) Erickson is the primary author of the modeling and role-modeling theory of nursing. Her work, co-authored with Evelyn Tomlin and Mary Ann Swain, was published in the 1980s and derived from her experience in clinical practice. In 2006 she edited a book that provides additional information describing the relationships among soul, spirit, and human form.
Ivan Tyrrell is a British educator, writer, and artist. He lives with his wife Véronique in the Cotswolds, England.
Jeffrey K. Zeig, is a writer, teacher and practitioner of psychotherapy. He has edited, co-edited, authored or coauthored more than 20 books on psychotherapy that appear in fourteen languages. He organises several conferences on psychotherapy, and is the founder and director of the Milton H. Erickson Foundation.
Stephen R. Lankton, MSW, DAHB is a psychotherapist, consultant, and trainer. He is the current Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis (2005–2025). He is a recipient of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis' "Lifetime Achievement Award" and “Irving Sector Award for Advancement of the Field of Hypnosis”. as well as the Milton H. Erickson Foundation “Lifetime Achievement Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Field of Psychotherapy.”
Positive psychotherapy is a psychotherapeutic method developed by psychiatrist and psychotherapist Nossrat Peseschkian and co-workers in Germany beginning in 1968. This humanistic psychodynamic psychotherapy is based on a positive conception of human nature. PPT is an integrative method which includes humanistic, systemic, psychodynamic and CBT-elements. Today there are centers and trainings in some twenty countries worldwide. It should not be confused with positive psychology.
Michele Weiner-Davis is a licensed clinical social worker, marriage and family therapist and author in the field of family therapy. She is frequently quoted in the media and has been interviewed significantly on television news programs regarding divorce prevention. Weiner-Davis has often been referred to as The Divorce Buster after coining the term “divorce busting” at an American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy conference in 1989. She currently writes a regular column, Divorce Busting: Musings From an Unabashed Marriage Saver in Psychology Today.
Richard Fisch (1926–2011) was an American psychiatrist best known for his pioneering work in brief therapy.
Cloé Madanes is a teacher in family therapy and brief therapy. She has teamed up with Tony Robbins since 2002 to train strategic interventionists for finding solutions to interpersonal conflicts, preventing violence, and contributing to the creation of a more cohesive and civil community.
Michael D. Yapko is a clinical psychologist and author, whose work is focused on the areas of treating depression, developing brief psychotherapies and advancing the clinical applications of hypnosis.
Jerrold Lee Shapiro is an American clinical psychologist and professor in the Santa Clara University Counseling Psychology graduate program. He is a licensed clinical psychologist and a Fellow of the American Psychological Association.
Hypnoanalysis is the technique of using hypnosis in the practice of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. It attempts to utilize the trance state induced by hypnosis to effect a conscious understanding of a person's unconscious psychodynamics.
