South Australian Psychologists Try To Put Hypnotherapists Out Of Business

HypnosisAustralia, May 2007

By Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH, Clinical Hypnotherapist, Psychotherapist & Counsellor
Editorial Director of HypnosisAustralia Online.

In February this year, hypnotherapy organisations and schools commenced an extraordinary amount of email traffic between each other. Panic ensued because of proposed changes to the South Australian Psychological Practice Bill 2006 which would have once again restricted the practice of hypnosis to psychologists and other registered medical professionals.

This would have meant that hypnotherapists would no longer have been able to practise hypnotherapy and the schools specifically teaching hypnotherapy would no longer have been able to do that in SA with non-psychological or medically qualified practitioners. As usual the irony of the situation was that many of those hypnotherapists would have possessed federally-approved qualifications in hypnotherapy requiring far higher standards of training in that discipline than psychologists or medical practitioners.

Rick Collingwood, hypnotherapist, commented in an email to other hypnotherapists, "They tried the same thing in WA and I got my lawyers on to it. It ended up costing the WA state govt 6.4 million dollars in penalties because all state governments signed a deal with the Federal government in 1995 to de-regulate hypnosis by 31st July 2005. The SA government will now also be in breach of this deal which had huge penalty clauses in it."

The late amendment to the bill proposed by Mr Kris Hanna MP, member for Mitchell to the House Of Assembly contained the surprise amendment:

Amendment No 5 [Hanna-1]-
New clause, page 23, after line 2-
Insert new clause as follows:

35A-Prohibition on provision of hypnotherapy by unqualified persons
(1) A person must not provide hypnotherapy unless-
(a) the person is a dentist, medical practitioner or psychologist who has qualifications in hypnotherapy approved by the Board; or
(b) the person provides it through the instrumentality of a person referred to in paragraph (a).
Maximum penalty: $75,000.
(2) In this section-
dentist means a person who is registered as a dentist under the law of this State;
hypnotherapy includes an activity or practice declared by the regulations to be hypnotherapy for the purposes of this section.
Amendment No 6 [Hanna-1]-
Clause 60, page 34, lines 33 and 34-
Delete ", a course of study at that institution providing qualifications for registration on the register of psychologists" and substitute:
a postgraduate course of study at that institution related to psychology

When contacted, Kay Anastassiadis assistant to The Hon. J.D. HILL (Minister for Health) commented:

"The Government's Bill excludes any reference to hypnosis. The second reading speech introducing the speech makes it clear that the Government intends to deregulate hypnosis i.e. remove the current restrictions to competitive practice that apply in the current legislation: the Psychological Practices Act 1973 and outlines the reasons for this deregulation quite clearly.

The amendment proposed by Mr Kris Hanna MP seeks to re-include a provision that will restrict the practice of hypnosis to psychologists, medical practitioners and dentists provided that they have undertaken courses approved by the proposed South Australian Psychological Board.

The Government will oppose this amendment for the policy reasons outlined in the second reading speech.

The Bill is expected to be debated on 6 March 2007. Mr Hanna will need to move his amendment in the Lower House, the House of Assembly, where it will be debated and voted on. If not passed, the Bill will then be debated as it stands and the Bill will pass into the Upper House."

It seems that the Psychological Association of SA sought pressure to retain a clause in the Bill to prevent non-psychologist-approved therapists from practising hypnosis. This is indicative of the way in which psychologists have sought to eliminate their rivals over the past 10 years. In the late 1990s the Australian Psychological Society (APS) tried to introduced the category "counselling psychologist" because psychologists had lost a lot of business to counsellors.

The heads of registration at the APS often take opportunities to take a pop at counsellors, psychotherapists and hypnotherapists in the media, commenting that such professionals are not really qualified to carry out their jobs. Now that psychologists have accessed Medicare funding for their clients it seems that they are further still trying to close down the market for hypnotherapy and control it by having the government legislate that it remain under their auspice. In other words they are seeking marketplace protectionist measures because they plainly must know that most hypnotherapists are more highly trained in hypnosis than many psychologists providing hypnotherapy.

As the time of debate drew closer, Kris Hanna MP circulated the following email to hypnotherapy associations and schools.

"Dear Sir/Madam

Thank you for your contact regarding the Psychological Practice Bill. I wish to advise you that I have taken on the collective lobbying points made by Psychotherapists and Hypnotherapists. I will not be amending the Psychological Practices Bill to limit the practice of hypnotherapy to certain professions.

It now seems to me that discussion should ensue at a national level between State government regulators, psychiatrists, psychologists, psychotherapists and hypnotists about hypnotherapy being offered by suitably qualified and trained people only, no matter in which field they practice.

Through such contributions as yours, Members of Parliament can comprehend the full implications of proposed legislative change and respond accordingly."

After the Bill went through the upper house there was still great apprehension by hypnotherapy organisations that there would be an attempt to slip in another exclusionary clause. That would, however, have meant that the Bill would have had to go back to the lower house for further ratification.

If this whole affair has anything to teach Australian hypnotherapy schools and associations it is surely that it is time for all the schools and associations to start to work together. Furthermore that all deliberation should be public with no more secret societies with undeclared standards of training.

©HypnosisAustralia, May 2007