Editorial - Australian Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis: Volume 40, Number 1, 2012

I am very pleased to welcome our members and wider readership to Volume 40, No. 1, of the Australian Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis. This edition is truly broad ranging with contributions spanning scientific, clinical, theoretical, and cultural dimensions of the practice of hypnosis. Usman Jaffer from the International Islamic University of Malaysia and I seek to locate the core phenomena of hypnosis within an evolutionary and neurobiological account of cognitive and affective control systems within the human brain. Ide Chan, a clinical psychologist based in Hong Kong, shares with us two case studies. In the first hypnosis is used to treat a complex case of conversion disorder and PTSD. This case study is notable for the careful and ongoing analysis of the client's changing state and needs and the systematic theory-based development of the treatment. In particular, the strengths and the limitations of chosen hypnotic interventions are realistically balanced to nest hypnosis within a wider treatment framework. In the case of David, hypnotic and CBT interventions are combined in a theory-guided, individually planned manner to treat realistic but disabling anxiety and build much-needed self-efficacy in a client suffering from Brugada syndrome, a leading cause of sudden death due to cardiac failure. Irina Hollingworth presents the results of a study forming part of the Antenatal Training for Childbirth Trial at the Women's and Children's Hospital in Adelaide examining antecedent beliefs and experiences in relation to the use of hypnosis amongst the participants in that trial. Bruce Gregory, a highly experienced Los Angles based psychotherapist, discusses how Eriksonian hypnotherapy principles can be seen to be implemented in the Chinese martial art of Tai Chi and how in turn the principles of this mind-body therapy art may be integrated at key moments into an Eriksonian based approach to hypnotherapy. Finally Kathryn Gow provides us with her informative review of 'The Handbook of Contemporary Clinical Hypnosis: Theory and Practice' edited by Les Brann, Jacky Owens and Ann Williamson. This 2012 textbook for professionals on the theory and practice of clinical hypnosis will be of direct interest both to ASH members and many of our other readers.