Informed Consent, Ethics, and Professional Boundaries
Consent that holds up
Informed consent for hypnosis is a process, not a signature. It should cover what hypnosis is and is not, the expected course and alternatives, foreseeable risks and discomforts (emotional surfacing, false memory concerns, transient dizziness), limits of confidentiality, the patient's right to stop at any time, and the fact that the patient remains in control. Consent is ongoing: renegotiate when goals or techniques change, and obtain specific consent before any memory work or age regression.
Boundaries and ethics
Work within your competence and scope. Avoid dual relationships, self-disclosure that shifts focus to the clinician, and any suggestion that hypnosis grants special powers or guarantees results. Never use hypnosis to elicit information the patient is unwilling to give, to enhance recall for legal proceedings, or to impose values. Protect records and discuss how they are stored. Be alert to dependency and to the erotic or romantic transference that can arise in close, relaxed sessions; name and manage it rather than ignore it.
Traps
Items often test whether consent can be implied by the patient's request - it cannot substitute for an explicit discussion. Another trap is the claim that hypnosis cannot cause harm; adverse reactions are uncommon but real, so consent must mention them. Watch for answers that let the clinician decide what the patient "really" wants.
Rule of thumb
If you would not be comfortable reading the technique aloud in the consent conversation, do not use it.
Worked example
A patient asks to "find out what happened" in a blank period of childhood. The ethical answer: explain that hypnosis does not reliably recover accurate memories, decline forensic use, and offer present-focused coping work with documented consent.