Hypnosis in Germany - Hypnose in Deutschland

Programs are available in Germany.

Please contact us for more details.

Für Hypnose Programm in Deutschland, Bitte kontaktieren Sie uns für mehr information.

Artt Therapy for English speaking

Hypnoseberatung APHP für Deutschsprachige

Hypnotherapy is a common form of reliable help for everyday problems such as smoking cessation, weight loss and improving motivation and confidence. It’s fast, it’s effective and it’s solution centred – that is what makes it a wanted form of help all over the world. Let’s take the UK as an example: If you take a look at your local yellow pages, you will find quite a lot of Hypnotherapist offering their services. Hypnotists you can actually call “famous” offer loads of self-help products and bring stage-shows to TV. So, what is hypnosis like in Germany? Let’s start by taking a look at the legal aspects.

The legal aspects

Administering hypnosis is perfectly legal in Germany. Unlike some other countries (like Austria, for example), everyone can do hypnosis stage-shows – no matter, what their experience is. Only when it comes to using hypnosis for therapeutic purposes, the law sets restrictions. To investigate those restrictions a little further, it’s helpful to explain what kind of people can actually administer therapy in Germany:

Medical Doctors and “Heilpraktiker” (health practitioners)

Medical doctors are allowed to diagnose, cure and heal. The same is true for “Heilpraktiker”; to become a Heilpraktiker, you have to undergo a test by your local health officials. The test usually requires a preparation of multiple years and is mostly designed for people who want to become homoeopathists.

Psychotherapists

A psychotherapist can use psychotherapy to heal and cure. To become a psychotherapist, you either study medicine - or psychology first and then take additional classes to become a psychotherapist.

All other people

Other than the ones mentioned above cannot cure, heal or diagnose commercially – according to the Gesundheitsamt (bureau of health). So even if you’ve graduated from an English hypnotherapy school, for example – you’d break German law as soon as you started to administer therapy here.

The practical side

Even though you’re not supposed to administer “therapy”, you can very well offer help in self-development, counselling or guidance. It’s all in the wording! Smoking-cessation, weight management and motivational issues are within the range of what a hypnotist can work on legally. Depressions, for example, are not.

You’re on the safe side as long as you don’t “diagnose”, “cure” or “treat” and as long as you work with physically and mentally sane people. Even though you may be a Hypnotherapist fully accredited with a British school / association, you may not call yourself a hypno-therapist in Germany. But before someone sheds tears about it, think about this one: Who likes therapy anyway? Going into “therapy” always gives you a feeling that there is something wrong with you. That you’re broken in some way and have to be fixed. That you’re not normal. All good examples for negative suggestion.

So it’s not really a disadvantage to call your services something like “life improvement” much rather than therapy. The results will be the same, but you won’t get into any hassle with the law.

The “Freie Gesellschaft für Hypnose e.V.” or FGH means independent hypnosis association and was founded in 2001 by its current president Wolfgang Künzel. It is the first hypnosis association of its kind open to non-medical hypnotists.

More than 60 members right now from five different countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, and England) with the shared interest of helping people with hypnosis are constantly looking for new ways on how they can use hypnosis and hypnotherapy in new and innovative ways.

It’s mission statement: Inform about the possibilities (and dangers) of hypnosis.

Olf Stoiber
March 2004

Vice Chairman (FGH)