Meditation-Mind Blog

One of the first books I read when I began my study of hypnosis was Hypnosis for Change by Josie Hadley and Carol Staudacher. It was a wonderful way to begin!

There are many other excellent hypnosis books, many of which I will review for you on this blog. But for those of you who want to get started on some good books right now, I’ve assembled the first of what I expect will be many lists of books I highly recommend.

All of the books on this list are ones I own and refer to regularly for inspiration. Some are huge references, offering lots of scripts and inductions, some could be used as texts for hypnosis training courses (and, in fact, some are), some are good introductions to some of the true masters of hypnosis, and some are guides to the actual application of hypnotic processes with many tips and how-to’s offered with great love and a bit of humor.

I’ve included links for each of these titles, most of them links to Amazon. Many of them have Amazon’s “peek inside” feature, which lets you see the table of contents, the index and some excerpts, so you can get a good sense of what the books are like. These Amazon links are affiliate links. If you happen to order something after clicking on them, you’ll also be donating a small amount to this blog, so thank you!

Twelve of My Favorite Hypnosis Books:

Hypnosis for Change by Josie Hadley and Carol Staudacher  A wonderful way to begin, this is also so comprehensive you’ll refer to it often. If you could own only one book on hypnosis, this would be a great choice.

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The Art of Hypnosis by Roy C. Hunter  An excellent first course in hypnosis written by an experienced hypnotist and teacher. Inductions, deepeners, suggestibility tests are all very well covered.

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The Art of Hypnotherapy by Roy C. Hunter  The companion book to The Art of Hypnosis, covering advanced therapeutic techniques like parts therapy and age regression in a thorough and professional way.

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Hypnotherapy by Dave Elman  A great book by one of the masters. You’ll find the often-referred-to Elman Induction here and much, much more.

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My Voice Will Go With You: The Teaching Tales of Milton H. Erickson, M. D. by Sidney Rosen  A good introduction to another master hypnotist, which gives you a good sense of Erickson’s artful use of language and metaphor for therapeutic purposes.

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The New Encyclopedia of Stage Hypnosis by Ormond McGill  Fascinating and technique-filled volume by this long-time expert. Highly revered among hypnotists, Ormond McGill was considered a master by many.

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Handbook of Hypnotic Suggestions and Metaphors by D. Corydon Hammond  Truly a compendium. It’s not often we can use that word, but it fits here. Most professional hypnotherapists want this in their libraries if they don’t own it already. A 600 page collection of scripts and techniques.

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Hypnosis - How to Put a Smile On Your Face by Shelley Stockwell  Lots of heart, lots of humor, lots of hypnosis. Shelley’s “playshops”are always filled and you’ll see why when you take a look at this.

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Extraordinary Healing by Marilyn Gordon  Deep inner healing with a very loving process combining hypnosis and an energy tapping technique called EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique). Having attended many of her workshops, I can tell you that Marilyn is the real deal. Her loving intention shines through in all her work.

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Finding True Magic by Jack Elias  Amazing? Transformative? Comprehensive? It’s hard to describe this book loaded with scripts and techniques incorporating relaxation, imagery and NLP based on the philosophy that we can heal when we awaken from the trance state we’re already experiencing. Many wonderful examples of how that is accomplished.

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Monsters and Magical Sticks: Or There’s No Such Thing as Hypnosis by Steven Heller  Often mentioned as the hypnosis book people read again and again. Fun to read, filled with stories of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic programming) and hypnosis in action told by a gifted teacher who helps us see how natural the trance state is and how therapeutic it can be.

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Trance-formations: Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the Structure of Hypnosis by John Grinder and Richard Bandler  Grinder and Bandler like to take things apart to see how they work and then share what they’ve learned so others can recreate them. Based on some of their dynamic lectures on the processes of hypnosis and NLP, language patterns, Milton Erickson and so much more, this book teaches you techniques while at the same time employing them. You’ll probably want to re-read this to see how they did that.

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That should get you started. Enjoy!

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For more books recommended here previously, click on the Book and CD Recommendations category in the right hand column of this blog.

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Want to share some of your own favorite hypnosis books? Just click on comments below.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 18th, 2008 at 9:48 pm and is filed under Self-Hypnosis, Book and CD Recommendations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.