In this book, Dr. Edgar Barnett has given us a clear and incisive evaluation of various methods of incorporating hypnosis into the healing arts.

Each practitioner can take what is needed to improve results without having to change personal philosophy or greatly altering a personalized pattern of therapy already developed.

He knows that successful therapy depends heavily on two major elements - a willingness for change on the part of the patient and a constant belief that a constructive goal will be reached.

However, the verbalized request for help and the consciously expressed willingness for change can be misleading. They are the tip of the iceberg; beneath are contradictory forces of assumed guilt, habits of illness, habits of failure,unfavourable dramatized indentifications and unrecognized destructive drives. Newer techniques of hypnoanalysis make it possible to recognize these sources of resistance early in the therapeutic process. Dr. Barnett offers these methods to the reader and shows how resistance can sometimes be circumvented or even eliminated without damaging the self respect of the patient.

Hypnosis and analytical hypnotherapy have an important difference. Direct suggestion in hypnosis is a one-way communication from therapist to patient. The immediate response of the patient is not a necessary part of the therapy (although it is rare for any therapist of note to limit himself to direct suggestion without availing himself of such responses as might occur to monitor the progress of his patient.) On the other hand, sensitive and detailed two-way communication is an essential part of analytical hypnotherapy.