Learn More About Our Highlighted Speakers

Éva I. Bányai, PhD

Hypnotic Relationship as Corrective Emotional and Cognitive Experience: Empirical Results and Theoretical Considerations

Éva I. Bányai, PhD, is a Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the Department of Affective Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Budapest, Hungary. After earning her doctorate in psychology at ELTE in 1973, she spent a fellowship year with E. R. Hilgard at Stanford University where she developed active-alert hypnosis. Her main research interest is studying the psychophysiological, behavioral, phenomenological, and social aspects of hypnosis from an interactional standpoint. Recently, she has been involved in developing new hypnotherapeutic methods for healing cancer patients, and in conducting research on the effect of hypnosis in treating high risk breast cancer patients. She has been heavily engaged in teaching hypnosis research and hypnotherapeutical methods to researchers and clinicians both in Hungary and abroad.

She is a Past President and an Honorary Lifetime Member of both the European Society of Hypnosis (ESH) and of the International Society of Hypnosis (ISH). She is founding secretary, a Past President and Honorary President of the Hungarian Association of Hypnosis, is a Past President of the Hungarian Psychological Association, and an Honorary Fellow of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis. She is the recipient of numerous awards for her contributions in advancing the fields of hypnosis, including the Hungarian Order of Merit, Officer’s Cross, the International “Franco Granone” Award of the Centro Italiano di Ipnosi Clinico-Sperimentale (CIICS), Torino, and the Benjamin Franklin Gold Medal of ISH.

Irving Kirsch, PhD

What Hypnosis Can Learn from Research on the Placebo Effect and the Therapeutic Relationship

Irving Kirsch is Associate Director of the Program in Placebo Studies and the Therapeutic Relationship, and a lecturer on medicine at the Harvard Medical School (Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center). He is also Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Hull (UK) and the University of Connecticut (USA), and a visiting professor at Plymouth University (UK). He has published 10 books, more than 250 scientific journal articles and 40 book chapters on placebo effects, antidepressant medication, hypnosis, and suggestion. He originated the concept of response expectancy.

Kirsch’s 2002 meta-analysis on the efficacy of antidepressants influenced official guidelines for the treatment of depression in the United Kingdom. His 2008 meta-analysis was covered extensively in the international media and listed by the British Psychological Society as one of the “10 most controversial psychology studies ever published.” His book, The Emperor’s New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth, has been published in English, French, Italian, Japanese, Turkish, and Polish, and was shortlisted for the prestigious Mind Book of the Year award. It was the topic of 60 Minutes segment on CBS and a 5-page cover story in Newsweek. In 2015, the University of Basel (Switzerland) awarded Irving Kirsch an Honorary Doctorate in Psychology.

Michael R. Nash, PhD

Still Seriously Curious about Hypnosis

Michael Nash, PhD is one of the world's leading experts on hypnosis. He is a prolific researcher and clinical educator, who also maintains an active clinical practice. He is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Tennessee, and is Editor Emeritus of The International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, the world's premiere venue for scientific and applied hypnosis. He received his PhD from Ohio University in 1983 and completed his clinical internship at Yale University School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry in the same year. He has published two books, one on the research foundations of hypnosis and another on integrating hypnosis into clinical practice. He is a Diplomate in Clinical Psychology (ABPP), and is the recipient of 18 national and international awards for his scientific, clinical, and teaching accomplishments.

Karen Olness, MD

Hypnosis: By Another Name in a Variety of Settings

Dr. Olness is board certified in Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics and Professor Emerita of Pediatrics, Global Health and Diseases at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. She is the inaugural chair of the NPHTI Board of Directors and past president of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis, the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, the American Board of Hypnosis, the International Society of Hypnosis and the Society for Developmental Behavioral Pediatrics.

She organized and taught the first three-day pediatric hypnosis workshop with Gail Gardner PhD at an SCEH meeting in Philadelphia in 1976 and organized the first SDBP sponsored workshop in 1986. Starting in 1972 she conducted controlled studies, examining the abilities of children to apply hypnosis in control of autonomic responses, reduction of migraines and control of immunologic responses. She has written more than 150 articles, chapters, and books and served on many National Institutes of Health study sections. In 1981 with Gail Gardner PhD, she wrote the first edition of Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy with Children. Now it is in its fourth edition, written with Daniel Kohen MD.

She has been a volunteer to help children in disasters for many years and developed the first training program on “Management of disasters: focus on children” in 1996. These workshops continue annually at CWRU and have been presented in 18 countries. She is co-founder (with husband, Hakon) and Medical Director of Health Frontiers, an all volunteer NGO that developed and is supporting three post graduate training programs in Laos, training in hypnosis in resource poor countries and training in disaster management. In 2017-18 she served as the Strategic Advisor on Children in Humanitarian Emergencies for the International Pediatric Association.

She has been acknowledged for her many contributions including the Outstanding Alumnus award from the University of Minnesota, the Hovorka Prize for the annual outstanding faculty member from Case Western Reserve University, the Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award from Case Western Reserve University, the Aldrich Award from the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Mentor Award from the First International Congress of Developmental Pediatrics. She has also received the ASCH Outstanding Manuscript Award, the SCEH Human Treasure Award, the ASCH William Wester Award, the ASCH Thomas Wall Award, the ISH Benjamin Franklin Gold Medal, the SCEH Raginsky Award, the ASCH Milton Erickson Award, the SCEH Shirley Schenck Award, and the SCEH Outstanding Book Award. She has received an honorary doctorate degree from Khon Kaen University in Thailand.

Devin B. Terhune, PhD

Revisiting (and Rethinking) Dissociation and Suggestibility

Devin Terhune, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London where he directs the Timing, awareness and suggestion lab and co-directs the Goldsmiths Consciousness Research Unit. His research applies methods from cognitive neuroscience and experimental psychology to understand individual differences in our perception of time and how suggestion can be used to override awareness.

Jeffrey K. Zeig, PhD

Hypnosis as Evocative Communication

Jeffrey K. Zeig, Ph.D. is the Founder and Director of the Milton H. Erickson Foundation, having studied intermittently with Dr. Erickson for more than six years, He edited, co-edited, authored, or coauthored more than 20 books that appear in twelve foreign languages. His current area of interest is extracting implicit codes of influence from various arts, including movies, music, painting, poetry and fiction that can be used to empower professional practice, and everyday communication. Dr. Zeig is the architect of The Evolution of Psychotherapy Conferences, considered the most important conferences in the history of psychotherapy. He organizes the Brief Therapy Conferences, the Couples Conferences, and the International Congresses on Ericksonian Approaches to Hypnosis and Psychotherapy.

Dr. Zeig is on the Editorial Board of numerous journals; is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association (Division 29, Psychotherapy); and Fellow of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis. He is a Distinguished Practitioner in the National Academy of Practice in Psychology of the National Academies of Practice. A psychologist and marriage and family therapist in private practice in Phoenix, Arizona, Dr. Zeig conducts workshops internationally (more than 40 countries). Specialty topics include experiential psychotherapy, hypnosis and brief therapy with various clinical problems. Dr. Zeig speaks at major universities and teaching hospitals including The Mayo Clinic, Menningers and MD Anderson. He is president of Zeig, Tucker & Theisen, Inc., publishers in the behavioral sciences and the Erickson Foundation Press.

2019 highlighted speakers