Hypnotherapy is the process of treating a person through placing them in a state of hypnosis, or a hypnotic trance. The patient, according to hypnotherapists is more receptive to suggestions and also more receptive to other forms of therapy. Hypnotherapy is used for treatment of substance addiction, obesity, pain, anxiety, stress, amnesia, various phobias, and sexual or athletic performance. In fact, even functional disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome have been treated through hypnotherapy. Additionally many psychiatrists have used hypnotherapy for years to make patients more susceptible to treatments they were receiving involving pharmaceuticals. Manic depressives and schizophrenics for instance are often recipients of hypnotherapy.

In the beginning of hypnosis hypnotherapy has its roots. In the late 1700's and early 1800's as hypnotism was gaining in popularity physicians and other curious parties began to experiment with hypnotherapy in a more primitive manner than that which we see today. Franz Anton Mesmer, from whom the term mesmerize or mesmerism comes from; James Braid, a Scottish neurosurgeon, James Esdaile, John Elliotson, Ambroise-Auguste Liebault, Emile Coue, Jean-Martin Charcot and Andrew Salter all experimented with the principles of hypnotherapy. In fact the Ancient Egyptians and Ancient Indians had religious rituals that included dancing, music and masked people that form some of the roots of modern hypnotherapy.

Sigmund Freud, thought by many to be the father of modern psychology used hypnotherapy with Viennese women suffering from hysteria. Freud used the famous swinging pocket watch according to many reports. Freud later dropped the swinging watch method of hypnotherapy and began to use the method he called free association, which is often seen as the beginning of psychotherapy. While Freud used a combination of hypnotherapy and psychotherapy, more of counseling approach, many parts of his work are forgotten by psychologists today who prefer to use the counseling approach, which many proponents of hypnotherapy see as short sighted and lazy.

A researcher named Milton H. Erickson, MD is often believed to be one of the most successful of modern hypnotherapists. His many books, articles and journals on the subject provide a great deal of guidance for his successors today. His method is now known as Ericksonian hypnotherapy. This method uses covert suggestions placed into normal conversation. The authoritarian induction that Freud used is not considered necessary in Ericksonian hypnotherapy.