The International Society of Hypnosis’s World Congresses help us to achieve numerous important goals.  At these meetings, master clinicians and hypnosis researchers  from all corners of the globe can meet, interact with, and learn from one another. At each Congress we have symposiums to discuss new scientific findings that help us to better understand the effects and mechanisms of hypnosis. Throughout the meeting, clinicians and resaerchers have both organized and informal meetings that help us achieve our common goals.

Often, without planning, new ideas are born at such congresses. For example, at the end of the 3rd International Congress that the Iranian Team of Prof. Mehdi Fathi organizedin Teheran , Mehdi Fathi, Enayat Shahidi, Kris Klajs from Poland and myself were  sitting together and discussing a future congress that would be held in 3 or 4 years . At this meeting, Kris Klajs had the brilliant idea to plan the first (ever) Asian Congress of Hypnosis. His motivation was to give colleagues from Asian countries , which previsously were part of Russian Hypnosis Society such as Armenia, Georgia, Kasachstan , the opportunity  to reconnect  with the international field. He noted that the that many colleagues from these countries are not yet able to afford to travel to Paris or Montreal to attend a congress,but they can afford to come to a neighboring  country like Iran. His idea resonated with each of us.  So we  tarted to plan.
Colleagues from China, Japan, India and other Asian countries have been included in this process.
From the seed of this idea the Iranian team developed the idea to use this Congress to found an Asian Society of Hypnosis. At the World Congress of Hypnosis in Montreal in 2018, the Asian Countries choose Prof. Mehdi Fathi as President and Prof. Xin Fang, Beijing University as Vice-President of the new society.
The formal founding ceremony of the Asian Society of Hypnosis will be take place in Mashhad during the 15th-18th October 2019 congress there. This is an important next step to develop hypnosis and hypnotherapy in Asia. The rules, laws and regulations in the field of psychotherapy and medicine are quite different in Asian Countries in comparison with Europe or USA. Therefore, it does not make sense to apply the same rules about hypnosis that exist in Western countries in Asian countries. It does not make sense to insist on „Europe First“ or „America First“ and for every country to follow rules which may not necessarily be apporpriate for the general context in other countries.
From the point of view of ISH we are happy that Asian countries are beginning to work together to develop the field of hypnotherapy in the Asian continent by cooperating and working together.

The Asian Society  is staying in good contact with the whole international field via ISH.

We wish the new society the best of good luck and anticipate they will have many good ideas to continue to develop hypnosis in Asia in years and decades ahead.