After the retirement of Wener J. Meinhold, founder of the H.I.T.T. method, our international society as well as our different societies in the different lands are undergoing deep changes to adapt to the new situation within the society, as well as to the present needs of our society.
As an international society, the IGTH unites the existing national societies at substantive and human level on the basis of equality, and it promotes and supports the formation of new entities in other countries. For the therapists of the national societies, the IGTH constitutes a visible scientific network through which insights and findings are communicated. In research and teaching, a high standard of quality of the therapist recognized and tested by the national societies is constantly being taken care of. The IGTH leads to an exchange of ideas with representatives of traditional healing methods and with the academic scientific community worldwide. The Society takes actions to disseminate a deeper understanding of hypnosis and its effects, and it objects to hypnosis misusage. Last but not least, it passes on its understanding of therapeutic hypnosis to people suffering and seekers all over the world.
For a legal seat of the IGTH, the city of Meersburg at Lake Constance was chosen at its creation where it still resides. The choice was because it is the city where Franz Anton Mesmer spent the last years of his life and is the place of his resting. Franz Anton Mesmer is considered to be the historical founder of “scientific hypnosis”.
The approach underlying the activities of the IGTH is to promote therapeutic application of hypnosis and research on hypnosis, particularly in its connection with Depth Psychology and Psychosomatics, and at the same time to promote the spiritual plane of being within the included holistic conception of the human. The approach has proved itself and is receiving growing international attention.
The spiritual aspect seems to be all the more important since hypnosis, being now world-wide accepted, is being included also in explanatory and therapeutic models which have been reducing it into a biopsychological concept.