Inviting Connection,
Inventing Change
50 Hours of Intensive Zoom Training
Douglas Flemons, Ph.D., LMFT
August 9-15, 2027
In August, 2027 (9th-15th), I’m offering my 50-hour clinical hypnosis intensive for licensed MFTs, MHCs, and MSWs; for psychologists and medical professionals; for interns working on licensure; and for students in graduate-level clinical training programs.
Limited to 20 participants, the workshop satisfies the requirements of the Florida 491 Licensure Board, which stipulates that anyone licensed under it must complete 50 hours of approved hypnosis training before offering hypnotic intervention to clients.
- Registration opens on October 1, 2026. You may register for any or all three of the individual workshops–the 10-hour introductory training (from 8:30 am, August 9 to noon on August 10); the 20-hour intermediate training (from 1:00 pm, August 10 to 5:00 pm on August 12); and the 20-hour advanced training (from 8:30 am, August 13 to 2:00 pm on August 15).
- If, by the time you are attempting to register, enrollment has reached capacity, you will be placed on a waiting list.
Format
You will learn through didactic instruction, asking questions, watching demonstrations, practicing with other participants, and receiving focused feedback from both the instructor and your practice partners.
Topics
10-hour Introduction to Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy
Topics include:
- Making sense of hypnosis
- History of hypnosis
- How minds and bodies think, communicate, and change
- Common misconceptions
- Contraindications
- Hypnosis and brief therapy
- Hypnosis and relaxation
- Breathing and other rhythms
- Ethical implications
- Self-hypnosis, meditation, and guided imagery
- Trust and hypnotic rapport
- Methods for inviting hypnosis
20-hour Intermediate Training: Inviting Hypnosis
Topics include:
- Explaining hypnosis to clients
- Hypnosis = therapist-client concordance + awareness-experience concordance
- Methods for inviting hypnosis: rituals as transportation devices
- Hypnotic logic
- Expectancy
- Avolitional agency: Evoking and utilizing hypnotic phenomena
- Association, dissociation, and associated dissociation
- The role of empathy
- From control to coordination
- Analogic communication
- Matching
- Inviting change by floating possibilities
- Learning principles of hypnosis so you can offer script-free invitations
- Developing and intensifying concordance with clients
- Therapeutic storytelling—principles and practice
- Intravening rather than Intervening
- Formal and informal hypnosis
- Utilizing internal and external interruptions and distractions
20-hour Advanced Training: Inventing Change
Topics include:
- Preparing clients for hypnotherapy
- Avoiding recipe-focused hypnotherapy
- Intraventive multi-tasking
- Symptoms = avolitional sensations, thoughts, actions, and emotions
- The self-referential spiraling of symptoms
- Hypnotherapeutic change = engaging avolitional agency to alter avolitional symptoms
- The self-referential spiraling of therapeutic change
- Practicing hypnotherapeutic improvisation
- Utilizing distractions and problems
- Creating implicit categories
- Utilizing expectancy
- The construction of emotion, memory, and certainty
- Thinking contextually and working collaboratively
- Inviting relational freedom
- Shifting the boundaries and the experience (the quality, intensity, and/or irritation of the problem
- Unraveling and reconfiguring the pattern of the problem
- Practicing therapeutic non-violence
- Post-hypnotic suggestions
- Altering anxiety, panic, pain, addiction, habits
- Limitations and possibilities
Workshop Size & Format
Adapted for the Zoom platform, these small, highly interactive workshops interweave hands-on hypnosis training, in-depth didactic instruction, and ongoing question-and-answer opportunities. Participants are immersed in observing, talking about, conducting, asking about, and experiencing hypnosis and hypnotherapy.
Continuing Education
Context Consultants is approved by the Florida Board of Clinical Social Work, Marriage and Family Therapy, and Mental Health Counseling as a provider of continuing education hypnosis training. Provider number: BAP-639-Exp.03/31/2029
These virtual workshops have been approved for CE credit by the Florida 491 Board of Clinical Social Work, Marriage and Family Therapy and Mental Health Counseling. They are also approved for CE credit in Georgia by The Department of Marriage and Family Therapy at Valdosta State University. The Florida Board of Psychology (for both psychologists and limited license psychologists) no longer pre-approves providers from complimentary boards. Psychologists may still take the training for CE credit; however, if audited, they would need to submit documentation establishing that the training “enhanced [their] psychological skills and/or psychological knowledge.”
Participants who take the full training will receive 50 CE credits and a certificate of completion. Those who take one or two of the three workshops will receive CE credits and a certificate of completion that reflect the number of hours they participated.
Workshop Fees
The workshop fee is reduced for students and/or non-yet licensed clinicians. The following credit cards are accepted: Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover.
- The cost for licensed professionals is–
- $1500 for the full 50-hour training
OR - $300 for the 10-hour introductory training
- $600 for the 20-hour intermediate training
- $600 for the 20-hour advanced training
- $1500 for the full 50-hour training
- The cost for students and/or not-yet-licensed professionals is–
- $1000 for the full 50-hour training
OR - $200 for the 10-hour introductory training
- $400 for the 20-hour intermediate training
- $400 for the 20-hour advanced training
- $1000 for the full 50-hour training
Registration
Registration is limited to 20 participants. Anyone attempting to register after enrollment has reached capacity will be placed on a waiting list.
A minimum of 15 participants is required for the workshop to be held.
Registration opens on October 1, 2026
REGISTER HERE.
Zoom Link
Zoom links for the workshops will be sent via email with your purchase confirmation.
Further Information and Questions
If you’re interested in reading some of Dr. Flemons’s articles on hypnosis and therapy, click here.
If you’re interested in purchasing his books on hypnosis, click here.
If you have questions about the workshops, you can reach Dr. Flemons in the following ways:
- E-mail: [email protected]
- Phone: 954-296-8944
Resources
Hypnosis
- http://www.erickson-foundation.org
- https://www.miltonherickson.com/
- http://www.asch.net
Brief Therapy
- https://www.brieftherapycenter.org/en/
- http://www.sfbta.org
- http://www.erickson-foundation.org
Practicing Hypnosis in Florida
Florida doesn’t certify or license hypnotherapists, but if “practitioners of the healing arts” wish to employ hypnosis in their work, then they must complete hypnosis training that has been approved by their professional licensing Board. Chapter 485, the “Hypnosis Law,” defines a practitioner of the healing arts as “a person licensed under the laws of the state to practice medicine, surgery, psychiatry, dentistry, osteopathic medicine, chiropractic medicine, naturopathy, podiatric medicine, chiropody, psychology, clinical social work, marriage and family therapy, mental health counseling, or optometry.” Appropriately trained professionals within any of these areas of expertise may employ hypnosis, but only “within the limits and framework of their own particular field of competence.”
The statutes that govern hypnosis training for professionals licensed under the 490 Board (psychologists) and the 491 Board (mental health counselors, marriage and family therapists, and clinical social workers) are not altogether clear. They specify that psychologists are required to take 10 hours of instruction to practice what is defined as “basic hypnosis”—stress management, self-hypnosis, guided imagery, or relaxation—and they say that 491 professionals must complete 50 hours to do anything “other than stress management, self-hypnosis, guided imagery, or relaxation.” However, the rule governing 491 practitioners doesn’t mention the 10-hour training in basic hypnosis described in the rule for psychologists, and the rule for psychologists doesn’t mention additional training to allow them to do more than basic hypnosis. The intent of the rules appears to be that a practitioner licensed under either the 490 or 491 Board should obtain 10 hours of training for practicing basic hypnosis and 50 hours for practicing therapeutic hypnosis. Chapters 490 and 491 both specify that the use of specific modalities (e.g., hypnosis) is restricted to professionals who have been appropriately trained in such modalities.
Available Sessions
There is a maximum capacity of 20 seats per session; a minimum of 15 seats is required for a session to be offered.
Register below for one, two, or all three workshops.
Introductory
Monday, August 9, 2027 (8:30 am – 5:00 pm, EDT, 1 hour break at 12:00 pm for lunch)
Tuesday, August 10, 2025 (8:30 am – 12:00 pm, EDT)
Intermediate
Tuesday, August 10, 2027 (1:00 pm – 5:00 pm, EDT)
Wednesday, August 11, 2027 (8:30 am – 5:00 pm, EDT, 1 hour break at 12:00 pm for lunch)
Thursday, August 12, 2027 (8:30 am – 5:00 pm, EDT, 1 hour break at 12:00 pm for lunch)
Advanced
Friday, August 15, 2025 (8:30 am – 5:00 pm, EDT, 1 hour break at 12:00 pm for lunch)
Saturday, August 16, 2025 (8:30 am – 5:00 pm, EDT, 1 hour break at 12:00 pm for lunch)
Sunday, August 17, 2025 (8:30 am – 2:00 pm, EDT, 2 coffee breaks but no lunch break)