HYPNOSIS

COPHO

The Council of Professional Hypnosis Organiizations, called COPHO for short, was founded in 1989 to meet the common problems and concerns facing the leaders of various Hypnosis Organizations, of which all are American with one Canadian member. Originally, there were just thirteen Charter Members. Over the years membership has changed, but the rules have been that regardless of the size of the membership, each organization has one vote.

Some of the concerns of the members have been
• How to raise the level of professionalism among hypnotherapists
• How to create a consistently positive image of the profession in the eyes of the public
• How to meet legal challenges from other professional groups, i.e. psychologists most recently, but physicians in the past, for the right of hypnotherapy to exist as a separate but equal profession.
• How to raise the educational standards required for hypnosis certification, and to unify those standards among all the groups
• How to obtain legal status as a separate profession either through licensure or registration in every state

While some members were in their respective organization working on these agendas, there was an interest to create a cohesive force required to make the changes and especially to influence legislation for the benefit of all.

The current President is Anthony DeMarco. The Vice President is Allen Chips.

While I do not have a current list of members, past members have included the following:
• Acadamy of Professional Hypnosis Alumni
• American Association of Professional Hypnotherapists
• American Board of Hypnotherapy represented.
• Association for the Advancement of Ethical Hypnosis
• APATH
• Canadian Institute of Hypnotism
• The Hypnotism Society of Pennsylvania Union 469
• Hypnotist Local Union 472
• Institute for Ethical and Clinical Hypnosis
• International Association for Clinical Hypnotherapy
• International Hypnosis Hall of Fame Guild, Inc
• International Medical and Dental Hypnotherapy Association
• National Association of Certified Hypnotherapists
• National Association of Clergy
• National Association of Transpersonal Hypnotherapists
• National Board of Hypnotherapy and Anesthesia
• National Federation of Hypnotists Union Local 104
• National Guild of Hypnotists
• National Society of Hypnotherapists
• New York State Hypnotherapy Association
• North Coast Hypnosis Society
• Ohio Acadamy of Hypnotherapy Alumni Association
• Omni Hypnosis Training Center
• Texas Association for Investigative Hypnosis
• Time Line Therapy Association and American Board of NLP