Perhaps as an informed potential client you've wondered about the relationship of hypnotism to a variety of suggestibility responsible for the placebo effect. Some of the readers who are practicing hypnotists, may have on occasion seen the confidence of a client get shaken by others who, in an offhanded way, commented that hypnosis is "just a placebo", or "no more than a placebo"? Sometimes these statements are even made by otherwise knowledgeable helping professionals. Do these statements have any basis in fact? 

Most practitioners would probably assert from training or experience that this claim is untrue, that there is more going on with hypnosis than a placebo effect. And yet, if it were true, would there really be anything wrong with that? As Moerman and Jonas (2002) point out, to say that a treatment, such as acupuncture "isn't better than a placebo" does not mean that it does nothing (Moerman & Jonas, 2002). Hans Eysenck (1991), one of the most prolific writers in the history of psychology, observes that placebo treatment in psychiatry is just about as effective as psychotherapeutic techniques (Eyesenck,1991).
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