Mindfulness has become an established paradigm in healthcare over the last 40 years. As its popularity grew, questions began emerging about the nature of mindfulness, its relative efficacy to similar intervention strategies, safety, and, most interestingly, its relationship to hypnosis. How does mindfulness resemble and differ from hypnosis? Despite the educated speculations, this issue has yet to be clarified from conceptual, neurophysiological, and procedural perspectives.

This webinar will examine these topics with clinicians in mind who are interested in integrating mindfulness with hypnosis. To achieve this goal, the Buddhist meditation texts will be analyzed to elucidate the two fundamental methodologies underlying mindfulness meditation. It will clarify that the contemporary mindfulness practice has capitalized on only one method (i.e., open monitoring) while ignoring the other approach (i.e., focused attention). This webinar will illuminate the close resemblance between focused-attention mindfulness and hypnosis. The session will include the Touch-and-Return demonstration of mindfulness to facilitate the attendant’s experiential grasp of the two mindfulness meditation methods. This easy mindfulness protocol utilizes the open-monitoring procedure described in the classical Buddhist meditation texts. It also allows an application for trance induction.

After attending this intermediate-level program, participants will be able to:

• Discuss  the two (2) types of mindfulness, i.e., Open Monitor (OM) and Focused Attention (FA).
• Name at least three (3) types of concentrative meditation.
• Articulate at least two (2) similarities and differences between hypnosis and mindfulness.

This program meets APA’s continuing education standard 1.1: Program content focuses on application of psychological assessment and/or intervention methods that have overall consistent and credible empirical support in the contemporary peer reviewed scientific literature beyond those publications and other types of communications devoted primarily to the promotion of the approach.

This program meets APA’s continuing education goal  1: Program is relevant to psychological practice, education, and/or science

General Admission: $65.00

SCEH Members: $55.00

Students: $15.00*

(Please email [email protected] for coupon code)

Refund Policy: 100% of tuition is refundable up to 48 hours before the program. Within 48 hours of the program, and at any point in Homestudy format, tuition is nonrefundable.

Akira Otani, Ed.D., ABPH, Affiliation: Waypoint Wellness Center, Annapolis, Maryland

Akira Otani, Ed.D., ABPH, is a psychologist in private practice at Waypoint Wellness Center in Annapolis, MD. Before joining the current practice group, he served on the graduate faculty at the Division of Education, The Johns Hopkins University, and as Senior Staff Psychologist at the University of Maryland Counseling Center at College Park. Akira’s interest and training in clinical hypnosis started during his doctoral internship when he worked with Kay F. Thompson, DDS, a close friend and colleague of Milton H. Erickson, M.D. Akira, a grandson of a Buddhist monk, was also fascinated by Buddhism from his undergraduate days. His passion concentrated on Zen and later Theravāda meditation, their methodologies, and phenomena related to enlightenment. The paths of hypnosis and meditation crossed in 2016 when he spent 6 months in Kobe, Japan, and studied Buddhist meditation with a former Theravāda monk who had served as a resident fellow at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center where Jon Kabat-Zinn started the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) in the 1980s.
Akira is a member of SCEH, ABPH Diplomate, and Fellow of ASCH. He has published 9 books (in Japanese) and more than 70 scholarly articles and book chapters (in English and Japanese), most of which are about hypnosis, Buddhist meditation, and their synthesis. He is an avid book collector, meditator (more than 3,200 plus hours to date), and aficionado of spicy food.

Crosby, K. (2013). Traditional Theravada meditation and its modern-era suppression. Buddha-Dharma Centre of Hong Kong.

Farias, M., Brazier, D., & Lalljee, M. (2021). The Oxford handbook of meditation. Oxford University Press.

Ganesan, S., Beyer, E., Moffat, B., Van Dam, N. T., Lorenzetti, V., & Zalesky, A. (2022). Focused attention meditation in healthy adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis of cross-sectional functional MRI studies. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 104846. DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104846.

Hove, M. J., Stelzer, J., Nierhaus, T., Thiel, S. D., Gundlach, C., Margulies, D. S., Van Dijk, K. R., Turner, R., Keller, P. E., & Merker, B. (2015). Brain network reconfiguration and perceptual decoupling during an absorptive state of consciousness. Cerebral Cortex, 26, 3116-3124.

Otani, A. (2016). Hypnosis and mindfulness: The Twain finally meet. American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 58, 383- 398.

Otani, A. (2020). The Mindfulness-Based Phase-Oriented Trauma Therapy (MB-POTT): Hypnosis-informed mindfulness approach to trauma. American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 63, 95-111.

Otani, A. (2023) Using Buddhist meditation-informed hypnotic techniques to manage rumination: Two case illustrations. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 71, 48-62.

Otani, A. (In press). Mindfulness and hypnosis in care. In J. Linden, G. De Benedittis, L. Sugarman, & K. Varga (Eds.). International handbook of clinical hypnosis. Wiley.

Raz, A., & Lifshitz, M. (Eds.). (2016). Hypnosis and meditation: Towards an integrative science of conscious planes. Oxford University Press.

Yamabe, N. (2021). Concentration and visualization techniques in Buddhist meditation. In M. Farias, D. Brazier & M.
Lalljee (Eds.) (2021). The Oxford handbook of meditation. Oxford University Press.

Zhang, J., Raya, J., Morfini, F., Urban, Z., Pagliaccio, D., Yendiki, A., Auerbach, R. P., Bauer, C. C., and WhitfieldGabrieli, S. (2023). Reducing default mode network connectivity with mindfulness-based fMRI neurofeedback: A pilot study among adolescents with affective disorder history. Molecular Psychiatry, 1-9. DOI: 10.1038/s41380-023-02032-z.

Target Audience: Some basic knowledge of the specific content area is required, but you need not have in-depth knowledge or skills. The panel will provide information at a level beyond the basic knowledge of the topic.

Psychologists. This program, when attended in its entirety, is available for 1.5 continuing education credits. The Chicago School of Professional Psychology is committed to accessibility and non-discrimination in its continuing education activities. The Chicago School of Professional Psychology is also committed to conducting all activities in conformity with the American Psychological Association’s Ethical Principles for Psychologists. Participants are asked to be aware of the need for privacy and confidentiality throughout the program. If program content becomes stressful, participants are encouraged to process these feelings during discussion periods. If participants have special needs, we will attempt to accommodate them.

Counselors/Clinical Counselors. This program, when attended in its entirety, is available 1.5 hours of continuing education. The Chicago School of Professional Psychology is licensed by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR) to provide continuing education programming for counselors and clinical counselors. License Number: 197.000159

Social Workers. This program, when attended in its entirety, is available for 1.5 hours of continuing education. The Chicago School of Professional Psychology is licensed by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR) to provide continuing education programming for social workers. License Number: 159.001036

MFTs, LPCCs, and LCSWs. Course meets the qualifications for 1.5 hour of continuing education credit for MFTs, LPCCs, and/or LCSWs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences. If you are licensed outside of California please check with your local licensing agency to to determine if they will accept these CEUs. The Chicago School of Professional Psychology is approved by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences (BBS) to offer continuing education programming for MFTs, LPCCs, LEPs, and/or LCSWs. The Chicago School of Professional Psychology is an accredited or approved postsecondary institution that meets the requirements set forth in Sections 4980.54(f)(1), 4989.34, 4996.22(d)(1), or 4999.76(d) of the Code.

Non Psychologists. Most licensing boards accept Continuing Education Credits sponsored by the American Psychological Association but non-psychologists are recommended to consult with their specific state-licensing board to ensure that APA-sponsored CE is acceptable.

*Participants must attend 100% of the program in order to obtain a Certificate of Attendance.

If participants have special needs, we will attempt to accommodate them. Please address questions, concerns and any complaints to [email protected]. There is no commercial support for this program nor are there any relationships between the CE Sponsor, presenting organization, presenter, program content, research, grants, or other funding that could reasonably be construed as conflicts of interest.