The First Asian Hypnosis Congress
in Mashhad, Iran. October 15th- 18th 2019
By Randi Abrahamsen
As one of the very few people from Scandi- navia I participated in the first Asian con- gress of hypnosis in Mashhad, Iran.
It was a great experience participating in a splendidly organized congress and to expe- rience the fantastic, wonderfully warm ho- spitality.
There were one thousand and five partici- pants, including one hundred and eight in- ternational participants from twenty-four
Photo by R. A.
countries. The program was very busy, each day from 8.30 am to 7.00 pm with six- ty-five speakers in total and the possibility to participate in twenty-eight different work- shops as well as a symposium on Sports Hypnosis and another on Hypnosis in Pal- liative Medicine Cancer.
Each morning started with interesting scientific lectures and workshops conti- nued throughout the afternoon. All the main hall events were translated into Iranian or English respectively.
Mehdi Fathi demonstrated hypnotic anaesthesia during a live operation where a nevus was remo- ved from a volunteer’s underarm. There we- re presentations from Iranian speakers and the Asian world such as China, India, Ja- pan, Indonesia and speakers from Mexico and Dr Marcello Romei from Uruguay.
There were also presentations from well- known speakers from the ISH Board: Camillo Loriedo, Bernhard Trenkle, Enayat Shahidi, Giuseppe de Benedittis, Krzysztof Klajs and Woltemade Hartmann.
Many other Europeans especially Germans presented and performed workshops and the Iranians were eager to learn and ex- pand their knowledge of hypnosis.
For me it was difficult to choose between the many interesting and enriching work- shops to listen to such a great variety of to- pics within the many fields of hypnosis.
Here I will just mention a few of them: neu- roscience, quantum physics, trauma the-
rapy, psychosomatics, hypnotic anaesthe- sia, chronic pain, ego-state therapy, hypno- sis in children, sexual disorders, use of hypnosis in dentistry and emergencies.
A beautiful movie introduced the countries of the Asian Society. The Board of the Asian Society and members present from the Asian countries were introduced to the audience. The colourful flag of the Asian Society had been designed in Iran and was also introduced at the congress.
Many Europeans took the opportunity to travel around in the beautiful country befo- re or after the congress and told beautiful stories of fantastic sights and exciting ex- periences.
I am very grateful to Mehdi Fathi, to his crew and to the ISH president Bernhard Trenkle.
They did a tremendous job in organising this congress. It is wonderfully enriching that the hypnosis world can meet in peace in spite of political difficulties in the world.