In the latter half of the twentieth century, two factors contributed to the development of what subsequently became known as the cognitive-behavioural approach to hypnosis. 1) Cognitive and behavioural theories of the nature of hypnosis (influenced by the seminal theories of Sarbin^[21] and Barber ^[22]) became increasingly influential. 2) The therapeutic practices of hypnotherapy and various forms of cognitive-behavioural therapy overlapped and influenced each other.^[23] Although cognitive-behavioural theories of hypnosis must be distinguished from cognitive-behavioural approaches to hypnotherapy, they share similar concepts, terminology, and assumptions and have been integrated by influential researchers and clinicians such as Irving Kirsch, Steven Jay Lynn, and others ^[24].

Hypnosis was used during the 1950s, at the outset of cognitive-behavioral therapy, by early behaviour therapists such as Joseph Wolpe^[25] and also by early cognitive therapists such as Albert Ellis^[26]. The term "cognitive-behavioural" was subsequently introduced to describe their "nonstate" theory of hypnosis by Barber, Spanos & Chaves in Hypnotism: Imagination & Human Potentialities (1974)^[27]. However, Clark L. Hull had introduced an influential behavioural psychology approach to the study of hypnosis as far back as 1933, which was preceded by Ivan Pavlov's own writings on the subject^[28]. Indeed, the very earliest theories and practices of hypnotism, even those of Braid, resemble the cognitive-behavioural orientation in some respects