I spent the last month
visiting a hypnotist and attempting to practice both guided and self-guided
hypnosis. The office-based sessions and
the guided CD hypnosis sessions led to immediate relaxation. Unfortunately, the calm I derived from these
sessions was short lived. I continue to
be plagued by restless sleep. I fall
asleep fairly quickly, but I wake frequently throughout the night despite the
hypnotist’s suggesting to my subconscious that I would not be easily awakened
and when I was, I would fall quickly back to sleep. This is not the case. With regard to my general level of anxiety
and “type A –ness,” I perceive an increased level of calm when I harken back to
the lessons of the hypnosis sessions.
Overall, however, I am as much of a stress monger as ever. Hypnosis for me is akin to meditation: when practiced, I achieve a state of deep
relaxation. I had hoped to go even
deeper and be able to have my subconscious manipulated, but I don’t see this
happening - not that I won’t continue to try.
Enough about me. What proof is
there that hypnosis works? Hypnotists
claim they can cure smoking addiction, relieve pain, and strip one of all
inhibitions. Where is the proof? Following is my attempt to summarize the
medical literature on the benefits of hypnosis.
I go straight to my hypnotist’s web page to begin my
investigation. My hypnotist has solid
academic credentials as a neuroscientist, and she has summarized several
studies on hypnotherapy. Smoking appears
to be a popular vice for which hypnotherapy is utilized. The website summarizes the results of six
studies all addressing smoking cessation via hypnosis. These studies found wild success in smoking
cessation via hypnosis. Rates of abstinence
from tobacco reach upwards of 90%. If
true, these are impressive numbers.
Traditional western methods to stop smoking, nicotine patches, or
medications such as Chantix have only shown a 15-30% cessation rate. Any intervention with a success rate of 90%
should be widely embraced; just imagine the lives that could be saved. I do have one reservation when I review these
studies: they are all in journals I have
never heard of. Smoking cessation is a
mainstream goal. I assume that if a
really convincing study had been performed and achieved a rate approaching 90%,
it would be published in the New England Journal of Medicine or similarly
prestigious journal, but these were published in the International Journal of
Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis and in the Journal of Nursing
Scholarship. I do a literature search of
my own. I find several studies
addressing hypnotherapy for smoking cessation.
A Cochrane Database Review of the literature in 2010 finds “no evidence
of a greater effect of hypnotherapy” when compared to other methods in
achieving smoking cessation. In
contrast, an article in the American Journal of Medicine in 2012 suggests
hypnotherapy may help smokers quit, but the confidence intervals were too broad
to make a definitive conclusion. I find these results to be sobering.
What about hypnosis for stress and anxiety? The benefits here are a bit harder to
quantify. With smoking cessation, it is
black and white: either you quit smoking
or you don’t. I doubt anyone can say
they are ever free of anxiety. The
studies reflect this nebulousness.
Participants were classified as “significantly less anxious,” and there
was “compelling evidence” that hypnosis may help manage anxiety. Again, most of these studies were published
in non-mainstream journals. The overall
finding suggested benefit, but in my mind, remain inconclusive.
Pain management?
If you remember my past postings, my hypnotist used self-hypnosis while
getting a tattoo. She reported falling asleep during the procedure. Goodbye oxycodone, hello hypnosis. My
research into this area again leaves me unsatisfied. Similar to anxiety, studies of pain
management rely on pain scales and subjective reports. I found several articles on using hypnosis to
cope with labor pain during childbirth.
Although several small studies show evidence of benefits for women
receiving hypnosis regarding pain intensity, length of labor and maternal hospital
stay, the overall results are inconclusive.
A large study, published in the Cochrane Database System Review, shows
no difference in the use of epidural anesthesia with self-hypnosis. The moral
of the story is clear . . . give me back my oxycodone.
Hypnosis has been studied in many other realms. One interesting study evaluates post-hypnotic
suggestion as a means to improve academic performance - it didn’t. Another evaluates hypnosis to accelerate the
healing of bone fractures - it did (although the study only had 12 subjects, 6
in the hypnotherapy group and 6 in the control group). There are a litany of other uses for hypnosis
ranging from treating headaches, menopausal symptoms, and obesity to digging
into our long suppressed childhood memories.
With all of these potential benefits, why have I included hypnosis in my
exploration of “alternative medicine?” Clearly, it should be mainstream. Perhaps psychiatry holds the answer.
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