talkmagic.co.uk

Hi all,

Further to mrgoat's questions in the thread about NLP, I thought I'd start a new one with some info about how hypnosis is effective for medical use and cite a few examples from medical journals and websites. I hope this helps.

Institute for the Study of Healthcare Organizations & Transactions - Quite a good article about hypnosis in general.
http://www.institute-shot.com/hypnosis_and_health.htm

Same site, a very interesting article about hypnosis and surgery:
http://www.institute-shot.com/hypnosis_pain_utility.htm

Same site, another good one about hypnosis and pain:
http://www.institute-shot.com/hypnosis_pain_newlook.htm

Hypnotherapy in Palliative Care Unit - International Journal of Palliative Nursing, 2001, Vol 7, No 12, p604-609, Carole Curtis.
A five month study with 11 patients undergoing palliative care. Hypnosis used to aid stress relief, coping with the illness and prospect of dying. 82% felt it had assisted in improving the problem, 91% felt it had been of general benefit.

The International journal of clinical and experimental hypnosis, {Int-J-Clin-Exp-Hypn}, Apr 2005, vol. 53, no. 2, p. 198-228, ISSN: 0020-7144.
Abstract: Thirty-three adults with chronic pain and a disability were treated with hypnotic analgesia. Analyses showed significant pre- to posttreatment changes in average pain intensity that was maintained at 3-month follow-up. Significant changes were also found in pain unpleasantness and perceived control over pain but not in pain interference or depressive symptoms. The findings support the use of hypnotic analgesia for the treatment of pain in persons with disabilities.

Management of pain after burn injury, Current Opinion in Anaesthesiology, Volume 15(5), October 2002, pp 563-567.
Nonpharmacologic interventions have been reported to be effective in reducing pain in both children and adults and can be extremely important adjuvants to standard pharmacologic analgesia in the burn care setting. Psychological techniques for burn pain include hypnotherapy, cognitive (avoidant and reappraisal), preparatory (sensory and procedural), behavioral therapy (respondent and operant) and distraction. Among them, hypnosis is the most commonly used as an adjunct to opioids for the control of pain during dressing changes. In small pilot studies, hypnosis has been found to be effective in decreasing procedural pain, especially for mild pain.

Suggestion/placebo effects on pain: negative as well as positive. Staats P, Hekmat H, Staats A. Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
This study explores the effect of positive and negative placebo suggestions on pain induced by hand exposures to ice water. Thirty-six participants were randomly assigned to one of the following interventions: (a) positive placebo suggestion, (b) negative placebo suggestion, and (c) control. The positive placebo-suggestion participants were given favorable messages about the beneficial effects of ice-water hand immersion. The negative placebo-suggestion group was given messages depicting the negative effects of exposure to ice water. The control groups were given neutral messages about exposure to ice water. Participants rehearsed the messages and focused on them during their second hand exposures. Results indicate that both the positive and negative placebo-suggestion interventions significantly altered participants' pain threshold, pain tolerance, and pain endurance. Participants exposed to a positive placebo condition tolerated pain better than a neutral condition. Participants exposed to a negative placebo did not tolerate pain as well as participants with a neutral condition.

There are lots more, but I don't have time to find them right now. If you want more info, please post here or pm me.

Cheers,
Wishmaster

Brilliant stuff. Thanks.

Interesting indeed.

The surgery one is good:

"there is no methodologically acceptable evidence that hypnosis, all by itself, can substitute for the chemical analgesia and anesthesia that is the standard of care. Hypnosis is not an alternative to traditional medicine, but it is an effective complement to chemical anesthesia."

It also, points out, fails to find a single double blind piece of research to prove anything at all!

The health one:

It is possible that many clinical benefits of hypnosis are mediated by placebo-like motivational and expectational processes -- that is, with the "ceremony" surrounding hypnosis, rather than hypnosis per se.

and

One popular hypnotic treatment for smoking involves a single session in which patients are taught to repeat a simple persuasive message during self-hypnosis. In one large-scale study of this technique, about 50% of patients stopped smoking immediately after treatment; at follow-up one and two years later, however, this figure had dropped to about 25%. Although this study did not include a nonhypnotic control group, this is about the same success rate as achieved with other cognitive-behavioral interventions.

I agree with all that.

If you have a nice chat with someone they are calmer. If you have a nice chat with someone the feel better. If you tell someone that believes in hypnosis that it will stop pain, they experience less pain.

Would love to find a proper, double-blind, peer reviewed piece of research that a respected journal has published that demonstrates NLP or hypnosis have anything above a placebo effect.

Thanks for the help though. Really interesting reading. I liked the early history and pain part.

Do bear in mind that those I cited are very old, as I just noticed. In medical terms, they are probably questionable as evidence now without newer studies to back them up. These were just the examples I had on file already.

From what I gather, more clinicians are also treating the patient holistically. As the human body is such a complex set of interconnected systems, it doesn't make sense to treat them individually and in isolation. So, in that context it does make sense that hypnosis needs to be in addition to or supplementary to other treatments.

Wishmaster wrote:Do bear in mind that those I cited are very old, as I just noticed. In medical terms, they are probably questionable as evidence now without newer studies to back them up. These were just the examples I had on file already.

From what I gather, more clinicians are also treating the patient holistically. As the human body is such a complex set of interconnected systems, it doesn't make sense to treat them individually and in isolation. So, in that context it does make sense that hypnosis needs to be in addition to or supplementary to other treatments.

Oh I'm more than happy to wait for more papers Wishmaster. But there's no rush. Those examples are certainly questionable, as they say themselves.

However, I'm sure someone here that believes this whole thing works will surely soon post some decent research.

And yes, I'm not surprised many doctors would elect to use hypnosis over drugs for surgery. But if having a little chat with someone before and after their surgery makes them feel a bit better, than that's great.

mrgoat, you are sceptical almost to the point of derision that hypnosis is nothing more than placebo. You are, of course, entitled to that viewpoint. Yet, I still think you are simply taking the p**s here and are not genuinely interested. I'm not convinced this isn't some wind up, based on what you've said so far.

I cannot be bothered playing this game and think I will bow out of this thread. I've tried to help and was more than happy to find current research over the next few days. However, I suspect nothing I post will suffice. I have nothing to prove and will bid this thread farewell.

Good luck.

Wishmaster.

Wishmaster wrote:those I cited are very old, as I just noticed. In medical terms, they are probably questionable as evidence now without newer studies to back them up.

Old research isn't necessarily bad because it is old. Newton's theories are still held in pretty good stead. As are those formed by Pythagoras, Archimedes etc. Freud might be an exception, but let's not assume that old is better than new by default.

By the way, I didn't read mrgoat's post as being as provocative as you seemed to take it.

Ted wrote:

Wishmaster wrote:By the way, I didn't read mrgoat's post as being as provocative as you seemed to take it.

Not provocative so much as sarcastic. The NLP thread has gone in a similar direction. Oh well, there are plenty others. It's all good

Ted wrote:Old research isn't necessarily bad because it is old. Newton's theories are still held in pretty good stead.

Indeed. The Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica has never been out of print, if memory serves. It's how satellites fly.

I've not been much a part of this discussion but I believe a certain Mr. McGill put out dozens of books dealing with Clinical Hypnosis as well as his noted compliments for the performer, as did his close associate Arnold Furst.

Wishmaster wrote:mrgoat, you are sceptical almost to the point of derision that hypnosis is nothing more than placebo. You are, of course, entitled to that viewpoint. Yet, I still think you are simply taking the p**s here and are not genuinely interested. I'm not convinced this isn't some wind up, based on what you've said so far.

I cannot be bothered playing this game and think I will bow out of this thread. I've tried to help and was more than happy to find current research over the next few days. However, I suspect nothing I post will suffice. I have nothing to prove and will bid this thread farewell.

Good luck.

Wishmaster.

Hypnosis has many practical medical benefits but I've got to say, I'm still very skeptical of the idea of using it as a substitute for anesthetic in the operating theatre - especially since the prevailing scientific opinion of hypnosis seems to be that it's just suggestion and social compliance, as opposed to a special brain state. However, if I could see a paper that was either:

A) written by somebody who isn't a hypnotist or doesn't have a background in NLP/hypnotism, or
B) at least refereed by people of significant standing who match the same criteria,

I may be swayed. For now though, I've not seen enough evidence.

This is one of three threads (the others are the Witch Burnings and NLP ones) all going down the same route and it would be a shame to lock them. In all these matters there are strongly held beliefs and opinions which need to be respected, not necessarily agreed with, just respected as a valid point of view.

Can we leave it to the good sense of TM members to self regulate the emotions and continue with to interesting and informative discussion please?

madvillainy wrote:For now though, I've not seen enough evidence.

Why not just give it a go? Book a sessions at a hypnotherapist and see if you can experience "trance state" for yourself? Just a thought.

For the record I neither believe nor disbelieve, though I am tending to ere on the side of social compliance.

INTERESTING FACT pt. 23:

Did you know that one of the first practical uses of "mesmerism" was to talk to dead people? Tis true. The original "seances" were gatherings of people to watch a doctor (or somebody) put a (usually) young, working class girl in trance. Once they were in trance they would proceed to speak to "spirits". Didn't take long for the young lasses to figure out that they didn't need the doctors to put them into trance, so they sacked them and went off on their own, and so spiritualism was born. A Victorian medium would be expected to be in "trance" throughout the whole of the seance, not like these namby-pamby mediums of today who walk around audiences with earnest looks on their faces, asking if anyone can "take" the name John. It was social compliance back in the 19th Cemtury, and I'm not so sure it isn't today.

I would hate to think that I'd spent seven years as a qualified hypnotherapist using techniques which are no more effective than a "chat".

By the way, arguing that hypnosis works by "the placebo effect" explains nothing - that's a label, not an explanation. No-one knows how it works. I prefer to think that the placebo effect works by hypnosis.

I'm a pragmatist and use any technique that works without worrying about an explanation. As a psychology student many years ago I was exposed to so many doubtful experiments and theories that I came to mis-trust them all. But I've seen remarkable changes in clients arising from the use of hypnosis and some NLP techniques (I only use ones that I know are effective), together with meridian therapies such as EFT which in my opinion are largely hypnosis anyway.

Barry

I wonder, does it really matter how it works. Is it a placebo, altered state of mind or something, I don't htink that it matters, the main thing is that it does seem to work.

I had a friend of mine who was a 40 a day chain smoker, she tried everything from patches, gum all sorts to give up and nothing worked. She had one session with a hypnotherapist and she's never touched a cigarette again.

I've been hypnotised on stage and can honestly say that I believed 100% at the time what the hypnotist was telling me. Perhaps it was just suggestion but it worked for me as it did for my friend.

Did you know that one of the first practical uses of "mesmerism" was to talk to dead people? Tis true. The original "séances" were gatherings of people to watch a doctor (or somebody) put a (usually) young, working class girl in trance. Once they were in trance they would proceed to speak to "spirits". Didn't take long for the young lasses to figure out that they didn't need the doctors to put them into trance, so they sacked them and went off on their own, and so spiritualism was born. A Victorian medium would be expected to be in "trance" throughout the whole of the séance, not like these namby-pamby mediums of today who walk around audiences with earnest looks on their faces, asking if anyone can "take" the name John. It was social compliance back in the 19th Cemtury, and I'm not so sure it isn't today"

Hello themagicwand

Funny you should bring this up in topic; I had the pleasure of meeting a gentleman recently who was keen to place this within his esoteric experiment. I think his idea was to have a Psychic place a demonstratee into light trance state to be able to see and interact with “spirits”, and then to relate back to audience members, thus making a medium out of his demonstratee. I found this idea to be most intriguing and wish I had got to see the final product, although the gentleman’s name eludes me. This enables the demonstrator to say any fault with the visions is due to the demonstratee not having opened their third eye correctly. Strange it comes up again so recently.

Much love and energy

tda

Please note- I am having some problems with the quotation system not working for me?