Hypnotherapy Clinical Trials

Hypnotherapy Clinical Trials

It’s always exciting to me when I discover more evidence of how effective hypnotherapy is, so I’d like to share this with you:

Dr. James Stewart of the Mayo Clinic reviews some clinical trials on hypnotherapy and here are the results on 4 of the areas he studied:

ALLERGY

Allergic reactions usually are not believed to be psychosomatic, and thus are generally considered as unable to be influenced by suggestion. Patients in the hypnosis group had significant reduction in flare (sensitivity to allergy inducing substances) reactions.

PAIN RELIEF

Numerous studies have shown benefits of hypnosis for pain relief. Dr Stewart reports on several studies in which hypnotherapy was shown to reduce or eliminate pain. In one study in which hypnosis was compared to other treatments for pain, it produced the best results of all the treatments.

ANESTHESIA FOR SURGERY

Hypnosis has been used as the sole agent of anesthesia for both major and minor surgical procedures. In the 19^th century, John Elliotson and James Esdaile repoted their successful use of hypnosis for anesthesia in hundreds of operations. In modern medicine, hypnosis is used in addition to other forms of anesthesia. Patients who received hypnosis required less medication, and showed significantly improved healing.

FIBROMYALGIA

Patients who had the disease for an average of 8.5 years who received hypnotherapy obtained significant improvement compared with those who received physical therapy. Benefits included improvements in fatigue, sleep, muscle pain, overall assessment and use of pain medications, with results persisting for at least 6 months.