This study checks out is effective and safe for people suffering from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
A total of 464 patients received 7–12 hypnosis sessions over a 12 week period. At the end of therapy, hypnosis proved to be superior in producing adequate symptom relief.
This study demonstrated that hypnosis was safe and provided long-term adequate symptom relief in 54% of IBS patients compared to conventional therapy. [more]
A meta-analysis examines treatments like meditation and cognitive behavioral therapy as alternatives for alleviating pain that is typically treated with opioids.
The more we learn about opioids, the clearer it becomes that there’s no simple solution to the opioid crisis and the cycle of dependency and misuse that has already impacted millions of Americans.
It’s especially difficult given how effective opioids are at pain management, particularly the kind of acute, short-term pain associated with cancer treatment or surgical or injury recovery.
Researchers are actively seeking alternatives to opioids when it comes to pain management—and a meta-study tracking the efficacy of mind-body therapies for treating pain that was previously managed with opioids indicates that some MBTs could act as effective pain management treatments, as well as tools for helping reduce opioid use and dependency.
The survey examined 60 studies looking at the effectiveness of “psychologically oriented MBTs,” including meditation, hypnosis, guided imagery, relaxation, cognitive behavioral therapy, and therapeutic suggestion, at pain management and/or opioid use outcomes.
The overview found a moderately significant association between MBTs and pain reduction and a smaller significant association between MBTs and reduction of opioid doses, as well as some relationship between MBTs and the treatment of opioid misuse and cravings.
Meditation was found to have the strongest correlation with pain reduction. The five meditation-related studies reviewed all showed participants experiencing some level of pain relief from the therapeutic treatment.
Four of the five studies also found meditation and mindfulness resulted in “opioid-related outcomes,” including decrease in opioid dosage, decreased cessation time, and dips in opioid misuse and cravings.
Hypnosis and CBT were also associated with positive opioid-related outcomes, with 12 of 23 hypnosis studies and four of the seven CBT studies reviewed showing “significant therapeutic effects” on opioid use.
Eric Garland, the study’s lead author, said his background in social work led him to a better understanding of the relationship between MBTs and pain, as well as the one between MBTs and opioids. “I’m a licensed clinical social worker,” Garland told VICE. “I’ve used mind-body therapies both for the treatment of chronic pain as well as the treatment of addictive behaviors.”
He said opioid misuse, pain, and MBTs all have one major factor in common: the brain. “Mind-body therapies make a lot of sense for the treatment of pain since all pain is in the brain.
If you use a technique that changes the way the brain functions, that changes the way the brain interprets signals from the body and therefore it will affect the experience of pain, as well as the person’s emotional reaction to pain.”
Since long-term opioid use can lead to brain changes like opioid tolerance and a loss of the ability to self-regulate opioid usage, MBTs can play a dual role for someone already using prescription drugs to manage their pain, Garland said.
“[MBTs] are all about teaching people a way to regain some of that control over the function of the brain and so therefore it can be useful not only for reducing the pain and helping the patient manage the pain, but also helping them gain better control over their opioid use itself.”
Does this mean people with opioid use disorder or who are living with pain from other medical procedures can ditch the Oxycontin and just fire up a ‘Yoga with Adrienne’ video? Of course not.
Research has shown that mindfulness and opioids don’t operate on the same parts of the brain, for starters, which means MBTs are a better side-by-side treatment than a ready-made substitute for medication.
The 60 studies surveyed included a total of 6404 participants who were already taking opioids, which averages out to around 100 people per study—a sample group too small to base conclusive solutions on.
Authors were careful to note that different MBTs were applied to different types of pain, with meditation studies tending to target chronic pain while hypnosis, relaxation, therapeutic suggestion and guided imagery treatments were more likely to be applied to acute pain.
Garland also said in the future, he hopes more research will focus on the relationship between MBTs and opioid use, rather than just the relationship between MBTs and pain.
By: Katie Way
This is a truly ground-breaking study. It’s the first one to study the effects of various areas of the brain before and after hypnosis in people with dental phobias. While it’s a relatively small sample size, it’s a push in the right direction. Out of the 24 people involved in the study, 12 were dental phobics and the other 12 were the control group.
This study illustrates the fact that anxiety-provoking stimuli can be reduced via hypnosis. This includes the actual dental surgery, endodontic treatments, and a low amount of anesthesia. It also shows that the fear centers of the brain changed as well. Using fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) various fear structures of the brain were researched.The conclusion so far is hypnosis is a powerful method inhibiting reaction of fear circuitry structures in dental phobics. [more]
By: Hypnosis Training Academy
Karen overcame her chronic fear of flying with hypnotherapy. [info]
Major hospitals are finding hypnotherapy can help sufferers of digestive conditions like heartburn, colitis, acid reflux and irritable bowel syndrome.
Sarah Blau settles into a wicker chair, stretching her feet onto an ottoman. In a soothing voice, Laurie Keefer, says, “I’m going to count from one to three, and as I count, your eyelids will get heavy and they’ll close whenever it feels right.”
Dr. Keefer, a health psychologist at Mount Sinai Health System, has Ms. Blau progressively relax each part of her body and guides her to “a place of rest and comfort and healing.” “Enjoy the beauty of this natural, healing place,” she tells her, “and as you do, something very powerful and healthy and positive is taking place deep inside your body. Your body knows what it needs to maintain healing your gut. It knows how to keep pleasant sensations in and avoid pain and discomfort.”
Hypnotherapy—when patients enter a trance-like state using relaxation and visual images—is often associated with alternative medicine. But increasingly medical centers are using it to treat digestive conditions like acid reflux, irritable bowel syndrome and ulcerative colitis, a disease Ms. Blau learned she had in 2016.
Studies have shown hypnotherapy is effective reducing symptoms associated with these gastrointestinal disorders. Insurance companies usually cover the treatments. The body of evidence is strongest for IBS, but a 2013 study found hypnotherapy was effective at prolonging remission in colitis patients. And a 2016 pilot study found patients with functional heartburn reported fewer symptoms.
Dr. Keefer works at the Susan and Leonard Feinstein Inflammatory Bowel Disease Clinical Center at Mount Sinai. There she does hypnotherapy for patients with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, diseases caused by inflammation of the intestines.
The treatment usually consists of about seven sessions over three months, with home practice in between. Studies have found the effects can last more than a year and work in more than half of patients.
In addition to Mount Sinai, hypnosis for patients with digestive conditions is available at University of Michigan, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, University of Washington in Seattle, Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and Loyola University Medical Center and Northwestern Memorial Hospital in the Chicago area. Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., also is exploring adding hypnotherapy for IBS patients.
Laurie Keefer, a health psychologist at Mount Sinai Health System, conducts hypnotherapy research and treatments on patients with inflammatory bowel disease. There is a three-to-six-month wait list for the treatment.
Some patients get a little uneasy about the word ‘hypnosis,’ ” says Andrea Bradford, an assistant professor of medicine at Baylor, which started offering the treatment in 2016. “It conjures up images of some guy in Vegas making you bark like a dog. It takes some education to explain to them what it constitutes and what it does not.” She says about one-third of patients are open to it.
Experts theorize that hypnotherapy works because many gastrointestinal disorders are affected by a faulty connection between the brain and the gut, or digestive tract. The gut and brain are in constant communication. When something disrupts that communication, the brain misinterprets normal signals, which can cause the body to become hypersensitive to stimuli detected by nerves in the gut, causing pain. Experts believe hypnosis shifts the brain’s attention away from those stimuli by providing healthy suggestions about what’s going on in the gut.
“It doesn’t get rid of the stimulus. Your GI tract is still moving. It’s just changing the threshold of perception so you’re not paying attention or feeling it with the same intensity,” says John Pandolfino, chief of gastroenterology and hepatology at Northwestern, which started offering hypnotherapy in 2006 and has plans to expand to two regional hospitals. Northwestern has trained health psychologists in GI disorders who have moved on to start programs at other academic centers.
Sarah Quinton, a gastrointestinal psychologist at Northwestern, is part of a team that conducts hypnotherapy treatments, along with two other psychologists and students in training. . They plan to expand treatments two local hospital due to patient demand and success rates.
Because there aren’t many treatments for IBS, hypnotherapy has become “the front-line therapy,” Dr. Pandolfino says. Dr. Pandolfino says he will take patients with reflux problems whose symptoms aren’t improving off their medication. After that, if their acid levels are normal but they still experience symptoms, like chest pain, he recommends hypnotherapy. This happens with “a large number of patients,” Dr. Pandolofino says.
David Dewey, a 58-year-old real-estate developer in the Chicago suburbs, says hypnotherapy helped rid him of abdominal pain that sometimes kept him up at night. His doctor at Northwestern told him that his diagnosis of IBS was incorrect and that the real problem was related to his brain.
His doctor said, he recalls, “It sounds crazy, but we’ve been having great success with hypnotherapy.” He figured he had nothing to lose, since nothing else had helped for two years. The pain disappeared in under 10 sessions. “Sometimes it creeps back a little, and I just do one or two [home] sessions and it goes away,” Mr. Dewey says.
Olafur Palsson, a professor of medicine and clinical psychologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, developed the first script, or protocol, for hypnosis treatment for IBS in 1995. The script has been 
adapted for use in other GI disorders.
He has trained hundreds of therapists in the protocol, which he says 600 therapists across the country use today. Most professionals who conduct hypnotherapy treatments are psychologists. Shoba Krishnamurthy, a gastroenterologist at the University of Washington, got training and decided to incorporate it into her practice about three years ago.
“It’s mostly for patients who have had a work-up but we haven’t found anything abnormal in tests, so there is not a specific abnormality to treat,” she says. Ms. Blau, a 32-year-old who has been undergoing hypnotherapy at Mount Sinai, began the treatments in the fall, when her colitis was under control, as a preventive measure. It has remained that way. “I’ve been feeling really good,” she says.
By: Sumathi Reddy
Irritable bowel syndrome is a chronic condition that affects many people across the world. Due to symptoms such as abdominal pain, this disorder can have a big impact on life quality. New research, however, reveals that hypnotherapy can improve life for those with the condition.
Can hypnotherapy truly relieve IBS symptoms?
People with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) can experience symptoms such as abdominal pain and abnormal bowel movements to various degrees of severity, and they can also face mental health problems, including anxiety and depression.
Some common approaches to managing IBS are by carefully controlling one’s diet, improving one’s lifestyle choices, and, if necessary, seeking mental health therapy.
In the past, some research has suggested that people with IBS may also benefit from hypnotherapy sessions. Now, specialists at the University Medical Center Utrecht and other institutions in the Netherlands have decided to delve deeper into the question of whether hypnotherapy can improve IBS symptoms — and if so, in what way. The researchers recently conducted a randomized controlled trial, the findings of which now appear in The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology.
Improved symptom relief
The study assessed the efficacy of individual and group hypnotherapy in IBS. It is the largest study to date to look into this issue.
In the study, the researchers worked with 354 participants aged 18–65 with IBS.
The scientists randomly selected participants to take part in one of three interventions:
– individual 45 minute hypnotherapy sessions twice per week for 6 weeks (150 participants)
– group hypnotherapy sessions with the same timeframe (150 participants)
– dedicated educational supportive care sessions (54 participants)
For the delivery of the hypnotherapy sessions, the team recruited psychologists who had trained in hypnotherapy. During the sessions, the hypnotherapists applied techniques of positive visualization, providing suggestions about pain and discomfort management.
They also gave the participants CDs containing materials that would allow them to practice hypnosis techniques on their own for 15–20 minutes on a daily basis.
The researchers asked the participants to fill in questionnaires assessing various factors relevant to the study — including the severity of their IBS symptoms, their quality of life, how much they spent on healthcare, and how often they had to miss work due to the condition.
The assessments took place at baseline, at the 3-month mark, and at the 9-month mark. The team also evaluated to what extent participants experienced relief immediately after the intervention (at the 3-month mark) and then again 9 months later.
The scientists found that the people with IBS who had participated in hypnotherapy — whether individual or group-based — experienced the most satisfactory degree of symptom relief, compared with participants in the educational supportive care group.
Participants who underwent hypnotherapy were still enjoying the benefits 9 months after the treatment. However, the researchers claim that despite reporting satisfactory rates of symptom relief, the participants did not actually see a significant improvement in symptom severity as such.
“We do not know exactly how gut-directed hypnotherapy works,” says lead researcher Dr. Carla Flik, “but it may change patients’ mindset and internal coping mechanisms, enabling them to increase their control over autonomic body processes, such as how they process pain and modulate gut activity.”
Group sessions just as promising
Other than symptom relief, the tested-for factors — including quality of life, psychological problems, healthcare costs, and work absence — remained roughly the same among all the participants following the interventions.
The researchers also admit that their study faced a few limitations. For example, some participants — 22 (15 percent) of those in the individual hypnotherapy group, another 22 (15 percent) of those in the group hypnotherapy sessions, and 11 (20 percent) of those in the educational supportive care group — dropped out of the study.
Also, a significant number of participants did not manage to fill in all the questionnaires, which, the researchers say, may have impacted the findings. However, the researchers note that the results they recorded in the recent study may, in fact, have been an underestimation, since the hypnotherapists did not have previous experience in treating people with IBS, specifically. Also, the participants only received six hypnotherapy sessions, which is only half the number of sessions that a person would normally expect to receive.
“Our study indicates that hypnotherapy could be considered as a treatment option for patients with IBS, irrespective of symptom severity and IBS sub-type. It is also promising to see that group hypnotherapy is as effective as individual sessions, which may mean that more people could be treated with it at lower cost, should it be confirmed in further studies.”
“What’s striking about these findings is the extent to which patients’ perception of their illness has an effect on their suffering, and that their perception of symptoms appears to be as important as actual symptom severity,” adds Dr. Flik.
By: Maria Cohut
A Boston area Hypnotherapist, with 10 years of medical experience as an RN, Paul has been helping clients since 2001 to overcome everyday challenges. Read more
Healthy Hypnosis: The Simple Truth and Practical Use Paul explains the A-B-C’s of clinical hypnosis and offers case studies and examples of actual client sessions. This is a must read for anyone interested in this fascinating technique.
