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HEALTH: Hypnosis gaining respectability among doctors, patients BY MICHAEL WALDHOLZ Wall Street Journal Hypnosis, often misunderstood and almost always controversial, is increasingly being employed in mainstream medicine. Numerous scientific studies have emerged in recent years showing that the hypnotized mind can exert a real and powerful effect on the body. The new findings are leading major hospitals to try hypnosis to help relieve pain and speed recovery in a variety of illnesses. At the University of North Carolina, hypnosis is transforming the treatment of irritable bowel...

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Pain Relief and Management for Chronic Conditions James Duncan, C.Ht. © 2003 Almost any person can be trained through hypnosis for pain management, to relieve anxiety, regain muscle control and to respond positively to treatment of any kind. Suggestions are given for controlling pain and discomfort if it becomes particularly intense, but leaves the client the ability to experience any natural warning signs that need to be addressed as discomfort is designed to do just that. Once the issue is addressed the discomfort is programmed to disappear. Many people...

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 8-AUG-2004 Pain in the brain: It's not what you imagine Researchers are one step closer to unravelling the mystery of medically unexplained pain such as chronic low back pain, which continues to baffle doctors. A study exploring the experience of pain in hypnotised volunteers has found that some types of pain which cannot be traced to a medical condition may have its origins in our brains, not in our bodies. The study by University College London and University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre found that volunteers who felt pain as a result of hypnotic suggestion showed...

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Hypnosis: An altered state of consciousness By Mayo Clinic staff Have you ever been totally absorbed while reading a book or cooking or watching a movie? Did you zone out to the point where you didn't notice what else was going on around you? If so, you have experienced a type of trancelike state or focused attention that's similar to what happens to you during hypnosis. Although its medical uses aren't entirely understood, hypnosis, when provided by a certified hypnotherapist or other qualified clinician, appears to help with a variety of health conditions. These range from helping to control...

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ENTERPRISE From the November 15, 2002 print edition Hypnotism gaining respect in medicine as a useful tool Danek S. Kaus About a dozen people sit in a dimly lit circle of comfortable chairs. The people are deeply relaxed as they listen to a voice guide them through images designed to promote healthy bodies. That might sound like a New Age retreat in the mountains, but it's a classroom at Stanford University. The speaker is Jeanne Fournier, a medical hypnotherapist from Mountain View. She conducts group sessions at Stanford Hospital's Center for Integrated Medicine as well as at Palo...

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Hypnosis really changes your mind 13:28 10 September 04 NewScientist.com news service Hypnosis is more than just a party trick, it measurably changes how the brain works, says a UK researcher. Hypnosis significantly affects the activity in a part of the brain responsible for detecting and responding to errors, says John Gruzelier, a psychologist at Imperial College in London. Using functional brain imaging, he also found that hypnosis affects an area that controls higher level executive functions. "This explains why, under hypnosis, people can do outrageous things that ordinarily they wouldn’t...

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Health briefings September 12, 2005 Times You won't feel a thing . . . by Liz Bestic Hypnosedation may reduce the need for general anaesthetic How amusing it is to see hypnotists make people cluck like chickens or bark like dogs. But while their art is seen by many as a form of entertainment, new research suggests that, medically, there may be a serious role for hypnosis. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) a team of neuroscientists at the University of Pittsburgh have seen hypnosis actually working on the brain. In a study to be published this year, a group of patients with...

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Published on 07/21/1997 Hypnosis gains acceptance in health care By Clyde Noel / Town Crier Staff Writer Ever go upstairs, or walk in a room, and when you get there you've forgotten why you came? Or, maybe you were driving on the freeway and started to daydream and went past your exit and wondered where you were? Josie Hadley, a longtime resident of Los Altos and a Palo Alto-based hypnotherapist, will tell you everything you ever learned is stored in your subconscious, and when things like that occur, it's because your conscious mind is free. "The knowledge required to drive a car exists...

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HYPNOSIS FOR PAIN AND ANXIETY An alternative tested in the procedure room. by Anne H. Spencer, Ph.D. A Prospective, randomized trial described in the April 29, 2000, Lancet evaluated the effectiveness of hypnosis – termed "nonpharmacologic analgesia" – in easing pain and anxiety associated with undergoing minimally invasive surgical procedures such as angiograms and angioplasties (which require catheterization of arteries), nephrostomies (kidney drainage), and liver biopsies. The researchers randomly assigned 241 patients treated in a radiology unity at a university hospital to one of three...

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HYPNOSIS & RELIGIOUS FAITH by Chaplain Paul G. Durbin, Ph.D. Durbin before a lecture on "Hypnosis and Religion" A few years ago, I read an article in Family Weekly titled, "Boom Days For Devil Hypnosis" Hearing that title: what ideas, images, thoughts come to you? Thought the article had what I considered a very negative title, it was a very positive article on hypnosis in the health care field. The only reference to the devil was in the last paragraph, "Some conservative religious groups consider hypnosis to be the work of the devil."Hypnosis is mistakenly viewed as mind control or demonic...

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