Instructions Our Central Question: Does the scientific evidence suggest that hypnosis is effective? If yes, for which conditions is it most effective? . Additional Questions for Consideration (optio

Benefits and Drawbacks

Running Head: Benefits and Drawbacks

The Benefits and Drawbacks of Hypnosis

University of Baltimore

While we have all heard stories of hypnosis or seen it portrayed on television, and in movies, not many of us have participated in any type of clinical hypnosis treatments or studies. It is this reason that society has questions on the efficacy of hypnosis and the clinicians who perform these treatments. Although hypnosis has been utilized in some form since the 18th century there are still looming concerns around whether it causes more harm than good. And whether it can be weaponized against a person.

Hypnosis is defined as “a state of consciousness characterized by an improved ability for responding to suggestions and including deep concentration and diminished peripheral awareness” (Fisch et al, 2020). The objective of this literature review is to identify how hypnosis has been used as a treatment for a variety of conditions from anxiety to addiction, while pointing out which conditions hypnosis was most effective in treating and which uses bring questions.

Literature Review

The main component of hypnosis treatment is relaxation, in all forms of hypnotherapy which is the use of hypnosis as a treatment of medical and mental illnesses, the person’s ability to relax and concentrate makes up the foundation of the process being successful. In the pilot study performed by Duff et al. (2005) the question being addressed was whether patients who might benefit from improvements in quality of life have the cognitive and brain ability to be hypnotized. This study focused on the use of hypnosis to improve the quality of life for patients with dementia, it illustrated that when compared to patients getting conventional care that hypnosis produces bigger changes in reported quality of life and reduces anxiety and sadness in terminally ill patients (Duff et al. 2005). When used along with other forms of intervention like cognitive behavioral therapy, it improved the efficacy of the initial treatment and has a direct influence on the patient’s quality of life.

This study did not claim that with hypnosis treatment dementia can be cured, but the fact that it has demonstrable outcomes in improving quality of life implies that there is a “subjectively cognitive component” (Duff et al, 2005) to behavior change in dementia, in addition to the changes caused by dementia itself. This cognitive component can be seen in several other conditions treated with hypnosis, it includes the ability to be open to suggestions and allow yourself to be guided by these suggestions. As with many treatments and medicines used to help patients get better, there can be side effects that arise after a patient’s exposure to hypnotherapy.

One of these issues made it all the way into the courtroom, we see this in the study performed by Wagstaff (2006) in which a plaintiff accused his clinician of causing him to suffer from schizophrenia after being hypnotized. The prosecution's case was based on the crucial premise that hypnosis includes certain neurological changes that, if not handled appropriately, can make some participants in hypnosis especially vulnerable to harm (Wagstaff, 2006). The prosecution also blamed the clinician’s failure to properly dehypnotize the plaintiff, which they recognized could leave someone stuck in a psychotic state. Research shows that it is not necessary to dehypnotize someone after hypnotism and further states that the process known as “self-hypnosis” would not be viable if one had to receive instructions from a hypnotist to end a hypnosis session and reverse recommendations (Wagstaff, 2006). Reports of major psychiatric disorders following any type of hypnosis are exceedingly rare, it is people who place their trust in bad therapists, insensitive stage show hosts, or unethical research psychologists that run the risk of being degraded, humiliated, and experiencing distress after being hypnotized.

As written in the prior article, dehypnotizing a patient is not necessary, but if this is true how can hypnotism be used to help a person end an addictive behavior? I would like to put forth the argument that stress could be the cause of addictive behavior and by reducing the stress through hypnosis, it heightens the patient’s ability to focus on treatment and not relapse. This connection was shown in the study by Carmody et al. (2007) where hypnosis or behavioral counseling was combined with nicotine patches to assist in the smoking cessation of 286 smokers. “The results showed that hypnosis produced considerably higher validated point-prevalence quit rates than conventional therapy among individuals with a history of depression at 6 and 12 months” (Carmody et al, 2007). Patients who smoked cigarettes as well as suffering from depression had better outcomes than those who didn’t suffer from depression, this goes to my notion that if hypnosis causes a reduction in stress, it can leave a person more susceptible to recovery. While hypnosis interventions had been shown effective in smoking cessation, at the time this article was published clinical practice recommendations for quitting smoking did not list hypnosis as an evidence-based strategy due to lack of sufficient data. Carmody et al. (2007)

There seems to be no guarantee of hypnosis’ effectiveness in treating any condition that I have identified so far, but each study does provide information showing that the use of hypnotherapy can improve a person’s quality of life. This trend is also seen in a pilot study done by Jensen et al. (2018) looking at the efficacy of hypnosis being enhanced by pairing it with mindful meditation and neurofeedback. This study included people suffering from multiple sclerosis with symptoms of chronic pain and fatigue or both. Mindful meditation is a particular type of meditation that teaches the mind to notice experiences (such as thoughts, emotions, noises, and body sensations, including but not limited to pain) in a way that is open, accepting, and free from judgement (Jensen et al. 2018). In neurofeedback, data is collected from EEG results that identify brain activity indicators linked with good reactions to hypnosis treatment, then intervention is given that impacts those indicators before starting the hypnosis session. The results showed that both interventions enhanced the benefits of hypnosis treatment, I would suggest this is because both mindful meditation and neurofeedback put the person in a state of mind to concentrate and focus on relaxation.

When we think of needing to relax, what we are trying to do is reduce the stress in our bodies, stress brought on from varying conditions for varying reasons. The use hypnosis as a stress-reduction technique would seem obvious due the physiological impact and relaxation responses connected with the hypnotic trance. These responses included decreased heart rate, blood pressure, respiratory rate, and increased muscle relaxation, and immunity activity (Fisch et al. 2020). These results are reported in Fisch’s article where the goal of the study was to create a therapy group program for stress relief, while assessing its practicality, and evaluating the effectiveness of the program before and after treatment. My belief is hypnosis has a great impact on stress by calming the body, leading me to believe it’s the relaxation state a person is placed in during hypnosis that causes the body to lessen pain intensity and decrease stress.

The final article of this review looks at the relationship between a patient and therapist and if it is a factor that produces the placebo effect in hypnosis treatment. This research emphasizes the advantages of hypnosis therapy, it specifically diminishes “somatosensory amplification”, which is one of the psychological elements of pain that most affects its experience, however this effect was less noticeable when hypnosis was provided by a therapist (Ciaramella, 2022). There is known connection between relaxation and its effect on the distress-pain response in the body as I’ve stated earlier but this study showed how a therapist can cause a placebo effect in patience when given face to face therapy sessions.

Discussion and Conclusion

References

Ciaramella, A. (2022). Placebo and hypnosis in the clinical setting: Contextual factors in

hypnotic analgesia. American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 64(3), 223–238.

https://doi- org.proxy-ub.researchport.umd.edu/10.1080/00029157.2021.1954872

Carmody, T. P., Duncan, C. L., Solkowitz, S. N., Huggins, J., & Simon, J. A. (2017). Hypnosis

for smoking relapse prevention: A randomized trial. American Journal of Clinical

Hypnosis, 60(2), 159–171.

https://doi-org.proxy-ub.researchport.umd.edu/10.1080/00029157.2016.1261678

Duff, S. C., & Nightingale, D. J. (2005). The efficacy of hypnosis in changing the quality of life in patients with dementia: A pilot-study evaluation . European Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 20-29.

Fisch, S. B., Roll, S., Cree, M., Brinkhaus, B., & Teut, M. (2020). Group Hypnosis for Stress Reduction - A Feasiblity Study. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 1-18.

Jensen, M. P., Battalio, S. L., Chan, J. F., Edwards, K. A., Day, M. A., Sherlin, L. H., & Ehde, D M. (2018). USE OF NEUROFEEDBACK AND MINDFULNESS TO ENHANCE RESPONSE TO HYPNOSIS TREATMENT IN INDIVIDUALS WITH MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS: Results From a Pilot Randomized Clinical Trial. International Journal of Clinical & Experimental Hypnosis, 66(3), 231–264.

https://doi-org.proxy-ub.researchport.umd.edu/10.1080/00207144.2018.1460546

Wagstaff, G. F. (2000). Can hypnosis cause madness? Contemporary Hypnosis, 17(3), 97–11 https://doi-org.proxy-ub.researchport.umd.edu/10.1002/ch.198