Evidence for Hypnosis

Many people are surprised at the substantial body of evidence for the effectiveness of hypnosis in treating or ameliorating many conditions. Not only have there been several thousand individual studies, many of very high standard, there have also been many meta-analysis studies too. More importantly still there have been several formal, systematic studies of hypnosis by leading medical bodies over the years. For example: British Medical Association (1955), American Medical Association (1956), National Institute of Medicine (1957).

More recent formal reports were conducted by the British Medical Journal (1999) and in 2001 the British Psychological Society published their The Nature of Hypnosis report, available online here [PDF - opens in new window]

A comprehensive article - summarizing the conclusions of the several formal studies on hypnosis is available here [PDF - opens in new window].

To focus in on a recent example, the British Medical Journal (BMJ) published a 'Clinical Review' of hypnosis and relaxation therapies in which a carefully conducted overview of the best medical research on hypnosis confirms its effectiveness in alleviating pain and treating various medical conditions.  It can be clearly shown that Cognitive -behavioural therapy (CBT) is ultimately derived from hypnotherapy, incidentally, and the CBT techniques used in these kind of studies are often identical to standard hypnotherapy interventions such as goal visualisation.  In any case, the study concludes that hypnosis is effective in the following cases:

• 'There is good evidence from randomised controlled trials that both hypnosis and relaxation techniques can reduce anxiety, particularly that related to stressful situations such as receiving chemotherapy.'
• 'They are also effective for panic disorders and insomnia, particularly when integrated into a package of cognitive therapy,'
• 'A systematic review has found that hypnosis enhances the effects of cognitive behavioural therapy for conditions such as phobia, obesity, and anxiety.'
• 'Randomised controlled trials support the use of various relaxation techniques for treating both acute and chronic pain,'
• 'Randomised trials have shown hypnosis to be of value in asthma and in irritable bowel syndrome,'
• 'There is strong evidence from randomised trials of the effectiveness of hypnosis and relaxation for cancer related anxiety, pain, nausea, and vomiting, particularly in children.' [BMJ 1999;319: 1346-1349 'Hypnosis and relaxation therapies,' Vickers & Zollman]

In brief, the Clinical Review concludes that evidence for the effectiveness of hypnotherapy is particularly strong in relation to three conditions: pain, anxiety and insomnia.  This is fairly consistent with other reviews of research on hypnotherapy.