Medical Hypnosis: An Underutilized Treatment Approach

Abstract

Context: Use of hypnosis in medical practice has long been controversial, but recent developments in medical hypnosis--in particular, the understanding that the power of hypnosis resides mainly in the patient--have profound implications for treatment.
Objective: To illustrate and explain the therapeutically useful application of hypnosis in medical practice.
Design: Case series.
Setting: Department of Preventive Medicine at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, San Diego.
Patients: Five outpatient Health Plan members referred to a department of preventive medicine for alleviation of physical, emotional, or behavioral symptoms.
Main outcome measures: Extent and duration of clinical recovery.
Results: Patients in all five cases had dramatically successful clinical outcomes after three or fewer intensive hypnotherapeutic sessions.
Conclusions: Medical hypnosis is an underutilized therapeutic modality which can be learned easily for everyday use in medical practice, especially when taking the medical history. In this era of emphasis on cost-effectiveness, both medical hypnosis and certain parahypnotic techniques (eg, closed-eye history taking) may be of special interest to physicians.

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