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Hypnosis is moving deeper, deeper, into the mainstream
More articles on this topic: HypnosisYou are feeling very, very … healthy
Hypnosis transports some people beyond serenity and absorption to a state of pure silliness. A solemn voice whispering to relax, breathe deeply and imagine a waterfall can bring to mind high school seances, Ouija boards, Woody Allen routines.
Yet the very same technique, the same voice, can move others to climb mountains. After a fall on a climbing expedition that mangled her ankles, Priscilla Morton, a 48-year-old New Orleans social worker and mountaineer, discovered that she was afraid to step off the curb and onto the street, much less climb again.
Using a program of hypnosis, she was able to ascend to the 19,347-foot summit of Mount Cotopaxi in Ecuador. Self-hypnosis “was the only way I could deal with the fear, the cold, the steepness, the exhaustion,” Morton said.
Once mainly the province of entertainers, mystics and New Age healers, hypnosis is now gaining a foothold in mainstream medicine. At teaching hospitals such as those at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and Harvard Medical School, hypnotists work with some surgical patients to help speed recovery. Many of the United States 1,000 or so certified hypnotherapists now get referrals from physicians on cases ranging from irritable bowel syndrome and heart disease to managing the pain of childbirth and cancer. In some studies, 50 percent to 70 percent of people who have tried it say hypnosis has helped them to feel better or heal faster.
But is the evidence strong enough to justify sessions that can cost $100? Most doctors are skeptical. For every person who learns to manage chronic pain, they say, several others manage only a yawn or a shrug. To earn widespread respect, hypnotherapists are going to have to reach more people, more consistently. “At this point, the therapy is certainly not well accepted by most physicians and surgeons,” said Guy Montgomery, an assistant professor of biobehavioral medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
The answer may be to teach hypnotizability, or suggestibility, as it’s sometimes called. In more than a dozen studies over the last decade, men and women of various ages demonstrated they could learn to fall into a hypnotic trance more easily and deeply.
Researchers long thought that suggestibility was a stable trait, like a person’s IQ or leaping ability, that couldn’t be improved on much. Yet there’s little evidence that it’s related to innate gullibility or a person’s imaginative powers. Personality isn’t a deciding factor either; researchers have found no strong relationships between hypnotic suggestibility and traits such as neuroticism, extroversion or intellectual curiosity.
Attitude does seem to matter — in particular, skepticism — and for good reason. Since an Austrian physician named Franz Mesmer first popularized the use of trance-like states as a method of treating anxiety and hysteria in the 18th century, the technique has appealed to all variety of charlatans and healers, as well as to Hollywood scriptwriters, who’ve had fun using it to brainwash, possess and otherwise manipulate characters and plot.
Psychologists trying to teach hypnotic suggestibility often start with a simple explanation of what hypnosis is and what it’s not. Being hypnotized does not turn a person into an automaton or a puppet, for instance; almost always it’s a mundane experience, as familiar as a daydream.
The therapist might have a person simply stare at a spot on the wall, for instance, then gradually relax, feeling his or her arms getting lighter and lighter, as if the bones were hollow, say, as if connected to helium balloons. Highly hypnotizable people often are best at demystifying the trance. Using imaging technology, neuroscientists have taken pictures of people’s brains during hypnosis. The snapshots show a decrease of arousal in the cortex, the brain’s manager and planner, and an increase of activity in areas involved in focusing attention. This makes some sense to psychologists who practice and study hypnosis.
While in the trance, a person is usually concentrating on bringing to mind some vivid image, which could account for heightened attention. The drop in cortical arousal accompanies a decline in moment-to-moment alertness. In effect, psychologists say, the person is conscious enough to hear and understand suggestions such as “You will feel strong and healthy after surgery” or “You will feel calm and relaxed when taking the test,” without applying his or her usual skepticism. If the suggestions are helpful, the theory goes, they may become a part of the person’s subconscious memory.
“This is all happening beneath the level of consciousness, so the suggestions are not something the person has to think about or remember,” said Marc Schoen, a Los Angeles psychologist and assistant clinical professor at the UCLA School of Medicine who has used hypnosis for more than 20 years. Like other therapists who specialize in hypnosis, Schoen has treated everything from social anxiety to pain from cancer and cancer treatment. Henry Polic II, a movie and TV actor in his 50s best known for his work in the 1980s series “Webster,” got a referral to Schoen last summer during treatment for malignant skin cancer. Polic was on a drug and radiation regimen that caused a paralyzing nausea, plus swelling blisters in his mouth so severe that he had trouble speaking and swallowing. While hypnotized, the actor imagined himself in Key West, Fla., at sunset, as he remembered it from a vacation years ago. Meanwhile, Schoen was informing him that the water washing on the sand was clearing his body of illness and relaxing his tissues. It took a few sessions, but the swelling dropped by about half, Polic estimated, and the blisters near the back of his throat disappeared. “Gone, and I mean gone; I could swallow again,” he said. “I have no idea how that happened, but it did.”
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