sophie's blog

You will know by now that something that makes me very happy indeed is a good solid piece of research on hypnosis in health care.

Today I've been reading about a team of scientists from the Universities of Birmingham and University College London who, according to this article in The Birmingham Post have been using fMRI scans 'to examine whether a combination of suggestion and hypnosis would help patients cope better with painful sensations.'

The study looked at patients with fibromyalgia, the chronic condition that causes severe physical pain throughout the body and debilitating fatigue. If you suffer from fibromyalgia, the chances are that your GP has been unable to help you.

However, this new study, published in the European Journal of Pain, found that 'patients were able to alter their experiences of pain by turning down an imaginary dial measuring its levels.'

Here is what the article goes on to say:

'Under hypnosis, 46 fibromyalgia patients were asked to use this device [the dial] to show the level of pain they were experiencing. Patients were also able to significantly reduce pain levels while under suggestion.

Researchers found suggestion was a more effective tool in controlling pain when the subjects were hypnotised.

The team also used functional magnetic resonance imaging with a dozen of the patients to look at brain activity while they altered their pain.

Dr Stuart Derbyshire, who led Birmingham’s team, said: “Fibromyalgia is an unusual condition because pain is experienced without any obvious physical stimulus being involved. In the study we looked at the exact neural processes that affect sufferers and their ability to control their pain.

“Our participants all showed classic brain activity that we would associate with severe pain. However, all were able control the intensity of that pain by turning the dial up or down.

“Although they were all able to affect their pain using the dial, this effect was significantly more pronounced when subjects were under hypnosis.

“This suggests that hypnosis could be a useful tool in helping patients manage chronic pain and is worthy of further research.

Dr Derbsyhire goes on to make another interesting observation about the nature of pain:

“In this case the participants’ ability to turn down pain shows that the experience of pain goes beyond an immediate reaction to a pin prick or burn.

Rather than a stimulus causing pain, these patients might experience pain because of pain signals diffusing from the brain.”

In other words, pain is produced by the brain through complex neural networks. It does not necessarily require an outside stimulus. The kind of brain activity that is capable of turning up or turning down pain could be clearly observed on the fMRI scans as the patients used the dial visualisation in hypnosis.

As Dr Derbyshire concludes:

“Understanding the complex neural networks involved in generating pain obviously has significant implications for our ability to treat pain in all its forms.'

And it has very clear implications for the use of hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis in pain management. It goes some way to explaining, for example, some of the dramatic stories that I have blogged about recently where  we have seen people undergo lengthy operations using self-hypnosis instead of general anaesthesia.

A fascinating piece of research and let's hope that more peope now get access to hypnosis and hypnotherapy techniques to let go of their pain.

After a short break, I am back and raring to go, ready to round-up the latest news and research featuring hypnotherapy and hypnosis.

Hot off the press today is the Daily Mail's report on this new book 'by a team of leading experts, including Edzard Ernst, professor of complementary medicine at the Universities of Exeter and Plymouth.

The article is entitled 'It's not all hokum: A new book reveals which herbal remedies work and which don't' and goes on to say:

'We can't get enough of complementary medicine. Sales of herbal and homeopathic medicines have doubled in a decade and are worth £200 million a year. But how do you know which treatments are effective? And do some carry a risk to our health?'

The article mentions hypnotherapy twice as 'beneficial' - in tinnitus where 'it can help to reduce the loudness of the sound' and in fibromyalgia where it 'may help improve this condition (characterised by general pain) by making the body more relaxed and the patient less anxious about experiencing pain.'

It's good to see hypnotherapy getting some coverage in the treatment of tinnitus and fibromyalgia but, hang on a minute! Since when has hypnotherapy been a 'herbal' or 'homeopathic' 'remedy'?

Modern hypnotherapy, as I and my many well-trained and experienced colleagues around the world practise it, is a sophisticated programme of mind-body treatment that helps the client to facilitate his or her own lasting change. It has very little in common with taking a daily dose of psyllium, glucosamine or willow bark extract. 

Why have the authors of this article lumped together hypnotherapy and other therapies such as acupuncture and chiropractic with taking self-prescribed doses  of herbs such as St Johns Wort? 

This just illustrates the kind of ignorance that still prevails among many journalists and public opinion-formers when it comes to so-called 'complementary' medicine. (I can't comment on what the book by the 'leading experts' says because I haven't read it.)

But whilst I continue on my little rant, what about this term 'complementary'? What does it mean? If I work with someone who has been suffering from, let's say, IBS for many years without getting any kind of benefit from the various pharmaceutical drugs on offer, and I help this client to find permanent and lasting relief from the problem, does this mean that hypnotherapy was a 'complementary' treatment in this context? Complementary to what? 

It is also very disappointing to see that there is no mention in this article of the excellent and well-researched treatment being carried out at Withington Hospital, Manchester using hypnosis with IBS patients, which I have blogged about many times before. Instead, 'fibre supplements' are suggested to'alleviate symptoms'. Well, I don't think that is going to be very effective for the thousands of people whose lives are ruined by debilitating daily IBS symptoms and who have tried pretty much every drug and supplement in their quest for health.

I think the clients I have worked with would just laugh at the suggestion of taking 'fibre supplements'. I think we can do better for them by helping them to address the root causes of their problem - negative emotions, anxiety, stress - and we can teach them to use powerful, simple and cost-effective (as in free!) self-hypnosis tools to help their digestive systems to work easily and naturally.

What a strange and mixed-up article this is. And it is rather annoyingly masquerading under the guise of research by 'leading experts'. Hmmm...

As on so many occasions before where we have seen this kind of jumbled reporting, I can only say 'Come on, Daily Mail reporters!' Let's have some proper information that is genuinely of use to the public rather than this badly-informed and, frankly, irresponsible mumbo-jumbo. Hokum indeed!

I seem to have been blogging quite frequently recently about hypnotherapy and chronic conditions of the stomach such as IBS, Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. The latest research that I have come across is reported in this article in Natural News today.

It reports another good study on hypnosis, this time involving people with recurring duodenal ulcers. It says:

'According to an article published in the U.K. medical journal The Lancet, a study was performed to test whether hypnotherapy would play a role in preventing relapses in people who suffered from duodenal ulcers. The study consisted of 30 people of whom 14 were women, 16 were men, and the average age was 40. All participants had been diagnosed with the disease through an endoscopy. They also experienced relapses with the most recent relapse being within the past six months.

Treatment for the thirty participants included taking the drug ranitidine. The ulcer was given time to heal and was shown to have healed through an endoscopy. All participants continued to take the drug for ten more weeks. The patients were divided into two groups. One group received seven hypnosis sessions and was given a recording of the sessions to listen to on their own. The other group did not receive hypnosis during their sessions. The participants were taken off the medication and follow-up reviews (with hypnotherapy sessions for the hypnosis group) were performed every three months for the next year.

All participants were reviewed after one year. The relapse rate in the hypnosis group was 53% compared to 100% in the control group. Statistically this comparison was significant.'

Well, it certainly is significant, isn't it? :-) As I've said before, if a pharmaceutical product had that kind of result in a study - and with no side-effects whatsoever - we would be toting it as an amazing wonder drug!

So what did the people using self-hypnosis actually do in the study? 

The article says:

'The hypnosis sessions consisted of an induction to promote relaxation. The participants in the hypnosis group were told to focus their attention and relaxation on their abdomen. They were told to imagine feeling a sense of warmth over their abdomen and the warmth was to control the secretion of stomach acid. They were asked to visualize this process.'

Great stuff. Very simple self-hypnosis visualisation techniques. 

Now, what if this were to be combined with some hypnotherapy looking at stress and other factors going on in the patients' lives that may have contributed to the ulcers in the first place? 

And what if we were to conduct a trial in which no medication was used and patients used self-hypnosis to heal the ulcers? Now that would be interesting!

Yes, now is your chance to learn how to be a Hypnotic Journaler in an absolutely FREE event!

I am so looking forward to talking about Hypnotic Journaling and answering your questions as part of a new and exciting personal development teleseminar/webcast series, hosted by the very talented Adam Eason. 

Click here to make sure you know exactly where to go at 7pm UK time on Wednesday 23 July.

You can listen in by phone or online. 

And if there are any questions that you would like to ask me about Hypnotic Journaling, now is the time to ask!

It's going to be lots of fun!  

See you there. 

Have you seen the film, 'Mama Mia', yet - the film that is taking the UK by storm? I went to see it last week and loved every single wondrously kitsch moment of it. Meryl Streep was fabulous and the setting and story-line were a perfect backdrop for the real stars of the film - the songs themselves.

When I was six years old, I knew just about every Abba song off by heart and would dance around the living room at any excuse, choreographing dance routines and singing along. It must have been a very amusing sight. Then imagine my delight when my parents took me on holiday to a posh hotel in Cornwall where every night I could become a Dancing Queen on the disco floor. It had proper lights and everything!

So, I couldn’t wait to see 'Mama Mia' last Saturday – and I couldn’t stop singing all the songs for the entire weekend afterwards. One thing about getting older is that you don't need to worry about a certain penchant for music that is so bad that it's good anymore :-)

Anyway, the reason I am talking about this today is because the press is now buzzing with news that Bjorn Ulvaeus, mastermind behind some of the greatest pop songs ever written has long-term memory loss and has used hypnosis in an attempt to recover some if it.

Apparently, he has no recollection of the band’s Eurovision Song Contest win with Waterloo. Hmmm… I am not sure that particular memory loss is such a bad thing, Bjorn, when you look again at those Eurovision costumes... 

And then apparently, my old firend, Agnetha Faltskog, has been talking about some of her personal trauma during the bands peak of fame. According to this article in The Mail, she hasn’t flown for twenty years since being caught in a storm on a private jet and is only just emerging from being 'mangled' by the trauma of her spilt with Bjorn and the band. Oh, no! This is terrible!

Ok, Ok. It is all becoming clear to me now. Agnetha, don't feel blue...The vision of what I must do is taking shape, as if emerging from a mist of dry ice... Oh, yes, it's true...The hand of destiny, that was always at work, even as I danced around that living room carpet practising my Eighties disco moves, is now calling. Mama mia, here I go again… Get me on the next flight to Stockholm. They need a good hypnotherapist.

I hope that you will forgive me for writing about a personal and somewhat indelicate topic on my blog today. But I have to tell you my news.

The verruca on my foot - that I have had for ten years - has now disappeared as a result of hypnosis!

Yes, hypnosis has succeeded where the most powerful potions and tinctures and one of the best chiropodists in London have previously failed.

My verruca was something of a medical mystery. I picked it up at a swimming pool in London and then spent a year trying to zap the thing in one way or another.  A top London chiropodist told me that I had a drug-resistant strain of wart and that the only possible solution would be surgical removal, which would leave a big hole in the sole of my foot! This would require several weeks to heal, during which time I'd be unable to walk on it. As I'm a very active person anyway, I really didn't think much to that idea. As it turned out, the chiropodist couldn't find a surgeon prepared to do the procedure. 

This is long before I did my initial training in hypnosis and so I just accepted that I'd have to put up with The Wart. Occasionally I wondered whether it is possible for a verrucca to grow so deeply into one's foot that it causes serious damage. Euuueeeww! I know. Revolting. 

I tried aromatherapy oils and homeopathic remedies but The Wart would not budge. Sometimes it could be really painful.

And then a couple of months ago, it suddenly occurred to me that I could help my body to get rid of the verruca myself with self-hypnosis. Why had I not thought of that before?

And here's the thing. For a couple of weeks now, I have been doing a little self-hypnosis on my foot when I'm lying in bed ready to go to sleep. I have been visualising the verruca shrinking and asking my subconscious mind to heal my immune system easily whilst I sleep.

Two nights ago, I had a disturbing dream in which the sole of my foot was entirely covered in warts. Ugh! When I woke up, I immediately checked my foot to find that there was barely anything left of the verruca. Now it has completely gone!

Hmmm! 'Woman cures verruuca with hypnosis' doesn't quite have the same cache as 'Woman undergoes knee surgery without anaesthetic,' does it? :-) 

Anyone in need of a little inspiration on this grey Tuesday morning, please do check out this fabulous video on the BBC news web site about Bernadine Coady, a 67-year-old from Peterborough who has just undergone keyhole surgery on her knee using self-hypnosis. 

All she felt was 'some tugging and pulling' and, to the great relief of the surgeon, the anaesthetist waiting on standby was simply not needed.

In the video, a beaming Bernadine says, 'Anyone can do it!'

A brilliant example of the power of our minds. What a lovely lady and many, many congratulations to her for having the strength of character and self-belief to achieve this. Wonderful!

This morningm whilst enjoying my cranberry and raspberry smoothie (yum!), I was delighted to read this great article by hypnotherapist and herbalist, Anastasia Stephens, in The Independent.

In the article, Stephens cites research on athletic performance that suggests that creative visulaisation of success enhances performance significantly - just what I was blogging about yesterday, in fact. 

She also covers PMS, mood and self-esteem, IBS, pain and headache, breast-feeding and, rather controversially, tissue growth such as increase in breast size. 

She writes: 

'A study in the American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis suggested that women could increase the actual size of their breasts simply by imagining it. Thirty-five women attended hypnosis sessions in which they were asked to visualise images of their breasts pulsating, with warm water flowing over them, helping them to grow. After 12 weeks, 84 per cent of the women's breasts had grown, by an average of 1.3in. A stunning 46 per cent of them needed a larger bra size.'

You know, my grandmother may not have been far wrong with the daily morning visualisation exercises she used as a young girl: 'I must, I must, I must increase my bust...' Although personally I have banned words like 'must' 'should' and 'ought' from my consulting room, my grandmother's early use of self-hypnosis seemed to be rather effective for her.

This is a good article which, though brief, gives a nice overview of some interesting relevant research and suggestions about the kinds of visualisations you might use in self-hypnosis for each problem. 

Wow! Were you watching the tennis yesterday?

We sat down at around 5pm , after my sister's celebration birthday lunch, thinking that we would just catch the end of the match... Four hours later, we were still there, on the edge of the sofas in my parents' living room. 

What an event! And when did tennis get so sexy? Last time I looked, it was not really that exciting. Now I am all ready to sign-up for my local tennis club. The timeless glamour of Federer pitched against the explosive muscle of Nadal. Weren't they both incredibly hypnotic? I could not tear myself away.

As my regular readers will know, I do enjoy watching the body language of the players at the big sporting events, wondering whether I am accurately reading what is going on in their minds and bodies. For example, I find it fascinating to watch a footballer stepping up to take a penalty. 

In that moment, I believe that you can make a very good prediction about whether he or she is going to get the ball in the back of the net, by reading their body language and facial expressions. What matters in that moment is the footballer's own self-belief. If they themselves believe they will succeed, then they will. 

Much of the drama of last night's tennis was contributed by those rain breaks and the way that each player maintained or changed their mental attitude through the course of the match.  I was fascinated to watch the way that Federer used the first rain break to totally transform his body language. As he strode back out there, he looked every inch the champion. Federer dresses and moves and speaks like the champion that he is. 

But last night, I must admit that I was rooting for Nadal. Nadal was harder to read last night. How did he keep going through those disappointments? He never once stopped expecting that he could - and would - win.  

And it was pleasurable to see the gentlemanly way in which each player carried their respective victory and loss at the end of the night. What a shame that we don't see such impeccable behavior more often amongst sports people. Two champion mindsets. Superb stuff!

US shotpoutter Adam Nelson has been talking to the Los Angeles Times  about how he has been using hypnosis to prepare for a gold medal at the next Olympics.

Brushing aside nay-sayers who told him that hypnosis was a load of baloney, Nelson has been working with sports hypnotherapist, Pete Siegel, and feels that he is benefiting from the experience. So strongly does he believe in the power of hypnosis as a kind of mental training that he has even allowed this video to be made of a hypnosis session with Siegel in his hotel room. 

Have a listen. It is always interesting to see how other therapists work. We are all a little different.

I love working with sportsmen and women. I have worked with many now, from show jumpers to waterskiers to runners. I don't generally get them shouting 'power words' when in hypnosis. I tend to create power 'anchors' that people can use to trigger feelings of focus, success and self-belief.

There are some other funny things I noticed about this video such as the Los Angeles Times' captioning of the video as 'Olympic medalist ritual'. Hmmmm... I had better go and get my ritualistic cloak out of the wardrobe, along with my pendulum and magic wand.

Have a play of the video. (I have been trying to embed it here but it doesn't seem to want to be embedded.) Let me know what you think. I'm off for a swim now.