Why Some Doctors Are Reassessing Hypnosis

There is growing evidence that it can help with pain, depression, and more.

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Times are good in the hypnosis business. On YouTube, channels such as UltraHypnosis offer videos featuring candles, swirling patterns, and slow voiceovers, with titles like "Hypnosis to declutter your mind before deep sleep." Some have tens of millions of views.

At a recent conference of hypnosis experts in California, Dr. David Spiegel, one of the speakers, noted the success of his hypnosis app Reveri, which has gained more than 214,000 users in the past year and 650,000 since its launch in 2020.

The internet is full of dubious "wellness" fads, from cold plunging to ionic foot baths. But Dr. Spiegel, a psychiatrist at Stanford University, is not just another influencer on the make. He is one of a small, but growing, band of doctors and researchers who think that hypnosis, which many doctors regard as pseudoscience, has been unfairly maligned.

Although the efficacy of hypnosis for most medical treatments has not been proved, for the management of pain and in some mental health issues, the technique has demonstrated some intriguing results.

Dr. Spiegel and his colleagues are marshalling evidence from a growing pile of clinical trials that explore the effect hypnosis has on the brain and which have tested it in everything from dulling pain in surgery and easing side effects of cancer treatment to treating anxiety, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and depression.

In a paper titled "Hypnosis: the most effective treatment you have yet to prescribe," Dr. Spiegel and Stanford Medical Centre's Dr. Jessie (Kittle) Markovits argue, "If hypnosis were a drug, it would be standard of care."

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