Hypnosis as Adjunctive Care

Is this the proper role for hypnosis? United States government resources already discuss valid research supporting the use of hypnosis in various physiological interventions affecting disease outcomes, immunity, stress, wound healing, and surgical preparation. Yet, my experience is that the use of hypnosis is considered a last resort (if even that) after a complete regimen of pharmacological and surgical protocols have been exhausted. It is our opinion that hypnosis should be an adjunct to allopathic medicine. Indeed, hypnosis and other mind-body interventions should be considered immediately after or even before a diagnosis is completed.

Too often I read in peer-reviewed medical journals that clinicians regularly attribute a myriad of disorders to the "all in the mind" explanation, intimating that the patient is either faking the symptoms or that the malady is a product of some psychological dysfunction. Recent examples of this tendency among the allopathic community include fybromyalgia and chronic regional pain syndrome. To me this only underlines the necessity for medical doctors to get out of the prevailing narrow mind set and to accept the need for truly integrative health care. Unfortunately, organizations and institutes such as the American Academy of Pain Management and The National Institute for the Clinical Applications of Behavioral Medicine are interdisciplinary and integrative organizations which represent the minority of forward-looking clinicians.

On the other hand, mind-body approaches are not just for psychosomatic conditions. Disorders which have extensive physiological basis and symptomology are also affected by the mind. For instance, it is well accepted that pain does not exist until the mind/brain registers it. Additionally, there is a ton of research supporting the affect of the mind on physiological conditions. Examples include the research of O. Carl Simonton of the Simonton Cancer Center and citations available at Pubmed.gov.

Our conclusion is that the typical medical consumer can and will benefit from an integrative and interdisciplinary approaches to health care. As such, mind-body interventions should and must be included early in any health care regimen and not as a last resort. Of course, this should include hypnosis as form of adjunctive care. With the medical community classifying too many disorders as being incurable (see www.Chronic-Pain.org), it is high time that clinicians start thinking out-of-the-box and expand their range of protocols.