Tthere has been a great deal of clinical and experimental interest expressed in dissociative disorders and dissociative states. Theories of mental organization and personality have been formulated as a result of this new emphasis on dissociative phenomena.

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One of the most challenging roles of medical providers serving children is to appropriately assess and treat their pain. Pain is one of the most misunderstood, underdiagnosed, and undertreated/ untreated medical problems, particularly in children.

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Hot flashes are a significant problem for many breast cancer survivors and can cause discomfort, insomnia, anxiety, and decreased quality of life. In the past, the standard treatment for hot flashes has been hormone replacement therapy. However, recent research has found an increased risk of breast cancer in women receiving hormone replacement therapy.

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Blair Justice, Mary Ann Richardson and their cohorts at the University of Texas-Houston School of Public Health, conducted a pilot study to differentiate the effects of imagery vs. support on coping, attitude, immune function and emotional well-being after breast cancer. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of 3 groups: standard care, weekly support (for 6 weeks) or imagery sessions (for 6 weeks).

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Researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston conduct guided interviews with bone marrow transplant patients, as a first step to improve the actual design of a mindfulness meditation study.

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Tiffany Field, PhD., professor of pediatric psychology & psychiatry at the University of Miami School of Medicine found that job stress among hospital employees was significantly reduced (less anxiety, depression, fatigue and confusion) by a mere ten minutes of any of the following interventions: massage therapy, music relaxation with imagery, muscle relaxation and social support group sessions.

This research represents the first controlled treatment study of hypnosis and cognitive- behavioral therapy (CBT) for acute stress disorder (ASD), which essentially has the same set of symptoms as PTSD, but they occur within the first few months of the traumatic event(s) and can either persist and become what is known as PTSD, or they can subside on their own. Civilian trauma survivors (N = 87) who met criteria for ASD were randomly allocated to 6 sessions of CBT, CBT combined with hypnosis (CBT-hypnosis), or supportive counseling (SC).

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Researchers at the Institute of HeartMath examined the impact of a workplace-based stress management program on blood pressure (BP), emotional health and work performance measures in hypertensive employees at a global information technology company. Thirty-eight employees with hypertension were randomly assigned to either a treatment group that received the stress-reduction intervention or a wait list control group which received no intervention during the study period. The treatment group participated in a 16-hour program, which included instruction in relaxing imagery, positive emotion refocusing and emotional restructuring techniques intended to reduce sympathetic nervous system arousal, stress, and negative mood and improve performance. BP, emotional health, and work-related measures were assessed before and 3 months after the program.

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A study from Siriraj Hospital in Thailand looked at the effect of a 7-day, intensive meditation program for 101 older adolescent male deliquents in the Upekkha Detention Center. All the boys completed the program and answered questionnaires. Seventy percent of the subjects described feelings of contentment and calm, 53 per cent requested the program be repeated, 52 per cent reported a clearer undestanding in the doctrine of Karma, 44 per cent noted improved concentration and awareness, 36 per cent felt less impulsive. All felt that the meditation practice had been beneficial. The report concludes that meditation is a positive adjunctive therapy for institutionalized juvenile delinquents.

The good news: A new survey of the research on music and healing was recently published by Myskja and Lindbaek at the University of Oslo. The bad news: it's in Norwegian. But the English abstract is available in PubMed. Tidsskr Nor Laegeforen 2000 Apr 10;120(10):1186-90 draws tentative conclusions about music's efficacy for treating anxiety and depression, and improving function in schizophrenia and autism; its utility for pain, reducing the need for medication aqnd helping during uncomfortable diagnostic procedures; its usefulness as a support tool during pregnancy and gestation, in internal medicine, oncology, paediatrics and other related fields; with geriatric patients, alleviating symptoms in stroke rehabilitation, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia; and its supportive role in palliative medicine and terminal care.

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Researchers at the Department of Psychiatry, Medical University of Ohio in Toledo conducted randomized, controlled clinical trials to determine the effects of biofeedback and relaxation on blood glucose and HbA1c (A1C) in patients with type 2 diabetes. Patients with type 2 diabetes were randomized to either 10 sessions of biofeedback (electromyograph and thermal) and relaxation or 3 sessions of standard patient education. All the sessions were individual. Thirty-nine subjects were entered, and 30 completed the 3-month protocol.

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An article in last year's Journal of the American Medical Association reports that 292 women from Stockholm, Sweden were followed for nearly 5 years from the time they experienced either a heart attack or unstable angina pectoris, to see if work stress and/or relationship stress increased their risk of heart trouble (cardiac death, acute myocardial infarction or the need for other surgical repairs). Adjusting for intervening factors such as age, estrogen status, education, smoking, diagnosis, diabetes, triglicerides, and lipoproteins, the team of Orth-Gomer, Wamala, Horsten, Schenck-Gustafsson, Schneiderman and Mittleman found that marital stress increased the women's risk by nearly three times.

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Researchers from the Department of OBGYN at Texas A&M University Health Sciences Center tested the effects of varying the amount of physical practice vs. mental imagery rehearsal for training medical students to perform basic surgical procedures. Using a sample of 65 second-year medical students, 3 randomized groups received either: (1) 3 sessions of physical practice on suturing a pig's foot; (2) 2 sessions of physical practice and 1 session of mental imagery rehearsal; or (3) 1 session of physical practice and 2 sessions of imagery rehearsal.

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Meta-analysis by investigators at the Department of Women's Anaesthesia of Women's and Children's Hospital in Adelaide, Australia, looked at evidence regarding the effects of hypnosis for pain relief during childbirth.

Medline, Embase, Pubmed, and the Cochrane library 2004.1 were searched for clinical trials where hypnosis during pregnancy and childbirth was compared with a non-hypnosis intervention, no treatment or a placebo. Primary outcome measures were labor analgesia requirements (no analgesia, opiate, or epidural use), and pain scores in labor. Meta-analyses were performed of the included randomized controlled trials (RCTs), assessed as being of "good" or "adequate" quality by a predefined score.

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Researchers from the Division of Psychosomatic Medicine at The University Hospital of Basel, Switzerland, investigated whether hypnosis is a useful adjunct in the treatment of allergies. In a randomised parallel group study over an observation period of two consecutive pollen seasons, 79 patients with a mean age of 34 years (range 19-54 years; 41 males), with moderate to severe allergic rhinitis to grass or birch pollen of at least 2 years duration and mild allergic asthma, were assigned to an average of 2.4 sessions of hypnosis, along with continuation of standard anti-allergic pharmacological treatment. The controls, who received standard anti-allergic pharmacological treatment alone, were added to the study in season two. Outcome measures consisted of nasal flow under hypnosis, pollinosis symptoms from diaries and retrospective assessments, restrictions in well-being and use of anti-allergic medication.

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Researchers at the Bedford, Massachusetts V.A. Medical Center find that training patients suffering from moderate to severe heart failure to use the Relaxation Response improves quality of life but not exercise capacity.

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