Hypnotherapy09:18 Jun 02 2011
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This is only part of a large article he has (Skeptics Dictionary) on this topic on hypnosis:
Hypnotherapists.
While it is true that some hypnotherapists can help some people lose weight, quit smoking, or overcome their fear of flying, it is also true that cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) can do the same without any mumbo-jumbo about trance states or brain waves. There have been many scientific studies on the effectiveness of CBT. For example, one systematic study found that CBT improves weight loss in people who are overweight or obese. Another systematic study found that CBT appears to be an effective and acceptable treatment for adult out-patients with chronic fatigue syndrome. Finding high quality scientific evidence for hypnotherapy, however, poses a major problem. As R. Barker Bausell says: hypnosis and the placebo effect are "so heavily reliant upon the effects of suggestion and belief that it would be hard to imagine how a credible placebo control could ever be devised for a hypnotism study" (2007: 268). Even if you could devise a hypnosis study that isolated the role of suggestion and belief, how would you do "fake" hypnosis?
**My Note: CBT is abusive. The therapist probably scared them into doing things, lol. I have been in group therapy where they used that and many of the women cried. It is not helpful. If I had to choose, I would use a hypnotherapist or talk therapy. The other is crap in my opinion.
Hypnotherapy is said to be effective for such things as helping people lose weight, quit smoking, or overcome a phobia. Most of the evidence for the effectiveness of hypnotherapy is anecdotal, despite the claims of such groups as the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis (ASCH). Not surprisingly, all the anecdotes are positive! Nobody collects examples of failures or tells the world about their "incomplete successes." If one compares the characteristics of the placebo effect and those of hypnotherapy it is hard to distinguish the difference between these two ducks. Both work because participants believe they work and they occur in a clinical setting where the client is highly motivated for the therapy to work and the provider has all the accoutrements of the healing arts. Suggestion is the heart and soul of both. Hypnosis adds such things as asking the client to relax (important for suggestion to work) or to concentrate on something (which may be completely superfluous).
**My Note: If it works who cares what the mechanism is. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is going to come up again. It is just a buck up system. I wouldn't go to therapy anymore until they got me a private therapist who didn't use that silly type of therapy.
Some hypnotherapists seem to use CBT in their work and it may well be that the CBT and the placebo effect are what accounts for a success here or there with a highly motivated client.* One practitioner, Ronda Graf, says that most people respond to visual suggestions and imagery. She guides smokers to see themselves as nonsmokers, fat people to see themselves as thin, etc., and gives them "anchors" to reinforce the imagery. For example, she teaches her clients to say to themselves, "Cancel, cancel, cancel, I'm in control," when they're tempted to smoke or go for the cheesecake.* We usually have no way of knowing whether the client could have lost weight or quit smoking without the hypnosis because all we know for sure is that in the past the client tried to lose weight or quit smoking, and she failed; but during the hypnotherapy she lost weight or quit smoking. Since we have nothing to compare it to, we have no way of knowing how much hypnosis contributed to the changed behavior and how much came from the person's strong motivation to change, her belief in the therapy, etc.
To those who say "what difference does it make why something works, as long as it works" I reply that it is likely that there is something that works even better and might even be cheaper or more effective. While many hypnotherapists may be generally reliable, help many clients with some of life's minor problems, and are unlikely to take on cases beyond their expertise, many are going to be quacks. Depending on where they are practicing, their education and training might be minimal and dangerous. People with serious physical or mental issues might seek out one of these quacks for a serious disorder that could be relieved or cured by scientific medicine or therapy. Furthermore:
Patients can become dependent on nonscientific practitioners who employ placebo therapies. Such patients may be led to believe they're suffering from imagined "reactive" hypoglycemia, nonexistent allergies and yeast infections, dental filling amalgam "toxicity," or that they're under the power of qi or extraterrestrials. (The Mysterious Placebo by John E. Dodes, Skeptical Inquirer, Jan/Feb 1997).
In other words, placebo therapies can be an open door to quackery.
**My Note: There are many doctors who are quacks as well. I have met them. They can't diagnose to save their lives. They don't catch serious illnesses and in some cases it is directly connected to the death of someone. I could give some anecdotal reasons I am saying this but it would be too long and they aren't all about me.
science and hypnotherapy
One systematic review of studies on the effectiveness of hypnotherapy for the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome found that the effectiveness "is uncertain." A systematic review of studies on hypnosis and cancer patients found that there have been six randomized control studies in this area. They were evaluated for the effectiveness of hypnosis in treating chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting. In five of these studies, the participants were children, a highly suggestible class of subjects. "Meta-analysis revealed a large effect size of hypnotic treatment when compared with treatment as usual, and the effect was at least as large as that of cognitive-behavioural therapy." This is what one would expect if the hypnosis were accompanied by elements of cognitive-behavioral therapy or if both were no more effective than a placebo.
**My Notes: It is clear this guy has not undergone CBT or he wouldn't be going on about it, lol.
One small study (40 participants) done in 1991 found that hypnotherapy may be useful in relieving symptoms in patients with refractory fibromyalgia.* The study compared hypnotherapy with physical therapy but had no control (not surprisingly!) for the placebo effect.
**It's probably better than letting one of the physical therapists get ahold of you. They are the worst if they decide to give a massage and I do know what I am talking about because I was a massage instructor and got into a car accident and well...you get it.
There is an interesting note on the ASCH website:
Because some hypnosis practitioners have been utilizing EMDR, some persons have felt that it may be related to hypnosis, and some individuals have suggested that it may be more effective than hypnotic techniques.*
Others might note that EMDR uses CBT techniques and takes advantage of the placebo effect, as do some hypnotherapists.
Scientific studies have found out a few things about hypnosis. We know that there is a significant correlation between being able to be absorbed in imaginative activity and being responsive to hypnosis.* We know that those who are fantasy-prone are also likely to make excellent hypnotic subjects. We know that vivid imagery enhances suggestibility. We know that those who think hypnosis is rubbish can’t be hypnotized. We know that hypnotic subjects are not turned into zombies and are not controlled by their hypnotists. We know that hypnosis does not enhance the accuracy of memory in any special way. We know that a person under hypnosis is very suggestible and that memory is easily “filled-in” by the imagination and by suggestions made under hypnosis. We know that confabulation is quite common while under hypnosis and that many states do not allow testimony that has been induced by hypnosis because it is intrinsically unreliable. We know the greatest predictor of hypnotic responsiveness is what a person believes about hypnosis.
**My Notes: I believe in Hypnosis but yet I can't say I can't be hypnotized but not in a way a therapist would like. I have been hypnotized but the therapist stated (it was done free) that he would need a couple more times because I was a hard subject, lol. Something to that affect, it was a long time ago. I know I felt heavy and cold and I was aware but lethargic is best I can describe what I remember of it. I saw flashes of things. I wasn't there for anything therapeutic is all I will say, lol.
We also know that the usual personality traits measured on the typical personality inventory such as the Myers-Briggs or introversion/extraversion scales do not correlate well with hypnotizability:
There are 12 standard tests in the SHSS (Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale) which measure how well a subject conforms to the behavior of a classically hypnotized person. By these scales, about 5% of people are classically unhypnotizable, most people show moderate scores, and about 10% are hypnotizable to extreme depths and show the classical deep trance phenomena such as somnambulism, visual and auditory hallucinations, and ability to remain deeply in hypnosis with eyes open.
....hypnotizability does not appear to show any obvious correlation with any of the usual personality traits or characteristics. Not only is gullibility not directly correlated, but gender, extraversion/introversion, and neurotic tendencies have also been shown not to correlate well with hypnotizability.*
One of the fathers of modern hypnosis was the 18th century Viennese doctor, Franz Anton Mesmer. Mesmer stumbled on the power of suggestion by a charismatic character over believing clients. In his early career, he used magnets and magnetized objects to do what today's hypnotists do in the showroom and the clinic, and what faith healers do in tents and churches. With Louis XVIs and Marie Antoinette's help, Mesmer set up a Magnetic Institute where he had his patients do such things as sit with their feet in a fountain of magnetized water while holding cables attached to magnetized trees. He quickly learned that he got the same results without the magnetic props. King Louis was not as fond of Mesmer as was his wife. He set up a scientific commission to investigate his claims, one of which was that he could channel "animal magnetism" (his term for the "energy" he claimed he was directing to bring about his cures) into objects like trees, which would then have curative powers. He was later denounced as a fraud by the French medical establishment and by a commission that included Benjamin Franklin that had performed a rather simple but revealing test involving a "magnetized tree" and a blindfolded 12-year-old boy who was overcome by the force of the energy the farther away from it he traveled.*
Something similar seems to happen with techniques like hypnotherapy: the farther one gets from the science, the more powerful the effect of the therapy.
http://www.skepdic.com/hypnosis.html
I have a problem with studies because they can be set up to fulfill what you believe.
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