BACKGROUND Gut-directed hypnotherapy is an effective treatment option for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). However, clinical observations suggest that patient satisfaction with hypnotherapy is not always associated with improvement in IBS symptoms. METHODS We evaluated 83 patients with IBS treated with gut-directed hypnotherapy (1 h week(-1), 12 weeks). After the treatment period, patients rep...

OBJECTIVE Postprandial symptoms in irritable bowel syndrome are common and relate to an exaggerated motor and sensory component of the gastrocolonic response. We investigated whether this response can be affected by hypnotherapy. METHODS We included 28 patients with irritable bowel syndrome refractory to other treatments. They were randomized to receive gut-directed hypnotherapy 1 hour per we...

Group CBT is an effective treatment for depression, although there is a dearth of research on the treatment of depression using group hypnotherapy. The present study compares the effectiveness of these two therapies on depression. Experimental and convenience sampling were applied with pre and posttest designs. The sample consists of 30 patients with major depression that were split into two gr...

Idiopathic inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs) significantly affect the quality of life of sufferers. Improved quality of life and patient symptom management may be achieved through integrating psychological/behavioral interventions with pharmacologic treatments. Here is our experience with hypnotherapy as an adjuvant management for an 18-year-old female with Crohn’s Disease (CD) in remission (p...

Hypnosis can be defined as a procedure during which changes in sensations, perceptions, thoughts, feelings or behaviour are suggested. Hypnosis can be used to amplify whatever it is about therapy that makes it therapeutic. It permits a wide range of choices regarding where and how to intervene in the patient's problems. In this paper, we set out to examine the rationale of using hypnotherapy to...

Hypnosis and hypnotherapy are widely used by professionals in the mental health field and in medical settings. We summarize the academic literature of research and clinical applications on the use of hypnosis and hypnotherapy in both psychological and medical treatment. While there is overlap between them, we attempt to make the categories intuitively clear.

There is accumulating and compelling evidence that hypnotherapy is an effective treatment for irritable bowel syndrome. Recently, studies have shown that hypnotherapy has beneficial effects that are long lasting, with most patients maintaining improvement, and with decreased consultation and medication needs in the long term. The particular gut directed approach used, which is aimed at normaliz...

Hypnotherapy is claimed to be effective in treatment of psychosomatic disorders. A meta-analysis was conducted with 21 randomized, controlled clinical studies to evaluate efficacy of hypnosis in psychosomatic disorders. Studies compared patients exclusively treated with hypnotherapy to untreated controls. Studies providing adjunctive standard medical care in either treatment condition were also...

AIM To systematically review the literature evaluating hypnotherapy in the management of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). METHODS Electronic databases were searched (Cochrane Library, Medline, CINAHL, AMED, Embase, PsycINFO, CISCOM, TRIP and the Social Science Citation index), bibliographic references scanned and main authors contacted. No restrictions were placed on language or publication ye...

BACKGROUND Hypnotherapy has been reported as being beneficial in the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). We aimed to test the hypothesis that patients with IBS treated 'holistically' by hypnosis (i.e. by combined psychological and physiological symptom imagery) would have greater improvement in their IBS symptoms than patients treated by hypnosis using standard 'gut-directed' hypnother...