Hypnotherapy has therapeutic applications for both psychological and physical disorders. A skilled hypnotherapist can facilitate profound changes in respiration and relaxation on the part of the client to create positive shifts in behavior and an enhanced well-being. A physiological shift can be observed in a hypnotic state, as can greater control of autonomic nervous system functions normally considered to be beyond one's ability to control. Stress reduction is a common occurrence, as is a lowering of blood pressure rate.

  Gerard V. Sunnen, M.D., Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the New York University-Bellevue Hospital Medical Center, says, because hypnotherapy induces a deep, multilevel relaxation, increases tolerance to adverse stimuli, eases anxiety, and enhances affirmative imagery, it can be adapted to maximize the mind's contribution to healing, both in and out of the hospital.

  Maurice Tinterow, M.D., Ph.D., an anesthesiologist at the Center for the Improvement of Human Functioning in Wichita, Kansas, has used hypnotherapy to control pain for conditions that include headaches, facial neuralgia, sciatica, osteo-arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, whiplash, menstrual pain, and tennis elbow. Dr. Tinterow has also employed hypnotherapy in place of anesthesia in a variety of surgical operations, including hysterectomies, hernias, breast biopsies, hemorrhoidectomies, cesarian sections, and for the treatment of second and third degree burns.

  Dr. Tinterow recalles a fifteen-year-old girl who required open heart surgery. Because the girl proved allergic to all anesthetic agents, Dr. Tinterow used hypnosis over a period of eight weeks, and by the final session before surgery the girl was able to relax quite easily. She was hypnotized before the operation and remained conscious throughout the four-hour procedure. The operation was a success, and today, thirty years later, the woman is healthy and living a full life.

  Gary Lalonde, C.Ht., of Wales, Michigan, also uses hypnotherapy to treat a variety of health conditions. One of his clients suffered from reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD), a chronic condition where pain does not subside and muscle function begins to deteriorate. Lalonde relates that this man had pierced one of his feet with a three-and-a-half-inch nail after stepping on a piece of wood at a construction site. He was treated for the injury, but the pain persisted and grew so bad that he could not return to work. For two years, his condition grew worse. Finally, a thermograph showed that the foot's temperature was eleven degrees colder than the rest of his body. When his doctors told him it might have to be amputated, he came to see Dr. Lalonde.

  Lalonde worked with this client for seven months using hypnotherapy not only for pain relief, but also to explore any link between the man's condition and his unconscious beliefs. It was discovered that within his unconscious he doubted his ability to provide for his family and that his condition took care of that need by enabling him to collect worker's compensation pay. Lalonde worked with the man to change his belief. As he gained confidence in himself, his pain began to reduse. At the end of twelve sessions, the man was free of all pain and the temperature of his foot returned to normal, something his doctors had told him would not be possible.

  Dentistry is another field where hypnotherapy has been used with excellent results. Kay Thompson, D.D.S., of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, regularly uses hypnotherapy in her practice. She describes how hypnotherapy was used to extract a molar in a patient who was allergic to all novocaine-type drugs.

  To prepare the patient for the extraction, Dr. Thompson taught her how to go into a trance using hypnotic induction techniques. After one session with the patient, Dr. Thompson was able to perform the extraction using only hypnosis. Because the molar was so badly decayed, the operation lasted forty-five minutes, yet the patient had no swelling or discomfort afterward, and even ate dinner that night. Dr. Thompson says, meanwhile, a co-worker who underwent a similar procedure without hypnosis needed two days off from work because of a swollen jaw.

  Dr. Thompson believes that her patient's ability to control her circulatory system through hypnosis enhanced the curing process. She says that most people are not aware that they can control their own healing and even influence their circulation. Dr. Thompson and her colleagues have also used hypnotherapy to help treat hemophiliacs, and have been able to perform surgery on these patients without them having any postoperative bleeding.

  The long-term benefits of hypnotherapy are beginning to be borne out. One thorough study of 178 patients suffering from chronic pain between 1981 and 1983 reported that 78 percent remained pain-free after six months; 47 percent after one year; 44 percent after two years; and 36.5 percent after three years. Another study showed the efficacy of hypnotherapy as compared to psychoanalysis and behavior therapy. After 600 sessions of psychoanalysis, 38 percent of the patients reported recovery from their conditions; those receiving behavior therapy improved in 72 percent of all cases after twenty-two sessions; while hypnotherapy produced a 93 percent success rate after only six sessions.

 

  A German physician Franz Anton Mesmer introduced hypnosis to the medical community in the late eighteenth century under the name Mesmerism. Mesmer theorized that a universal fluid present in all objects produced disease when it was out of balance in the human body. But Mesmer soon fell out of favor and was banned from France after a committee headed by American statesman Benjamin Franklin and Joseph de Guillotin, a French physician, could not verify his findings. James Braid, an English ophthalmologist, later changed the name to hypnosis based on "hypnos," the Greek word for sleep. Although hypnosis is not sleep, the word became entrenched in the English vocabulary.

  In the mid-1800s, James Esdaile, an English surgeon stationed in India, performed a variety of operations using only hypnotic anesthesia. Some of the surgical procedures he performed while administering hypnosis included amputations of the arm, breast, and penis, as well as the removal of tumors.

  Sigmund Freud, the nineteenth century father of modern psychiatry, delivered two papers on the subject, and included it in his own practice. He wrote that there was something positively seductive in working with hypnosis. For the first time there was a sense of having overcome one's helplessness; and it was highly flattering to enjoy the reputation of being a miracle worker.

  By the early 1890s, however, Freud rejected hypnosis in favor of his own theories of analysis and, shortly afterward, the practice became the focus of dispute, disagreement, and argument. It wasn't until the middle of this century that the British and American Medical Societies recognized its use as an addition to treating pain.