"At a hospital in Peterborough, Bernadine Coady, has been having routine knee surgery.

But unlike most patients, she was not given any anaesthetic - instead, the 67-year-old claimed she used self-hypnosis to control the pain.

She told surgeon Ahmed Shair of the private Orthopaedics and Spine Specialist Hospital in Cambridgeshire that she could feel only tugging and pulling.

Despite much research, nobody knows exactly how the technique works but Mrs Coady says anyone is capable of using self-hypnosis to control pain if they train their mind."

(BBC News - Monday, 7 July 2008 (Video available))

What a shining example of the power of self-hypnosis, and hats off to Bernadine, not only for doing it all on her own - but also having a film crew in the operating theatre with her every step of the way.

Hypnosis has been used as a form of pain control for centuries, but fell out of popular use when modern anaesthetics were developed. However, some progressive modern surgeons (notably Irish surgeon, Dr Jack Gibson) have continued to use it in their work. Dr Jack, now 92 (and still working!), has performed over 4000 procedures using hypnosis instead of anaesthetic.

Modern neuroscience suggests that hypnosis works the same way as an anaesthetic - by blocking or altering the way the mind processes the pain signals coming from the body. MRI scans show the physical brain activity actually changes as a person goes into self hypnosis. Unlike anaesthetic, however, Hypnosis has no side effects, and studies show that patients actually recover much faster.

From our perspective, it is great to see yet more unquestionable proof that hypnosis works - helping to dispel further the hollywood myths and stage show shenanigans that have dogged its past. The mind is a powerful thing, and hypnosis allows each one of us to tap into its full power to make change in our lives - if we will allow ourselves to do so.

When most people think about hypnosis, it is usually Derren Brown or the hypnotist character from the Little Britain TV show that spring to mind, complete with the immortal words, “look into my eyes…”

NCH registered Cognitive Hypnotherapists, Rob & Heidi Woodgate of Gravesend based practice North Kent Hypnotherapy say that neither gives a true picture of hypnotherapy, and think that these popular misconceptions of hypnosis might actually stop people seeking help for issues that could otherwise be overcome in just a few sessions.

Rob says, “We think it’s important to bring to the public’s awareness the difference between hypnosis and hypnotherapy. It has nothing to do with ‘looking into your eyes’ and more to do with looking into your behaviour.

Hypnotherapy is most often used for psychological problems like stress, anxiety, lack of confidence and low self esteem, and can also help with weight loss, phobias and obsessions. It has also been scientifically proven to be beneficial in smoking cessation and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

Heidi says, “Over a decade of scientific research has shown hypnotherapy to be an effective choice for alleviating the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome. Hypnotherapy routinely produces positive results in over 80% of the people who use it.”

National Hypnotherapy Week is sponsored by The National Council for Hypnotherapy, who maintains the highest standards among its members and is regarded as the premier professional body in hypnotherapy within the United Kingdom.

A new report from the department of gastroenterology at King’s College Hospital, London, published in the British Medical Journal, highlights the fact that Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is a combination of "psychological" as well as physical factors, and that psychological therapies, including hypnotherapy, can be an alternative to medication.

Excerpt from the Daily Mail:

Hypnotherapy could be the latest weapon in the fight against irritable bowel syndrome, providing benefits that last up to five years.
Conventional treatment – including antidepressant and painkilling drugs – is ineffective, according to a report which says doctors should consider offering psychological therapies.
The report says the condition may have a partial "psychological basis".
...
Small trials have found hypnotherapy was successful as a means of managing symptoms, says a report published today in the British Medical Journal.
It found patients with IBS are more likely to suffer from depression and "abnormal" behaviour patterns including anxiety.
They also display somatisation – the conversion of emotional, mental, or psychosocial problems into physical complaints.

Excerpt from BBC News:

Hypnotherapy could help people with severe irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), researchers say.
Doctors should consider using this and other "psychological" treatments such as antidepressants to help sufferers, King's College London experts say in the British Medical Journal.
However, a shortage of therapists could hinder this, they add.
Experts said there was growing evidence that IBS cases have psychological as well as biological elements.
...
Dr Nick Read, a psychologist and adviser to the IBS Network, said he felt that the majority of IBS patients had a psychologists element to their condition.
He said: "There's now a lot of evidence that psychological therapies can be effective, but a lot of doctors remain sceptical, and carry on treating with drugs which have side-effects, and which basically don't work.
"I work with patients with IBS trying to understand what, for each patient, lies behind the illness."

At North Kent Hypnotherapy we specialise in helping people with IBS by treating the mental aspects contributing to their condition, and it is great for us to see the results we see every day being officially validated by scientists.

Read more about our approach to IBS here.

Wednesday 14th March is National No Smoking Day, which this year holds a special significance to many smokers faced with the reality of a total ban on smoking in public places coming later this year.

The Smoking in the Workplace Ban, which has already been implemented in Ireland, Scotland and Wales, comes into force in England on 1st July 2007. From that date all offices, factories, shops, pubs, bars, restaurants, clubs, public transport and work vehicles that are used by more than one person will be required to be smoke free by Law.

The good news is, if you really want to stop smoking, hypnotherapy could make it up to five times easier for you to quit!

Research comparing many different studies of hypnotherapy has shown that on average, smokers are over five times more likely to break the habit with hypnosis than by willpower alone. Hypnotherapy in general is also proven to be more than twice as effective compared with nicotine gum.

To mark National No Smoking Day, and help those smokers who want to beat the ban and quit before July, we are launching our new '5 Top Tips to Quit Smoking' programme which can help you quit all by yourself! Why are we doing this? Because although we are specialists in helping people to stop smoking, there are only so many people we can physically see in a day, and many smokers who are just too far away to come see us.

For those who prefer one-to-one help, find out how we could help you stop smoking in just 2 hours. Or if you are out of our area - why not visit your local ASDA supermarket on National No Smoking Day, as Hypnotherapists registered by the National Council for Hypnotherapy (NCH) will be on hand in most stores to help and advise you.

As NCH registered Hypnotherapists, we will be at ASDA Gravesend from 10am to 6pm on Wednesday 14th March (National No Smoking Day), so if you have any questions on how we can help you to be 'smoke free' or 'get unhooked', please feel free to come down and see us.

It seems hypnosis has been nearly everywhere over the past few centuries: onstage with entertainers swinging fat, gold watches; on couches with reclining psychoanalysis patients; in movies, books, and even children's cartoons. But the one gig hypnosis couldn't get was the scientific laboratory.

Until now.

The long-controversial practice of inducing a trancelike state through suggestion is getting a modern makeover by scientists armed with the latest neuroimaging tools and techniques. These researchers are beginning to offer evidence that, neurologically at least, hypnosis is entirely real.

"It makes sense that we are using modern tools of neuroscience research to understand what is a fascinating phenomenon," said David Spiegel, a psychiatrist at Stanford University. "It's good for hypnosis, and it's good for neuroscience."

Read the full article - (Seed Magazine - 20th October 2006)

A review of non-drug pain relief therapies suggests that hypnosis and acupuncture may ease labour pain.

"There is too little research to assess how effective many complementary therapies will be with pain management in labour," said lead study author Caroline Smith. Further research is needed, she said, but "the results concerning acupuncture and hypnosis are encouraging."

In addition to hypnosis and acupuncture, the review examined the effects of massage, relaxation, aromatherapy, acupressure and white noise on pain relief. But the review did not turn up enough evidence to determine if any of the other therapies bring women significant comfort.

The meta-analysis compiles data from 14 studies that included more than 1,400 women. Five studies examined hypnosis, while three studies gauged acupuncture?s effect on pain relief.

"More robust research and more research trials have been undertaken for these two therapies versus the other treatments," said Smith, a research fellow at the University of Adelaide in Australia.

The review appears in the current issue of The Cochrane Library, a publication of The Cochrane Collaboration, an international organization that evaluates research in all aspects of health care. Systematic reviews draw evidence-based conclusions about medical practice after considering both the content and quality of existing trials on a topic.

Hypnosis reduces the need for drug pain relief in labour, lessens the need for medications that augment labour and increases the number of spontaneous vaginal births, according to the available data. The women treated with acupuncture reported more satisfaction with their labor pain management versus the mothers who did not receive that treatment, the review found.

(Newswise - 16th October 2006)

If you would like to learn self-hypnosis for childbirth, why not join one of our antenatal classes

Two new studies presented at an international meeting of doctors, researchers, and academics in Los Angeles, as part of Digestive Disease Week 2006, showed hypnosis could help IBS patients who hadn't been helped by other treatments.

The hypnosis researchers included Magnus Simren, MD, of Sahlgrenska University Hospital's internal medicine department in Gothenburg, Sweden. Simren's hypnosis studies had a combined total of 135 IBS patients. The patients' average age was 41; most were women.

In both studies, participants were split into two groups. One group got 12 weekly one-hour hypnotherapy sessions focused on gut-related problems. For comparison, the second group didn't get hypnosis. In one study, the comparison group got 12 weeks of attention from doctors and nutritionists. In the other study, the comparison group got no special care.

The patients rated their gastrointestinal symptoms, quality of life, and depression at the study's start, immediately after 12 weeks of treatment, and again six and 12 months later.

"The hypnotherapy groups improved significantly in both studies regarding gastrointestinal symptoms and the control groups did not," Simren says.

Significant improvement (meaning improvement not likely due to chance) in gastrointestinal symptoms was seen in 52% of the hypnotherapy groups, compared with 32% of the comparison groups.

The improvements were mainly seen with symptoms of abdominal pain, distension, and bloating, rather than for bowel habits, the study shows.

(Web MD - 24th May 2006)

According to Scotland Today, there are calls for hypnosis treatment for smokers to be funded by the NHS ahead of the public smoking ban.

According to research into the most effective methods to stop smoking, hypnosis was found to be three times more effective than Nicotine Replacement Therapy (i.e nicotine patches or gum). A New Scientist article (vol 136 issue 1845 page 6) confirms:

"To find the most effective method to stop smoking Frank Schmidt and research student Chockalingham Viswesvaran from the university of Iowa used a meta-analysis, utilising the results of more than 600 studies totalling nearly 72,000 people.

The results, which were published in the Journal of Applied Psychology and included 48 studies of hypnosis covering 6000 smokers, clearly showed that hypnosis, to use the same terminology as the quit counsellor, was three times more effective than NRT."

Smokers find it so hard to quit because their unconscious mind has a faulty program which believes smoking is serving a positive purpose. And because the unconscious mind is responsible for keeping you safe, it has many ways to override your conscious will. The combination of hypnosis and NLP is so sucessful in helping people to quit smoking because it effectively re-programs your unconscious mind to work with you to achieve your goal.

If you are trying to make that New Years resolution stick, but are finding the 'season of good will-power' is coming to an end, why not contact us to find out how we can help you stop smoking today.

An article in this week's Sunday Times highlights the benefits of NLP in helping people overcome habits and negative behaviours. As Anita Chaudhuri reports, NLP is a way of reprogramming the mind in order to change negative behaviour.

It works by identifying subconscious pessimistic patterns, then zaps them by replacing them with new thoughts and images. A typical example would be the habitual smoker who is prone to lighting up when sipping a morning espresso or a glass of wine at the end of the day. An NLP therapist would program their brain to desire something other than a cigarette at those trigger moments.

NLP is just high-tech hypnosis says, Paul McKenna. Your brain is like a computer, and it?s as if you are installing new software to overwrite programs that no longer work. The key programs of human behaviour are habit and imagination, and they are far more powerful than logic or willpower. I?ve seen people make astounding changes in their thoughts and behaviour quickly.

(Sunday Times - 5th February 2006)

With Christmas fast approaching, many smokers are mentally gearing themselves up to quit - once the festivities have finished, of course - determined to make sure that this year the New Years resolution will stick.

Certainly, as hypnotherapists, we see a marked increase in the numbers of clients wanting help to stop smoking around the end of February, once the "season-of-good-will-power" has ended.

An article in the New York Times highlights recent brain studies which indicate that when people are acting under hypnotic suggestions, their brains show profound changes in how they process information. The suggestions, researchers report, literally change what people see, hear, feel and believe to be true.

(New York Times - 22nd November 2005)

New research from the American Society of Anesthesiologists indicates that Hypnosis could help soothe anxiety before surgery. They found that after one hypnosis session, patients were less anxious about their operation than they had been just half an hour before.

Hypnosis gains support as medical tool for dealing with pain, recovery, stress. Teaching hospitals such as Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and Harvard Medical School are studying and using hypnosis to speed surgical recoveries and manage pain. Stanford University School of Medicine and the Mayo Clinic are studying its effectiveness for treating anxiety, stress and overeating.
(Arizona Republic - 11th October 2005)

A few clients have asked if there are any differences between various types of Hypnotherapists, and in particular the difference between Cognitive Hypnotherapy and Clinical Hypnotherapy. This article will attempt to clarify the main terms used in the profession and clear up this potentially confusing distinction.

Hypnosis.org.uk is a UK directory of hypnosis and hypnotherapy resources. If you are visiting our site, but are not in our area, or just want to find other hypnotherapists to compare us with, this site can help you.