Hypnotherapy has been extremely effective in controlling pain, including surgery. In fact, before the advent of anesthesia, it was either hypnosis or a big bottle of 70% alcohol and a really big stick to chew on. But for a variety of reasons, not many people are willing to try hypnotherapy as a method of pain relief. But science has devised a molecular test that will determine how effective hypnotherapy pain relief will be for you.
Some people are more susceptible to hypnotism than others, but determining who is and to what extent is difficult, and until now testing has required special training. Journal of Molecular DiagnosticsResearchers have developed an ultra-rapid, point-of-care molecular diagnostic test that can identify people who are most likely to benefit from hypnotherapy as part of their pain treatment plan.1
The science behind the test
In this study, a giant magnetoresistance biosensor was used for inexpensive genotyping of four single nucleotide polymorphisms in the catechol-o-methyltransferase (COMT) gene.
Previous research had already established that the genetic basis of hypnotizability involves four specific single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPS), or genetic variations, found in the COMT gene.
“Because hypnotizability is a stable cognitive trait with a genetic basis, our goal was to create a molecular diagnostic tool that would objectively identify individuals who would benefit from hypnotism by determining their ‘treatable’ in a clinical setting,” said co-leader Dana L. Cortade, a recent doctoral graduate from Stanford University’s School of Engineering.
The study found that of people with the proposed COMT genotype, 89.5 percent scored high on the Hypnotic Induction Profile, an assessment of an individual’s level of hypnotic traits and likelihood of experiencing a hypnotic state.
This molecular test is certainly superior to more traditional methods of hypnosis, such as imagining your hands stuck together or pretending to suck a lemon to see how much your mouth waters.
Additionally, the study found that some participants who were more susceptible to hypnosis may have more severe pain after surgery — but that’s OK, because hypnotherapy can help in those cases, too.
Pain control
I worked for 10 years in National Health Service Trust hospitals helping people manage the pain (and associated emotional and behavioural issues) caused by a condition called Cardiac Syndrome X (CSX). This is often described as chest pain in the absence of any coronary artery abnormalities. CSX can be a debilitating condition for some people. As a result, pain control through hypnotherapy has become something of a speciality for me. This helps with all kinds of pain recovery, including tension headaches, migraines, fibromyalgia and even cancer treatments.
Another recent study (so recent it’s yet to be published) found that hypnotherapy helped breast cancer patients get through surgery and their recovery afterward. Other studies have shown that people with higher levels of resilience and optimism recover faster than those with lower levels, so this study used hypnotherapy to increase both.
“It’s well established in research that hypnosis before surgery can reduce pain,” said Professor Silje Endresen Lemme from the Department of Psychology at the University of Oslo. “We’re also trying to influence psychological resilience. Telling the brain that everything will be fine during surgery could be a kind of antidote to catastrophic thinking.”
However, hypnotherapy for surgery has been used in some form since at least the 1800s, with famous Scottish surgeon James Braid (1795-1860) pioneering the treatment.
Today, most people are hesitant to utilize it as a safe form of pain relief for any condition, including before and after surgery, because of the many misconceptions that are still widely held about it.
