Editorial

American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis,  Jul 2004  by Mott, Thurman

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Literature Searches

Starting with this issue we are publishing literature searches from recently approved grants in which hypnosis is a major factor. These literature searches are requested and are not reviewed. Your comments about this addition will be welcome.

I have been concerned for some time about the paucity of clinical research published in the Journal. It is frequently more appropriate for clinical research articles to be published in other specialty journals, or in general medical or psychological journals. This is useful to provide information to clinicians who may not use hypnosis regularly or who are unfamiliar with the many uses of hypnosis.

The AJCH is the journal of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis and, by far, the majority of readers are clinicians who use hypnosis regularly. Since the clinical research in hypnosis articles are often in other journals, those readers may not have the opportunity to read them and to be aware of the clinical research being done. Although keeping up with clinical research has always been very important for nonresearch clinicians, it is increasing in importance. With the need to justify treatment for insurance purposes and the recent trend toward "evidence-based" treatment, it is imperative for clinicians to keep abreast of recent clinical research.

I was discussing my concern about this issue with one of our Associate Editors, David Spiegel, following his talk at the annual meeting. He suggested the idea of publishing literature searches from grants. He pointed me to the web site CRISP (http://www.crisp.cit.nih.gov/), a database of biomedical research funded by the National Institute of Health. It was there that I discovered the grants from which the literature searches in this issue are taken.

We will continue to request literature searches from grants as we become aware of them. If there are grants from other agencies that would be appropriate, please let me know at ajch@adelphia.net.

The first two papers in this issue were modified from talks given in the Committee on Gender Symposium at the 2003 annual meeting, chaired by Julie Linden. The first paper, by Maggie Phillips, describes the importance of re-nurturing in certain male patients. The second paper, by Lynne Hornyak, discusses how hypnosis can help women deal with competition in the workplace.

The use of hypnosis to facilitate treatment of addictions seems to be gaining interest. In the last issue, Pekala and his colleagues reported on the use of self-hypnosis in relapse prevention with addicts. In this issue, Potter describes a treatment approach for addictions that has been successful in about two-thirds of his patients.

The first literature search is from a grant awarded to Gary Elkins and his associates for a study of hypnosis to reduce the hot flashes in breast cancer survivors. The second literature search is on optimizing control of pain from severe burns, and it is from a grant awarded to David Paterson and his colleagues.

Both the Book Reviews and the Abstracts in this issue are the "swan songs" of their editors. We owe them both a large measure of gratitude for their work. Although Maggie Phillips has been Book Review Editor for only a short time, she has made a significant contribution to that section. Cory Hammond has been the Abstracts Editor since 1987. I find it impossible to find a way to express all of my appreciation for the help his work has been to me, since for about ten years of that time I was Editor (with the times I have been interim Editor). He will be missed.

Thurman Mott, Interim Editor

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