Hypnosis: Medicine's Dirty Word

American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, Oct 2006 by Upshaw, William N

Abstract

This paper attempts to understand the relationship between the clinical efficacy of hypnosis and its negative perception among many medical educators, practitioners and the general public. By exploring the history of hypnosis, an attempt was made to point out several events that may have led to both the past and current misperception of hypnosis which the author believes have caused hypnosis to become "medicine's dirty word."

Keywords: Hypnosis, medical uses, history, medicine, public opinion, evidence.

Introduction

I was first introduced to hypnosis as a third year medical student. Our medical school class was given a series of lectures on the subject by Dabney Ewin, MD, who has successfully treated patients with the technique for over 30 years. During the lectures, I was impressed by what seemed to be a great approach to psychosomatic illness and medical trauma (Ewin, 1992a; 1992b). But I observed that half of the people in the room were not paying attention - one student got up and left in the middle of the presentation. Later that student remarked, "I don't pay $30,000 a year to listen to that hogwash." I was surprised by his reaction, but since I was planning on a career in psychiatry, I asked every doctor I worked under what they thought about hypnosis. While freezing a wart off of a patient, I said to my family medicine preceptor: "I heard hypnosis can cure warts (Ewin, 1992a)." His reply was, "well...I don't know about that...it seems kind of Out there,' but I did hear duct tape works." I asked a pulmonary attending what she thought about hypnosis as a treatment for asthma (Anderson, Frischholz, and Trentalange, 1988; Brown, 1965; Edgell, 1966; Edwards, 1960; Kelly & Zeller, 1969). She told me that maybe a doctor could use it to calm a patient down, but she had doubts as to whether it could have any long-term benefits. My favorite comment, however, came from my dentist. When I asked him if he had any experience with hypnosis, he said, "Well, we had a lecture or two in school and I never felt comfortable using it...but I use to work at this bar and a hypnotist came in one night and hypnotized me to act like a gorilla whenever he said a certain word. It was great, I would just be sitting there and all of the sudden I would stand up and beat my chest and say, 'I am the king monkey, and I am better than all you gorillas.'" I could not get him to return to the subject of the medical uses of hypnosis despite all my attempts.

In an effort to explain this disconnect between the people I spoke to about hypnosis those who think hypnosis is a therapeutic tool and those who are skeptical and in fact displayed a negative reaction when the word "hypnosis" was mentioned - I decided to research the history of hypnosis. This paper explores that history and specifically looks for reasons that a technique which was approved by the American Medical Association (AMA) in 1958 (American Medical Association, 1958) has caused, and still receives, such strong negative reactions from some medical practitioners and the general public. What I found is that the therapeutic effects of hypnosis have rarely been refuted. However, supernatural or religious characterizations, unscientific explanations, scientifically viable alternative treatments, negative media, and most recently a 1985 AMA report about the forensic use of the technique, have collectively caused hypnosis to be shunned by many in the medical profession.

Part 1 : Early History of Hypnosis

Evidence of techniques resembling hypnosis can be found even in ancient times (Gauld, 1992; Temes, 1999). Medicine men and shamans were likely inducing what we now call "a trance state" before recorded history. In ancient Greece, Asclepiades eased the pain and suffering of his patients by stroking them with his hands and inducing a sleep-like state. Later in Rome, merely being touched by Emperors such as Consantine, Vespasian, and Hadsion would reportedly heal patients. The "Royal Touch" is thought to have cured because the patient was already in a trance-like state as a result of being in the presence of the emperor (Temes, 1999). Thomas Woolston, a philosopher, wondered if the patient's imagination might be an explanation of the miracles of Jesus (Goldsmith, 1934). Finally, Father Gassner and other "exorcists" are often cited as early practitioners of hypnosis (Peter, 2005).

These early practitioners were likely inducing and using trance states, but in an obviously very different way than the current techniques of modern hypnosis. More importantly, the explanations used to describe the healing power of these ancient techniques were not scientific, but usually religious in nature making them unlikely to be accepted by modern medicine. In this early time period, the key point seems to be that something like hypnosis did, in fact, start out as an unscientific technique used almost exclusively by religious practitioners.

However, it was not the spiritual beginnings of hypnosis that directly contributed to the negative impressions of modern science. Instead, the problem seemed to occur in later history as practitioners appeared to "regress" to spiritual explanations of the technique when they are unable to provide the medical establishment of their day with some type of sufficient scientific explanation. This "regression" appeared to draw the consciousness of medicine back toward labeling hypnosis as unscientific instead of encouraging research into developing a scientific explanation. Thus, knowing about the various religious foundations of the technique is important to understanding its later struggles to find scientific validity.