Hypnosis: What Works

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During 1989, Dr. Giuseppe de Benedittis of the University of Milan demonstrated that hypnosis had a positive effect on the relief of pain due to ischemic heart disease with those patients who had high hypnotic susceptibility.
A 1991 study by Dr. Edwin J. Weinstein and Dr. Phillip K. Au found that hypnotized patients undergoing the painful procedure of angioplasty could keep the balloon used in this procedure inflated 25 percent longer than nonhypnotized patients, reducing the need for surgery.
In fibromyalgia patients, eight sessions of hypnotism reduced muscle pain, fatigue, and sleep disturbance, according to Hanerdos in 1991.
A 1993 study using hypnosis for smoking cessation by Dr. David Spiegel, an expert in hypnosis at Stanford University School of Medicine, evidenced a 23 percent success rate in quitting smoking.
Most significantly, a study conducted in 1989, also by Dr. David Spiegel of Stanford, found that social support and group therapy doubled survival time for women with metastatic breast cancer.

From THE BEST ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE: WHAT WORKS? WHAT DOES NOT? by Dr. Kenneth R. Pelletier.

Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York, New York.