Sarah Merson
RECOMMEND?
Andrew Tan, 9, arrived at most early childhood milestones at a young age, and with ease. He walked at 9 months old. He was stringing sentences together and was potty trained when he was 2 years old. But when it came to being dry at night, Andrew had a different story. “We just thought that he’d come to it sooner or later,” says Joanna Tan, Andrew’s mum. “But at 6, he was still wetting the bed at night.”

According to the NHS, bedwetting when asleep, also known as nocturnal enuresis, is very common in children, especially those under 7. About one five-year-old in seven, and one child in 20 children aged 10 wet the bed, and it is more common in boys than girls. It can be caused by medical conditions such as cystitis or diabetes, or by some children’s inability to produce enough of the antidiuretic hormone, ADH, which controls the production of urine at night, or just by the fact that some children develop bladder control later than others. It may also have a psychological cause, because of problems at school or at home, for example.

Andrew overcame his bedwetting by means of hypnotherapy, which involves using hypnosis to treat medical and psychological problems. “He was approaching his seventh birthday and desperately wanted to go to Cub camp and sleepovers,” says Joanna. “He was still wetting the bed, though, and felt embarrassed, ashamed and even angry with himself. I’ve always wanted my son to believe he can accomplish anything he set his mind to, but with his bedwetting, his confidence levels were low. He was a bright chap, with a reading age of 9 or 10 when he was only 7, yet because of his bed-wetting, he felt like a failure. Then I read an article on hypnotherapy, which ended up being Andrew’s route to feeling good about himself again.”

According to the British Society of Clinical Hypnosis, being hypnotised feels like being in a trance state, similar to daydreaming, or like the moment before we fall asleep, in which there’s a deep sense of relaxation. During hypnosis, beneficial corrections may be given directly to the unconscious mind, which is a reservoir of unrecognised potential and knowledge, and the unwitting source of many of our problems.

“We discovered hypnotherapy after trying several conventional treatments from the age of 3, including sedatives,” Joanna says. “When Andrew was nearly 7 we saw the school nurse, who did a bladder test and told us that he had a small bladder. He was given the enuresis alarm, which wakes a child as he begins to wet the bed, but it soon woke everyone else but him!

“After four months with very little success, Andrew was then prescribed Desmopressin, a drug that inhibits the production of urine through the night. This had little effect either. Meanwhile, Andrew continued to be more and more demoralised.”

Waking up with a smile

Then Joanna came across Lynda Hudson, a clinical hypnotherapist with 15 years’ experience, who specialises in treating children as well as adults. Having trained at the London College of Clinical Hypnosis, Hudson also has an honours degree in psychology, teaches hypnotherapy to medical students and is currently writing a book on hypnotherapy for children. She is one of the few hypnotherapists in the country who treats them. “About 40-45 per cent of children I see come to me for bedwetting or other anxiety-based problems, which is why I produced a CD called I’m Dry at Night. This aims to change the mindset of a child who wets the bed, telling them that they can take control at the unconscious level. They can also listen to the CD in the safety of their own bedroom before they go to sleep at night,” says Hudson. Although Joanna knew a bit about hypnotherapy, she was a little apprehensive about Andrew being treated person-to-person.

“Using a CD felt different, though. I listened to it myself first, and it seemed so positive. Andrew was keen to give it a go, so he started to listen to it before he went to sleep. By the third night, he slept right through and was dry in the morning. Within a month, he was continuously dry but continued to fall asleep to the CD for the next three months because he found it so relaxing. He started to wake up with a smile on his face and rapidly regained his confidence,” she says.

On the CD, Hudson uses guided imagery. “I have used the idea of locking up the bladder with a large, strong and colourful key and standing sentry outside it. I’ve also included powerful suggestions for signals to be sent from the bladder (via the sentry) to the brain for the child to wake if necessary, or to keep those muscles tightly closed until morning. I can’t promise that this approach will work for every child, but it does for the vast majority,” she says.

It worked well for Andrew. “He’s a thinking child, who wanted it to work, and the fact that hypnotherapy gave him back control of the situation was the catalyst for change,” says Joanna.

Where Andrew was once withdrawn at school and in social situations, he now has high self-esteem, and even put himself up for school council this year. “But the best testament to his new-found confidence is that he agreed to be featured and photographed for this article,” says Joanna. “I warned him that he might be ridiculed for being a bedwetter, but he said, ‘Well, I did it, Mum. I don’t wet the bed any more’.”

MORE than a million Brits are hooked on the UK’s most habit-forming substance.
Every day they battle terrible cravings – and tempting hits are available on almost every street corner for as little as 30p.

I’m talking about chocolate.

To many it is the world’s most addictive foodstuff and kicking the habit can be as hard as coming off drugs.

I’ve been hooked on my sugary fixes for more than 20 years and have tried almost every way to quit.

I’ve been through hypnotherapy, aversion therapy, willpower, diets and even sniffing vanilla oil, which is supposed to counter craving. Nothing worked.

But now a new therapy claims an 80 per cent success rate for overcoming chocolate addiction.

Called Emotional Freedom Technique, or EFT, it involves a therapist tapping on meridian pressure points on the head, neck and arms – like acupuncture but without the needles.

Practitioners say it can help people overcome phobias and end addictions in just a couple of sessions.

Lily Allen recently used it to help her lose weight. Madonna is rumoured to be a fan too.

I’ll admit I was sceptical, but after just one session I have conquered my cravings.

My session took just over an hour.

It started with Carey asking me to hold and sniff my favourite chocolate bar and give it a rating out of ten for how much I wanted to eat it.

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I answered ten out of ten – then Carey tapped out a simple sequence on my wrist and face, while asking me to repeat: “I control chocolate, chocolate doesn’t control me.”

I felt daft and was convinced it would not work. Yet when she handed me back the chocolate two minutes later, it no longer smelled so good and my craving rating was down to eight out of ten.

After another 40 minutes of the tapping sequence, I could happily throw the chocolate in the bin.

Carey describes the treatment as a “magic bullet” and says: “EFT works on the subconscious and as more than 95 per cent of what we do is subconscious, it’s the most effective way to work.”

The treatment is so simple that clients carry on using it at home themselves.

While my cravings have not disappeared completely, I can now control them with a simple tap to the hand or wrist.

And since my session, I haven’t eaten chocolate for a week.

At £80 a time, EFT is certainly expensive – but it’s cheaper than a lifetime’s shelling out for chocolate.

Boffins define choc addiction as having “strong daily cravings” and eating more than 12 bars a week. It affects more women than men and is the most common food addiction.

But eating just one bar a day could make you pile on 2st in a year and it can mask signs of clinical depression.

By Caroline Ryan

Hypnosis can double the success of IVF treatment, researchers have claimed.
A team from Soroka University, Israel, found 28% of women in the group who were hypnotised became pregnant, compared with 14% of those who were not.

The study of 185 women was presented to the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology conference in Berlin.

But other experts said the research failed to account for key differences between the two groups.

The Israeli researchers were looking to see if hypnosis could make the embryo transfer stage of IVF more successful.

During this stage, the embryo is transferred into the womb. However, if the womb is contracting, it can affect the chances of the transplant being a success.

It was hoped hypnotherapy could help women relax and therefore improve the chances of success.

Stress

Women undergoing IVF were assessed to see if they were suitable to be hypnotised.

Eighty-nine women were then given hypnosis while their embryos were implanted. Some underwent more than one cycle of IVF treatment.

Ninety-six other women underwent embryo transfers without hypnosis. All received one cycle each.

Dr Eliahu Levitas, who led the research, told the conference: “Embryo transfer is known to be a stressful time for patients, and it may be that the procedure is the peak of their stress in IVF.

“Hypnosis may be related to a tranquilising effect.

“Performing embryo transfer under hypnosis may significantly contribute to an increased clinical pregnancy rate.”

But experts said the study failed to take into account key differences between the groups which would have a major influence on their chances of conceiving.

On average, women in the non-hypnosis group had been trying to conceive for 7.4 years, compared with 4.7 years for those who did receive hypnosis.

Dr Francois Shenfield, of University College London Hospital, UK, said: “One of the very important confounding factors in this field is the duration of infertility.

“The longer a couple have been trying to conceive, the less likely they are to conceive spontaneously, and with technical help.”

The treatment involved her being ‘put under’ and talked through every step of the medical procedure as if she were in a real operating theatre.

Before … Marion as she was
SWNS
At the end she was told her stomach had been shrunk to the size of a golf ball — and her brain has accepted the illusion.

In the four months following the treatment Marion saw her weight drop to just over 11 and a half stone and her dress size from a 22 to 14.

The mum-of-three says she now feels full if she tries to eat anything other than a small portion of food.

Marion, of Whiston, Merseyside, said: “I’ve tried every other diet and exercise plan the world has to offer.

“I’ve tried tablets, WeightWatchers, Atkins, Slimfast, milkshakes and even a personal trainer, but none of them helped me.

Revolutionary

“Now I am able to shed up to three pounds a week because I believe I’ve had a band fitted into my stomach.

“Bizarrely, I can remember every part of the ‘procedure’ – including being wheeled into theatre, the clink of the surgeon’s knife and even the smell of the anaesthetic.”

Marion underwent the hypnotherapy in Spain last August when she was living there.

She heard about the Elite Clinic in Marbella from a friend who used it to give up smoking and discovered they carried out the revolutionary ‘gastric mind band’ therapy.

‘ Bizarrely, I can remember every part of the ‘procedure’ – including being wheeled into theatre, the clink of the surgeon’s knife and even the smell of the anaesthetic. ’
After a consultation with therapist Marion Shirran, an expat who runs the clinic with her British husband Martin, she booked herself in for five sessions.

They began with preparation sessions without hypnosis, using a real model of a stomach and a real surgical gastric band to familiarise Marion with the forthcoming ‘op’.

In the hypnosis sessions she was told to touch the same tummy model and band as her mind was tricked into thinking she was undergoing the procedure.

Computer-driven equipment pumped a range of aromas into the room to mimic the smells of a hospital ward, operating theatre and even the recovery room.

There was also a recording of surgical tools being picked up and put down playing in the background.

Marion started losing weight after the fourth session — the first with full hypnosis — and after the fifth she began to feel a tightening sensation in her stomach.

She added: “Now if I try and eat a large portion I feel a pulling sensation in my tummy as if my stomach is stretching.

“I simply cannot eat large portions of food any more.

“I did manage to force down a KFC burger once but I felt really sick, as if it was stuck in my throat, and I had to lie down for three hours afterwards.

“I am thinner now than I ever have been and if I can lose another stone I will be exactly the weight I want to be.

“I feel like I fit in now. People don’t stare at me anymore.”

Clinic owner Martin began working on perfecting the Gastric Mind Band after a client he helped quit smoking asked him whether it would be possible to convince him he had one fitted.

Martin said: “This treatment is good for the client, for the NHS and is also ideal for the many overweight adults and teenagers who are sadly part of ‘Obese Britain’.

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“Although this form of ‘imagined surgery’ isn’t in itself new, its application in the weight loss field is believed to be pioneering.

“And this non-surgical approach has many benefits – no general anaesthetic, no risk of DVT or MRSA.”

Martin, who himself has lost 50lbs, said: “The different therapies help patients rethink their whole attitude to food so they adopt a new lifestyle of healthy eating.

“It is not a temporary solution. It is a long term thing.

“We believe our therapy can be immensely beneficial for individuals who want to control their eating habits for self esteem or health reasons especially the growing number of people, young and old who are developing type 2 diabetes in ever increasing numbers.”

Jacqui Lowdon, dietician and spokeswoman for the British Dietary Association, said: “This is quite a novel idea and I’ve certainly never come across it before.

“Gastric bands are available on the NHS to those who have problems with their weight, but there are a lot of side effects.

“If this works and people can achieve the same kind of weight loss without surgery, it is important they are getting the correct dietary advice as well.

“It is also important to have a target weight and to know what your ideal weight is.”

Elliott Wald, resident hypnosis expert on ITV’s This Morning and spokesman for the Hypnotherapy Association UK, said: “In essence I see the possibility of being able to create a visual gastric band in the mind, but as yet I haven’t seen enough evidence to support it.”

ENZO MACCARINELLI had hypnosis to prepare him for his world cruiserweight title unification clash with David Haye.
Maccarinelli, 27, has undergone several sessions with Nick Cook over the last two months.

He revealed: “I’ve had full hypnosis a couple of times but mainly it’s been a mild form to make sure that I have never once lost my focus in the build-up.

“It’s been nothing to do with my confidence but this is a massive fight and I wanted to do everything right.

“I sit there with my eyes closed and it opens up my sub-conscious – any negative thoughts are gone.”

COURTNEY LOVE reckons PAUL MCKENNA is the reason behind her dramatic weight loss.
The former HOLE singer credits the hypnotist with helping her to achieve a slender frame, rather than praising dieting, exercise or drug-taking to help shift the pounds.

KURT COBAIN’s widow has been seeing the weight-loss guru, who wrote self-help bible I Can Make You Thin, since bulking up after quitting narcotics.

She said: “I’ve known Paul for years. I lost weight last year the old-fashioned way by dieting and living off protein shakes. But it was hard to stay disciplined.

“He’s brilliant and is totally responsible for me staying so skinny. Whenever I start to feel my resolve weaken, I go to Paul for another hypnosis session.”

ROBBIE WILLIAMS also credits Paul with helping him to conquer his addictions, while GERI HALLIWELL, DARYL HANNAH and SOPHIE DAHL are among his famous clientele.

Officers already cannot smoke in uniform in public
A police force says it will pay for hypnotherapy to help officers quit smoking when legislation on lighting up in the workplace comes into force.
It could cost £100,000 if all of the estimated 3,500 smokers who work for West Midlands Police take up the offer.

The force will have to close its 100 remaining smoking rooms when the legislation takes effect in July.

The sessions, which last for about an hour, are expected to start in June.

The force has one hypnotherapy specialist and is looking to recruit three more.

West Midlands Police has one of the best sickness and attendance records in the country and believes it will save money in the long run.

Officers are already not allowed to smoke in uniform in public

The effects of hypnotherapy were found to be greater than those of more traditional relaxation techniques.

The research, conducted at Hampshire Hypnotherapy Centre, was revealed to the British Psychological Society.

David Byron, a senior specialist educational psychologist for Hampshire County Council studied 10 pupils, aged 11 to 16, being treated at the centre for emotional behavioural difficulties related to anxiety.

It seems to empower the students to change their lives
David Byron

The students received psychological treatment in sessions with their parents during which they set things they wanted to change about their lives. They were then taught how to self-hypnotise and work towards these targets.

Mr Byron said the hypnotherapy acted as a useful vehicle for the psychological treatment, and he found it produced greater effects than were seen in students using more traditional relaxation techniques.

He said hypnotherapy could be used to influence the treatment process and could be used by psychologists as “an adjunct” to their professional training.

He said: “It seems to empower the students to change their lives and it’s not me doing it, it’s them.”

Mr Byron said hypnotherapy could also be useful to help with a number of other treatments, and that he would like to see the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services nationwide employing people to offer a hypnotherapy service to patients.

He said: “There is no doubt it has a tremendous amount to offer.”

Anxiety common

Ian Goodyer, Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge said anxiety is a significant problem in children aged 11-15. He said: “Children may have symptoms such as panic attacks, they may show avoidance behaviours, or they may have sensitivity and worry about what other people may be thinking about them.”

He said standard treatments included educating them about their anxiety, and methods such as cognitive behavioural therapy.

He said hypnotherapy had been used widely as a relaxation technique to reduce anxiety, and the idea that it could aid other psychological treatments was “interesting”, but he called for more research into the area.

He said: “It is an interesting thought that now requires proper randomised controlled trials.”

Interestingly, in this trial the students’ teachers said they had seen more changes in the students using the relaxation techniques. But Mr Byron speculated this may be because the hypnotherapy produced cognitive and emotional changes.

He said: “I think there was a direct contrast between the pupils and parents’ observations with those of the teachers because the teachers have less time to become aware of the changes going on inside the pupils’ minds, especially in the teenage years.”

The results of this research into the Hypnotherapy Centre were revealed at The British Psychological Society’s Division of Educational and Child Psychology annual conference in Glasgow.

Daniel Elkan is mesmerised by a woman who did.

When Pippa Plaisted was told that she would need a fourth breast cancer operation, it was not the surgery that worried her most. Like many people, the idea of an operation did terrify Pippa, a 46-year-old personal trainer, but this procedure — to reposition an artificial valve attached to her breast implant, which had been inserted after a mastectomy — promised to be a straightforward 45-minute job. What Pippa was more worried about was the fact that the operation would require a general anaesthetic.
After each previous operation, Pippa, a mother of two, had reacted badly to the anaesthetic: “I’d be feeling dizzy and falling over for months afterwards. It would take me so long to feel well again, and it was getting worse each time.”

With the operation only a few weeks away, she sought help from her hypnotherapist, Charles Montagu, a practitioner based in South Kensington, West London, to overcome her fear of the surgery. When Montagu heard about Pippa’s difficulties with general anaesthetic, he suggested that hypnosis could be used to neutralise the pain of surgery, a technique known as hypno-anaesthesia, which, he believes, can be applied to most types of operations except those requiring deep invasive surgery, such as a heart operation. He believed that by entering a deep state of relaxation, known as deep trance, Pippa would be able to undergo the surgery without needing drugs at all.

The mechanism by which hypno-anaesthesia relieves pain is not yet precisely understood. One way is thought to be by the focusing of attention away from the source of pain. “All of our senses are selective,” says Montagu. “If you are sitting down right now, you might not be aware of the chair that you are sitting on. But if you are in a boring lecture, you become very aware of the chair.” During surgery, hypnosis can be used to divert attention away from the area being operated on and focus it elsewhere, he says.

Another way that it might work is by a reinterpretation of pain signals, according to the hypnotherapist Dr John Butler, who holds a PhD in medical science and lectures at the GKT School of Medicine in southeast London. “By instructing the brain to relax and to be unconcerned about pain, the pain signal can be reinterpreted as a non-distressing sensation,” he says. “The pain signal is definitely received at the pain receptor; it travels up the spinal cord and into the brain. And that’s all quite normal so far. But then, at a crucial point, it seems that the hypnotic activation in the brain re-routes the signal so that it gets understood as a harmless sensation.”

The idea that hypnosis alone can be powerful enough to block out the pain of surgery may seem far-fetched. But research has provided clear indications that hypnosis can alter the brain’s perception of pain. After deciding that she wanted to try hypno-anaesthesia, Pippa phoned her surgeon, Adam Searle, to ask if he would be willing to perform surgery under these conditions. To her relief, Searle thought it was worth a try. To act as a safeguard, and also for Pippa’s reassurance, he arranged for an anaesthetist to be present in the operating theatre. Searle says: “My fear was that halfway through the procedure the hypnotherapy might not be as effective as hoped and we would have to call upon more conventional anaesthetics.”

For hypno-anaesthesia to work, the patient needs to access a deeper state of trance than in an ordinary hypnotherapy session. To be sure of being able to reach the required state of trance on the day, Pippa had three hour-long practice sessions. Montagu would instruct her to focus her attention on her breathing, and then gradually count her down into a deeper and deeper trance.

To demonstrate how effectively pain could be blocked, Montagu — with Pippa’s permission — pinched the sensitive skin on the inside of her arm hard. Pippa was amazed. Even though her arm was bruised, she had felt no pain.

On the day of the operation, Montagu took Pippa through some of the relaxation techniques that they had practised. By the time the theatre was ready for her, Pippa was feeling confident: “I walked — or rather floated — down to the theatre, completely calm and in control.”

In the theatre, Montagu stood at the head of the operating table, his thumb resting gently on Pippa’s forehead. Within about ten minutes he had talked her into the required state of deep trance. The staff in the operating theatre couldn’t help wondering what reaction Pippa would have to the first incision.

“There was a moment of anticipation that, when I put the knife in, this poor girl would sit up and run out of the room,” Searle says. But, in fact, throughout the operation Pippa, despite being conscious and aware of her surroundings, felt no discomfort whatsoever. “The surgeon was cutting and sewing inside me, but I could not feel anything,” she says. At each stage of the operation, Searle would gently reassure her that everything was going well, and tell her what was going to happen next.

To Searle’s surprise, the hypno-anaesthesia had a remarkable physical effect. Pippa bled far less than would normally be the case in such an operation. He later learnt from a colleague, who is an anaesthetist, that reduced bleeding is a common characteristic of operations performed under hypno-anaesthesia.

Marie-Elisabeth Faymonville, an anaesthesiologist at Liège Hospital in Belgium, claims that anaesthetic drugs inhibit the natural tendency of blood vessels to constrict in response to an incision; secondly, patients knocked unconscious by anaesthetics have to breathe with the help of an artificial respirator. This puts pressure on the chest and, in turn, increases bleeding. In contrast, hypno-anaesthetised patients are conscious and breathe normally, and bleed less as a result. According to Searle, this made Pippa’s surgery less tricky to perform: “The various layers of tissue are much more clearly visible if they are not bloody. It is easier to be accurate.”

Pippa also believes that the hypno-anaesthesia helped to speed up her recovery from the surgery. “It was very much faster than it would have been. There was no bruising and I felt normal within a week. I didn’t have any nausea or dizziness. But I was incredibly tired after the operation. You have to be very gentle with yourself; the body is doing all the work.”

Although there are fewer than ten hypnotherapists performing hypno-anaesthesia in the UK, interest in the technique is growing fast. In Europe one method that is being routinely used in some hospitals is to combine local anaesthetic with hypno-anaesthesia. In this way, patients can avoid general anaesthetic without needing to enter such a deep trance.

The local anaesthetic blocks the pain signals coming from the area being operated on, while the hypno-anaesthesia relaxes the patient and, by reducing pain perception, makes the local anaesthetic work much better. Using this method, most patients do not need hypnoanaesthesia practice sessions before surgery.

For those who try hypno-anaesthesia, most people need only a few practice sessions to be able to access the required depth of trance. “It is rather like learning to drive; it varies from person to person,” says Montagu. “Some people find it harder than others to let go and relax.”

Pippa recommends it to anyone who thinks that they would benefit. “I think it is absolutely wonderful. People shouldn’t be frightened of it because the power of the human body is enormous. It is about having faith in yourself and the power of your own mind.”

WHAT’S THE EVIDENCE? DR GEORGE LEWITH

Can anyone be hypnotised? A hypnotic state is best described as a relaxed state of heightened suggestibility. About 90 per cent of the population can be hypnotised with 20 to 30 per cent able to enter a deep trance. There is no explanation as to why it doesn’t work on the remaining 10 per cent.

What happens to your brain when you are hypnotised? Although much has been written about hypnosis, doctors and scientists are still not exactly sure how it works. But we do know from research carried out last year at the University of Iowa, in the United States, using magnetic resonance imaging scans of the brain, that it activates areas of the brain which are consistent with the beneficial clinical effects of hypnosis, particularly in relation to pain relief.

Does it work? There are many examples of successful hypnotherapy varying from hypno- anaesthesia to the stage hypnosis of Paul McKenna. Hypnosis has a number of proven medical applications, in particular in conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and chronic pain. One study by Peter Whorwell, a professor of medicine and gastroenterology at Manchester University, involving 30 patients with IBS, found that when treated with hypnosis they all showed a dramatic improvement after three months. Other studies of surgical intervention using hypnosis consistently found that recovery time was quicker, there were fewer infections, and quicker wound healing with fewer operative complications. This might mean that general anaesthetics are bad for you, but it also means that hypnosis is less complicated by comparison. Hypnosis can be used to reduce pain and anxiety in children and to help adults with severe muscle pain and burns. The technique of combining hypno- anaesthesia with local anaesthetic is becoming increasingly common in France and Belgium.

Could operations under hypnosis soon become the norm? We do not need a placebo-controlled trial to know that hypnotherapy works but we do need to know its complication and failure rate. Last year a team of doctors at a hospital in Saint Julien, in France, performed a series of 35 laparoscopic gall bladder removals (through a fibre-optic tube inserted into the stomach) using hypno-anaesthesia. Twenty-two were completed without complication but the remaining 13 people needed to revert to conventional general anaesthesia. It may be more effective for less painful procedures that don’t involve opening the abdomen or in combination with local anaesthetic.

Dr George Lewith is head of the complementary medicine research unit at Southampton Medical School

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What is it?

HYPNO-ANAESTHESIA — the use of medical hypnosis in place of anaesthetic drugs to overcome pain — is based on the principle that the patient can be instructed to experience pain signals as harmless sensations. In this way, the patient does not need to be unconscious during surgery.

SUITABLE FOR most types of surgery, apart from heart, lung or brain surgery. With a few practice sessions, many people will be able to achieve the degree of relaxation necessary for the technique to work. For any surgical procedure that would normally require a general anaesthetic, an anaesthetist must be present during the operation by law. Hypno-anaesthesia is not without its risks — you should be confident that your therapist knows what he/she is doing.

Hypnosis can help to settle everyday problems in the stomach, but it isn’t easily available on the NHS
By Simon Crompton

IT MAY NOT BE life-threatening, but the gnawing pain, nausea, burning and bloating of indigestion often deeply disrupt daily life. More than one in ten of us suffers from indigestion (or dyspepsia) for which there is no obvious cause — and little in the way of effective relief.
For such a common complaint, it is one of the least successfully treated. Up to half of dyspepsia sufferers are dissatisfied with standard treatments — usually anti-acid medications or diet changes. But now a surprising alternative has been shown to be more effective than mainstream approaches — hypnosis.

For 20 years researchers at the Wythenshawe Hospital in Manchester have been studying hypnosis and have shown that it can relieve irritable bowel syndrome (IBS); and the team has recently found that it works on indigestion too.

A recent editorial in the respected international journal Gastroenterology says that “it is becoming increasingly hard to ignore the notion that the skills of the hypnotherapists should be made routinely available to patients with functional gastrointestinal disorders”.

As Dr Martin Sarner, the secretary of the Digestive Disorders Foundation, explains: “Hypnotherapy is a perfectly reasonable way to proceed. It seems to work very well. We know that the mind influences the gut in a big way.”

The Manchester research took 126 patients with functional dyspepsia — dyspepsia not caused by a hernia or other obvious causes — and offered them either hypnotherapy, acid-suppressant drugs or counselling. In the hypnotherapy group, 73 per cent said that their symptoms improved, compared with 34 per cent for counselling and 43 per cent for drug therapy.

One of the most encouraging aspects of the study is that the benefits appear to last. During a 40-week follow-up, the hypnosis group didn’t need to take any drugs for their condition, while 80 to 90 per cent of those in the other groups did. Time off work and the number of medical consultations were also reduced.

Dr Peter Whorwell, a gastroenterology consultant who led the research, says that he has been battling for 20 years to get wider acknowledgement of hypnotherapy as a mainstream treatment. “The trouble is that hypnotherapy has a lot of baggage — it’s associated with Paul McKenna.

“I have no problems with my colleagues, who are all happy to refer patients to me. The real problem these days is persuading the Government and NHS purchasers to invest in anything that isn’t subject to a government target. Indigestion may not be as serious as heart disease or cancer, but it causes mass absenteeism and suffering.”

There is nothing mysterious or illusionist about the way that Dr Whorwell treats his patients. His “gut-focused” hypnotherapy course, carried out weekly for up to 12 weeks, provides patients first of all with medical information about their condition. Then they are told that, with the aid of hypnosis, they will be taught to change the way their gut functions — influencing, for example, sensitivity, spasm or secretions. Trained hypnotherapists induce a “trance” by concentrating the attention of patients on ideas of calm, comfort and relaxation. Then they ask the patient to place their hand on their stomach, feel warmth, and relate this sensation to control and relief of symptoms. Visual imagery is also used — patients imagine their gut as a river, whose flow they must adjust.

Those surprised that such a seemingly touchy-feely approach should have an effect need look only at some of the latest research on gut disorders to see that it makes sense. “People with functional dyspepsia and IBS tend to have a hypersensitive gut,” says Whorwell. “After hypnotherapy, sensitivity returns to normal.”

Research by scientists around the world, among them Dr Whorwell’s colleagues at Manchester University’s gastrointestinal sciences unit, is charting the close relationship between the brain and gut function. Brain scanning experiments have revealed that IBS patients show increased activation of an area of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex when the bowel is stimulated. Separate studies have shown that hypnosis results in changed activity patterns in this area of the brain.

For all the apparent benefits, however, hypnosis is not easily available to indigestion sufferers on the NHS. Dr Whorwell’s centre in Manchester is the only NHS hypnotherapy unit in the country. And he is pessimistic that provision will improve, because treatment is timeconsuming, labour-intensive and therefore costly. “The best thing you can do is go to your GP and ask for a good hypnotherapist,” he says.

What is indigestion?

IF YOU have persistent indigestion (symptoms for three weeks running), you should consult your GP. Although in around 60 per cent of cases there is no obvious disease or infection causing the complaint, it is important that you are checked to ensure that indigestion is not a symptom of an underlying problem.

Indigestion can be caused by:

An ulcer — an open sore on the lining of the stomach. These are invariably caused either by anti-inflammatory drugs commonly used for arthritic conditions (NSAIDs) or an infection with the bacteria Helicobacter pylori. These drugs or bacteria can inflame the stomach lining, and sometimes cause indigestion without causing an ulcer.

Acid reflux — digestive acid splashing out of the stomach into the tube leading to the throat (oesophagus).

Stomach cancer — rarely. This condition is largely limited to people over the age of 60. If blood tests or lifestyle changes provide no clue to the cause of the indigestion, the doctor may arrange an endoscopy — examination of the stomach lining by means of a tiny camera on the end of a tube, inserted down the throat.