The Institute for the Study of Healthcare Organizations & Transactions has a study on the effectiveness of hypnosis.

An exciting study has just been published in The Journal of Neuroscience, documenting the release of natural painkillers based solely on the belief, or mental attitude, of the patient -- the first published, quantifiable proof that mind indeed controls matter.

This is a more involved study of hypnosis fron the Mayo Clinic. The original Mayo brothers were very interested in hypnosis. Click on the above link to read the whole article with references to over 140 articles of research.

Description

Hypnosis is a state of restful alertness during which a person uses deeply focused concentration. The person can be relatively unaware of, but not completely blind to, her or his surroundings, and may be more open to suggestion. It is considered to be a type of complementary therapy. ....

Overview

Hypnosis is one of several relaxation methods that has been approved by an independent panel, convened by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), as a useful complementary therapy for treating chronic pain. Hypnosis may also be effective in reducing fear and anxiety, reducing the frequency and severity of headaches, and controlling bleeding and pain during dental procedures. There is no scientific evidence that hypnosis can influence the development or progression of cancer. However, it can help to improve the quality of life for some people with cancer. ...

More info...

A wonderful article by a NYU-Bellevue Hosital doctor in New York City.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) would seem to be a disorder that might be amenable to treatment with hypnosis. There is no structural damage and the various possible underlying mechanisms such as disordered motility and visceral (internal) sensitivity might be susceptible to modulation by the mind. Thus, nearly 20 years ago, we undertook the first controlled trial of hypnotherapy in this disorder. The results were extremely encouraging and eventually led us to developing a hypnotherapy unit dedicated to the provision of this service. ......

Now, in the past decade or so and with the advent of

  Alfred A. Barrios, PhD., in "Psychotherapy" magazine (volume 7, Number 1), compared various techniques for psychologically based change. The techniques that proved to generate the greatest success in providing lasting change were as follows:

 Hypnosis has been shown to be beneficial to as many as 80% of those participating in studies This makes it more effectove for managing the symptoms of IBS than any other approach. You can go to the link  below to see the complete research done by Palsson which is part of the protocol I use. One must be a properly licensed professional in order to use his protocol .

Prokinetic effect of gut-oriented hypnosis on gastric emptying.

by Chiarioni G, Vantini I, De Iorio F, Benini L 

Department of Gastroenterology, Rehabilitation Hospital of Valeggio s/M, University of Verona, Verona, Italy.

A study from the March 2006 issue of the medical journal "Gut", talks about hypnosis being successful for patients with non-cardiac chest pain. I want to emphasize that these patients were first checked to make sure that there was no cardiac reasons for the chest pain and no heartburn!

The ScienceDaily.com website, a highly respected source for medical news, reports that “People who used self-hypnotic relaxation techniques during surgery needed less pain medication, left the operating room sooner, and had more stable vital signs during the operation…”  This research was conducted at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.  This was a “large randomized clinical trial [which] included 241 people who underwent interventional radiology procedures…”  This is just the kind of real empirical research than needs to be done in our profession, and I for one am very happy to see it.  The article goes on to describe more precisely how the group benefited and the hypnotic procedures used. Use the link for the whole article. 

Hypnotherapeutic management of alopecia areata.

Changes in neurophysiologic parameters in a patient with dental anxiety by hypnosis during surgical treatment.

by Eitner S, Scgutze-Moshau S, Heckman J, Wichmann M, Holst S

Department of Prosthodontics, Maxillofacial Surgery and Neurology and Psychiatry, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany.

ISERSON, Arizona Bioethics Programs and Section of Emergency Medicine, University of Arizona College of Medicine, Tucson 85718 USA writes that hypnosis can diminish pain and anxiety for many emergency patients during examinations and procedures. Although hypnosis has been used for millennia and was demonstrated to be of use in clinical medicine over a century ago, modern physicians have been reluctant to adopt hypnosis in clinical practice.

Title :   The Impact of Relaxation and Hypnosis on Medical Resources Utilization in Pediatric Asthma

"Researcher Hans Selye and others have discovered that over long periods of time stress depletes the body of energy, accelerates natural aging and the deterioration of the body. Diseases of premature aging and deterioration among others include: heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure, and musculoskeletal degeneration. Current opinion is that persistent unrelenting stress ages the body by distorting its normal physiologic balance. Much research has been done on the effect of stress on the function of the immune system. Steroids and other neuropeptide transmitters released by the brain at times of stress, appear to reduce immune surveillance, which is our own natural defense against infections agents and abnormal (cancerous) cells."

"A review panel appointed by the National Institutes of Health found "strong evidence" for the use of hypnosis in alleviating pain associated with cancer..."

"Ohio State University College of Medicine analyzed the effects of hypnotic-relaxation training on cellular immune function during a stressful event. Control subjects showed stress-related decreases in immune cell proliferative responses to two mitogens and percentages of CD3+ and CD4+ T-lymphocytes and interleukin-1 production by peripheral blood leukocytes. Subjects who underwent hypnosis-relaxation were, on average, protected from these immunological changes . More frequent hypnotic-relaxation practice resulted in higher percentages of CD3+ and CD4+ T-lymphocytes."

A recent Israeli study showed that the success rate of IVF treatments doubled in his test group from 14% to 28%, when the subjects underwent hypnosis during implantation. Professor Eliahu Levitas conducted this study with 185 women.

Research studies have documented the correlation between stress and infertility since the 1980s.

The study was presented November 29, 2006 at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.

Hypnosis, can help reduce a woman's pain and anxiety during breast biopsy. Dr. Elvira V. Lang, associate professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School, said "The findings show that nonpharmacologic means can be very powerful -- without side effects," The study included 236 women treated at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center who were randomly assigned three types of care while undergoing outpatient large-core needle biopsy. Seventy-six of the women received standard care; 82 received structured "empathetic attention" from a person specifically assigned to be responsive to the women's needs; and 78 of the women induced self-hypnotic relaxation under instruction from a trained research assistant. The women in the hypnosis group were instructed to roll their eyes upward, close their eyes, breathe deeply, focus on a sensation of floating, and imagine a pleasant setting. Before the start of their biopsies, all the women had heightened anxiety levels. During the procedure, anxiety increased significantly in the standard care group, did not change in the empathy group, and decreased significantly in the hypnosis group. All three groups reported pain during the procedure, but the women in the empathy and hypnosis groups reported less pain than those in the standard care group. The researchers also found that the hypnosis group had the shortest procedure times and lowest cost.

To see the actual abstract click on the link below

JAMA. 1985 Jun 14;253(22):3292-4.
Hypnoanesthesia in the morbidly obese.
Morris DM, Nathan RG, Goebel RA, Blass NH.

The advent of chemical anesthesia relegated hypnosis to an adjunctive role in patients requiring major operations. Anesthesia can be utilized with acceptable risk in the great majority of patients encountered in modern practice. But an occasional patient will present--such as one with morbid obesity--who needs a surgical procedure and who cannot be safely managed by conventional anesthetic techniques. This report describes our experience with such a patient and illustrates some of the advantages and disadvantages of hypnoanesthesia. The greatest disadvantage is that it is unpredictable. Close cooperation between the patient, hypnotist, anesthesiologist, and surgeon is critical. However, the technique may be utilized to remove very large lesions in selected patients. Hypnoanesthesia is an important alternative for some patients who cannot and should not be managed with conventional anesthetic techniques.

MRI Study Shows How Hypnosis Eases Pain: Presented at ENS

By Thomas S. May

Hypnosis for Functional Abdominal Pain & Irritable Bowel Syndrome

First cesarean with hypno-anesthesia
Sun, 17 Jun 2007 02:32:19

For the first time in the country, Iranian doctors have used hypnosis as the sole anesthetic to deliver a baby via cesarean section.

Hypnosis can double the success rate of IVF treatment, researchers have claimed...

Brief hypnosis for severe needle phobia using switch--wire imagery in a 5-year old.

Newswise — BACKGROUND:
Every cell contains a tiny clock called a telomere, which shortens each time the cell divides. Short telomeres are linked to a range of human diseases, including HIV, osteoporosis, heart disease and aging. Previous studies show that an enzyme within the cell, called telomerase, keeps immune cells young by preserving their telomere length and ability to continue dividing.