Hypnosis Goes Clinical: Three Developments Reshaping the Field

For most of the twentieth century, hypnosis lived a double life. On stage it was a party trick. In a handful of clinics it quietly helped people through surgery, pain and childbirth. The two worlds rarely spoke.

That is changing quickly. Three landmark studies from the past several years show hypnosis moving into the centre of evidence-based medicine, and each says something about the practice I teach.

1. The biggest evidence review to date

In early 2024, Jenny Rosendahl and colleagues published in Frontiers in Psychology what amounts to a twenty-year audit: a review of 49 meta-analyses covering 261 distinct primary studies on hypnosis for mental and physical health.

The headline: effect sizes were medium in about a quarter of cases and large in nearly 29 percent, with the strongest evidence for medical procedures and pain management. The authors were frank about weaknesses too. Only 9 of the 49 meta-analyses earned a high quality rating, and many primary studies appear in several reviews at once (Rosendahl et al., Frontiers in Psychology).

I value that honesty. Hypnosis works well for some conditions, and the field needs better trials. Both statements are true at once.

2. Hypnotherapy at scale for the gut

The gut-brain axis has become one of medicine's most active frontiers, and hypnosis has a strong record there. The IMAGINE trial, led by Carla Flik and published in The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology in 2019, randomised 342 people with irritable bowel syndrome to six sessions of individual hypnotherapy, group hypnotherapy or an educational control.

At 12 months, adequate relief was reported by about 41 percent in individual hypnotherapy and almost 50 percent in group sessions, against about 23 percent for controls. The authors concluded hypnotherapy should be considered in primary and secondary care, and noted that group delivery could make it far more accessible (UMC Utrecht research record).

Group hypnosis matching individual hypnosis is a finding I take seriously. It supports what anyone who has facilitated a room in trance knows intuitively: shared trance carries its own momentum.

3. Making people more hypnotisable

The most futuristic development came from Stanford. Hypnotisability, the capacity to respond to suggestion, has long been considered one of the most stable traits in psychology, with scores holding steady across decades. In January 2024, Afik Faerman, David Spiegel and colleagues reported in Nature Mental Health that 92 seconds of targeted transcranial magnetic stimulation to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex significantly increased hypnotisability in 80 people with fibromyalgia, compared with sham stimulation (PsyPost summary).

The effect faded within about an hour, and the study measured hypnotisability rather than pain relief. Still, the implication is profound: the gate to trance has a location, and it can be opened.

What this means for consciousness work

Notice where the stimulation landed: the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the same region implicated in the transient hypofrontality of meditation, flow and subspace. Science keeps returning to the same switch. Quiet the executive narrator, and suggestion, pleasure and healing gain access.

I expect the cultural status of hypnosis to keep rising as the evidence accumulates, and with it a new seriousness about the skill of guiding people into altered states. That skill has always been the real technology: voice, rhythm, trust, attunement and an ethical frame.

My hope is that as hypnosis becomes mainstream medicine, it keeps its connection to the older lineage of trance, ritual and pleasure. The clinic gives us evidence. The temple gives us meaning. People need both.

To learn the craft, explore the Erotic Hypnosis Course or the recordings in the Library.

Related reading

• Can You Really Be Hypnotised? What the Science Says
• Why Some People Are More Suggestible Than Others
• Subspace, Measured: The Neuroscience of Altered States in BDSM

Sources

• Rosendahl, J., et al. (2024). Meta-analytic evidence on the efficacy of hypnosis for mental and somatic health issues: a 20-year perspective. Frontiers in Psychology, 14. Full text
• Flik, C. E., et al. (2019). Efficacy of individual and group hypnotherapy in irritable bowel syndrome (IMAGINE): a multicentre randomised controlled trial. The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology, 4(1). Record
• Faerman, A., et al. (2024). Stanford Hypnosis Integrated with Functional Connectivity-targeted Transcranial Stimulation (SHIFT): a preregistered randomized controlled trial. Nature Mental Health, 2. Summary