Tara Parker-Pope reports in the Health section of the New York Times website on a review in the Journal of Family Practice of non-drug treatments for the very common affliction Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). Unfortunately the study isn’t available in full online (not even the abstract – shame, Journal of Family Practice, shame!) without paying $10 US, and I had to sign up to even find out how much it costs.
According to Parker-Pope, however, “In studies involving a total of 644 patients, about 80 percent reported relief of symptoms after hypnosis. Hypnosis was less likely to work in men whose predominant I.B.S. symptom was diarrhea.” She also links out to a thorough listing of research on hypnosis for IBS, including a famous study published in The Lancet in 1984 which was placebo-controlled and showed dramatically clear benefits from 7 sessions of hypnotherapy.
Most of these studies seem to have used a large number of sessions, between 6 and 12. That’s an unusually high number for a hypnotherapy treatment, but it may be necessary, as one study that used only 4 sessions showed less effectiveness (only 20 out of 33 improved, and retained the improvement after 3 months – still a good result).
In my own case study on the use of hypnosis for the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome, you’ll notice that I used only two sessions. I’m still in occasional contact with the client, and he still has symptoms, but they were definitely relieved at the time of the treatment.
So why does this work? According to a study reported in the journal Digestive Diseases and Sciences, it works basically because IBS is exacerbated by stress and hypnotherapy reduces the stress.
Nerves extend into the gut, and of course it’s affected by the chemical state of the body; the nervous system and body chemistry are both powerfully affected by long-term or acute stresses. It’s also a natural reaction to empty the gut at times of stress, so we can run faster (less weight). There’s probably a psychological component as well, since disappearing off to the toilet is a good way to avoid uncomfortable emotions (I remember a particularly excruciating date where my subconscious adopted this strategy). So hypnotherapy can help both by calming the stress response and providing alternative methods of dealing with stress.
Like many other “irritability” issues which are worsened by stress – skin conditions, asthma, allergies – IBS generally has a physical basis. Your body actually is sensitive to certain foods. However, the sensitivity is made much worse by stress, and relieving the stress helps to relieve the symptoms (though it doesn’t take away or cure the underlying physical/biochemical sensitivity).
Technorati: hypnotherapy • IBS • irritable bowel syndrome • research • treatment
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