Hypnotic enhancement of cognitive-behavioral interventions for pain: an analogue treatment study

American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis,  Apr 2004  by Hammond, D Corydon

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Milling, L. S., Levine, M. R., & Meunier, S. A. (2003). Hypnotic enhancement of cognitive-behavioral interventions for pain: an analogue treatment study. Health Psychology, 22(4), 406-413. Recent meta-analyses have shown that the addition of hypnosis enhances the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy.

This hypnotic enhancement effect was evaluated in this study in an analogue treatment of pain. Subjects scoring in the high (n = 135) and low (n - 150) ranges of hypnotic suggestibility were randomly assigned to 1 of 6 conditions: Stress Inoculation Training, the same treatment provided hypnotically, nonhypnotic analgesia suggestions, hypnotic analgesia suggestions, a hypnotic induction treatment, or a control condition. The 5 analogue treatments reduced experimental pain more than the control condition, but they were not different from one another. Under circumstances optimized to detect an enhancement effect, neither Stress Inoculation Training nor analgesia suggestions produced more relief when delivered in a hypnotic context than identical treatments provided nonhypnotically. Address for reprints: L. S. Milling, Dept. of Psychology, University of Hartford, Hartford, CT 06110, USA. E-mail: milling@mail.hartford.edu.

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