Hypnosis

Hypnosis is one of the fields where the popular picture and the state of research lie especially far apart — in both directions.

What the evidence shows

Hypnosis is a state of heightened suggestibility under focused attention. It can be measured: imaging techniques show altered patterns of activity in the hypnotic state, particularly in the areas responsible for appraising stimuli and controlling attention.

Effectiveness has been well studied for certain applications:

• Pain — the best-documented application. In dentistry, in obstetrics and in burn care, hypnosis is used as an adjunct, with a measurable effect on the experience of pain and on how much medication is needed.
• Irritable bowel syndrome — one of the few indications for which hypnotherapy is recommended in clinical guidelines.
• Fear of medical procedures — documented and widespread in practice.

What the evidence does not show

Loss of will. No one does anything under hypnosis that contradicts their basic convictions. Stage hypnosis works with volunteers who want to play along and know what they are letting themselves in for.

The recovery of buried memories. Here the research is not merely negative but troubling. Hypnosis raises the confidence with which a memory is recounted without raising its accuracy. Suggestion demonstrably produces detailed memories of events that never happened — and the people who hold them are entirely convinced.

That is why statements obtained under hypnosis are inadmissible in court in many legal systems. This is no disparagement of the method, but a consequence of what is known about it.

Regression to past lives. Everything reported about so-called earlier lives arises under the same conditions as the false memories above — with the difference that here no independent check is possible.

Magic or therapy?

Neither, and the question is misleading. Hypnosis is a procedure with a circumscribed field of application in which it works well, and a wide field beside it in which it achieves nothing and can do harm.

Anyone using it should look for the same things as in any other treatment: training that can be checked, a named indication, a fixed price, and no promises that go beyond the evidence.

What this has to do with astrology

Nothing — and it is said here because the two are often offered side by side. A chart is calculated; hypnosis is a state that is induced. The two share neither a common basis nor a common field of application.

See also: occultism — the term and its boundaries.