Hypnosis

Mindfulness and Hypnosis are Very Different

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Mindfulness and Hypnosis are Very Different

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Mindfulness meditation has already achieved a level of credibility, popularity and acceptance by public and professional communities that the fields of hetero-hypnosis and self-hypnosis can currently only hope to aspire towards.” – Adam Eason

 

On the surface there would appear to be similarities between hypnosis and mindfulness practice. Each involves focused attention, harness concentration, and induce relaxation. The two procedures have been used for the same problems, pain, stress, anxiety, and depression. It is possible, then, that hypnosis and mindfulness share similar mechanisms and effects. Unfortunately, there have not been direct comparisons. In addition, little is known about the relationship between individuals’ hypnotizability, the ease with which they enter into a hypnotic state, and their mindfulness. If there is great overlap between the two practices, then it would be expected that hypnotizability and mindfulness would be highly related.

 

In today’s Research News article “The Association Between Mindfulness and Hypnotizability: Clinical and Theoretical Implications.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6263151/ ), Grover and colleagues examined the relationship between hypnotizability and mindfulness. They recruited military veterans with chronic pain conditions and asked them to complete paper and pencil measures of mindfulness, hypnotizability, and pain. Regression analysis was then performed to ascertain the relationships between the variables.

 

They found that the relationships between hypnotizability and mindfulness, including the 5 facets of mindfulness were very weak. Only in the cases of the observe and non-reacting facets of mindfulness were there very small, albeit significant, negative relationships with hypnotizability, such that the higher the levels of these two mindfulness facets the lower the levels of hypnotizability.

 

The study is correlational, so no conclusions regarding causation are warranted. In addition, the sample of military veterans with chronic pain conditions is not representative of the general population. So, it is unknown if similar results would be found in other groups. Nevertheless, the results are clear that in this sample there are little, if any, relationships between hypnotizability and mindfulness. This suggests that the two are unrelated. As such, they probably do not share similar mechanisms. This further suggests that since they are unrelated, they may supplement each others’ benefits. Future research will be necessary to test this notion.

 

So, it appears that mindfulness and hypnosis are very different.

 

“Mindfulness and Hypnosis? They are different — and they are not.” – Rick Miller

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

 

Grover, M. P., Jensen, M. P., Patterson, D. R., Gertz, K. J., & Day, M. A. (2018). The Association Between Mindfulness and Hypnotizability: Clinical and Theoretical Implications. The American journal of clinical hypnosis, 61(1), 4-17.

 

Abstract

Mindfulness-based interventions and hypnosis are efficacious treatments for addressing a large number of psychological and physical conditions, including chronic pain. However, there continues to be debate surrounding the relative uniqueness of the theorized mechanisms of these treatments – reflected by measures of mindfulness facets and hypnotizability – with some concern that there may be so much overlap as to make the mechanism constructs (and therefore the respective interventions) redundant. Given these considerations, the primary aim of the current study was to examine the degree of unique versus shared variance between two common measures of mindfulness facets and hypnotizability: the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) and the Stanford Hypnotic Clinical Scale (SHCS). A cross-sectional survey was conducted with a sample of N=154 Veterans with heterogeneous chronic pain conditions. Bivariate Pearson correlations were used to examine the associations between the target scales. Results showed that the correlations between the FFMQ scales and SHCS total score were uniformly weak, although significant negative correlations were found between mindfulness facets of observe and non-react with hypnotizability (ps < .05). Thus, not only are the mindfulness and hypnotizability constructs unique, but when significantly associated, hypnotic suggestibility corresponds with a tendency to be less mindful. These findings have important implications for future research aimed towards matching patients to the treatment most likely to be of benefit, and suggest that matching patients on the basis of these theoretically derived “unique” moderators may hold potential.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6263151/

 

Reduce Pain with Mindfulness

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Reduce Pain with Mindfulness

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Meditation (which is the ‘formal’ practice of mindfulness) actually changes the way the mind perceives pain (2) so that it’s more bearable. It is a natural and effective way to ease physical pain.” – Melli O’Brien

 

We all have to deal with pain. It’s inevitable, but hopefully it’s mild and short lived. The most common treatment for chronic pain is drugs. These include over-the-counter analgesics and opioids. But opioids are dangerous and highly addictive. Prescription opioid overdoses kill more than 14,000 people annually. So, there is a great need to find safe and effective ways to lower the psychological distress and improve the individual’s ability to cope with the pain.

 

Pain involves both physical and psychological issues. The stress, fear, and anxiety produced by pain tends to elicit responses that actually amplify the pain. So, reducing the emotional reactions to pain may be helpful in pain management. There is an accumulating volume of research findings to demonstrate that mind-body therapies have highly beneficial effects on the health and well-being of humans. Mindfulness practices have been shown to improve emotion regulation producing more adaptive and less maladaptive responses to emotions. Indeed, mindfulness practices are effective in treating pain in adults.

 

Hospital inpatients frequently are in pain and the management of that pain is important to the patients and to the amount of hospitalization time. It is not known whether mindfulness training is effective for the relief of acute pain in hospitalized patients. In today’s Research News article “Randomized Controlled Trial of Brief Mindfulness Training and Hypnotic Suggestion for Acute Pain Relief in the Hospital Setting.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5602767/ ), Garland and colleagues examined the effectiveness of mindfulness training in comparison to hypnotic suggestion and psychoeducation for the relief of inpatient acute pain.

 

They recruited hospital inpatients who reported intolerable pain that was not adequately managed. They were randomly assigned to receive either mindfulness training in a “single, scripted 15-min training session in focused attention on breathing and body sensations, with concomitant metacognitive monitoring and acceptance of discursive thoughts, negative emotions, and pain”, or a hypnotic suggestion in a “single, scripted 15-min self-hypnosis session which invited patients to roll their eyes upward, close their eyes, and breathe deeply, focus on sensations of floating, and imagine the visual, auditory, olfactory, and tactile details of a pleasant scene of their choosing”, or a psychoeducation session of a “single 15-min session in which a social worker provided empathic responses to the patient and then attempted to increase perception of pain control by reviewing common behavioral pain coping strategies (e.g., stretching, using hot and cold compresses).” They were measured before and after the training for pain intensity, pain unpleasantness, anxiety, relaxation, pleasant body sensations, and desire for opioids.

 

They found that both the mindfulness and the hypnotic suggestion groups but not the psychoeducation group had significant decreases in pain intensity and pain unpleasantness. The mindfulness group also reported significantly higher relaxation and pleasant body sensations after training than the psychoeducation group while the hypnotic suggestion group reported significantly lower desire for opioids after training than the psychoeducation group. All three groups showed a reduction in anxiety.

 

Hence, a brief mindfulness training or hypnotic suggestion in hospital patients significantly improved their pain and psychological state. These are interesting results that suggest that these trainings may be useful for the relief of acute pain in hospital patients. But this trial was very brief. It remains for future research to establish the duration of effectiveness and the ability of continued training to potentiate the effectiveness and its duration.

 

So, reduce pain with mindfulness.

 

“When we’re in pain, we want it to go away. Immediately. And that’s understandable. Chronic pain is frustrating and debilitating. . . The last thing we want to do is pay more attention to our pain. But that’s the premise behind mindfulness, a highly effective practice for chronic pain.” –  Margarita Tartakovsky

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

Garland, E. L., Baker, A. K., Larsen, P., Riquino, M. R., Priddy, S. E., Thomas, E., Hanley, A. W., Galbraith, P., Wanner, N., … Nakamura, Y. (2017). Randomized Controlled Trial of Brief Mindfulness Training and Hypnotic Suggestion for Acute Pain Relief in the Hospital Setting. Journal of general internal medicine, 32(10), 1106-1113.

 

Abstract

Background

Medical management of acute pain among hospital inpatients may be enhanced by mind-body interventions.

Objective

We hypothesized that a single, scripted session of mindfulness training focused on acceptance of pain or hypnotic suggestion focused on changing pain sensations through imagery would significantly reduce acute pain intensity and unpleasantness compared to a psychoeducation pain coping control. We also hypothesized that mindfulness and suggestion would produce significant improvements in secondary outcomes including relaxation, pleasant body sensations, anxiety, and desire for opioids, compared to the control condition.

Methods

This three-arm, parallel-group randomized controlled trial conducted at a university-based hospital examined the acute effects of 15-min psychosocial interventions (mindfulness, hypnotic suggestion, psychoeducation) on adult inpatients reporting “intolerable pain” or “inadequate pain control.” Participants (N = 244) were assigned to one of three intervention conditions: mindfulness (n = 86), suggestion (n = 73), or psychoeducation (n = 85).

Key Results

Participants in the mind-body interventions reported significantly lower baseline-adjusted pain intensity post-intervention than those assigned to psychoeducation (p < 0.001, percentage pain reduction: mindfulness = 23%, suggestion = 29%, education = 9%), and lower baseline-adjusted pain unpleasantness (p < 0.001). Intervention conditions differed significantly with regard to relaxation (p < 0.001), pleasurable body sensations (p = 0.001), and desire for opioids (p = 0.015), but all three interventions were associated with a significant reduction in anxiety (p < 0.001).

Conclusions

Brief, single-session mind-body interventions delivered by hospital social workers led to clinically significant improvements in pain and related outcomes, suggesting that such interventions may be useful adjuncts to medical pain management.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5602767/