What Can Hypnotherapy Help With? Pain, Weight Loss, Anxiety, and More

Author: Andreas Balasis, LCSW-QS, CHP

Reviewer:  Dr. Mary Perleoni, LMHC ✓

People tend to associate it most directly with smoking cessation. The research there is mixed, though. A 2019 Cochrane review found it isn't yet clear whether hypnotherapy works better than other quit-smoking approaches. Pain management, I think, is most overwhelmingly the modality that we'd want to use in response. That's how it started, using hypnotherapy when anesthesia wasn't a thing.

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), there's a wealth of research on how it's applicable to a shift in those sensations and the way that we respond to them, so changing the behavioral conditioning in response to those sensations.

Can Hypnotherapy Help With Pain Management?

We have the pain that comes from the actual damage to tissue, and then we have the way the brain processes it. Oftentimes we can argue that the nervous system is meant to keep us alive. So if we've experienced pain before, we're going to do our best to not put ourselves in a situation to experience that pain again.

We might create an association with different movement patterns, with different environments, with different situations that have once elicited pain, and now automatically we might have a tendency towards avoidance. So what we're doing is we are changing the experience of pain and we are also changing the anticipation of pain resurfacing.

Does Hypnotherapy Change the Pain or Your Relationship to It?

I think it's both. I think that's what the research highlights as well. It's the meaning that they associate with the pain and the anticipation of further pain that we can adjust, but it's also that in the pain centers of the brain, there is a decrease in activity.

Spiegel has great work on that. They use electric shock to highlight that in a state of hypnosis, not only is there a less subjective description of the pain, but there's less neural activity in response to the pain.

Can Hypnotherapy Help With Phantom Limb Pain?

There's talk about people who experience phantom limb pain. So there's actually no nerves there. There's nerve endings, but they experience pain in a limb that no longer exists.

In a hypnotic state, you can have someone visualize as if that limb is still there and they're able to move it and manipulate it. And in doing so, that changes what is ultimately a cognitive relationship to the pain in the absence of the physical appendage. The research here is still early, mostly small studies and case reports, so it's best used alongside medical care for the pain.

Can Hypnotherapy Help With Weight Loss?

As a previously certified personal trainer, I'd defer the nutritional components to nutritionists and medical professionals. However, hypnosis can be incredibly helpful when it comes to behavioral change and how we relate to, say, food itself, our history with food.

Food as a potential means of coping, food as a potential means of comfort or consistency, or an area that we feel like we can actually control because maybe other areas we don't believe we have a sense of control. We can look at behavioral activation, we can look at environmental modification, we can look at how we integrate different things into our routine to facilitate the burning of calories. We could definitely do it, but it's important to be precise in how we describe it.

Can Hypnotherapy Help With Overeating?

I know we can. And even the perception of being satiated. Some people say I just don't feel full. Some people say I do feel full, but something that feels outside of my control makes it so I can't stop eating.

We explore those variables and we create new patterns of association between, be it the food, be it the snack, be it the time of day, be it the emotion or physical sensation that's present when our decision is guided in a direction that is not in alignment with our goals.

Can Hypnotherapy Help With Anxiety and Phobias?

Beyond pain and weight, general anxiety, panic attacks, specific phobias, self-esteem, self-doubt, how we relate to identity, sports performance, it's incredibly applicable across domains.

Can Hypnotherapy Help Children and Teens?

The research is there. They might even be more easily hypnotizable just by nature of their development. Highly imaginative, a lot less experiences that might reinforce negative self-perceptions, a lot of neuroplasticity that's still going on, so we can create positive associations with positive memories, create positive memories, positive emotions, attribute meaning to certain things, reinforce a sense of care and attachment.

It can be done. I don't work as much with kids. I like working with teens. But working with kids, you can integrate play therapy. You can integrate even just the awareness of our breath and the ability to visualize something, and to create a state of mind that they can reaccess in times of difficulty. I think it's an incredible thing.

Can Hypnotherapy Help With Bedwetting?

First, a child who wets the bed should see their pediatrician to rule out medical causes. From there, I would want to know how that kid feels the need to urinate. Do they have a conscious awareness of it? What are the emotions that they feel upon waking? How do their parents react to it? What is their liquid intake prior to bed? And what is the interval before going to bed?

How anxious are they that it will take place? Do they have an awareness of it taking place? When they get up in the morning, do their parents take the sheets off and do it for them? Is there a sense of shame associated with it? Are they made to feel embarrassed? Do they believe that this is something that they can control? Is this something that is permissible, or is this something that is punished harshly? These are important variables.

Meet Andreas Balasis

My name is Andreas Balasis. I'm a licensed clinical social worker in the state of Florida, and I'm a certified hypnosis practitioner through the International Hypnosis Association. Mental performance coaching is another area that I'm really interested in.

If you're wondering whether hypnotherapy could help with what you're facing, reach out to IBWHC to set up a conversation with Andreas.