Mindcraft Therapy in Retford

Hypnotherapy and Colitis

The results of a study carried out by Dr David S. Rampton of Barts and the London, Queen Mary School of Medicine and Dentistry showed that Hypnotherapy can help ease some of the bowel inflammation seen in Ulcerative Colitis.

As with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), and Crohn’s Disease, Ulcerative Colitis (UC) can be both painful and debilitating for those who suffer with it. Ulcerative Colitis causes chronic inflammation in the lining of the colon and rectum, causing severe abdominal pain and diarrhoea. Although there are a number of medications available for the treatment of UC, this research suggests that hypnotherapy can be used as a very effective complementary therapy.

Previous studies have already shown that hypnotherapy can be used successfully in the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome and stomach ulcers which, like colitis, involve inflammation and can be worsened by psychological stress.

The UK based study looked at the effect of one 50 minute “gut-focused” hypnotherapy session on 17 patients with active Ulcerative Colitis.  Another eight patients acted as a control group and listened to their choice of music for 50 minutes.

Results showed that blood levels of a specific marker of inflammation in the body fell by 53 percent in the hypnosis group, whereas the music listeners showed no significant change.  It was also shown that other similar chemical markers of inflammation declined in the hypnosis group, but not in the control group.

Senior researcher Dr. David S. Rampton told Reuters Health that “This work shows that a single short session of hypnotherapy can return some of the chemical changes in the bowel associated with inflammation back towards normal in patients with ulcerative colitis”.

Although it’s still not understood exactly why hypnosis can lower inflammation, Rampton’s team suggest that hypnosis might have direct effects on colon activity or it might affect people’s pain tolerance or perceptions of their symptoms.

Dr Rampton said that the current findings provide a scientific basis for a properly designed clinical trial to see whether hypnotherapy, given over weeks or months, might benefit people with ulcerative colitis and he went on to suggest that it could also be worthwhile to study the effects of hypnosis on Crohn’s disease, another form of inflammatory bowel disease.

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