Yesterday, I wrote about a new hypnosis study from David Spiegel, MD. In a recently posted video, Spiegel, medical director of the Stanford Center for Stress and Health, talks more about his work - and shares a story from when he was in medical school:
I found that among the times when I could make a difference was when I walked into a room with an asthma patient who was unable to breathe. I had just taken a hypnosis class at Mass General and I said, 'Do you want to learn a breathing exercise?' and she nodded. And so I got her hypnotized; within five minutes she's lying back in bed [and her] wheezing is audibly better, and I figured that anything that can help a patient that much had to be worth looking into.
After this experience, he said, he saw again and again that if "you can just help patients control their pain, control their anxiety, manage some of these symptoms better, you can make a big difference."
Previously: Not everyone can be hypnotized – and researchers are one step closer to understanding why, Easing pain and improving recovery with hypnosis, More patients turning to hypnosis to help ease symptoms and Stanford psychiatrist David Spiegel’s path west
