What Science Says — From Belief to Evidence: The Research on Hypnotherapy

If someone tells you “hypnosis really does work”, it is natural to look doubtful and wonder whether that is simply personal belief. It is a fair question. In a world full of overstated claims, asking for evidence is exactly the right instinct.

And the evidence does exist.

Over recent decades, scientists, psychologists and physicians at leading institutions have studied hypnotherapy seriously. What has emerged is not opinion or anecdote, but data from controlled trials with comparison groups, reviewed by specialists in the field.

One — When Stanford looked inside the brain during hypnosis

In 2016, a team at Stanford University School of Medicine led by Dr David Spiegel did something no one had done at this scale: they placed participants in an fMRI scanner and imaged the brain while they were genuinely in a hypnotic state. The results, published in Cerebral Cortex, made a considerable impression.

In hypnosis, the brains of those who respond well showed three measurable changes: reduced activity in the region associated with worry and vigilance; stronger connection between the area governing decision-making and the area that senses the body; and reduced connection between thinking and self-awareness — which allows a person to shift how they perceive something without having to force it.

As Dr Spiegel put it, hypnosis is a powerful means of changing the way we use the mind to govern perception and the body.

Two — A meta-analysis of 17 studies on anxiety

Anxiety is among the most common reasons people come for hypnotherapy. In 2019 the International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis published an analysis pooling 17 studies across 17 sets of clinical trials. Those who received hypnotherapy showed anxiety reduced by 79% more than those who did not, and at longer-term follow-up still did 84% better than the control groups.

These figures do not mean hypnotherapy works completely for everyone. They mean it works well enough to be measured and demonstrated.

Three — Hypnosis and irritable bowel syndrome

This may be the most surprising area of all, since we do not tend to associate hypnosis with a physical condition like IBS. Yet a systematic review and meta-analysis of 16 randomized controlled trials found that between 40% and 81% of those treated with gut-directed hypnotherapy improved significantly — and, notably, the benefit remained at one-year follow-up.

Both the American College of Gastroenterology and the British Society of Gastroenterology now recognize gut-directed hypnotherapy as an evidence-supported approach for patients with IBS who do not respond to first-line treatment.

Four — 85 trials on pain management

In 2019, data from 85 controlled trials covering more than 3,600 participants were pooled to assess hypnosis in pain management. The published conclusion was that hypnosis is both safe and effective: those who responded well showed pain reduced by 42%, and even those responding moderately by 29% — comparable to or better than several other approaches.

What all of this research agrees on is that hypnotherapy does not work through belief or coincidence. It works through the way the brain and nervous system respond to the state created during the process. When the brain is in a state that favors learning, patterns long held in the subconscious can genuinely change. That is the foundation of what we at NBRH call Neuro-Behavioral Repatterning & Hypnotherapy.

Lasting change does not come from trying repeatedly at the level of conscious thought. It comes when the patterns beneath begin to run differently — and that is what the evidence is telling us.

If you would like a closer look at what happens in the brain during hypnosis, “How Hypnotherapy Works in the Brain” makes the picture clearer.