Chronic pain is a health issue for millions of people and costs billions of dollars in health care and work productivity. Medical interventions, while sometimes beneficial, often fail, and issues surrounding opioid analgesics constitute a significant concern. Hypnosis has shown great promise in reducing suffering from chronic pain, but it is often applied incorrectly or insufficiently to...
Effective, rigorously evaluated nonpharmacological treatments for chronic pain are needed. This study compared the effectiveness of training in hypnosis (HYP) and mindfulness meditation (MM) to an active education control (ED). Veterans (N=328) were randomly assigned to 8 manualized, group-based, in-person sessions of HYP (n = 110), MM (n = 108), or ED (n = 110). Primary (average pain...
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...
Abstract This pilot study explored the feasibility of using ketamine to increase hypnotizability scores. Ketamine, classified as a dissociative hallucinogen, is used clinically as an anesthetic in high doses and as a treatment for chronic pain and depression in lower doses. Low-dose ketamine can contribute to dissociation and heightened perceptions and feelings of detachment, arguably...