Sue Pitman

Source: The Times Self-hypnosis can provide a low-risk environment in which to build confidence and develop our optimism by Dr Nick Baylis Change will lead to insight far more often than insight will lead to change, said the American psychiatrist Milton Erikson, one of the 20th century’s most inspiring exponents of hypnosis. This is why […]

If Israeli professor Eliahu Levitas has his way, women undergoing IVF will all have the benefit of hypnosis as his research shows how it can significantly increase IVF success rates. According to Levitas’s team from Soroka Hospital in Beersheva, hypnosis can double the IVF success rate.  Levitas’s study of 185 women found that 28% of

Everyone feels their anger is justified when they’re actually angry. Equally, we’ve all looked back and realised we may have overreacted. But for some people, anger can become a problem that needs to be addressed. Understanding anger It’s important to realise several things about anger before you start tackling it. First, anger is a normal

A British woman has undergone major surgery on her foot without an anaesthetic after she hypnotised herself into feeling no pain. Bernadine Coady insists that she could not feel anything as a surgeon cut skin and muscle, sawed through two bones and stretched tendons during the operation on her right foot. The 59-year-old nurse –

Shelley Thomas, 53, was wheeled into an anteroom at London’s Middlesex Hospital in preparation for pelvic surgery. A patient going into that operation is usually given a mix of painkilling narcotics and nerve-quelling tranquilizers. But not Thomas. Instead she rested on a gurney, alert and calm, taking deep breaths at her hypnotherapist’s instruction. Thomas counted

When Christine Walsh was told that a hypnotherapist could cure her irritable bowel syndrome, she was sceptical. But after being racked with violent cramping stomach pains for six years, she was ready to try anything. The 52-year-old office administrator was referred to the clinic of Professor Peter Whorwell, a gastro-enterologist who sees some of the

Source: Times Hypnosis, often thought of as a party piece where suggestible people are made fools of, is being given a new lease of life. Dr Leslie Walker, a lecturer in mental health at the University of Aberdeen, has found it a useful tool for cancer patients suffering from the side-effects of chemotherapy. Although not

Source: The Express Complementary therapies can be free on the NHS for patients recovering from serious illnesses but it’s up to you to find out what’s on offer. Joanne O’Connell reports When Julie Wray was told last June that she had breast cancer, she faced six months of chemotherapy to destroy the cancer cells. “I

Relaxation Techniques can prolong the lives of cancer patients by between two and three years, research shows. A 13-year study of patients with lymph cancers found that hypnotherapy and relaxation exercises could prolong the lives of sufferers who are also receiving chemotherapy. Those who received the therapies, designed to relieve stress and help with the

Hay fever sufferers could benefit from using self-hypnosis, researchers say. A Swiss team at Basle University taught 66 people with hay-fever the art of hypnosis and found it helped them alleviate symptoms such as runny nose. The volunteers also took their regular anti-hay-fever drugs, but the effect of hypnosis appeared to be additive and reduce