Hypnosis and Your Warts
"You are getting very sleepy - soon you will be in a deep trance - soon your warts will disappear." Hogwash? No, hypnosis. And it may be a formidable weapon against warts.
According to psychiatrist Owen Surman, M.D., of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, "Hypnosis does seem to be a scientifically validated tool for treating warts. Why it would be is subject to guesswork. Currently, people are very interested in this area called psychoneuroimmunology. It's attractive to think that mental phenomena could affect immune function."
In one study, Dr. Surman hypnotized 17 people who had warts on both sides of their bodies for a series of five sessions. and told them that their warts would disappear from one side only. Another 7 people were not hypnotized and were instructed to abstain from using any wart remedies of their own. Three months later, more than half the hypnotized group had lost at least 75 percent of their warts. The people who hadn't been hypnotized still had their warts.
And although the warts that did go away disappeared from both sides of the hypnosis group's bodies, "we felt the experiment was a success," says Dr. Surman.
(quoted from The Doctors Book of Home Remedies, 1990 Rodale Press, from the editors of Prevention Magazine, page 630)
The Doctors Book also lists IBS as a condition helped by hypnosis (page 387) as well as back pain, stress, tachycardia (racing heart), the common cold, headaches and ulcers.
As always, consult your primary physician before engaging hypnosis for any potentially serious illness. The excerpt provided above should not be considered a substitute for the care or advice of a licensed healthcare professional.
If you have questions about hypnosis or how it might help you, call my office for a free, absolutely-no-obligation consultation.
