www.medical-hypnosis.co.uk

Medical Hypnosis Edinburgh - Hypnotherapy
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MEDICAL HYPNOSIS

Hypnotherapy - from an experienced medical doctor - for a wide range of conditions

Now also available - BIOFEEDBACK (Heart rate Variable)

Dr Frances Ross
Member of the British Society of Medical and Dental Hypnosis -Scotland (BSMDH)
Member of the British Society of Clinical and Academic Hypnosis (BSCAH)

Where am I?
I am based at a private GP clinic
Medicalternative
Waterside House
19 Hawthornbank Lane
Dean Village
Edinburgh

http://www.medicalternative.com

Phone for an appointment 0131-225-5656

Prices
I charge £57 an hour
The usual session is about 90 minute
I do not do more than 4 sessions in most cases

Using Medical Hypnosis I treat problems in children and adults.
Medical hypnosis is very different to stage hypnosis. The patient is always in control and works in partnership with the doctor.
It often involves several sessions and Audio CD's are used between sessions.

What do I Treat?
I treat medical conditions and also others such as smoking cessation, weight loss and confidence

Some people come to me for help having tried conventional medicine. They may have been given a diagnosis but have not found relief. Others are being treated conventionally but use medical hypnosis as an extra complementary part of their treatment.

Hypnotherapy is being increasingly recognised as a powerful medical tool. It is now the treatment of choice for IRRITABLE BOWEL SYNDROME.

There is exciting evidence coming through of its effectiveness for STRESS, ANXIETY and PANIC and DEPRESSION and PHOBIAS

It is very helpful for DRIVING TESTS, PUBLIC SPEAKING, and INTERVIEWS etc
I use it also to improve CONFIDENCE and SELF-ESTEEM

My work as school doctor has also made me aware of its value in children and adolescents ranging from problems such as BED-WETTING, ECZEMA and ASTHMA through to those stressful exam years with EXAM NERVES and SLEEP DIFFICULTIES. It also can be helpful if learning is difficult and stressful

Other problems known to respond well are PSORIASIS, HEADACHES and CHRONIC PAIN.

Medical hypnosis is helpful for Pain relief in CHILDBIRTH.

Hypnobirth - Hypnosis in Childbirth
I had an almost pain free labour with my third child using hypnosis. I could feel the contractions but they did not bother me.
For Hypnobirth I recommend that you have 2 or 3 hypnotherapy sessions with me on your own or in a group. This should be in the last few weeks before you are due. I give you a CD which you should listen to every day in between sessions and until you go into labour. I give you a different CD to listen during labour. If you wish you may come with a group of other expectant Mums and share the cost of the session between you

If you can organise a group to come with then the cost is shared by the group

BIOFEEDBACK
Using my biofeedback machine (a bit like an ECG machine) you can see how your heart rate and breathing vary. Constantly watching the machine you then learn to alter your heart rate variability to the optimum level, by altering your breathing and controlling your thoughts. The better you become at this the greater benefit is produced.
BIOFEEDBACK has been used for some time to treat stress and stress related problems. However exciting recent research with a group of asthmatics showed a marked improvement in symptoms using this type of BIOFEEDBACK. So great was the benefit that the patients were able to greatly reduce their steroid medication. It is also beneficial in fibromyalgia. Patients with hypertension also benefit although certain medication for cardiac problems can reduce the response.

About Me
I studied Medicine at The Royal Free Hospital, London University and qualified as a doctor in 1975 (LRCP.MRCS). I initially worked in General Practice spending some time in Canada. I stopped work when I had my three children returning to re-train in Community Paediatrics and now work part-time as a school doctor. I became interested in hypnosis having used it on myself both for dental work and for childbirth. I was most impressed at how effective it was. I therefore underwent training from The British Society of Medical and Dental Hypnosis Society - Scotland (BSMDH) with whom I am a member.

To read more about the latest scientific thought on hypnotherapy go to

http://www.hypnodoc.co.uk/howhypno.html

Dr A. Dobbin is an NHS GP working in Edinburgh who is doing a publicly funded trial to assess whether hypnosis is as effective as medication in the treatment of depression. He was Chairman of BSMDH-Scotland.


Below are extracts from an article on hypnosis in the journal Scientific American

Is hypnosis a real phenomenon? If so, what is it useful for?
Over the past few years, researchers have found that hypnotized individuals actively respond to suggestions even though they sometimes perceive the dramatic changes in thought and behaviour they experience as happening “by themselves.” During hypnosis, it is as though the brain temporarily suspends its attempts to authenticate incoming sensory information.
Some people are more hypnotizable than others, although scientists still don’t know why. Nevertheless, hypnosis is finding medical uses in controlling chronic pain, in countering anxiety and even—in combination with conventional operating room procedures— in helping patients to recover more quickly from outpatient surgery.
Only in the past 40 years have scientists been equipped with instruments and
methods for discerning the facts of hypnosis from exaggerated claims. But the
study of hypnotic phenomena is now squarely in the domain of normal cognitive
science, with papers on hypnosis published in some of the most selective scientific and medical journals. Of course, spectacles such as “stage hypnosis” for
entertainment purposes have not disappeared. But the new findings reveal how,
when used properly, the power of hypnotic suggestion can alter cognitive processes as diverse as memory and pain perception.

In 1997 Pierre Rainville of the University of Montreal and his colleagues set
out to determine which brain structures are involved in pain relief during hypnosis. They attempted to locate the brain structures associated with the suffering component of pain, as distinct from its sensory aspects. Using PET, the scientists found that hypnosis reduced the activity of the anterior cingulate cortex—an area known to be involved in pain—but did not affect the activity of the somatosensory cortex, where the sensations of pain are processed. Despite these findings, however, the mechanisms underlying hypnotic pain relief are still poorly understood. The model favoured by most researchers is that the analgesic effect of hypnosis occurs in higher brain centres than those involved in registering the painful sensation. This would account for the fact that most autonomic responses that routinely accompany pain—such as increased heart rate—are relatively unaffected by hypnotic suggestions of analgesia.

HYPNOSIS MIGHT ALLEVIATE pain by decreasing the activity of brain areas involved in the experience of suffering. Positron emission tomography (PET) scans of horizontal and vertical brain sections were taken while the hands of hypnotized volunteers were dunked into painfully hot water. The activity of the somatosensory cortex, which processes physical stimuli, did not differ whether a subject was given the hypnotic suggestion that the sensation would be painfully hot or that it would be minimally unpleasant. In contrast, a part of the brain known to be involved in the suffering aspect of pain, the anterior cingulate cortex, was much less active when subjects were told that the pain would be minimally unpleasant.

But couldn’t people merely be faking that they had been hypnotized?
Two key studies have put such suspicions to rest. In a cunning 1971 experiment dubbed The Disappearing Hypnotist, Frederick Evans and Martin T. Orne of the University of Pennsylvania compared the reactions of two groups of subjects: one made up of people they knew to be truly hypnotizable and another of individuals they told to pretend to be hypnotized. An experimenter who did not know which group was which conducted a routine hypnotic procedure that was suddenly interrupted by a bogus power failure. When the experimenter left the room to investigate the situation, the pretending subjects immediately stopped faking: they opened their eyes, looked around the room and in all respects dropped the pretence. The real hypnotic subjects, however, slowly and with some difficulty terminated hypnosis by themselves.

SO WHAT ARE the medical benefits of hypnosis?
A 1996 National Institutes of Health technology assessment panel judged hypnosis to be an effective intervention for
* alleviating PAIN from cancer and other chronic conditions. Voluminous clinical studies also indicate that hypnosis can reduce the acute pain experienced by patients undergoing burn wound debridement, children enduring bone marrow aspirations and women in LABOUR. A meta-analysis published in a recent special issue of the International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, for example, found that hypnotic suggestions relieved the pain of 75 percent of 933 subjects participating in 27different experiments. The pain-relieving effect of hypnosis is often substantial, and in a few cases the degree of relief matches or exceeds that provided by morphine.
But the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis says that hypnosis cannot, and should not, stand alone as the sole medical or psychological intervention for any disorder. The reason is that anyone who can read a script with some degree of expression can learn how to hypnotize someone. An individual with a medical or psychological problem should first consult a qualified health care provider for a diagnosis. Such a practitioner is in the best position to decide with the patient whether hypnosis is indicated and, if it is, how it might be incorporated into the individual’s treatment.
* Hypnosis can boost the effectiveness of psychotherapy for some conditions. Another meta-analysis that examined the outcomes of people in 18 separate studies found that patients who received cognitive behavioural therapy plus hypnosis for disorders such as obesity, insomnia, anxiety and hypertension showed greater improvement than 70 percent of the patients who received psychotherapy alone. After publication of these findings, a task force of the American Psychological Association validated hypnosis as an adjunct procedure
for the treatment of obesity.
But the jury is still out on other disorders with a behavioural component.
Drug addiction and alcoholism do not respond well to hypnosis,
and the evidence for hypnosis as an aid in quitting smoking is equivocal.
* That said, there is strong, but not yet definitive, evidence that hypnosis can be an effective component in the broader treatment of other conditions. Listed in rough order of tractability by hypnosis, these include
* a subgroup of asthmas;
* some dermatological disorders, including warts;
* irritable bowel syndrome;
* haemophilia;
*and nausea associated with chemotherapy.
The mechanism by which hypnosis alleviates these disorders is unknown, and claims that hypnosis increases immune function in any clinically important way are at this time unsubstantiated.

More than 30 years ago Hilgard predicted that as knowledge about hypnosis becomes more widespread in the scientific community, a process of “domestication” will take place: researchers will use the technique more and more often as a routine tool to study other topics of interest, such as hallucination, pain and memory. He forecast that, thus grounded in science, the clinical use of hypnosis would simply become a matter of course for some patients with selected problems. Although we are not quite there today, hypnosis has nonetheless come a long way from the swinging pocket watch.

Daily Telegraph

Article September 2004
Soon you will enter into a deep trance
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk
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