August 7, 2005
Clinical hypnotherapy has been soundly established as an effective treatment for the symptoms associated with cancer and its related therapies, including chronic and acute pain, nausea and vomiting, fatigue, insomnia, anxiety, and mood disturbances. Its use produces strong tendencies toward improvement of patients’ quality of life and of treatment cost. As the etiology and progression of various forms of cancer become better understood, the potential of hypnotherapy for increasing survival rates by improving medication response and even slowing or reversing the progression of the disease increases. Given the lack of risks to patients and the wide potential for benefit, additional research and clinical experimentation into this area are encouraged, and recommendations for this type of hypno-oncological exploration are discussed.
Cancer presents the patient with a wide variety of symptoms and challenges. Many types of cancer cause intractable and chronic pain or other organ-specific symptoms in the areas they affect. Patients frequently experience a variety of nonspecific symptoms as well, such as fatigue, malaise, and insomnia. Hypnosis and self-hypnosis are extremely flexible and highly effective treatments for all types of cancer-related symptoms (Sunnen, 2004), and also aid in the numerous psychological adjustments that are required of cancer patients: “adjustment to the condition itself, to its treatments, and to the poignant intrapsychic, family, and social changes it may induce” (Kubler-Ross, 1969, as cited in Sunnen, 2004, p.15).
One recent study of 20 terminally ill cancer patients allowed each patient to choose the symptom they would most like to address using hypnotherapy. As a result, 19 of those 20 patients reported dramatically improved quality of life, anxiety status, and ability to cope, as well as better sleep and more energy. The symptoms they successfully addressed during the course of the study included pain, fatigue, malaise, irritability, insomnia, nausea and vomiting (NV), anticipatory NV (ANV), food aversions, anxiety, depression, guilt, anger, hostility, frustration, isolation, reduced self-esteem, and helplessness. Additionally, significant cost savings were realized in the form of reduced need for medication and nursing (Peynovska, Fisher, Oliver, & Mathew, 2005).
On top of being proven effective for symptom management (Liossi, 2006), the beauty of hypnosis is that it can be readily adapted to the needs of the patient, can be used to address physiological as well as psychosocial issues, and is extremely well-tolerated. Christina Liossi explains:
“It is safe and does not produce adverse effects or drug interactions. Patients enjoy the hypnotic experience. They obtain relief without destructive or unpleasant effects. There is no reduction of normal function or mental capacity and no development of tolerance to the hypnotic effect. It is a skill that individuals can easily learn, that provides a personal sense of mastery and control over their problems and that counters feelings of helplessness and powerlessness. An additional benefit is that hypnosis can be generalized to many circumstances. The person who learns hypnosis for management of pain or nausea and vomiting may apply their skills to lessen the distress of insomnia and anxiety, to address dysphagia for pills or to enhance their performance in their favourite sport. For a clinician, hypnosis is an opportunity to be inventive, spontaneous and playful and to build a stronger therapeutic relationship with a patient while providing symptom relief” (2006, p. 55).
This paper will briefly review the literature regarding the efficacy of hypnotherapeutic interventions for symptoms management, and will explore issues surrounding the psychotherapeutic treatment of cancer in general. A general understanding of the etiologies and biomechanics of cancer as they are relevant to hypnotherapeutic treatment will be attempted, and this treatment’s implications and potentials for improving survival rates and directly influencing
the course of the disease will be discussed.
Hypnotherapy is particularly effective for the control of primary and treatment-related cancer pain, and has achieved the status of an evidence-based treatment for this purpose (Liossi, 2006). Multiple studies have found it to be superior to acupuncture, massage, or CBT in the treatment of pain and anxiety (Peynovska, Fisher, Oliver, & Mathew, 2005). One randomized, controlled study, for example, found hypnosis highly effective for the prevention of post-operative pain in patients receiving bone-marrow transplants, while an intensive cognitive-behavioral skills program was ineffective for this purpose (Liossi, 2006).
A randomized clinical trial to examine the effects of a single 15-minute hypnotherapy session administered to breast cancer patients immediately prior to lumpectomy surgery found that the treatment group experienced significantly less pain intensity, pain unpleasantness, nausea, fatigue, discomfort, and emotional upset. In addition these obvious benefits to the patients, the intervention was found to be extraordinarily cost-effective: patients in the treatment group costed the hospital 9% less (almost $775 less per patient) than those in the control group, owing to their significantly reduced surgery times and significantly reduced need for anesthesia and analgesics during the procedure.
There is evidence that hypnotherapy can be highly effective with pediatric patients, who experience much less pain from the primary effects of cancer than their adult counterparts—owing to the varieties of cancer to which they are most susceptible, such as leukemia—but are subjected to repeated, painful and invasive procedures and usually consider this to be “the most difficult part of their illness” (Liossi, 1999). Children appear to be far less capable of using self-hypnosis to manage procedure-related pain and distress than adult patients, and so it is necessary for the therapist to remain present with them during the procedures (Liossi & Hatira, 2003).
The hypnotic technique for pain relief typically begins with relaxation, which significantly assists in analgesia by reducing anxiety and thereby dampening the perception of unpleasant sensory experience. After a standard hypnotic induction is used, many patients will respond to direct suggestions that their pain will simply “diminish in intensity to the point of becoming unnoticeable” (Sunnen, 2004, p. 16). Another technique for eliminating pain involves first producing “glove anesthesia,” or a deadening of all sensations in one hand. As Sunnen explains, “the hand is ideally suited as a starting point for hypnotic anaesthesia because it is so richly endowed with sensory innervation and occupies such a prominent place in the cortical homunculus. Once the anaesthetic experience is established in the hand, it is a relatively small step to transfer it to other parts of the body.”
The patient’s mental representation of their pain can also be altered such that it occupies a smaller portion of their phenomenological experience, and the pain’s qualitative aspects may be modified so that they no longer correspond with the patient’s conceptions of what substantial pain is like. If the patient experiences the pain as hot and stabbing, for example, the therapist might suggest that it is becoming cool and soft. Some individuals achieve extremely good results from the use of hypnotic imagery, while others are able to dissociate from the experience by imagining that the pain is falling away from their bodies and out of sight (Sunnen, 2004). It is highly beneficial to assess the patient’s cognitive style and hypnotic ability prior to the intervention in order that the techniques used can be matched to the patient’s own inner experience.