Hypnotherapy

Mesmerism and animal magnetism

An abstract-level reading of a 2009 historical article describes the Austrian physician Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815) as the starting point of modern hypnosis. Mesmer held that mesmerism, or animal magnetism, depended on an invisible fluid passing between the subject and the practitioner, then called the magnetizer. The same abstract states that his explanations and procedures differed greatly from those of later psychotherapists.

A 1993 historical paper adds that some followers of Mesmer continued to practise and refine animal magnetism after French commissions published largely negative reports in 1784. One of them, Etienne Felix d'Henin de Cuvillers (1755-1841), is described as denying a magnetic fluid and stressing mental processes. Only the abstract of this paper was read.

Braid and the word hypnosis

The 2009 article reports that the Scottish surgeon James Braid (1795-1860) introduced the term hypnosis in the 1840s and understood the subject to be in a particular state of sleep, or trance. A 1988 paper in the history of psychiatry, again read at abstract level, says Braid proposed a neurophysiological theory in the early 1840s that treated hypnotic phenomena as data for scientific inquiry rather than evidence of magnetic fluid.

Credit for coining the vocabulary is not settled in these sources. The 1993 paper states that d'Henin de Cuvillers used and publicised a nomenclature built on the prefix hypn-, which Braid has usually, but inaccurately, been credited with originating.

Late nineteenth-century debates

According to the 2009 abstract, the French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot regarded hypnotism as a special physiological state, while his contemporary Hippolyte Bernheim regarded it as a psychological state of heightened suggestibility. It also reports that Sigmund Freud used hypnosis early in his career to help patients recover repressed memories before replacing it with free association. The sources reviewed do not cover twentieth-century developments, including Ericksonian approaches, so none is described here.

Hypnosis, induction and hypnotherapy

Division 30 (Society of Psychological Hypnosis) of the American Psychological Association defines hypnosis as a state of consciousness involving focused attention and reduced peripheral awareness, characterised by an enhanced capacity for response to suggestion. It defines a hypnotic induction as a procedure designed to induce hypnosis, and hypnotizability as a person's ability to experience suggested alterations in physiology, sensations, emotions, thoughts or behaviour during hypnosis.

Hypnotherapy is defined there as the use of hypnosis in the treatment of a medical or psychological disorder or concern. The authors of the definition say it was written to be concise and to leave room for alternative theories of mechanism, to be settled by empirical research. The wording is therefore a description of practice, not a claim about how hypnosis works.

Related labels

Medical hypnosis is the term one review uses for hypnotic techniques in somatic medicine, and the same review distinguishes waking suggestion, meaning therapeutic suggestion without formal trance induction. Gut-directed hypnotherapy refers to a technique developed for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and, to a lesser extent, inflammatory bowel disease, which one review describes as clearly described.

The Professional Standards Authority describes hypnotherapists as practitioners who use hypnosis as a form of therapy. The sources reviewed do not define stage hypnosis or separate it from therapeutic practice, and the labels hypnosis, hypnotherapy and hypnotic suggestion are not used consistently across them.

Typical session structure

An NHS 111 Wales page, read through a fetch summary rather than verbatim, describes hypnotherapy as the use of hypnosis to try to treat conditions or change habits. It outlines an initial consultation, guided relaxation, suggestions linked to the person's goals, and a gradual return to normal awareness. It states that the person stays in control and can reject suggestions or leave the hypnotic state. The page is undated, and session length and number are not given in the sources reviewed.

Gut-directed hypnotherapy

A 2015 review of gut-directed hypnotherapy for IBS and inflammatory bowel disease reports that the technique is clearly described and that several mechanisms on the brain-gut axis have been proposed, ranging from psychological effects to physiological changes in the gut. The review also notes a paucity of adequately trained hypnotherapists. These mechanisms are hypotheses in the review, not established findings.

A 2025 meta-analysis compared delivery characteristics of gut-directed hypnotherapy, including high-volume programmes and group delivery, as subgroups. Its abstract does not set out a standard schedule, and no standard schedule is stated here.

Availability

NHS 111 Wales states that hypnotherapy is not usually available on the NHS and suggests asking a GP about local provision. The Professional Standards Authority describes hypnotherapists as supporting clients with concerns such as quitting or changing a habit or emotional concerns. Most provision described in these UK sources is therefore private practice, and access elsewhere was not reviewed.

Uses described by practitioners and public bodies

Public information describes hypnotherapy as used to help with quitting or changing a habit and with emotional concerns. Research has concentrated on a narrower set of targets: symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome, pain and distress during medical procedures, clinical pain, smoking cessation and sleep disturbance.

The UK guideline NICE CG61 mentions hypnotherapy only for adults with IBS who have not responded to drug treatment after 12 months and who have a continuing symptom profile (refractory IBS). It lists hypnotherapy as one of several psychological interventions, alongside cognitive behavioural therapy, to be considered for referral. It does not recommend hypnotherapy for other conditions or as a first step.

Claims not supported in the sources reviewed

The Cochrane review of smoking cessation found insufficient evidence that hypnotherapy helps people stop smoking, so that use is described here as a claim under study and not a supported outcome. Claims about trauma processing, recovering memories or treating psychiatric conditions were not supported by any source verified for this draft, and are not repeated. The sources also do not document why people seek hypnotherapy in everyday life.

Irritable bowel syndrome

A 2020 network meta-analysis of 41 randomised trials (4,072 adults) reported that gut-directed hypnotherapy was associated with a lower relative risk of remaining symptomatic after therapy than control interventions (RR 0.67, 95% CI 0.49 to 0.91), similar to cognitive behavioural therapy. The authors warn that risk of bias was high and funnel plots were asymmetric, so efficacy was probably overestimated.

A 2025 meta-analysis of twelve studies (1,158 patients) found that all twelve favoured gut-directed hypnotherapy over comparators, nine of them significantly. The pooled global-symptom effect across eight studies was not statistically significant (SMD 0.73, interval -0.09 to 1.55, I2 93%), indicating high heterogeneity. Subgroups with high-volume or group delivery, and pain outcomes (SMD 0.25), did show significant effects. A 2015 review reported that six of seven randomised IBS studies found significant symptom reduction, with response rates of 24% to 73%, and said whether hypnotherapy suits primary or adjunctive use cannot be judged from the evidence.

Pain and medical procedures

A 2016 review of five meta-analyses reported that hypnosis was superior to controls for reducing pain and emotional stress during medical procedures (34 trials, 2,597 patients), with a low effect size on procedural pain. Its authors concluded that medical hypnosis is a safe and effective complementary technique for procedures and IBS; this wording is more favourable than that of later reviews cited here.

A 2026 systematic review of clinical pain meta-analysed 57 studies (4,572 participants) and found modest pain reduction compared with non-active controls (SMD -0.33). Hypnosis did not outperform relaxation (SMD -0.13), pain education (about -0.17 to -0.19) or cognitive behavioural therapy (SMD -0.32). The authors say it should not be presented as a reliably superior treatment.

Smoking cessation and sleep

A 2019 Cochrane review of 14 trials (1,926 participants) found insufficient evidence that hypnotherapy is more effective for smoking cessation than other behavioural support or unassisted quitting. Only one study was at low risk of bias, and pooled comparisons were imprecise and low or very low certainty. If a benefit exists, the authors judge it to be small at most.

A 2023 systematic review of 44 studies of hypnotherapy for sleep disturbance found positive results in 47.7%, mixed results in 22.7% and no impact in 29.5%, without pooling effect sizes. This is an abstract-level reading, and the authors call for future studies to report effect sizes and adverse events.

Reported effects and gaps in reporting

Adverse-event data are thin. In the Cochrane smoking review, most studies did not say whether adverse events were collected, and the one that did found no significant difference from relaxation. The authors found no evidence that hypnotherapy causes adverse effects but describe the evidence as very limited. Two meta-analyses in a 2016 review found no difference in side effects from control treatments, and the 2026 pain review calls hypnosis potentially low-risk supportive care for selected patients.

Absence of reported harm is not evidence that none occurs, and the sources reviewed give no data on the frequency or type of common effects. Whether hypnosis carries special risks of negative effects has been examined in a 1996 scholarly commentary, which was not read in full for this draft and is cited only as a pointer for a safety reviewer.

Suitability factors

NHS 111 Wales advises against hypnotherapy for people with psychosis or certain types of personality disorder because it could make the condition worse, and suggests that people with a personality disorder speak to their GP first. A 2025 narrative review, read at abstract level only, likewise lists psychosis, especially schizophrenia with delusions of influence, and prominent histrionic traits as contraindications, and says hypnotherapy should be performed by trained clinicians.

These are cautions from a public information page and a narrative review, not clinical guidelines. No verified source covers hypnotherapy used for trauma, regression or memory retrieval, so no statement is made on those uses, and other contraindications are not listed because none was supported.

Training, regulation, consent and care boundaries

NHS 111 Wales states that UK hypnotherapists do not have to have any specific training by law. It suggests choosing a practitioner with a healthcare background and checking registration with a body accredited by the Professional Standards Authority. That authority lists the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council and the National Hypnotherapy Society as registers for hypnotherapists; the Council is described there as voluntary. Regulation in Ireland and the United States was not verified.

The same NHS page says the person remains in control and can decline suggestions or leave the hypnotic state, so consent can be withdrawn at any point. As general editorial guidance, hypnotherapy is not a substitute for assessment or necessary medical or mental health care, and symptoms that are new, worsening or severe call for review by a qualified clinician.