Good news for folks with chest pains. A few sources are reported on this . . . Hypnotherapy for Chest Pain . . .

Hypnotherapy may be the latest way to treat non-cardiac chest pain, severe chest pain not caused by a heart condition. A new, small study divided 28 patients with non-cardiac chest pain into two groups. One group received 12 sessions of hypnotherapy over 17 weeks. The other got supportive therapy plus a placebo. Results show 12 of the 15 patients treated with hypnotherapy had significant pain relief compared with 3 of the 13 participants who received supportive therapy and a placebo. There was no change in the frequency of bouts of pain in either group. The study found hypnotherapy did not affect levels of anxiety or depression, but it significantly improved the sense of overall well-being. It also reduced the use of painkillers and other drugs prescribed for the condition compared to an increase in drug intake in the supportive therapy group. Brain scans of patients treated with hypnotherapy for other conditions show it directly affects a region of the brain that processes the emotional content of a painful stimulus. The researchers acknowledge hypnotherapy is labor intensive and expensive, but they say so are the many investigations and drugs given to patients with non-cardiac chest pain. Non-cardiac chest pain can be severely incapacitating. Treating it is difficult. Its cause is unknown, but several factors including acid reflux and psychological problems may be contributors.

There’s no information on what induction set was used but as it’s a medical study, it seems likely that classic progressive relaxation and affirmation was used. Results can be greatly improved using more powerful induction sets and interactive processes that are more individualized than possible in a series of the type used for the study.

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