Today we stumbled on this Daily Mail article "NHS hospital which promoted hypnosis as cure for serious medical conditions ordered to remove leaflet by advertising watchdog"
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2259377/NHS-hospital-promoted-hypnosis-cure-medical-conditions-ordered-remove-leaflet-advertising-watchdog.html#ixzz2HW0nBXtc
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The article makes an interesting read and is written in a way to do strike a chord with the readers. It says "Its decision calls into question the use of hypnosis in the NHS, where millions of pounds of public money is spent offering the controversial therapy." The editor implies that based on the ASA ruling it could be a waste of money to use hypnosis within the NHS.
The article focuses more on what the ASA found that cant help rather than what it can help... lets face it it always make a more interesting read when we have something to complain about.
Extract from the article:
"The hospital provided a raft of clinical studies and research papers to back up their claims, however these failed to satisfy the advertising watchdog.
Its decision calls into question the use of hypnosis in the NHS, where millions of pounds of public money is spent offering the controversial therapy.
The ASA said there is evidence that hypnotherapy can help relieve anxiety, confidence issues and minor skin conditions, but it said the hospital was wrong to make wider claims about improving mental and physical health.
It said most of the trials and studies presented by the hospital to justify its claims were too small to provide meaningful conclusions.
‘We concluded that the claim ‘Hypnosis can benefit almost anyone to improve their physical, emotional and mental health’ exaggerated the potential benefit to patients’ mental and physical health and was therefore misleading,’ it said."
After reading the official ASA publication it can be seen how the meaning can be twisted if it is taken out of context
"We noted RLHIM proposed to amend the claim by removing the words "mental health", but we were nonetheless concerned that the intended wording, "Hypnosis can benefit a variety of physical and emotional health problems", exaggerated the potential benefit. We considered that it was still likely to be understood to be a claim that hypnosis would always be of benefit to a variety of physical and emotional health problems, rather than a claim that hypnosis could be of help in some cases. The claim in the leaflet, "Hypnosis can benefit almost anyone to improve their physical, emotional and mental health", also gave the impression that, even if their physical health was already high, most people were likely to improve it by hypnosis; we saw no evidence to support that interpretation. We also considered that consumers were likely to understand from the claim that hypnosis would improve any existing physical conditions and not just their physical well-being."
The ASA problem was "That consumers were likely to understand from the claim that hypnosis would improve any existing physical conditions and not just their physical well-being" but "The ASA has accepted that hypnotherapy could help relieve anxiety, confidence issues and minor skin conditions for example those exacerbated by stress."
In summary the ASA accepted from the evidence:
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2259377/NHS-hospital-promoted-hypnosis-cure-medical-conditions-ordered-remove-leaflet-advertising-watchdog.html#ixzz2HW0nBXtc
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
The article makes an interesting read and is written in a way to do strike a chord with the readers. It says "Its decision calls into question the use of hypnosis in the NHS, where millions of pounds of public money is spent offering the controversial therapy." The editor implies that based on the ASA ruling it could be a waste of money to use hypnosis within the NHS.
The article focuses more on what the ASA found that cant help rather than what it can help... lets face it it always make a more interesting read when we have something to complain about.
Extract from the article:
"The hospital provided a raft of clinical studies and research papers to back up their claims, however these failed to satisfy the advertising watchdog.
Its decision calls into question the use of hypnosis in the NHS, where millions of pounds of public money is spent offering the controversial therapy.
The ASA said there is evidence that hypnotherapy can help relieve anxiety, confidence issues and minor skin conditions, but it said the hospital was wrong to make wider claims about improving mental and physical health.
It said most of the trials and studies presented by the hospital to justify its claims were too small to provide meaningful conclusions.
‘We concluded that the claim ‘Hypnosis can benefit almost anyone to improve their physical, emotional and mental health’ exaggerated the potential benefit to patients’ mental and physical health and was therefore misleading,’ it said."
After reading the official ASA publication it can be seen how the meaning can be twisted if it is taken out of context
"We noted RLHIM proposed to amend the claim by removing the words "mental health", but we were nonetheless concerned that the intended wording, "Hypnosis can benefit a variety of physical and emotional health problems", exaggerated the potential benefit. We considered that it was still likely to be understood to be a claim that hypnosis would always be of benefit to a variety of physical and emotional health problems, rather than a claim that hypnosis could be of help in some cases. The claim in the leaflet, "Hypnosis can benefit almost anyone to improve their physical, emotional and mental health", also gave the impression that, even if their physical health was already high, most people were likely to improve it by hypnosis; we saw no evidence to support that interpretation. We also considered that consumers were likely to understand from the claim that hypnosis would improve any existing physical conditions and not just their physical well-being."
The ASA problem was "That consumers were likely to understand from the claim that hypnosis would improve any existing physical conditions and not just their physical well-being" but "The ASA has accepted that hypnotherapy could help relieve anxiety, confidence issues and minor skin conditions for example those exacerbated by stress."
In summary the ASA accepted from the evidence:
- The ASA has accepted that hypnotherapy could help relieve anxiety, confidence issues and minor skin conditions for example those exacerbated by stress.
- Hypnotherapy could help with anxiety and stress
- Hypnotherapy/hypnosis had some effect on helping patients to deal with the pain or discomfort from their conditions
- Hypnotherapy could help with the management and perceived relief of pain associated with Chronic Pain Headache - Oral and facial pain - Neuropathic pain - Neuralgia - Fibromyalgia - Rheumatic pain
- Hypnotherapy could help with the management and perceived relief of cancer pain, as well as anxiety, associated with painful cancer treatment
- Hypnotherapy can help people with minor skin conditions, for example those exacerbated by stress
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