Student nurses at a Scottish university are to be offered training in self-hypnotherapy to help them alleviate the stress of exams and course work.

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The UK’s first ever visiting professor in clinical hypnosis has been appointed by the school of nursing and midwifery at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen.

Ursula James will help develop new support strategies for students, including hypnotherapy, to alleviate the stress of exams and course work.

The work will be incorporated into the induction process for students in the nursing school and across the rest of the university.

She was approached about the post after delivering a workshop on self-hypnosis for childbirth at the university last year.

Professor James said she was looking forward to “working with students and staff on a number of exciting projects designed to reduce stress, improve personal abilities and enhance skills”.

While at the university, she will also continue her research into the effect of altered states on cognition and help develop full- and part-time MSc courses in clinical hypnosis.

The MSc course, which will be developed throughout next year, will contain modules on smoking cessation, childbirth and weight loss.

Head of nursing school professor Ian Murray said: “Clinical Hypnosis is an exciting area of medical practice and we are delighted Professor James has joined our team.

“We look forward to working with her to develop new courses for the university as well as innovative ways of alleviating stress and improving student performance.”


An expert in her field, Professor James has authored a number of textbooks and currently teaches clinical hypnosis at 11 medical schools.

She also had her own TV series on Channel 5 called “Sex, Lies and Hypnosis”, which used hypnotherapy for relationships and is a patron of the charity Anxiety UK.



If you would like to find more about how Birmingham Hypnotherapy Clinic can help you for problems such as anxiety, confidence, low self esteem, hypnobirth, gastric band hypnosis, sports performance hypnosis, weight loss hypnosis, sexual problems contact Birmingham Hypnotherapy Clinic. 

According to an article published on The Almagest, a clinical trial showed that hypnotherapy helped people with non cardiac chest pain. Around one in three of patients who require help for chest pain do not have any form of heart disease or any other identifiable chest pain and as result, finding treatment or a cure can be difficult.

The study looked at if patients with chest pain could be helped by hypnotherapy. The research consisted of 28 patients split into two groups. One received 12 sessions of hypnotherapy over 17 weeks, whilst the other group received a placebo and supportive therapy. Results showed that 83 per cent of those who had received hypnotherapy reported significant pain relief, as well as an improved sense of wellbeing and reduced use of painkillers. In comparison to those who had received a placebo and supportive therapy, 23 per cent reported improvement.

Further investigations showed that hypnotherapy had affected areas associated with emotional response to pain as well as acid levels produced in the stomach, both of which could be cited as reasons for non cardiac chest pain.

The news comes as a delight for hypnotherapist directory, The National Council for Hypnotherapy. The Council and its qualified and professional members have long been highlighting the various benefits of using hypnotherapy for a range of issues including habits, phobias and ailments. A spokesperson fromThe National Council for Hypnotherapy added:

“It is great to see some positive results received from using hypnotherapy in a clinical and independent trail. We hope it encourages other to try its hugely beneficial properties.”

NCH represents over 1800 hypnotherapy professionals within the UK and is committed to ensuring the highest possible professional standards amongst our members. Those looking for help with smoking, weight, anxiety, panic attacks, habits and phobias may be helped by local NCH accredited therapists, look for the NCH seal of approval on their websites. As one of the largest registers of independent Hypnotherapists, the National Council for Hypnotherapy (NCH) is actively involved with the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council (CNHC) and strives to develop standards for the benefit of the profession, now and into the future.

If you would like to find more about how Birmingham Hypnotherapy Clinic can help you for problems such as anxiety, confidence, low self esteem, hypnobirth, gastric band hypnosis, sports performance hypnosis, weight loss hypnosis, sexual problems contact Birmingham Hypnotherapy Clinic.

I was interested to read in the Complementary & Natural Healthcare Council’s bulletin that there is now an MSc in Clinical Hypnosis which will give more credibility to the therapy and increase its use in a medical setting alongside more conventional treatments.

Some examples where it is being are in anaesthesia for dental treatment and in childbirth where the patient will be taught before the event to use to self-hypnosis to turn off pain.

While this does sound quite a leap of the imagination if you think of self hypnosis as like meditation it all starts to make sense.  In a meditative state we seek to separate the mind from the body to induce relaxation, and in the case of anaesthesia being relaxed then allows you to visualise better.

When I hypnotise someone I merely guide them into hypnosis and eventually they will learn how to do that themselves.  We are all capable going into a state of self hypnosis it is just that we might not realise it, like writers when they are working on a piece and find that the whole morning has passed.

In a clinical situation, during the hypnosis or self hypnosis you can imagine that your hand is in cold water so it feels numb.  If you hold this thought your mind will follow and your hand will start feeling numb and anaesthetised.  The more you practice, you will eventually be able to move the numbness to any part of the body that you want and that is why it is possible to feel no pain when you give birth.

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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:

• 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