Hypnosis more effective in handling breast cancer pain.

Reuters reports that in a randomized clinical trial at Mount Sinai School of medicine, "one hour prior to breast cancer surgery, 100 women underwent hypnosis for 15 minutes and the rest had 15 minutes of counseling with a psychologist.

Those who received hypnosis needed less anesthesia during the operation, reported less pain afterward and their procedures took less time. They spent 11 minutes less in surgery, amounting to $773 per patient in reduced surgical costs, according to the study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute."

Or, in the words of the authors of the study, which was published online by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (subscription req'd):

"...hypnosis intervention appears to be one of the rare clinical interventions that can simultaneously reduce both symptom burden and costs. Patients are likely to benefit from less time in surgery and reduced use of sedatives because patients undergoing longer surgical procedures with more sedatives tend to have greater nausea and pain following surgery and tend to recover more slowly..."

Emphasis added

Terrorist hypnosis

Top terrorist may be master hypnotist.

(via Fortean Times)

The Neuroscience of Hypnosis

Hypnosis, with its long and checkered history in medicine and entertainment, is receiving some new respect from neuroscientists. Recent brain studies of people who are susceptible to suggestion indicate that when they act on the suggestions their brains show profound changes in how they process information. The suggestions, researchers report, literally change what people see, hear, feel and believe to be true.


New York Times Article

The ABCs of ESP

Nice article from my hometown paper about Sally Rhine Feather and the Rhine Institute.

I've only met Ms. Feather once, but she seemed like a very nice lady. I have other friends at the Rhine Center, though, and I took part in an ESP experiment there last year. If you're ever in the Triangle I recommend you check it out.