Use of Hypnosis in Treatment of Anxiety Disorders

The purpose of this paper was to evaluate the existing literature on the use of hypnotherapy for the treatment of anxiety disorders. Based on review and discussion of a representative sampling of the literature, it was concluded that the research is over-represented by phobic conditions and that there needed to be more studies of hypnotherapy with samples suffering from other forms of anxiety disorder.

It was also pointed out that phobic studies need to specifically target anxiety reduction and not just use hypnosis for conditions related to anxiety such as psychosomatic complaints. However, it was noted that despite the foregoing methodological/design problems as well as other problems discussed in the body of the review, the research generally shows good results for the use of hypnosis in the reduction of anxiety.

And no Grand Inquisitor has in readiness such terrible tortures as has anxiety, and no spy knows how to attack more artfully the man he suspects, choosing the instant when he is weakest, nor knows how to lay traps where he will be caught and ensnared, as anxiety knows how, and no sharp-witted judged knows how to interrogate, to examine the accused as anxiety does, which never lets him escape, neither by diversion nor by noise, neither at work not at play, neither by day nor by night.

SOREN KIERKEGAARD, The Concept of Dread

According to Barocas, Reichman and Schwebel (19

. . .
k of uniform training across samples of hypnotherapists. In other words, some studies could find hypnotherapy effective while other studies do not merely as a function of skill/training differences in the hypnotherapists providing treatment. This point needs to be kept in mind in the evaluation of the existing research. Use of Hypnosis/Hypnotherapy in the Treatment of Anxiety Disorders Hypnosis has been used in a wide variety of anxiety disorders, however, according to Boutin and Tosi (1983), its most frequent use is for the treatment of phobia. In their study, the authors specifically examined the effects of four treatment conditions on the modification of irrational ideas and test anxiety in female nursing students (N=48). Findings of the study showed that the Rational Stage Directed Hypnotherapy (RSDH) treatment group was significantly more effective than the hypnosis only group. The placebo and control groups showed no significant effects. In another study of phobic test anxiety, Sapp (1990) used a two-group randomized multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) to investigate the effects of cognitive-behavioral hypnosis in reducing test anxiety and improving academic performance in comparison to a Hawthorne control
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Frankel Misch, Inventory Findings, Walley Stokes, O'Grady Hoffman, According Horevitz, Hypnotherapy RSDH, Peterson Nisenholz, Sue Sue, Purpose Paper, Treatment Effectiveness, anxiety disorders, treatment anxiety, test anxiety, treatment anxiety disorders, hypnosis treatment, hypnotherapy treatment, sue sue, hypnotherapy treatment anxiety, effectiveness hypnotherapy treatment, public speaking, journal clinical, anxiety disorder, effectiveness hypnotherapy, annual convention american, generalized anxiety disorder,
Approximate Word count = 3309
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page)

More Essays on Use of Hypnosis in Treatment of Anxiety Disorders